Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Wife is in BIG Trouble - The Wendi Andriano Story

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Wendi Andriano is an Arizona woman currently on death row for the brutal October 2000 murder of her terminally ill husband, Joe Andriano. Driven by financial greed and resentment over her role as a caregiver, Wendi first attempted to poison Joe with sodium azide before ultimately bludgeoning him with a barstool.

So this woman really hates her husband, and she'll do anything to get rid of him. Now, the woman's name is Wendy, and Wendy is 26 when all this starts, and she's living in Arizona, and like almost everyone we talk about, Wendy has a problem. Like I said, she hates her husband. Now her husband is this guy, Joe. And Joe, you know, he's struggling to keep a steady job. Wendy also claims that he's abusive to her, although that is disputed. Regardless, this marriage just isn't working for her. And one day in 1997, she decides that she's had enough.

She's going to leave and she's going to take their six-month-old baby with her. But then she runs into another problem. She finds out that she's pregnant. So now, she can't leave. I mean, she's broke. She doesn't have a job. So how is she supposed to raise two children on her own? And if you can believe it, things continue to get worse for her.

because Joe, he suddenly gets sick, so he goes to the hospital, and there the doctor discovers a tumor in his salivary gland. And so Joe gets surgery to remove that tumor. But for whatever reason, the surgery doesn't work, and he continues to be in pain. So he goes back for another surgery, and then another, and then another, and then another. Yet the tumor keeps returning. And so the doctors, they're starting to think this might be more serious than they initially thought. So they run some more tests. And that is when they discover that the tumor is actually a rare and aggressive type of cancer.

And by this point, it's already spread to his lungs. And it's ultimately going to be terminal. Now, Joe and Wendy, they happen to be part of some local church that believes in divine healing. So instead of pursuing chemotherapy to treat this cancer, they decide to try holistic treatments and faith-based healing. And while they're trying all this and avoiding chemo, the cancer inside Joe just keeps spreading and it keeps getting worse. Two years later in 2000, they finally realized, oh, none of this divine holistic stuff is actually working. Let's try chemo. And so Joe starts chemo, which means he's not feeling like himself anymore.

I mean, he has to stay home all day, he starts losing his strength, and he can no longer work. Which means it's up to Wendy to pay the bills. And despite having two small kids now and a sick husband to take care of, she gets a job as the apartment manager at the apartment complex they live at. And she's making a steady income, but it's just not enough. The bills keep coming, and medical expenses pile up, while Joe's condition continues. to get worse. And soon, all this stress starts getting to her, and she gets depressed. And to deal with her depression, she begins to drink a lot, and she starts spending nights out at local bars. Soon she starts picking up random men and smashing with them. And of course, none of that is

fixing her problem. So she wants out of this situation completely. And that is when she gets an idea. See, Wendy feels like Joe, he's probably going to die soon anyway. So she's thinking, maybe she can make some money off of it. So she tries to take out a $50,000 life insurance policy on him. But there's an issue with that plan. Joe is terminally ill. So insurance companies aren't they're not trying to insure him? It's too much of a risk.

So then Wendy decides to pretend that Joe isn't sick and cheat the system. And she meets up with an acquaintance and she asks this guy to pretend to be Joe and go take a physical exam. That way, the insurance company will see the results, and they'll think Joe doesn't have cancer. And if the acquaintance agrees, Wendy says she'll pay him $10,000. And so this guy, he's like, no. So Wendy tries again, this time with another person she knows.

But this guy says nah as well. So her plans keep failing. And here is where the story gets dark. Remember back in 1998, 1999, Joe had at least three different surgeries to get rid of his tumor and it kept coming back and they eventually realized it's this rare form of cancer? Well, Joe and Wendy decided to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against several doctors and hospitals that treated him. So now we're in the year 2000 and that lawsuit is still ongoing because, you know, lawsuits can take years to complete. And Joe and Wendy, they're hoping to get a settlement from this lawsuit of around 20,000. million dollars. Now, it's around this time that Wendy realizes that if Joe dies during this

lawsuit, that all the settlement money will go right to her. And in fact, she may get more money because then she can sue the doctors and hospitals for not just medical malpractice, but for wrongful death. So essentially, she's now thinking that Joe is worth more dead than he is alive. Now, at this point, Joe, he's actually been given about a year to live. But when, Wendy, she doesn't want to wait that long. She wants that lawsuit money now. So she decides she's going to poison him. So she gets to work on this plan, and she buys a bottle of pesticide.

Then she puts some of the pesticide into gelatin capsules and labels them as herbal supplements. And she gives them to Joe. And you know how they're all into that holistic medicine stuff? Well, he ends up taking these supplements. And pretty quickly, he starts feeling sick. but the poison doesn't kill him. So Wendy's got to try again. And she does.

Later, one night, she mixes a larger amount of the pesticide directly into his soup. This time, the poison works better. Because Joe gets really sick, and he starts vomiting, and he's in a lot of pain, and he can barely breathe. So he calls out for Wendy, and he asks her to call 911. And Wendy says she will, but she doesn't. Instead of calling for help, she walks into another room, and she pretends to dial numbers on her phone. In reality, she's just stalling. And after a bit of stalling, I guess she realizes that she can't stall anymore, and she finally calls 911, hoping that by the time the paramedics are here, Joe will be dead.

Well, eventually paramedics do arrive, and when they do, Joe is suffering, but he's still alive. And Wendy's like, oh shit, because she realizes that if they start treating him, him, her entire plan falls apart. So she goes out through the back of the house to meet the paramedics outside before they enter. And she lies to them and she tells them that Joe has cancer and he is signed to do not resuscitate order because he wants to die naturally at home. So the paramedics hear this and they leave. Then some minutes pass. And Joe, he seems to be a pretty tough guy because he's still alive. And by this point, Wendy is totally freaking out. And she decides she's gonna finish him off once and for all. So she grabs a bar stool and she

picks it up over her head and pow, pow, she hits Joe with it over and over and over again. After that, to ensure that he's completely dead, she goes to the kitchen and she grabs a knife and she stabs him in his neck. And that unfortunately kills Joe. Then she calls 911 again. And so police arrive, and they're investigating this whole thing, and they question Wendy, and she tells them this whole bullshit story about how Joe had agreed that she should poison him because he didn't want to live anymore. But that then they got into an argument and that Joe attacked her, and so she hit him with the stool in self-defense. But police, they're not buying all that.

And so, bam, they arrest her. Here's her mugshot. And ultimately Wendy goes to trial and she's found guilty and she gets sentenced to death.