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  • The Silver Chalice Left by the Rectory: Poison in Communion

    The Silver Chalice Left by the Rectory: Poison in Communion
    2026/10/26
    The Silver Chalice Left by the Rectory: Poison in Communion

    A silver communion chalice was found upright in gravel outside St. Hedwig's rectory at 5:50 a.m., immaculate and smelling faintly chemical - and a woman named Lori Vaughn had died in ICU one hundred minutes earlier from acute liver failure with no history of disease. Investigators later found inorganic arsenic in both the chalice residue and in Lori's tissue and hair, raising a single urgent question: was this a one-time act or a pattern of poisoning?

    In this episode, we trace the timeline from Lori Vaughn's daily routines and duties at St. Hedwig's through the discovery of financial discrepancies she reported to Father Russell Tillman, to her hospitalization and the forensic results that linked the chalice to her death - how many doses of arsenic were involved, and who knew what?

    Person: Lori Vaughn
    Date of death: March 14
    Location: Grantley Regional Hospital ICU
    Event: Silver communion chalice found beside rectory door
    Toxicology result: Inorganic arsenic in chalice residue and in tissue

    - Lori Vaughn was twenty-six years old and worked four years as a teller at Aldenmoor Savings and Loan.
    - She served as a Eucharistic minister at St. Hedwig's for two years and walked to church from her Vetch Street apartment.
    - Lori reported small redirected amounts in the parish building fund records to Father Russell Tillman in late February.
    - Lori was admitted to Grantley Regional in acute liver failure on March 13 and died at 4:17 a.m, on March 14.
    - On March 14 at 5:50 a.m., fifteen-year-old Kelly Keller found an immaculate silver chalice in gravel beside the rectory; it smelled faintly chemical and later tested positive for inorganic arsenic.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • Cedar Paddle, Five Frozen Glasses: The Thallium Trail to Murder

    Cedar Paddle, Five Frozen Glasses: The Thallium Trail to Murder
    2026/10/25
    Cedar Paddle, Five Frozen Glasses: The Thallium Trail to Murder

    A county road grader found a cedar board with five glasses of perfectly level, frozen wine on February 11 - each glass later tested positive for thallium sulfate, a rodent poison and a quiet, cumulative killer. How did contaminated wine glasses on a rural road lead investigators from an apparent natural death to a murder trial over a woman named Sherry Stroud?

    In this episode, we follow the trail from a death ruled natural to toxicology results that changed everything, laying out the sequence of symptoms, tests, and discoveries that linked three vineyard owners to thallium exposure - and the question of who had access and motive remains central.

    Person: Dawn Edwards
    Date: February 8 (death), February 11 (paddle found)
    Location: Route Nine near Packer Road; Ridgecrest Cellars four miles east of Millard
    Cause: Thallium exposure identified by heavy metals panel after initial autopsy listed cardiac arrhythmia secondary to autonomic neuropathy
    Case: Exhibit Three - cedar paddle with five glasses testing positive for thallium sulfate

    - Temperature at discovery: 14 degrees Fahrenheit since 9 PM the previous evening
    - Number of glasses found on cedar board: 5, each holding frozen wine and later testing positive for thallium sulfate
    - Vineyard acreage: Ridgecrest Cellars sat on 12 acres owned by Dawn Edwards
    - Timeline of symptoms: Dawn’s complaints began in November; she died February 8 and was buried February 14
    - Number of affected vineyard owners with positive thallium results: 3 (Dawn Edwards, Ted Garver, Paula Neff)

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • Warm Tea for a Dead Teacher: Why He Returned to the Nurse's Office

    Warm Tea for a Dead Teacher: Why He Returned to the Nurse's Office
    2026/10/24
    Warm Tea for a Dead Teacher: Why He Returned to the Nurse's Office

    A faintly warm cup of chamomile tea sat in an empty school nurse's office nine days after a beloved third-grade teacher had been buried, and a lab note about elevated urinary arsenic had gone unread - why did someone come back to that room at all? The discovery of that tea and a post-mortem toxicology flag threatens a small town's story of natural causes and opens the possibility of poison and a pattern spanning years.

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from Teresa Sheridan's sudden hospital admission and death to the routine file audit that unearthed the arsenic note, laying out the facts that shifted a closed case into an investigation: who handled her samples, how the death certificate was signed as natural causes, and what one toxicologist's curiosity revealed?

