Going West: True Crime - Peggy Carr // 163

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Towards the end of 1988, a recently blended family in Florida received a threatening letter in the mail, and within a few months, they all became incredibly ill. When 2 doctors concluded that they had been poisoned, an investigation into who was behind it began. Between a murder mystery weekend event, to a killing that was literally inspired by an Agatha Christie detective novel, this story really does play out like a fictional story. But it’s all real. This is the story of Peggy Carr, also known, as the Mensa Murder. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast This episode is sponsored by: Eaze Click the following link and use our PROMO code for 30% off your order. https://fanlink.to/eazegw PROMO code GOINGWEST THE WELL Click the following link and use our PROMO code for 20% off your order. https://fanlink.to/wellgoingwest PROMO code GOINGWEST CASE SOURCES https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/justice-story-article-1.207903 https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1606616.html https://www.rounderlife.com/reasonable-doubt-murder-mystery-series-death-row-inmate-george-trepal/ https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1990/04/10/poisoning-suspect-staged-murder-mystery-events/ https://delanirbartlette.medium.com/george-trepal-evil-genius-69896b7c69c5 https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/content/download/345265/file/01-2267_petition.pdf https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1991-05-12-9105101101-story.html https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207534160/peggy-jean-carr https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/213815606/parearlyn-carr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Teeve. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West in 2022. Yes, and thank you guys so much for listening to our show. Thank you for listening to our three-year pot of nursery episode. We got a ton of comments on that. That was a really fun episode to do,

so hope you guys enjoyed it. And thank you for letting us know what you thought about it. It was definitely a little something special. And hope you guys had a wonderful and very safe New Year's Eve. Yes, hope everybody had a safe New Year's Eve. And yeah, that phone call was terrifying. Crazy, and today's case is just as insane, if not more insane.

I mean, this case is so like murder mystery-esque, it's insane. Yeah, it's honestly truly baffling to me. Just the circumstances surrounding it are just like, so bizarre, so crazy. So let's not waste any more time. this is episode 163 of Going West, so let's get into it. Towards the end of 1988, a recently blended family in Florida received a threatening letter in the mail, and within

a few months, they all became incredibly ill. When two doctors concluded that they had been poisoned, an investigation into who was behind it began. From a murder mystery weekend event to a killing that was literally inspired by an agatha christy detective novel, this case really does play out like a fictional story, but it's all real. This is the story of Peggy Car, also known on August 29, 1947 in the small city of Jasper, Alabama to parents Jelene and Charles Alexander alongside her sibling Shirley, Tony, Raymond, and Johnny. After growing up in Alabama, Peggy eventually moved to Lutz, Florida, where she met her first

husband, Dennis Salonco, and they married in 1971 when Peggy was 24 and Dennis was 27. But within just a couple years, the two divorced and Peggy remained in Florida. She later married a man named Larry Dubberly, and together they had a son named Dwayne. So by the way Peggy had three children of her own, Sissy, Dwayne, and Allen. And we're not sure who fathered Sissy and Allen though, but it's not very relevant to the story anyway. But after Peggy and Larry divorced, years later, Peggy met a man named Pie Car, that's P.Y.E. that's a nickname. He was about four years older than her and also from Alabama and he was a U.S. Army veteran who in 1988 was working as a foreman at a phosphate mine in Alteras, Florida, which is a very small citrus farming community,

just 30 minutes southeast of the city of Lakeland. And by the time they got together, Peggy was about 40 and Pie was 44. And Pie had two children of his own, by the way, from a previous marriage as well. So they blended the family together and Peggy and her three teenage and young adult kids moved in with Pie and his two kids. Yeah, and according to Dwayne, Peggy was just head over heels for Pi, and they were wonderful together. And by 1988, they were married.

But throughout the course of them living together that year, some really weird things started to happen. So they received a very ominous note. This one came in July of 1988. It was a typed note in it read, You and your so-called family have two weeks to move out of Florida forever, or else you die. This is no joke.

