True Crime All The Time - Julie Williams

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

On the morning of March 24, 1986, Julie Williams drank from the office water cooler shortly after arriving at work and immediately collapsed. Other employees noticed the water had a bitter taste and unusual odor, but avoided swallowing it. One coworker recognized the smell from an earlier incident involving contaminated Scotch whisky.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the death of Julie Williams. In his second attempt to kill his wife, Lewis Allen Harry Jr. poisoned the office water cooler at his wife’s workplace, but ended up killing one of her coworkers, who drank the poisoned water and collapsed moments later.  You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, folks, making that decision to start a podcast or really any type of business, it's scary. It was for Gibby and I as well. What if no one listens? What if we make fools of ourselves? And it can be really hard to get over that doubt. But choosing to make that leap was one of the best decisions we've ever made. Another great decision was picking Shopify to help with our podcast merch.

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It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash T-Cat. Go to Shopify.com slash T-Cat. That's Shopify.com slash T-C-A-T-T. Hello, everyone and welcome to episode 510 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, give me how are you? I'm good. How about you, man? I am doing great. Good. I'm still coming off that vacation, uh, high. Yeah. Still feeling good. All right. I'm just trying to figure out how long

it will last. Hope it lasts a long time for you. Before I feel like I need another one. Yeah. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Jamie Basil, also known as Pesto. Yeah. Elisa Conia. Conia. That's what I'm going with. Yes. Farnaz Ashuri. Hey, Ashuri. Nikki Basie. Uh, bossy. Could be.

Yeah. Cynthia. Hey, Cynthia. And last but not least, Jesse Hake. Hey, what's going on, Jesse? And then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Karen Kirk. The Kirk is in the house.

Who you said on Patreon was Captain Kirk's daughter. Absolutely. She knows it. Which made no sense whatsoever. Fictional character. Is it? It is. Maybe not.

We have a brand new episode out right now on true crime all the time unsolved. We're talking about Marlene Hayes. She left work early in 1981. She wasn't feeling what. And she interrupted someone burglarizing her home. It was a really brutal crime that shocked her neighborhood. And now over 40 years later, her murder remains unsolved. Yeah, tragic.

So that's out there right now. Check it out. we did put a Patreon episode out Saturday night that's on Anna Trujia. This case goes back to 2013. She called 911 to report that her boyfriend was bleeding out inside his apartment. When the police showed up, she answered the door covered in blood. Investigators were met with a shocking scene, but it became even more shocking when they discovered that the murder weapon was her high-heeled shoe. Yeah.

Stiletto. So it's a fascinating case. If you're a Patreon member, make sure you check it out. If you haven't already, if you're not, now's a great time to sign up. This was our 90th Patreon only episode.

A lot of episodes out there. Yep, absolutely. And then be on the lookout for a new episode on Thursday. It's on Anna Catherine Cardwell, 20 year old, who was murdered in her home

while her mother was away running errands. And it's a real mystery as to who her. perpetrator is. It kind of shocking. It is. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am ready.

We're talking about Julie Williams. Julie Anna Williams was born in Sanger, California. On July 22nd, 1939, she was a divorced mother of three adult daughters. She previously worked as an escrow secretary for insurance companies. In 1984, Julie moved from Central California to Mesa, Arizona. she came for a fresh start according to her family but you know what she didn't want to give up is that good weather that good weather that's for sure moving from california to arizona it's not like she moved to ohio to be near us and experienced the harsh winters no julie lived

with her daughter nancy and her son-in-law mike brady brady bunch well i mean you know when you have the name mike brady how many times a week Is somebody going to bring that up? It's going to come up quite a bit, I think, back in the 80s. You don't think it would come up today? Yeah, probably too. That's so funny that you would say the 1980s, it's not like people have forgotten the Brady Bunch.

Literally, if your name was Mike Brady today, you would have somebody at least once a week talking about it. That's true. Julie's life centered around her three daughters in church. She made a lot of strong. strong friendships in her two years in Arizona. Steve Lotzbike, the husband of Julie's daughter, Patty, told the Arizona Republic, she was a wonderful mother-in-law.

And her girls feel she spread a lot of light on everyone she met. So Julie worked for Transamerica Title Insurance Company in Tempe, Arizona. The Arizona Republic reported that she was a floater and didn't have a permanent office. Hey, you know, she gets to go to different office every, you know, every now and then. It's kind of exciting to be a floater. Yeah, my daughter who is getting ready to be a senior in college. This summer, she's, you know, she's working a job at the hospital as part of her nursing program. And she's a floater.

So she may go downtown to the big hospital. They could send her to one of the smaller hospitals out in the suburbs. She just doesn't know. and she kind of enjoys it. I think it keeps it exciting. Yeah, that's what she says anyway. On Monday, March 24th, 1986, Julie went to work as usual.

At 8 a.m., she drank water from the office water cooler, and then almost immediately she collapsed. Her concerned coworkers quickly suspected she became sick from the water. Deborah Gresham and Glenn Myers had also gotten cups of water from the cooler they brought the water to their lips, tasted it and smelled it, and realized there was something in it.

They didn't swallow the water. And so they didn't become sick. But they did report a bitter taste. So I have to confess something back in the day. I worked at an office. And, you know, you used to put those big, you know, gallons of jugs on top. Yeah. Of a water cooler.