    Person: Teresa Sheridan
    Age: 32
    Location: Dellwood Ridge
    Event: Admission to Linden Valley Hospital on January 5 for acute liver failure; died same day
    Investigator: Toxicologist Marie Whitfield flagged elevated urinary arsenic during a January file audit

    - A ceramic mug with faintly warm chamomile tea was found on a folding table in the school nurse's office on January 14, nine days after Teresa's burial.
    - Teresa had taught third grade at Dellwood Ridge Elementary for seven years and had not missed a choir rehearsal in four years until October when symptoms began.
    - She was admitted to Linden Valley Hospital on January 5 with acute liver failure of undetermined cause and died that same day.
    - A lab technician noted elevated urinary arsenic in the single admission sample; that note remained unread and un-routed for nine days.
    - Toxicologist Marie Whitfield discovered the arsenic flag during a routine State Medical Examiner's Office audit in January, prompting the case to be reopened.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • Left His Brother's Thermos, Took His Life: The Arsenic Inheritance

    Left His Brother's Thermos, Took His Life: The Arsenic Inheritance
    2026/10/23
    Left His Brother's Thermos, Took His Life: The Arsenic Inheritance

    A battered steel thermos marked "G. Snyder" sat in a culvert for thirteen days before testing would link it to arsenic trioxide in coffee grounds and to bone and nail samples from an exhumed body. Two confirmed arsenic-poisoning deaths, a receipt for a two-pound rodenticide with arsenic trioxide dated June 28, 2014, and surveillance showing six Saturday visits by a brother while the victim was away-how did that thermos unlock a chain of deaths and an unanswered fourth case?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from the first report of a found thermos through public health paperwork, exhumations, lab results, and an arrest, asking how routine documents and small clues connected two deaths across years and states and what questions remain about other possible victims.

    Person: Gary Snyder
    Date: October 4, 2014 (death)
    Location: Harmon Greenway, Dellwood, Indiana
    Person: Clifford Collins
    Event: Arrest January 29, 2015

    - The thermos was found December 9, 2014 about twenty meters from the front gate of a house where a man had died two months earlier.
    - Gary Snyder died October 4, 2014 at age fifty-two with cause listed as multi-organ failure; no autopsy was ordered at the time.
    - Glenn Baker detected arsenic trioxide in Snyder’s bone and nail samples within forty-eight hours of exhumation on January 7, 2015.
    - Surveillance showed Clifford Collins entering the back lane behind Harmon Greenway on six Saturdays between July and September 2014, each visit lasting 40-90 minutes while Gary was at Millhaven.
    - A receipt for a two-pound container of rodent control product listing arsenic trioxide as the active ingredient was dated June 28, 2014 and found in Collins’s apartment.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • The Foxglove Stake: How a Gardener Quietly Poisoned a Neighbor

    The Foxglove Stake: How a Gardener Quietly Poisoned a Neighbor
    2026/10/22
    The Foxglove Stake: How a Gardener Quietly Poisoned a Neighbor

    A handmade wooden label that read FOXGLOVE was pressed into a kitchen herb bed beside a woman who had not planted it - and by spring the stake was gone while traces of Digitalis stayed in the soil. A homeowner collapsed face-down among rosemary and thyme; her autopsy cited cardiac arrhythmia, but forensic chemistry later found plant-based cardiac glycosides concentrated where the label had been. Who put foxglove into a kitchen herb bed, and why did the evidence disappear?

    In this episode, we lay out the timeline from the first sighting of the label to the later soil tests and missing stake. You’ll hear how neighbors, a landscaper who became a regular presence, and an initial medical conclusion intersect with a later chemical finding that reframes the death.

    Person: Judith Clark
    Age: 44
    Date: November 14 (found), late August (symptoms began)
    Location: 4 Collier Lane, Stokely, Missouri
    Toxin: Digitalis glycoside (Digitalis purpurea)

    - The wooden stake labeled "FOXGLOVE" was photographed in place beside Judith’s hand on November 14.
    - Judith lost 11 pounds and developed slowed heart rate and yellowed vision starting in late August.
    - The medical examiner’s initial cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia secondary to underlying cardiac disease.
    - Forensic soil testing in March found digitalis glycoside residue concentrated in a six-inch radius around the herb bed’s northeast corner.
    - The foxglove label photographed in November was missing when investigators returned in March.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分
  • He Dosed the Sugar Bowl: How a Caretaker Weaponized Meals

    He Dosed the Sugar Bowl: How a Caretaker Weaponized Meals
    2026/10/21
    He Dosed the Sugar Bowl: How a Caretaker Weaponized Meals

    The smell of metal and a grayish-white crystalline powder in a faded blue-rooster sugar bowl led a parish minister to call 9-1-1 and start an investigation that would uncover a deliberate pattern of poisoning tied to shared meals. Arsenic in hair and bone, fourteen meal trays to one resident before death, and unexplained hospitalizations later pointed to a system rather than a single incident-who was putting poison into the food, and why?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from the October 14, 2009 emergency call to the hospital admission and the subsequent forensic findings, tracing how routine meal service at a six-resident boarding house became the vehicle for harm. What the sugar bowl revealed about Mapleton House and the people who lived and worked there drives the questions we unpack.