The letter was addressed to a pie car, but it was spelled P-I-E versus the way that it was actually spelled, which is P-Y-E. The letter was addressed to nearby Bartow, Florida, which is where the residents of Alterus actually received their mail since Alterus is a small, kind of, census-designated place. And the weird thing here is that the note was actually typewritten on a post-it note. So it was really bizarre. And Pi didn't take it very seriously because, although it said, this is not a joke, he figured that it was. He showed it to his stepson Dwayne, who's, again, Peggy's son, as well as his minister, Robert Grant. And Robert remembered Pye reacting very irritated and confused

at this note, and not really understanding why someone would want to hurt the family. And although he was upset by it, he came to the conclusion that it couldn't be real, and he eventually just kind of forgot about it. So Peggy didn't have any idea that this note came in, but it's definitely a pretty alarming thing to receive. Like why would someone joke about it? Why would somebody write a note to you and joke about killing your entire family? Yeah, and this is like, you know, if this is the, the, someone's idea of a joke, this

is a very dark joke. Well, right, and it's not like, Pai was like, oh, I bet this is the, the, the someone's idea of a joke, this is a very dark joke. Well, right. And it's not like, Pai was like, Oh, I bet this was so. And so he's written me notes like this before, you know, it's like, I understand that it's hard to grasp this concept that somebody could be writing is such a horrible thing. But it's also, I wonder why he's, I hindsight's 2020, but I wonder why he just was like, Yeah, this is, this is bullshit. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe something led him to believe he just was like, yeah, this is, this is bullshit. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe something led him to believe that it was, you know, not to be taken seriously. Right. But anyway, within a few months of their marriage, Peggy and her kids started

to wonder about Pi, and if he was being faithful. So even though he had just recently married Peggy, Peggy noticed that Piai spent a great deal of time at work, so she couldn't help but wonder if he was really at work all those hours of the day as he claimed. And actually, one night, Pai told Peggy that he was working late, and having the suspicions that she did, she drove over there to see for herself. And in the parking lot were just two vehicles. Pies and his ex-girlfriends.

Uh-oh. Pretty suspicious. I know this really wasn't some coincidence. Pies actually was cheating on Peggy with this woman. So of course, Peggy was just absolutely heartbroken by this. I mean, they were freaking newlyweds, you know? So she wrote Pya Note and took her kids to a nearby motel while she figured out her next move.

In the letter to him, she stated, anything as long as I had you. Now I'm not sure. I'm gonna give you some time to think about us. I can't live like we have been. I can't imagine living without you, but I can't if you don't want me. I love you with all my heart, Peggy. Shortly after this, Peggy and Pysorted things out and agreed to make it work and stay together, because they did love each other.

And with that, Peggy and her three kids moved back in. Which is just sad and shitty. I mean, I totally get it, but it's like, what does scummy do? I mean, it's a pretty scummy thing to do, for sure. So the day that they moved back in, Pai was gone on a hunting trip, and during this time on October 21, 1988, Peggy started to feel really sick. She felt a burning sensation that she had never felt before in her life. She could barely move. It was hard for her to open her eyes

due to her nausea, and she couldn't get out of bed due to her achy joints. When Pyre turned home from his trip, he just assumed that it was just some sort of bad virus, and that it would go away. But it didn't. At this time, Peggy and her daughter Sissy were working together at a drive-in called Nicholas's, and after returning to work, Peggy started feeling ill again, and she actually thought that she was having a heart attack, because her hands were completely numb and her legs were in a great deal of pain. After going home, her daughter Sissy took her to the barto memorial hospital, where she told the doctor that she felt like she was on fire.

But weirdly enough, the doctors were incredibly confused regarding Peggy's condition, like they could not figure out what was wrong with her. So one of the doctors suggested that she was suffering from something psychosomatic, like meaning that her symptoms were being created by stress or some other mental factor. But Peggy was truly in pain, so she stayed at the hospital for a few more days. And within three days, her symptoms kind of began to improve, so Peggy was at home. But by the time she got back to the house, she noticed she wasn't the only one in the family having sudden pain. But her son Dwayne and Pai's son Travis had the very same tingling and burning sensations throughout their bodies. And within just a couple days, Peggy started to feel it again too.

But it was much worse this time around, which resulted in Peggy being rushed to a different hospital, the Winter Haven hospital located about 20 minutes away, in an ambulance. So now some new physicians could monitor and test Peggy's condition, and a neurologist as well as an infectious disease specialist observed her, and even noticed that Peggy was losing her hair. Yeah, like when she was, you know, in the hospital bed, and when they would kind of sit her up, there was like chunks of hair just laying on her pillow.

So this part's really interesting. This poor woman. So after putting their heads together, they came to the conclusion that Peggy must be suffering from the effects of some kind of poison. And the infectious disease specialist, Dr. Robert Van Hook, pondered if that poison was thalium. Thalium is basically like this odorless and even tasteless chemical in the aluminum family

and it's often considered rat poison. In the 1960s it was used to kill pesticides as well as rodents, but also to treat conditions like dysentery, gout, syphilis and more. However, due to the fact that it can cause severe stomach pain, vomiting, nausea and diarrhea and can also lead to death in humans, it was outlawed in 1972 for widespread use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So, despite this, you know, thalium is still around, so Dr. Van Hook really wanted to at least test for traces of thallium in Peggy's system, so he collected a urine sample and flew it off to a lab in Atlanta, Georgia, and he was right. So get this, Peggy's urine contained 20,000 times the normal amount of

thallium, because thallium is apparently like a naturally occurring element, so small traces can be found in everyone's body. But Peggy had 20,000 times that amount. Oh my god, that is like... I mean, that's a lot. That is a lot of thalium, yeah. So obviously Peggy's situation was just off the charts, and it was incredibly dangerous and perplexing.