I think that's what we're talking about here. Yeah. And I remember it looked dirty, right? So I thought, you know, I'm going to clean that thing up. So I got the bleach out and I'm like cleaning the nozzle out. And then I thought, this is stupid. Why don't I just pour some bleach down into the reserve and run it through? Yeah, yeah, because the first part was stupid.

Yeah. So that's what I did. I pour some bleach in, you know, didn't measure it out or anything. I didn't make sure I got the same amount I put in. but I ran it through and, you know, I smelt the bleach and then I left it because you want to leave it so it kills everything for a little bit

and then you want to run it back out. Well, I got busy, you know, and obviously I put the cooler tank back on top and went along my day and until there's a guy in the office, went up to the office and filled a cup up

and he took a drink and he about passed out because of if he drank, basically majority of it was still bleach. Yeah, you're lucky he didn't accidentally kill somebody and end up in prison. So I don't mean to Monday morning quarterback you here, but, you know, could you have maybe put a posted note on it, left the actual jug of water off and just said, hey, in the process of being cleaned, there's bleach in this, don't drink. I think there was a few conversations like that afterwards. Oh, my goodness, man. Oh, but it, you know, we've talked about it before.

Those things are scary to me. Yeah. Because everybody can picture that type of water cooler. All you have to do is take that the top part off, the jug part. Yeah. Turn it upside down. You could pour anything you want in there. You could.

That's a, that's a scary thing. Yeah. And I think that most places have kind of gone away from those. They have. You know, individual. bottles, sealed. Most places make you pay for your own water now. They might have a water fountain, but...

Most of them have the water fountain with a little bottle filler. Yes. You can press up and fill your... Those are big now. Yeah. Watching this unfold was Sandra, Diane Harry, another transamerica worker. Diane didn't drink from the water cooler, but she did smell a notable odor coming from the water. She told investigators that the water smelled just like a bad bottle of scotch.

She drank from on Friday, March 21st, which caused her to become sick over the weekend. She fainted, but managed to get herself into bed to rest and recover. Man, you got water smelling like a bad bottle of scotch. Well, there's something going on. Yeah. So investigators soon began looking into Diane's husband, a guy. guy named Lewis Allen Harry Jr. Diane and Lewis lived in Maryvale, Arizona. Diane met him at a volleyball match in 1981. She noticed that he was quiet and athletic. He played basketball

and worked as a referee in local church leagues. The two dated for about six months before they moved in together, and then six months after that they got married. Since 1984, Lewis had worked as an athletic equipment manager at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix. Ed Cottrell, a women's basketball coach, said, Lewis was a good employee. He was a good worker, kind of an athletic nut like myself. All right. You were kind of athletic nut. Yeah, back in my younger days. Yeah, now you're just a nut. Exactly. And very unathletic. Yeah. Cottrell recalled meeting Diane once when she picked Lewis up after work. But other than that, Lewis didn't share much about his personal life. And you know, it's funny.

We talk about coworkers quite a bit. Really, you know, people kind of run the gamut. You have people who, you know, don't talk about their personal lives all that much. And then you have people who won't stop talking about their personal lives, sharing way more information than anyone should share. Yeah. And probably their family would be mortified if they knew all the things that this person was telling you. Absolutely they would. But I guess that's what makes life interesting, right?

If everybody was exactly the same, how less interesting would life be? It'd be pretty uninteresting. I mean, think like the, what was it, the Stafford wife or Steppard wife? Yeah, the second one, definitely. Yeah. Did you have something to go along with that? Yeah, it would be really boring. Oh, okay.

I didn't know if you were just going to stop right there. A woman identified as Mrs. Tompkins. The couple's next door neighbor had known them since they moved in two or three years earlier. She told the Arizona Republic that Lewis had been a very good neighbor and a friend. And she didn't know of any domestic problems in the household. Neighbor Darlene Simmons agreed that the couple was nice and quiet. But how many times have we heard that, right? Whether it's a serial killer or, you know, some other type of murder situation.

Yeah. When neighbors are asked, a lot of times they have nothing but glowing things to say about some of these individuals. Now, not always. Sometimes they're creepy or whatever. But a lot of times they're not. And I think there's a reason for that, especially in the case of serial killers, they're trying to blend in. Right. Probably going out of their way to be the good neighbor.

Yeah, they don't want to stand out in a bad way. Investigators learned that Lewis had a criminal record. In 1975, he was convicted of robbery in Pima County. He also had a record of forgery and assault with a deadly weapon against a federal agent. Oh, that's not going to bode well. No, that's a pretty serious crime. In June 177, he was sentenced to seven years in federal prison on each of two counts of assaulting federal DEA agents. So what happened was these DEA agents were posing undercover as drug bars.

Lewis and an accomplice were going to sell one pound of heroin. Instead, they attempted to rob the agents and were arrested. So first of all, don't sell heroin. No. Secondly, don't try to sell heroin to undercover federal agents. And then thirdly, don't try to try to. to rob the undercover federal agents that you're supposed to be selling heroin to. I'm guessing they thought they were invincible.

Well, I'm guessing they obviously didn't know these were federal agents and thought they were going to get away with some money or drugs or both. Lewis completed his probation on March 4, 1985. Based on the March 21st incident, authorities determined that Diane Harry was the the intended victim of the office water poisoning. Investigators tested the water and determined it was laced with cyanide. Police also found a powdery substance in the office's empty coffee pot. And on coffee cups left there over the weekend, this too was identified as Sina.