    Person: Angela Quinn
    Date: October 14, 2009
    Location: Mapleton House, Kellerton, Indiana
    Cause: arsenic detected in exhumed remains and hair samples
    Staff: cook Chad Powell, employed six years

    - Angela Quinn received eleven meal trays in the six weeks before her hospitalization.
    - The 9-1-1 call reporting the sugar bowl was placed on the morning of October 14, 2009.
    - Angela was admitted on October 14, 2009, never regained consciousness, and died on October 17, 2009.
    - George Ellison received fourteen meal trays in the two months before his death in March 2008; bone and hair showed arsenic consistent with chronic poisoning.
    - Patricia Nance was hospitalized four days in November 2007 with severe gastrointestinal illness, and hair samples showed elevated arsenic levels highest during her residency.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分
  • The Thermos in the Tree: How Aconitine Exposed a Volunteer Killer

    The Thermos in the Tree: How Aconitine Exposed a Volunteer Killer
    2026/10/20
    The Thermos in the Tree: How Aconitine Exposed a Volunteer Killer

    A cold green-and-silver thermos, four feet up in a river birch and dry after an evening rain, carried a name - Gail Sullivan - eleven days after she died and six days after she was cremated. The thermos held aconitine residue, a toxin that mimics late-stage pulmonary lupus and does not appear on standard toxicology unless specifically sought; who placed it in the tree, and why, becomes the central question.

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of discoveries from a neighbor's photograph on the Stanley Simpson Trail to the medical examiner's decision to reopen a closed case. We trace how a volunteer's routine, a lab vial, and one misplaced thermos led investigators to ask whether a natural disease was actually a deliberate poisoning.

    Person: Gail Sullivan
    Age: 54
    Location: Marrow Creek Park (Stanley Simpson Trail) and Crestfield
    Date of discovery: Thermos found six days after cremation; thermos photographed at 6:17 a.m.
    Toxin identified: Aconitine

    - Gail Sullivan collapsed during a volunteer shift on the second Wednesday of September and was pronounced dead with cause listed as acute respiratory failure secondary to lupus-associated pulmonary involvement.
    - Gail had a blood draw two days before she died; those samples were stored in cold storage and became the only remaining biological evidence.
    - The thermos was found wedged in a river birch four feet off the ground and was dry despite the ground being damp from the previous evening's rain.
    - Nursing supervisor Jan Poole confirmed in writing that Gail Sullivan never brought a thermos to her Crestfield Comfort Care shifts and no approval for outside food or drink had been filed.
    - Nine days after the medical examiner requested analysis of the thermos contents, lab results returned positive for aconitine.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • The Lunchbox Notebook: How a River Revealed a Ten-Year Poison Plot

    The Lunchbox Notebook: How a River Revealed a Ten-Year Poison Plot
    2026/10/19
    The Lunchbox Notebook: How a River Revealed a Ten-Year Poison Plot

    Cold water hid a red lunchbox weighted with a river stone, and inside a dry notebook dated back to June 2004 with names, doses and symptoms-was this the paper trail of a decade-long poisoning? The discovery links a 2004 death to a pattern that stretches years; who kept meticulous notes on victims and why did they wait until after a rain to throw the box in the creek?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of discoveries from a fisherman in Sutter Creek to hospital records and a forensic review, outlining what the notebook contains and how it reframes Bruce Mason’s death; could a ledger of dates, quantities and symptoms be the key to reopening a closed case?

    Person: Bruce Mason
    Date: June 2004
    Location: Crane Street apartment above a laundry, Kelton, Missouri
    Status: Deceased (age 22)
    Case: Notebook with 31 pages found in lunchbox in Sutter Creek

    - The lunchbox was found 40 yards from the eastern bank of Sutter Creek on the morning of August 9, 2014.
    - The notebook inside the lunchbox had 31 pages and was sealed in a zip-lock bag and bone dry inside despite a rain two days earlier.
    - The first notebook entry is dated June 2004 and lists the name Bruce Mason with dates, quantities and symptoms.
    - Bruce Mason was admitted mid-July 2004 to Sutter Valley Regional Hospital with nausea, peripheral numbness and fatigue and was discharged before dying on August 3, 2004.
    - Diane Mason kept a half-full yellow sports drink bottle from Bruce’s belongings in a cardboard box in her basement for ten years.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分