So the amount was also 50 times more than the maximum human exposure amount. So she had 50 times more than what your body can even handle. And sadly, there was no cure or antidote to read salient from the body, especially this much. So she just, like they didn't know what to do with her. And since Duane and Travis were having the same issues, doctors felt confident that they too would have excess thalium in their systems, so they tested them as well.

And once again, they were right. So although it seemed just too strange to be true, the doctors told PaiKar that they believed someone was trying to poison the entire family. But Pie just couldn't believe this, and his response was, I don't think anybody dislikes us enough to do that. But Dr. Hustler, the neurologist, strongly felt otherwise, so he did the wise thing and he called the Pope County Sheriff's Office to inform them of his findings, especially

because by then in November of 1988, 41-year-old Peggy, who had lost all her hair and was slowly becoming paralyzed, had slipped into a coma. So Peggy grew up with deaf parents, so she and our siblings all knew sign language very well, and by the time the doctors had concluded that she was suffering from thalian poisoning and right before she fell into a coma, Peggy couldn't even speak at all. So she had to communicate with her sister

who had come to see her strictly through sign language. And Peggy just kept signing why? And I hurt all over. Just trying to figure out what the reasoning behind her poisoning could be. So things were taking a pretty serious and concerning turn here, and a homicide detective became involved right away. Of course, Detective Ernie Mincey had his suspicions about Pi Carr. As he dove deeper into their relationship and learned about his cheating and also the

fact that he didn't believe the family was being poisoned, he wondered if Pi was behind it all. And actually, Peggy's children felt the same way. Her daughter Sissy speculated that Pi and his sister Carolyn Dixon had poisoned Peggy themselves in order to get rid of her so Pi could go off and date other women. She even shared her suspicions with police, and it turned out that even Sissy herself had been poisoned by Thalium. But not nearly as severely as her mother Peggy, nor Travis and her brother Dwayne.

So investigators now had to focus on how they were being poisoned, so things didn't grow even worse. And, you know, obviously, I can't blame police here for having their suspicions. Like, the cheating kind of is a red flag, but then the fact that Pycar himself isn't currently sick, and there's other people in the family getting sick, like, it does make you wonder. Oh, absolutely. And I also think I'm in a huge part of this is that Sissy herself literally told investigators like, I think it could be pie and his sister.

Like that's pretty specific to even say that his sister would help him. Like to and she was a young adult at this time. So it's not like she was a little kid. So to have those thoughts like what does that say about pie? Right. And you know, we obviously don't know how close of a relationship pie and sissy have, but it is fairly suspicious for her to, you know, think that it could possibly be pie. Oh, I definitely agree. So investigators first checked to see if, you know, like the orange trees

surrounding the area and the car home had for whatever reason been sprayed with thalium since this was a citrus farming area. So then they also checked the drinking water, but neither the drinking water nor the orange trees contained thalium. So then they sent over 400 items from the car's home off to a lab for testing, and some of these items included homemade pickles, ice cubes, actual rat poison they had, and some empty Coca-Cola bottles. And eventually when the tests came back, they concluded that four of the Coca-Cola bottles that they took from an eight pack in the kitchen contained thalium residue. There were still three bottles that were unopened, so detective

Minci flew those off to an FBI lab in Virginia for testing, and it was determined that the bottle caps had been tampered with, and these bottles also contained thalium. And to be specific, so these were glass bottles with metal caps, and the caps had these scratch marks on them that indicated that they had previously been removed

and then placed back on. So the Coca-Cola was really looking like the culprit here. But how did they get contaminated? And by the way, each bottle contained one gram of thalium, which is enough to kill an adult. So there was a lot in each bottle making sense of how sick everybody was. So while investigators, as well as the FBI, tried to figure that out, an FBI profiler worked on a psychological profile for the Poisoner.