I mean, sounds like the individual wanted to make sure everything was covered. But here's the thing, right? if you are trying to kill your wife, as it appears, right, that's what this guy was doing. I get it. You're trying to make it look like it wasn't you. Maybe it happened at work. But not only are you taking the chance that your wife is going to die, which is, I guess, maybe what you wanted to happen.

Yeah. But how do you know that your wife is going to be drinking the water or drinking the coffee? and how many other people could you potentially kill? Yeah, I mean, if someone gets water, other people get coffee, and from the coffee pot, somebody else gets, makes a cup of tea, one of the cups that were laced, I mean, you could have multiple people dying. Well, it does kind of remind me very much of the Tylenol poisoning. Yeah.

Right? You're trying to cover up something, which is what, they believe was happening, but you're also putting a bunch of other people at risk. Yeah. You're willing to kill other people to kill the one person you want to be dead. Yes. So on March 25, 1986, Lewis was brought in for questioning and was booked into jail that evening for attempted murder.

He did not admit any involvement in the poisoning. Sadly, Julie Williams died at the hospital on March 26, 19. 86 and her autopsy confirmed that she died of cyanide poisoning. And man, I just can't help but think, you know, what a scary situation this is. I've talked about it before, right? Being served food. Yeah. That could be a scary situation. You have no idea what's in that food. No. If you didn't make it. We trust people alive. We do. Like over the top. I mean, especially today, right? You trust a restaurant. It's making it. You got to trust. the delivery guy bringing it, right?

If you're ordering it, yeah. Yeah, that they don't pull over and sprinkle something in there. And then, like, for me, I have to trust you that once it gets here, you're not doing something with it to take me out. So there's multiple. It's always weird when I put the food on the plate and hand it to you. It freaks me out a little bit, for sure, yeah, yeah. I do that on purpose.

Especially when mine looks a different shade than everybody else's. I'm like, but then I just don't question it. But then, you know, I think of this woman, Julie Williams. I mean, she just went into work to do her job. Right. She didn't hurt anybody. As far as I know, she didn't, you know, have any enemies or anything like that. And nobody was even out to hurt her.

It was just thirsty. And died of cyanide poisoning. Yeah. In a brief interview from jail on March 26th, Lewis said he didn't know Julie had died. He declined to comment further. So he's not really talking at all. Yeah. Which is probably a good thing.

It's not in his best interest. On March 28, 1986, prosecutors upgraded the attempted murder charge to first-degree murder and added four more counts of attempted murder. Well, yeah. I mean, if someone else would have picked up a cup, they could have potentially died too. That's an attempt to murder.

Yeah, one count was for the March 21st poisoning of his wife, Diane. The other three attempted murder accounts involved the two co-workers who drank the poison water but spit it out and then the second attempt on Diane's life. So, you know, go back to the bottle of scotch, right, that smelled bad. Obviously, they connected the two. Yeah. He tried to kill her by tainting this bottle of scotch with sign up. Detective Michael Palmer told the Arizona Republic. It's obvious he was attempting to kill his wife, not the other people in the office.

Investigators declined to discuss where Lewis got the cyanide from at that time. A South Mountain Community College spokeswoman said sodium cyanide was not kept on campus. Yeah, I would think it'd be difficult to get your hands on cyanide. And I don't know back then how difficult it would have been then. But today, I would think it would be difficult. I would think it'd be a lot harder in 2006. than it was in, you know, 1985,

1986, for sure. I'm also assuming that the Tylenol poisonings would have had something to do with regulation, right? We always put something in place after something bad happened. True. But I think on an episode, you know, within the last couple of months,

we were talking about some drug. And we must have said that it's probably pretty hard to get. And I had a bunch of people write in, Gibbs, drug was. And they said, no, it's used for this, this and this is pretty easy to get. Oh, okay. But it's just something you and I would have never experienced or we have no knowledge of, but other people do. And they're quick to write in, which I love. It's not like I feel like I'm being corrected. I just love to get the information. You could buy a bunch of apples and collect

the seeds and harvest like, what do you need? Like 10,000 apple seeds and then you can make cyanide out of that. Oh, I was not aware of that. I think that's how it works. Are you telling people how to make cyanide? Because I don't think you should be doing it. That's a lot of apples. How do you like those apples? Yeah. I could be wrong, but I think you can do it that way. On April 8, 1986, Lewis was indicted on all charges.

A pretrial hearing in June was delayed by confusion over the type of cyanide used in the poisoning. Lewis's defense attorney, Richard Steiner, announced that he might attempt to have the case returned to the grand jury because the Tempey police failed to inform the grand jury that the type of cyanide that apparently caused Julie Williams's death was different from the type of cyanide found on items taken from Lewis's home. So again, how many different types of cyanide

does this guy have? It sounds like he's got a few. Deputy County Attorney Cleve Lynch said during the hearing that Steiner makes some assumptions based on police reports about evidence that had not yet been examined by the Arizona Department of Public Safety Lab technicians. So maybe there was a little bit of confusion over whether there was different types of cyanide. Before the hearing, a detective prepared a supplemental memo explaining that he was told by a criminalists, that the cyanide found in Lewis's home was potassium cyanide and not sodium cyanide, as he told the detective on March 25th. The defense received this memo minutes before the hearing. So it sounds like maybe that's where the confusion stemmed from. The judge granted the defense's

request for a one-week delay so that they could discuss the differences in the two types of cyanide with a chemist from ASU. Well, probably need to understand that. It might be a big part of the cake. Yeah. Right. Later reporting by the Arizona Republic clears up the confusion. In a sworn affidavit,

