Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Jeopardy Champion Murders His Wife - The Paul Curry story

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Paul Curry, a former nuclear engineer and Jeopardy! winner, was convicted in 2014 for the 1994 nicotine poisoning death of his wife, Linda Curry, in California. Prosecutors revealed that Curry stood to gain substantial life insurance benefits from Linda's death, highlighting a financial motive. Despite the crime occurring in 1994, Curry wasn't arrested until 2010, following a prolonged investigation.

Your planet is now marked for death. Marvel Studios The Fantastic Four First Steps is now streaming on Disney Plus. We will protect you. As a family. Light them up, Johnny! Marvel's first family is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. That is fantastic. And critics say it's one of the best superhero movies of all time.

Oh! Marvel Studios The Fantastic Four First Steps, now streaming on Disney Plus, we did PG-13. What time is it, Ben? It's Clubber Time! You know that show Jeopardy? So this two-time Jeopardy Champion ends up murdering his own wife. So the guy's name is Curry, and Curry's 32, he's a nuclear engineer, and he's super smart, like a genius.

He's apparently a member of Mensa, and he's also the kind of guy who makes sure to let everyone know how smart he is. And one time, he and his big brain, they go on Jeopardy, and he wins a bunch of money. He actually wins the show twice, and he gets like $60,000, which is great money, especially in the 80s. But then, one day, in 1989, Curry's whole life changes, because he meets this woman. Her name's Linda. Linda's 45, she's a little older than Curry, and she works with him, and she thinks he is foin. And so they hit it off, and they start dating, and eventually they start smashing.

A few years later, in 1992, they end up getting married. And Linda has never been happier. She's super in love with Curry and his big brain. Here's the thing, though. I guess Curry doesn't feel the same way about her, because for some reason, about a month into their marriage, his behavior starts to get a little suspicious. Like he starts demanding that everything be put in his name, the mortgage, life insurance, 401k. Not only that, he starts insisting that he take out a $1 million life insurance policy on Linda.

And when Linda is like, okay, but are we going to take a million dollar life insurance policy out on you as well? Curry's like, Nah. But anyway, so Linda agrees to this, because remember, she's super in love with Curry, and she'll do anything to make him happy. But then, things get even weirder. One day, Linda's at home and the phone rings,

and she picks it up, and there's a woman on the other end who's looking for Curry. And this woman is wondering why he hasn't paid his child support. And Linda's like, Curry has a kid? She had no idea he had a kid from a pre-eastern, marriage that he's supposed to be paying for and isn't. Not only that, he had been married twice before and he never told her. So this marriage is off to a good start.

Regardless, none of these lies really matter to Linda because she's still way into him for some weird reason. And so at some point around 1993 Curry's weird ass decides, okay, I'm tired of this marriage, I got the life insurance policy all set up and now it's time to unalive her. Why don't these people ever just get a divorce? Anyway and so he gets right to work on this plan and he starts making all these fancy homemade salad dressings because I guess Linda really loves salad. So he makes these salad dressings for her and he'll put small amounts of nicotine in them, which over time the nicotine builds up in her system and starts making her sick. And eventually

Linda starts getting gastrointestinal problems from this and she gets really sick and she checks herself into a hospital she's so sick. But the doctors don't really know what's going on or what's wrong with her. Then, while she's in the hospital one night, while she's asleep, someone sneaks in and tamper's with her IV bag. And when a nurse comes in to check on her, she sees that there's a puncture in the tubing for the bag, and the hospital calls the police. And so police come out and they investigate and they talk to Linda and they ask her if she knows if someone has been trying to poison her. And the only person Linda can think of is Curry, her husband. But unfortunately, before police can launch a proper investigation into all this, Linda is released from the hospital and she goes right back home to live with him again.

Because again, she still loves him so much. Shortly after that, sure enough, Linda starts getting sick again. She's dehydrated, she's vomiting, she can't eat. And so Curry, he takes her to the hospital again. It's a different hospital this time. I guess he doesn't want to raise suspicion. But then while she's in this hospital, it happens again. One night, while she's asleep, someone sneaks in and tamper's with her IV bag.

Luckily, the hospital staff catches it this time, and they bar anyone else from entering the room unaccompanied. And so eventually, Linda recovers and she goes back home to live with Curry. She still has no idea he's behind all this. Now at this point, Curry realizes his plan isn't working. Adding small amounts of nicotine to Linda's salad dressings, it's not doing enough. It isn't unaliving her fast enough. And so he and his big brain, they come up with a new plan to unalive Linda. And this time it'll be as quickly as possible.

First, he slips her a bunch of sleeping pills to knock her out. Then, after she's passed out, he takes a syringe and he fills it full of nicotine, and bam, he injects her with it. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but Pure nicotine is apparently fatal, and it doesn't take that much to unalive someone. A syringe full will definitely do it. And so, this injection of nicotine that Curry gives her, unfortunately, it ends her life. And so then, obviously, police get involved, and they investigate the death, and they have a toxicology report done, and the toxicology report shows that there's a lot of nicotine in her

system. But I guess they don't investigate further? Because they don't have any evidence against anyone specifically. I actually don't really know why they don't investigate further. I just know they don't. Regardless, they eventually stop, and the case goes cold. Meanwhile, Curry, he gets a fat paycheck. Remember how he took out that million-dollar life insurance policy on Linda?

Well, he ends up having to split it with Linda's sister, but still, he takes home over $400,000. So he's living good. Then he eventually moves from California all the way over to Kansas, and he starts a new life, and he gets a job as a building code inspector, and he gets married all over again, and he basically just continues on, like he's never going to get caught, and maybe he never will. Maybe he really is that smart. Until...

Years go by, and one day in 2002, this sergeant from the local sheriff's office, She starts looking into cold cases, and she stumbles upon the case of Linda's death. And she's like, all right, I'll take a look at this. And she starts re-examining all the evidence, and she immediately zeroes in on the victim's husband at the time. Curry. I mean, he was with her in the hospital when the IV bags were tampered with, and Linda had previously told police that he was the only one who could have poisoned her, so bro is looking really suspicious right now.

And so this sergeant spends a really long time. looking into this, going over old files, re-interviewing old witnesses, everything she can do. Then, four years later, she finally has enough evidence to take all this to the district attorney. Then the district attorney gets the toxicology report that was initially done on Linda further analyzed, a more modern analysis, because like 15 years have gone by since Linda was murdered, and toxicology analysis has greatly improved. And this new analysis shows that Linda had 50 to 100, times more nicotine in her blood than a regular smoker would have. 50 to a hundred times.

And Linda didn't even smoke. And so it's now confirmed that Linda died from nicotine poisoning, aka she was murdered. So with all this new evidence backing her up, the sergeant who was originally working on the cold case, she travels over to Kansas and she brings Curry in for questioning. And she grills him and she gets him to confirm that he was home alone with Lidgen, Linda the night of her death, meaning he's the only one who could have injected her with nicotine. And so, bam, Curry's arrested. Here's his mugshot. And so then Curry goes to trial, and finally, 20 years after Linda's death, he's found guilty, and he's sentenced to life in prison. Maybe he wasn't as smart as he thought.