And what they came up with was that the person behind this was likely a white male in his 30s, who is very intelligent and was likely more outwardly passive versus being direct when it came to conflicts. Hence the poisoning. Exactly. They also felt that this man likely had a trail of threats, which brings us back to that note from four months earlier. And also I want to mention, so due to the sophisticated nature of the Thalium recipe, we'll say,

in the Coca-Cola bottles, they knew that whoever was behind this had to have a deep knowledge of chemistry. So, investigators interviewed the locals, which were a few and far between, considering this is a pretty rural area, as well as the only actual neighbor that the cars had, a man named George Trapal. Something we want to mention really quick. So in some YouTube videos we watched, people said that his last name was pronounced TRIPAL, like they just said, George TRIPAL.

And that just doesn't sound right to us. And we know that the investigator in this case called him Trapal. And somebody else said, TRIPAL. So we're going to go with Trapal because that's what the investigator said. So keeping that in mind, investigators asked George why someone would want to poison the car family. And George said that it was probably because someone wanted them to

move out of the neighborhood. And this struck detective. Mincey is pretty odd because none of the other neighbors had given an answer like that. And knowing the post it note had told the car family to move out of Florida within two weeks or they'd all die, he wondered if George was the one behind it. And this is when other things with the Trapal started coming to light, and it became very obvious to investigators that they weren't fans of the car family.

From 1982 to 1988, there were a number of conflicts between the Trapal and car family. From 1982 to 1988, there were a number of conflicts between the Trapal and car family, which included things as simple as the Trapal's getting into a heated argument with the cars because someone in the car family was playing music too loud. And eerily, the last argument they had was on October 18th, just three days before Peggy started feeling sick. George Trapal was born as an only child on January 23, 1949 to a police officer in New York City. So at the time of Peggy's poisoning, he was 39 years old, making him about two years younger than her. George attended the University of South Carolina in 1972, where he earned a psychology degree.

But three years later, he was arrested in the area after creating his own emphetamine drug lab and serving as the chemist, and since it produced over $7 million worth of methamphetamine, he served about three years in a North Carolina prison for this. I just want to say that $7 million worth of meth would likely get you more prison time. I don't understand how we only got three years for this. I honestly have no idea, but that is the facts. So George was an incredibly smart man. And actually, and his wife Diana, who was by the way the first female orthopedic surgeon in the US, who also had a chemistry degree, and was a licensed

pilot. So she and George were both a part of an international organization called Menza, whose members include people with IQs so high that they're in the top 2% of the world's population. At the time this was all unfolding in late 1988, George didn't have a steady job himself. He was just like a freelance writer for a computer magazine, so he did mostly live off of his wife's salary. And they had moved to Alteras, Florida in the early 1980s, and they'd been having issues with the cars ever since, so long before Peggy moved in.

And just to be clear, it's not like, oh, the cars were terrible neighbors and the chapels just wanted their peace, which is totally fair. But the chapels were extremely unreasonable and like erratic people who just complained about everything. So for example on one occasion when Sissy's ex-husband Ronald was working on his truck with the radio on outside, George came up to him enraged and told him that he was reading a book and needed to turn the music down. so Ronald did. And then just a couple minutes later, George came out shaking and very upset, asking him to turn it down again. But according to Ronald, the music wasn't playing loudly at all. And on another occasion, when Pai's son Travis Carr was outwashing his

vehicle with the music on, George approached him to turn it off and he agreed that he would. But later Travis came back out to finish washing his car and he turned the music back on, to which George complained again. And Pai said, quote, he's just listening to the radio while he washes his car. And George responded by disconnecting the water hose to the car's house so that he basically could not continue washing it and the music would then have to be turned off. Like, he's that guy. So essentially...

He hates music. He hates music, so he's a fucking loser anyway. But he went over to the car's house and went on their property and disconnected their hose, which is like, yo, that's not your property. It's too far. Yeah, it's that's not your property, that's not your share. Yeah, it's too far. So obviously I totally understand

if you're in your house, you're welcome to your piece. And if you don't like the music, that's totally fair. But it did seem very unreasonable and it was like George and Diana would nitpick every single little thing that went on at the car home. It just seemed like they really just loved complaining. And they just didn't like the cars as people.