Detective Michael Palmer wrote that based on a preliminary test, done by an analyst for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Tempe police initially reported that Julie was poisoned with sodium, cyanide. However, the analysts conducted further tests before informing the grand jury that Julie actually died from potassium cyanide. Investigator seized two vials that contained residue of potassium cyanide from Lewis's home. So this was a big deal because if you had two different types, well, it seems like the jury could make a much bigger deal out of that. Right. You know, what you found in my.

client's home was potassium cyanide. But what killed Julie Williams was sodium cyanide. So, you know, how are you making the connection? But thankfully, the lab corrected it with the final results to say it was potassium. In July, the judge denied the defense's motion to send the case back to the grand jury. In September 1986, the Arizona Republic interviewed diet. She had refused to, to talk to reporters, but changed her mind because she said it may not come out right in court. I wanted to say what I know. Diane insisted, I do not believe Lewis tried to kill me. I have never believed it. Wow. Well, and let's face it, Gibbs, we've talked about it before. How hard would it be

to believe that your significant other was trying to kill you? You wouldn't want to believe it. No, I think for most people, they'd have a very hard time coming to that conclusion. Now, just because I get sick, every time I eat my wife's cooking, that doesn't mean that she's trying to poison me. That's just bad cooking. Yeah. Yeah. And she'd be the first one to tell you. Yeah.

She hates to cook, barely tries, doesn't follow directions. She can't even do the home chef, which gives you step by step instructions. with all the necessary ingredients. Yeah, she just does her own thing. And we're not talking bad about it about my wife. If she was on this podcast right now, she would literally say the same thing. She would.

She hates to cook. She does not want to cook, but I would still have a hard time ever believing my wife was purposefully trying to poison me. Yeah. Diane recalled that on the morning of March 24th, she recognized the almond-like smell coming from her office water cooler and immediately called her husband.

I told him, it's strange. It's the same smell as the bottle of scotch at our house. Diane said that both she and Lewis told a Tempe detective about their experience the previous Friday with the scotch. Diane asked the Republic, if Lewis was trying to hide something, why would he be talking about the scotch? It don't make sense. Diane recalled that the Friday before the office incident, she arrived home before her husband

and fixed herself a drink. She thought something was off. The scotch didn't smell right and it was bitter. When Lewis came home from work a few minutes later, she asked him to try it and he did. He spit it out and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Diane went outside to get some air. When she came back inside, she passed out. At the time, she thought it was just from working too hard. She threw the scotch out the following day. Lewis retrieved it, and Lewis was the one, who later brought the scotch to a detective. Okay. Now it makes you think maybe Lewis didn't have anything to do with this. Well, it is very strange, right? If he's trying to poison his wife by lacing the scotch with cyanide, why in the world,

would he take it to a detective and say, hey, I think something strange is going on here. Then you have to think, okay, then if it's not Lewis, then who wants to kill Diane? Because Diane seems to be the constant in both of those. Or, yeah, the common denominator. But you can kind of understand why she wouldn't think that Lewis was trying to kill her. Diane also told the Republic that she and Lewis had been receiving threatening maim and thought someone was possibly trying to kill them, they turned over some of those letters to the police. The week before Lewis was arrested, he took Diane out and taught her how to shoot a gun

because of the threatening letters. Diane said that after her husband was arrested, detectives found cigar tubes in the storage room of their home that contained cyanide. However, she noted that storage area is not locked. Anyone could have put it there. So Diane, said she believed her husband was a scapego because police wanted to solve the murder. Now, the question I would have is, I get it, it's not locked, technically anyone could gain access to it, but why in the world would anybody put, you know, some vials of cyanide in your storage room? Right. Maybe to hide them, to come back later and get them, I guess. That's possible. Unless they were hoping that she would have died from what,

happened at the office and at the same time they could set up the husband to take the fall. Yeah. That's a great, you know, observation as well. But she said they had a good marriage, saying we had no problems in our marriage whatsoever. If we were angry with each other, we wouldn't say anything. We don't holler or shout. You wait till the anger inside you is over. Then we sit and talk about it.

Okay. Seems like a pretty healthy way to do it. It's not my style, but it's, you know, pretty healthy way to do it. It's not Christina style either. Christina and I are very like, actually. Diane recalled that the police asked if either she or Lewis were unfaithful. She said no. He asked about life insurance and whether Lewis was angry that she made more money than him.

Diane insisted there was no reason. Her husband would have wanted to kill her. You know, to be honest with it. you unless there's a big life insurance policy, why would you want to kill your spouse when they're the ones making more money than you? Good point. Because right now we don't have the motive, right? She noted that the week before the poisoning, she and Lewis spent $3,000 remodeling their

bathrooms. Diane questioned, why would someone who's going to kill his wife remodel the bathrooms? I don't know about that. I mean. Maybe he just wanted to have a nice bathroom. That's right. Hey, when you're gone here soon, I want to have a nice bathroom. That one to me is not as puzzling as actually taking the bottle of scotch to a detective if, in fact, you're the one who put cyanide in the bottle of scotch.

Yeah, because you're not really helping your case. No, you're just bringing it to light when technically you don't have to. You could just throw it out, right? And never speak of it to anyone. like it never existed. Opening arguments in Lewis's murder trial began on November 20th, 1986. The jury heard that Lewis tried to kill his wife twice by poisoning her, but ended up causing the death of one of her coworkers.