Like let's be honest. But for whatever reason, it doesn't really make sense to hate somebody because they're playing music while they wash their car. You know, like people do that. Right. And also, going back to the final argument that occurred just days before Peggy fell ill, this argument was another one about the car boys playing their radio too loud. Diana Trapal was so upset by this that she went over to the house to confront Peggy,

but Peggy, who had barely even spoken to Diana, defended her boys, and Diana walked off shouting, you won't get away with this. Of course, Peggy had no idea that something would actually follow this. But again, like that's so dramatic, you won't get away with this. Of course Peggy had no idea that something would actually follow this. But again, like that's so dramatic. You won't get away with this because the boys are listening to music. What is she like a fucking villain in a cartoon? You won't get away with this. I will say too, we'll post a photo, but their house is worn to even like, you might be imagining they're in a cookie cutter neighborhood and they're like two feet apart. But these houses are not

very close together at all. Right, remember this is a rural area. Yeah, so they both had a piece of property and it's not like they were so far that it's like how can you even hear this, but it was far enough to where it's like this shouldn't be an issue to you. Right, but before we get back to the investigation to see if the tripalslles really were behind this, we want to tell you about one of the trapelles hobbies. And this is Murder Mystery Parties. I shit you not. So the trapelles were the ones to organize the Mensa Group's Murder Mystery Weekends, which were invitation only.

So they were the ones to come up with a clever murder plot that would be acted out, and their guests would have to put the clues together and solve the case. Now George was a big fan of real life mysteries as well as fake ones, and he was even known to take a lot of pride in being very good at writing murder plots thanks to his time you know, studying police manuals as well as crime scenes. And going back to Pie Car, so he wasn't totally off the hook despite the very odd discoveries with the Trapals. So Larry Dubberly, who again is Peggy's ex-husband, had pointed out to investigators that Pie Car had taken a large life insurance policy out on Peggy. And because of this, her son Alan pondered if his mother Peggy was afraid of pie after learning about this. He said that

he and his mom developed a secret password and that she didn't want pie to know certain things because she was nervous and scared. And this was apparently extremely out of the ordinary for Peggy to be sharing her concerns or problems with her son, which only made the situation extra alarming. And on top of this, while Peggy was in the hospital, it's been said that Pai was staying with his ex-girlfriend, potentially cheating on Peggy again, despite her being very sick,

and despite their conversation about this whole cheating BS, you know, months prior. If this is the case, like pies, just not a good guy. I just wanna say too, you know, this isn't necessarily confirmed. This is just what people said. So I don't know if this is true, but I wouldn't be all that surprised.

And also, I mean, some of Peggy's close friends had even told investigators that Peggy told them that their marriage was very troubled. But one thing stood out to investigators. Why would Pi poison his entire family, including his own kids? Like was he capable of that? Well, after investigators questioned Pi, Larry doubly saw Pi and noticed him trembling quite a bit due to his apparent nerves, and he couldn't even speak he was so nervous,

according to Larry. But investigators realized that Pi himself had been poisoned by Thalium too, and if he was behind this, why the hell would he poison himself? Also, he worked at a mine, so he wasn't this like sophisticated chemist as the FBI profiler had felt confident that the killer would be. So with all this, Pi was no longer considered a suspect. And actually the only person in the whole blended family that didn't have any thalium in their body was Pi's daughter Tammy.

So this was affecting almost all of them. So going back to the relationship between the Trapals and the cars, not everything was about music, although many complaints were, or even things like the Trapals didn't like how many people came over to the car's home. In March of 1988, so earlier that year, Pie Car was attempting to convert his garage into an apartment. And when George Trapal found this out, he called the zoning board to complain and told him that Pie was violating zoning ordinance because he didn't have a permit.

So Pie was issued a violation and later, Pie worked to get the permit. So at this point, it's very clear to investigators that the Tripolz had a big problem with the cars. But between this potential motive and Pi's own motive, it wasn't immediately clear who was behind this. Investigators kept their eyes on Pi, but also worked on going undercover to investigate the Tripolz.

But sadly, before they could even get started, Peggy passed away. Peggy slipped into a coma in late 1988, as we know, but she never awoke from that coma. The poison had caused far too much damage, and on March 3rd, 1989, 41-year-old Peggy Car died in the hospital. So now the pressure was on to find a killer.

As the weeks passed on, Detective Susan Gorick wrote George a letter requesting an invitation to the next murder mystery weekend that he coordinated, which happened to be advertised in the newspaper. She said her name was Sherry Gwynn and that she was new to the area and looking for an intellectual challenge. And of course, she did not inform him that she was a detective and made up an entirely new persona.

And this actually worked because George responded to her with a registration form for said murder mystery event, which was coming up that weekend at the Winter Haven holiday in. On Friday, April 14th, 1989, Susan headed over there and met George, who she described as a small man who avoided eye contact and even seemed to stutter from potential general nervousness.