Prosecutor Cleve Lynch also attacked the claims that Lewis and Diane were being threatened. Lynch noted that contents of two of the letters were written on legal pads from Lewis's office and in his handwriting. Okay. They determined the legal pads were from his office. It would be a little strange to me that Diane wouldn't recognize the handwriting as Lewis's. Yeah.

I mean, I would think most spouses would recognize, you know, their significant others handwriting, especially if they've been together for a while. You can tell your wife's handwriting pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. The prosecution described how on March 21st, Diane became sick after drinking a small amount of scotch that was laced with cyanide. She couldn't catch her breath, which is a symptom of cyanide poisoning.

According to the prosecution, Lewis was having an affair with a woman he met in January and received four vaguely threatening letters from the woman's ex-boyfriend. after Julie Williams was poisoned, Lewis produced two more letters. But these were the ones that were written on yellow legal pads from his office and were written in his handwriting. So fake letters. Yeah, maybe it sounds like there was some real threatening letters that might have come from, you know, this woman's ex-boyfriend. But then he manufactured two more. And maybe that's why Diane didn't recognize the handwriting because the first four were not in his handwriting. But just the fact that we have an affair or the prosecution is alleging an affair, you know, if it's true, well, at least now we do have motive, right?

An affair is a motive for murder. It is. You went out of the marriage. You want to be with someone else. What are you willing to do to make that happen? Investors discovered there was a. $75,000 life insurance policy on Diane, a $32,000 transamerica policy on Diane, and Diane had $5,000 worth of stock in the company. Lewis was the beneficiary of all three. There's more motive.

More motive. I mean, yeah, you could say it's $1,000, but it's also like the mid-1980s. Yeah, it's a good chunk of change. So it was more money back. then, obviously. Lewis's defense attorney Richard Steiner contended that his client was the target of serious threats by a man who was angry because Lewis helped that man's ex-girlfriend get a court order against him. The defense also argued that numerous people, including tenants of the 22 offices in the building that housed Transamerica, the cleaning crew, and construction workers had access to the building. I get it. It's a good argument. to make, right? If you're the defense, hey, this is a big building. There's a lot of people in and out.

A lot of people could have had access to that water cooler. Prosecutors noted that computer printouts indicated Diane's keycard was used to get into the building at 1018 a.m. on Saturday, March 22nd, two days before the murder, investigators believe Lewis poisoned the water cooler at that time. So I'm assuming they checked into everything. Diane said, no, I wasn't at the office on Saturday, right? They would have had to have done all of that work. Yeah. And so therefore, they believe he took her key card, went to the office, got in, poisoned

the water cooler. But according to the defense, Lewis was mowing a neighbor's lawn on that Saturday morning. He also made a phone call in West Phoenix, a short time before the building was accessed in Tempe. So they're casting some doubt, and they're doing a fairly good job of it. Yes, they are. With what they have to work with, Diane Harry testified that she still believed in her husband's innocence.

She confirmed that they started receiving threatening letters in January or February of 1986. The first letter was addressed to her in her maiden name and said that if she didn't tell her husband to leave the man's girlfriend alone, he, was going to do something to him. When the letters continued, Lewis purchased a gun for her to carry. She didn't believe. Lewis put the cyanide in her water.

She asked him after his arrest if he had been to her office the Saturday before, but she couldn't remember his answer. That's strange. It's a little strange. I mean, it's a yes or no answer, right? And it seems like it would be something you'd remember. It'd be a big deal. Yeah.

Dan completed her testimony by. telling the court that a life insurance policy had lapsed before the poisoning and she had a good relationship with her husband. She did admit that he didn't tell her he was having an affair or that he had gotten the woman pregnant. And why would he? Yeah, no reason for most men who are having an affair to confess that to their wife. It's not going to go over well. But I just want to talk about, you know, what does it do in the grand scheme of a trial when the defendant's wife, who the prosecution says was the target, is getting on the stand and saying that she believes he's innocent.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely going to hurt their case. And by this time, right, she knew about the fair. She knew that he had gotten this woman pregnant. she obviously wasn't upset about it to the point where she would get on the stand and try to blast him. Now, I'm sure she was upset about it. Don't get me wrong, but not to that point where it made her believe that he would have tried to kill her. But at the end of the day, I mean, the prosecutor, they're just trying to show that he killed. Julie William.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's on trial for that murder. Now, they're also trying to show that he tried to kill Diane and a number of other people. Robert Allen Tellenick, a laboratory technician at South Mountain Community College, testified that Lewis asked him about Sion. Three weeks before the March 21st murder attempts. Not good.

Not good for Lewis. No. right? Because, all right, some of this stuff you can kind of take as circumstantial. Maybe you can look at it that it would, it could go this way or the other way. But when someone testifies that you're asking them about cyanide three weeks before there's a cyanide poisoning that you're linked to, okay, I would think that's going to hit the jury or the judge pretty hard. It should. And it should register with his wife somewhat, too. Like, wait a minute.

You asked somebody about this three weeks? Oh, and I'm sure she's finding that out as the trial is happening. Yeah. As it's being testified to. Lewis told this guy that a friend was researching a report on the recent Tylenol murders. In that conversation and another conversation later that week, he pointed out to Lewis that cyanide was readily available and told him where it could be purchased locally. Lewis also wanted to know how much cyanide was needed to kill someone.

It's a very detailed question. And a damning one. Yeah. Right. I get it. Are there other uses for cyanide? Yeah, sure. Right?

That's why it was available to purchase. But he didn't say, how much do I need to get rid of? some pest problem or, you know, something like that. If he actually said or came out and said, how much cyanide is needed to kill someone? All right? You're really not masking your intentions a whole lot there. I mean, you can say, I was just curious. Just wanted to know.

But I think most people would say that you want to know because you wanted to do what you did. Yeah, because why do you need to know that? If you're not planning on killing someone with cyanide, is that just a curiosity? And it just happens to come like three weeks before someone is killed by cyanide. Now, there are coincidences and there are non-coincidences, I guess. I was trying to think of the other word. You just wanted to say quinticentances. I wanted you to say it because I know it's a word that you do struggle with sometimes.

So even though I said, right, his defense. is doing an admirable job of trying to, you know, cast some reasonable doubt, there's still a lot that is really making this guy look guilty. A woman who worked at a chemical company testified that she sold about a pound of potassium cyanide to someone on March 7th, but she didn't identify Lewis as the customer. She wasn't permitted to do so because in an earlier court hearing, she identified someone else as the customer. Okay. Kind of mysterious.

Yeah, but also maybe an error in his favor. Yeah. Right. Did she make an honest mistake? Yeah, probably. But because of that, it was ruled that she couldn't then later say, no, it was him who bought the potassium cyanide.

She could only say that she sold the pound of it. Right. To someone. And I think as a juror, I don't know what you make of that. It's hard to do anything with it, really. Yeah, now you could infer that that's where you got it from, but it would be a little bit of a stretch, I think. A handwriting expert testified that the signature on a receipt for the purchase of a pound of cyanide on March 7th was in Lewis's handwriting. Catalogs were also found in Lewis's office from the company where the cyanide was purchased.

So now when you add that, okay, makes it a little easier, right? It's his handwriting, his signature on the receipt for the cyanide. It must have been him. But could someone forge his signature, his handwriting? Yeah, possibly. But you have a handwriting expert. Yeah. So you have to take their testimony and weigh it like you would any testimony, right?

How credible do you believe it is? Then the jury heard from a woman named Verbrae Ann Wooten, who testified that her former boyfriend, Roy Fitzpatrick, wrote threatening letters to Lewis and also threatened to poison him. She dated Fitzpatrick for about three weeks and tried to break things off with him, but he began harassing and threatening her. The harassment continued for five years, and Lewis helped her get an injunction, against Fitzpatrick, but the harassment continued. According to Wooten, he would tell me what he did to women while he was in Vietnam and said,

that's what he would do to me if I ever dated someone else. She testified, he threatened to kill me, to kill Harry, and to tell Harry's wife about the affair. He also threatened to poison the SOB or set Harry on fire. Okay, a little drastic. Yeah. But I want to go back to dated for three weeks. Yeah. And then he harassed her for five years.

That's extreme, man. Wow. I mean, you shouldn't be harassing anyone, right? Never. Never. But how does it come from a three-week relationship? Definitely couldn't let go, could he? No.

And there's probably women listeners right now saying, you know what? You'd be surprised how often that happens. how attached a man can get and not be able to let go. And I get it. And I'm sure it can happen the other way around as well. Absolutely. Yeah. You can flip it either way.

It's hard for me to understand just because I've never been through something like that. Never been stalked. No. No, no one's ever thought enough about me, I guess, to stalk me after. Actually, I was always the dump B. I was never the dumper. Oh, you were the dumpy? Yeah.

I got dumped a lot, to be honest with you. Did you really? Yeah, back in the day. Especially in high school. I can see why. Yeah. No, I can't. Actually, you look like one of those high school models.

Oh, when I was in high school? Yeah. So I'm surprised you got dumped. I think it was too nice. Is that what it was? Yeah, because I specifically remember getting dumped a lot, like right after a big holiday where a gift was involved. Oh. So they didn't like your gift?

Oh, the gift was always nice. They just wanted the gift. Maybe it was too much. Maybe they thought it was coming on too strong. I don't know. Hey, we just been out, we've been going out for like a week and you're like, I've got you this. Diamond ring. No, it wasn't anything like that.

But yeah, I don't remember actually breaking up with a lot of people. I do remember getting broken up with them. Yeah. Probably remember each one of their, each individual's name. It's probably on a list somewhere. It wasn't like we're talking a hundred. It wasn't that many. You weren't a player?

No, I did also get married at the age of 22. That's true. Yeah. Wooten said she met Lewis on January 20th. They began a relationship. He told her that he and his wife were going through a divorce. She became pregnant, but later miscarried. The old, we're going through a divorce.

It's okay that we're sleeping together. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think his wife knew anything about that part. I don't think so either. Or the affair. Fitzpatrick followed Lewis from Wooten's apartment one night. He found out where he lived.

He also told Wooten that he knew Lewis's wife worked for Trans America. In his testimony, Roy Fitzpatrick denied threatening Lewis or Verbray Wooten and said only that he and Wooten had arguments. He did read the threatening letters. he admitted to sending Lewis and Diane. He admitted to writing four of the letters, but denied writing to others, including one that threatened to take something away from Lewis.