She of course didn't bring up Peggy and just acted like a newcomer and even got George to enjoy her company. So she was trying to befriend him. Yeah and actually there was some sort of friendship that came out of this and George invited Susan to his house. Throughout their conversations, Susan really saw just how intelligent he was and how much of a skilled chemistry was as well, which made her feel as though he really was guilty of the poisonings. And obviously this is just based on circumstantial evidence at this point. For example, when Susan went to his house, she noticed an Agatha

Christie novel on his table titled The Pale Horse, and we're sure most of you guys probably know who Agatha Christie is, but for those who don't, she was a bestselling novelist from England who's known for her 60 plus detective novels, including Murder on the Orient Express, and then there were none, the mysterious affair at Styles, and many, many more. In 1961, she published a novel called The Pale Horse. And this is the one that Susan noticed. So Susan didn't know this until she looked it up later, but The Pale Horse is a detective fiction novel that includes murder by Thalium Poisoning.

Coincidence, I don't think so. And crazy enough, this book is known to have saved at least two lives after readers recognize Thalium poisoning because of this novel. Which is so crazy that at least two people read this book and then were having similar symptoms as was described in the book and then got it checked out and realized they had been poisoned by Thalium or had just gotten too much Thalium in their system one way or another. Like what the hell. Yeah, that's just gotten too much Thalium in their system one way or another. Like, what the hell? Yeah, that's just so, that's such a crazy detail.

But also so crazy that she note happened to notice that book and then looked it up and that is part of the plot line. Exactly. To make things even creepier, Susan was also shown a secret room in George's house. A soundproof room in the basement that was painted all black and equipped for bondage and torture. I just wanna know why he showed her that room, you know? Like, why did he take her down there? I don't know, but that gives sense chills down my spine. And if you look at pictures of this guy, he looks like a BDI little man. So it's it's really creepy when you yeah it's really creepy when you

see his photo and then you're like this guy had a torture room in his basement. I wish we knew more about that moment when they were both in that room and what Susan was thinking and what she said and what he said. But all we know is that he showed it to her which which is just very, very creepy. Yeah, it's creepy on its own. So Susan continued to spend time with George just to see if she could uncover anything else, because so far, he was looking like a good suspect.

And one day they spent together at a picnic, George suggested to her that she blackmail her husband in order to get what she wanted out of the divorce settlement. And if she didn't want to do that, she can always poison him. Susan recalls him saying, quote, I hear FTD sends poison flowers and FTD by the way stands for florist transworld delivery. And it's a floral service. So this suggestion was obviously very suspicious, but she still didn't have anything concrete and it was incredibly frustrating to Susan, her own family, who she didn't really see very much due to her consistent work on George and her department because at this point months had passed and there wasn't anything pointing to George being a real suspect. However, come November of 1989,

so one year after Peggy entered the coma that led to her death, George told Susan that he was looking to rent out his alturists home, which again was next to the cars, because his wife, Diana's practice, was taking them to the city of Seabring, Florida, which is just about a 50-minute drive south of Alterus. So with this, Susan started to come up the plan. If she made up a fake divorce since she had already put breadcrumbs out for that narrative

as Sherry Gwynn, maybe George would let her rent out his house. And if he said yes, she could spend time trying to find evidence inside the Trapal's home. And amazingly, George actually said yes, she could spend time trying to find evidence inside the Trapal's home. And amazingly, George actually said yes. So in December of 1989, Susan moved into the Trapal's home with just a sleeping bag and a few other items, because, you know, she's not actually getting a divorce, she's still had a husband and two kids. But as soon as she had the keys, a team of crime scene technicians entered

the home alongside Susan and scoured the house for that smoking gun, since George hadn't yet removed everything from the house. The main thing they were trying to do was pick up traces of the volume around the house to prove there was any in there. And after searching the garage, that still had a bunch of the tripol's belongings, FBI agent Breck discovered a dishpan that had multiple bottles. These bottles were sent off to the FBI lab in Virginia, yet no trace of thallium was found. So the month of December passed, and still, they had nothing. So Susan set up a plan with George as Sherry Gwynn and a McDonald's in Sea Brings saying that she had something important to tell him.

She had a microphone hidden in her purse by the way, and that was being picked up by agents in a surveillance van outside. And she told George that two detectives had come to the house regarding what happened next door. And she acted kind of nervous and worried about the whole ordeal and Still kept it hidden that she was in on the investigation obviously So George's response was very nonchalant. Oh, yeah, somebody got poisoned next door She handed him two business cards for both detective mincee Agent Breck, and George suddenly became

very aggressive, and Susan had never seen that side of him before, but it was as if he was getting mad at her. Then he nervously said, I hope I'm not a prime suspect, that could be messy. And this was really all he had said though, like he didn't indicate any further that he was behind it at all, So the case went cold. Right, he wasn't trying to like incriminate himself. Right, no, he didn't say, oh no, did they find anything? Or, you know, he didn't say anything else, he just said that it would be messy.