So this is a very interesting dynamic, right? This guy, Roy Fitzpatrick, because I think if you're the defense attorney, you could make a strong argument that, you know, wasn't Lewis who did this. It was Roy Fitzpatrick. Yeah. He knew where Lewis's wife worked.

He was trying to get back at Lewis. And he's the one who poisoned the water. And maybe he's the one who poisoned the scotch. But also he seemed to be pretty honest on the stand, right? He admitted to writing the four threatening letters. Yeah. But denied writing the other two, which handwriting expert said Lewis wrote on legal pads that came from his office.

And I think the. other argument that could be made as far as as Roy Fitzpatrick is concerned is did Lewis use him, right? Did he take the bottle of scotch to the detective because he had these threatening letters and he could have said, hey, someone is trying to kill us, someone is trying to poison us. And then he turns around and poisons the water supply, hoping that it would be blamed on Roy Fitzpatrick. Yeah, I mean, that could have been the plan. Lewis got on the stand and said,

he didn't remember ever being at the warehouse where police said the cyanide was purchased. Again, I think it's a yes or no answer. I just don't remember it. I mean, either you were or you weren't. I don't remember signing that receipt that a handwriting expert said was my signature. Yeah.

I just don't remember it, Gibby. Now, I'm a very forgetful person. I will be the first one to admit that. I think, though, if I were to make a purchase like cyanide, that would probably stick with me. I don't think you're not going to recall that. No. Now, it's not in his best interest to remember it, though. No, of course not.

He also provided an alibi and explanations for the prosecution's circumstantial evidence, such as his fingerprints on coffee cups in the office, the letters in his handwriting, and his conversation with a coworker about poison. He denied planning the office poisoning or trying to implicate Roy Fitzpatrick. He claimed his prints got on the coffee cups when he visited his wife at the office. So it's a big deal, right? He has to try to provide explanations for all this evidence, even the circumstantial evidence, against him. Yeah, I mean, I get it. You know, you go to your wife's office, you open up the cupboard,

and you touch every coffee cup in there just because, you know, I feel like doing that right now. Maybe I don't like how they're in here. I moved them around. I placed them in there better. My fingerprints got on it. That's how it happened. The jury began deliberating on December 16th in 1986. On the 17th, Lewis Allen, Harry Jr., was found guilty of first-degree murder. and four counts of attempted murder. Two members of the jury told the Arizona Republic that the security card and the signature on the receipt for Sion.

We're among the most convincing evidence. And I get that. I mean, those are some of the stronger pieces, right? There's a lot of circumstantial evidence in this case. So I could see why maybe the jury would gravitate towards these two things. Yeah. You know, if she, Diane, is saying, well, I didn't go to the office on Saturday, but her card was used.

Well, who else in the household would have access to that card? Is it possible that somebody came in and stole it? Yeah, I guess technically, right? And as far as anything is possible, but it's more likely that her husband, who could have easily taken it out of her purse or wherever it was, used it. And then, you know, to me, the signature on this receipt for cyanide is such a big one. Because he didn't say, yeah, I bought the cyanide, but I planned to use it for X. Or I did use it for X.

He said, I don't remember being at the warehouse buying this cyanide. Which is so strange, because you would know if you were or not, especially a pound of cyanide. Come on. Just now at this point, I just have the balls and say. hey, I didn't want to be married to her anymore. I didn't, I didn't want to go to a divorce either. I just wanted her out of the picture so I could be with this other woman that I thought was having my baby.

But nobody does that. No. I'm afraid to. Some people do. Most people don't, right? They fight to the bitter end because they cling to that chance that they're going to get off, right? That a jury is going to acquit them. You don't want to give up.

No. Juror Dale Griffin said defense attorney. attorney Richard Steiner made a mistake when he told Lewis to look at the jurors and tell them he was innocent. Griffin said, not one of us felt he really looked us straight in the eye. And he had this funny look in his eye when he said it. Well, I think it's a terrible thing to ask a client to do because you can only look one person in the eye at a time. What are you going to go? I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. To each one of?

Yeah, it's just awkward. And, you know, even if you really didn't do it, you might not have the way of saying it that people would believe you. So why even put the chance out there? You mean, like you're not a convincing person or something like that. Yeah, I get it. Julie's daughter, Nancy Brady, said that at first she thought Lewis was innocent. But as the evidence mounted, she changed her mind. And I think it would be hard for that not to happen.

Yeah. Right. I do think in a lot of situations, family members at first, I mean, they start out kind of taking the side of their loved one because who wants to believe that, you know, a family member would commit this type of, you know, heinous act. But then as all the evidence starts to roll out in the trial, at some point do you just say, oh my gosh, uh, I even think he did it. Yeah. You know, and so I think that can happen with people on February 12th, 1987, Lewis was sentenced to life in prison. The judge said that putting

poison into the water cooler showed complete stupidity and senselessness. He described Lewis as sociopathic. It's kind of hard to argue with any of that. Yeah. It's stupid. It's sense. It's kind of like that guy that put the bleach in the water to try to clean it out. Yeah, I mean, I really am shocked that you revealed that on the podcast. But we have talked about it, right? I think we've all done things in the past that, you know, at the time, you didn't think was that big a deal. You look back on it with an older perspective and you're like, what in the hell was I thinking?

Yeah. Why didn't I do that? I could have killed somebody. I'm also saying, hey, the guy that got his cup full of that, maybe smell what you drink before you actually put it in your mind. Well, and I did want to talk about that. I think maybe you've seen me do it. I do smell my food.