So she was kind of hoping that she would catch some information via the microphone and then they could arrest him. But since he didn't say anything, they just kind of had to to let this go because they didn't know what else to do here. But then, some lab results came back on some vials found in the garage, and one contained thalium nitrate, meaning that George had likely used the vial to poison those Coca-Cola bottles. And this was enough to get a search warrant for the Trapal's seabring home, so the team headed down there and faced a very upset and agitated Diana Trapal, who would

not let them pass her. So she actually had to be physically restrained, and FBI agents and detectives entered the home with a warrant in hand. And when George came down to the kitchen, they put him under arrest for the murder of Peggy Carr. In the upstairs bedroom, the search team found various literature on SNM along with whips and handcuffs. They also found a police manual in the home that included a chapter called Death by Poison, and also a page specifically on Thalium, and another book called Poison Detection in Human Organes. They also read through his murder mystery plots, and one not only contained a poisoning,

but a threatening letter, just like in the car case itself. There was also evidence uncovered that George would watch the car family from his own home using binoculars. And knowing George had a secret room in his alterus home, Susan was determined to find one in his new seabring home. And although one wasn't found in the initial search of the home, they continued searching obscure areas of the home, hoping that a secret spot would pop up. And as they inspected the home closely, they noticed a section of a wall inside the home

that looked a bit uneven on one end. So an officer pulled at the section and it swung open showing a door. Which this is really creepy to me because they looked throughout the whole house and they didn't find anything and they were looking for like a secret door And they couldn't find one and then they're looking even harder and then they find this piece of wall That's not sitting right and then that leads to a door. So it's so scary that this really was very hidden But I think the scarier part is the fact that you know if this was something to do with like, you know, a sexual relationship between he and his wife, they could have had these things in their room, but this, just,

you know, the secret point, the secret room thing is just like, what the fuck is that? That is actually such a good point. And really quick, let's talk about what's inside the room. So after they opened the door, they saw a wooden platform that was about the size of a bed that had hand and ankle shackles attached to it. And the windows of the room had been removed and the room was soundproofed. And this really just gave everyone on the team

like a super uneasy feeling. They all just got, as I read, got chills walking into the room. So obviously they're wondering what the hell this room is used for, because like Keith is saying, you know, in my head originally, I was like, is this some sexual fantasy for George and his wife? But you're right, like why not? Like why have a secret special room hidden?

Like not even like a room in your house, but you have a hidden built room built specifically as this like hidden secret torture chamber. Right. If somebody just came into your home, they would never know that that room is there. Right. So I mean, maybe you could say, oh, so that guests wouldn't see it, but I don't know. Like, why not just have a regular bedroom that you have a lock on? I'm not sure. Maybe one of you out there has a more perspective on that. But I definitely want to know more about this. Because of course, police are also like, is this a room to torture victims because they're

looking at this man as if he's a killer. So of course, I mean, they knew that at this point that he murdered one person, Peggy Carr. So what would stop him from killing more and potentially in different ways? And something interesting that we want to add as well is that Thalium is an ingredient in methamphetamine, and as we know, George used to be a chemist for a meth lab in North Carolina before he was arrested for it. And even though he had, you know, the pale horse by Agatha Christie, and he had various books on poison, it really seemed that he knew thalium and other poisonous chemicals well.

And in fact, the drug agent who arrested George, you know, years prior, said that he was the smartest chemist that he'd ever seen. So that says a lot. So here's what investigators felt had happened based on all the evidence that they had. George Tripol and his wife had a deep disliking for the car family and wanted them to move. So George typed up that note on the post it that said, you and all your so-called family have two weeks to move out of Florida forever, or else you'll all die. This is no joke.

And George hoped that this would scare them away and that they'd move somewhere else. But when the note wasn't taken seriously, and the two families continued to get into arguments and disagreements, George took drastic action. He bought a pack of Coca-Cola and developed a special recipe to add to the bottle that would stop the volume from changing the color of the soda and also stop the sediment from appearing at the bottom of the bottle and also stop the sediment from appearing at the bottom of the bottle.

Something a skilled chemist would think of. Right, because, you know, as we learned during the research for this, if he had just simply added the allium to the bottle, it would have changed the color lighten, like lighten the color of the coke, and it also would have had this like, gunky sediment just sitting in the bottom.

So if you would have looked at that, you would have been like, this is like rotten soda. Right, a lot easier to detect. Right, so he had to create this special recipe so that they wouldn't notice and then they would drink it. Right, so this is where his chemistry comes into play.

So then George took the bottles over to the car home and left them outside the door. And nothing suspicious was thought about these bottles just sitting outside. So I wonder if maybe someone in the family thought, oh, we forgot to bring these in from when we got groceries or something like that, because it's not like they were like,

why are these weird coat bottles sitting on the door? I'm gonna throw them away. They did just take them into the house and at an upcoming dinner that they had together at the house, just for the immediate family, the cars all drank from the bottles, except pie and his daughter Tammy. So Tammy stuck to Diet Coke, which was not contaminated. And pie used just a few splashes from a bottle to add to his bourbon.

So that's why he wasn't terribly poison because he only had a little bit. So due to Peggy's extremely high thalium levels, it's believed that she drank the most Coca-Cola out of everyone. So 18-year-old Travis and 17-year-old Dwayne got sick as we mentioned earlier, and they even dealt with paralysis and severe illness as well, but they reportedly both recovered, although I will say some reports stated that they were, quote, left paralyzed, so we can't be sure on their conditions to this day, either way, I mean very sad. But due to this, George Tripol was charged with the murder of Peggy Carr and the attempted murder of the Carr family, so six counts of attempted murder.

He was also charged with seven counts of poisoning food or water. And in January of 1991, so nearly two years after Peggy Car died from the poisoning, George's trial began. And although much of the evidence was circumstantial, there was the physical evidence of the thalium, and many witness testimonies painted the tumultuous relationship between George and the car

family. And also during this trial, more evidence on George's character came to light, and it was discovered that on one occasion, George had suspected that someone was stealing food from him, so he put LSD on the handle of the fridge so that it would absorb through the food-stealer's skin and they'd start to hallucinate. That's such an weirdly evil thing to do. This guy's like an evil mad scientist.

Exactly. So on another occasion during a trip, he gave drug-laced cookies to hitchhikers who were none the wiser about the ingredients. Experts from Coca-Cola testified during the trial, and so did the doctors who treated Peggy and the rest of the car family, as well as the DEA agent who arrested George Ears prior, and knew how good of a chemistry was. There was also an interesting part of one of the murder mysteries that George had organized that included the following.

When a death threat appears on the doorstep, prudent people throw out all their food and watch what they eat. Most items on the doorstep are just a neighbor's way of saying, I don't like you. Move out or else. So I mean, that's pretty weird. You know, that's a side of coincidence in my mind. Yeah, he's, you know, taking parts of his actual crimes and adding them into his murder mysteries.

Yeah, I mean, the whole death threat appears on the doorstep. I mean, that's such a parallel to leaving the Coke bottles on the car's doorstep and then also the whole thing of, I don't like you move out or else. It's clear as day. And you're probably wondering why George's wife Diana wasn't arrested as well. And actually, George's own defense attorney painted her as a suspect to try and get him

off the hook. But ultimately, the jury found 42-year-old George Trapal guilty of all charges, and he was sentenced to death via the electric chair. However, to this day, he remains in a six by nine cell on death row at the Union Correctional Institution in Florida. His wife Diana never saw any charges, and she eventually remarried, but she passed away in 2018 due to complications from a stroke on October 17th, 2018, at the age of 69 in Sea Bring Florida. But George Trapal still sits behind bars and he's currently 73 years old. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday, we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Yes, and I know that George was the full-on chemist here, but it's weird to me that Diana also wasn't charged or wasn't also charged because she had a lot of issues with the cars and she was very vocal about them and she had a chemistry degree. So I don't know why she didn't see charges. Yeah, I'm kind of curious because I don't think that they would have kept anything from each other.

I feel like if George was the one doing this, that she would also be involved in this in some way. Well, exactly. I feel like the circumstantial and the physical evidence, because it could easily point to Diana as well, or instead of George. I don't think George is not guilty, but I think she potentially could be just as guilty. Right. And obviously, you know, I don't know if she was a part of it, so I'm not trying to indicate that she was, but it's definitely possible. And also, by the way, I wanted to point out that Susan Gorick wrote a book on this case, and it's called Poison Mind,

if you want like every single detail on the story from her perspective. So thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you for sharing the show. Thank you for the nice reviews. We appreciate every one of you so, so much. Yeah, and if you guys want some bonus episodes, head on over to our Patreon, which is patreon.com. Slash going west podcast. We have a ton of bonus episodes if you guys want some bonus episodes head on over to our patreon which is patreon.com

Slash going west podcast. We have a ton of bonus episodes for you guys Yes, 56 bonus episodes that you guys can binge and there's no ads, which is awesome Yeah, there's no ads. They're full length and they're true crime cases So we do cases that we don't cover on this show So it's just like extra going west. It's the same as going west It's just 56 episodes that you wouldn't normally have access to and counting. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you