You do. And a lot of people have pointed it out, people that eat with me, it can look a little strange, but it's not like a true crime thing. It's not like, I don't know why. It's almost like, I don't think it's a nervous tick. it's something I've done since I was a kid. I always smell my food before I put it in my mouth. You also do that thing that Robert from everybody who loves Raymond does. Yeah, put it on my chin. Yeah, you touch your chin. Then I smell it and then I put it in my mouth. So Lewis received consecutive

terms of 21, 28, 28, and 28 years for attempted murder and a life sentence for murder. He's not going anywhere. He would be required. to serve two-thirds of each sentence for attempted murder and 25 years for murder, meaning he would have to serve 95 total years in prison. Yeah. So you're right. He's not going anywhere. He'll die in prison.

And I don't think he should go anywhere. If you're willing to do something like this, first of all, kill your wife, but then also take the chance of a number of other people. people dying. And one person did die, you don't deserve to walk with the rest of us. He does not. At a pre-sentencing hearing, Lewis asked the judge to spare the death penalty and let him work on his case so that he might be vindicated someday.

The judge imposed the maximum sentences and made them concurrent because of aggravating factors. He said twice, the defendant tried to poison his loyal wife. When he poisoned the water, he had to know that anyone who drank it could or would die. The cold calculated scheme to poison his wife shows a heinous state of mind. So that's why, right, he has to do 95 years in prison because they were made concurrent. And I think, man, his wife was so dedicated to him. Like, she didn't want to believe that he did this.

And I don't know what she feels today if she's still alive. There wasn't a lot of information about either him or her, right, as time went on, because obviously this happened almost 40 years ago. But as we wrap this one up, you know, in his attempts to kill his wife, Lewis poisoned an innocent woman. And like we said, right, his wife Diane defended him until the very end and even helped pay for his defense attorney. Wow.

But ultimately, the jury believed the prosecution's evidence, which showed clear planning and intention and a disregard of the lives of not only his wife, but everyone who worked in the office that day. Yeah. Again, willing to kill her and others so he could be with somebody else that probably didn't want to be with him the way that he thought. Well, and it also had to be about money as well. Right. we mentioned the life insurance policies, but here's a guy whose wife was making quite a bit more than he was. Yeah.

So I think this is a situation where he could have left the marriage. He could have filed for divorce and maybe not have had to pay her a bunch of money in alimony or something like that because she made a lot more money than he did. Yeah, it might have worked out just fine for him. But he didn't want that. He wanted the life insurance money. Yeah. and he wanted to be able to be with someone else.

And that is often the case. It is. Right? It's lust, its greed, kind of all mixed together. Don't take the shortcut, man.

No. It may be painful. It might not be the easiest thing in the world, but if you don't want to be with someone, just tell them you don't want to be with them. Yeah. And, you know,

start life new and go that route. Don't hurt someone. because you think it's going to be easier. And you're going to be better off. You're going to get money and this and that. No, what you're going to do is spend the rest of your life in jail. That's right.

And in the case of Lewis, uh, kill an innocent woman. Yeah. And his wife was innocent too. If she had died, she would have been innocent as well. But this, this woman he killed was completely innocent. and she had nothing to do with any of them.

No, she wasn't even involved. She just happened to work at the same place as White did. And clearly he didn't care. No, no, he didn't care. But that's it for our episode on Julie Williams. We've got a voicemail Gibbs. You want to check that out? Yes, hear it.

Hey, guys, it's Claire from Tasmania, Australia. I've been listening to you guys since probably when the Menendez brothers were a bit, you know, in the news and stuff, so I found your podcast, and then I have literally been here ever since. I'm up to date on the newer stuff, but the older stuff I'm now going back through, so it's currently 6.30 a.m. and I listen to you guys while I have a coffee and get ready for work. I had just the Matthew Breck episode, and you were talking about the fanny packs that we call bum bags here in Australia, talking about them being glittered and gibby.

said that he could wear them so he could put his singles in it when they're up on the stage. And I trope down my coffee. It was hilarious. I quite often get the giggles about you too. You have your banter and that's what I absolutely love about the podcast. It's something so different. It makes it so easy to listen to. And my partner often says, why are you laughing?

It's, you know, start serial killers and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but these two dudes, they are just the funniest, as ever. I am Team Ghibi, sorry, Peggy, but I just relate to give you so much, not on the men's level, but on the absolute words get mowed up and you just make everyone giggle, and that's why I relate to give you so much. So I appreciate what you guys do, love you guys so much. Hopefully I hear my voicemail soon, and I probably will sound very of you. So keep your head on the school dudes and keep your own time checking absolutely love you both. Bye.

All right. Great voicemail all the way from Tasmania. Yeah. You know what's down there? Were you trying to do an accent right there? No, Mike. You know what's down there, mate? Because you, yeah, y'all. I don't know what that was. What's down there? They got those devils. Tasmanian devil? Yeah. Okay. That that accent's morphing in and out.

Raise lights. Raise the blades. What did that guy say? don't give me to say razor blades or raise the lights rise of lights yeah oh rise of lights yeah right it's rise up lights rise up lights yeah it sounds like razor blades oh my goodness man you crack me up too so i'm team gibby for sure i'm team her man yeah yeah yeah absolutely we uh we appreciate the voicemail pretty much and the kudos love it all right buddy that is it for another episode of true crime all the time so from Mike and Gibby.

Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.