“You and your so-called family have two weeks to move out of Florida forever or else you all die. this is no joke”
It’s April 1989. Sherry Guin is at a Murder Mystery weekend and is playing a dangerous mind game with a killer who poisoned an entire family. Everybody plays their role but Sherry needs to stay more alert than anyone else: her name isn’t Sherry and she needs to take down the host of the party: the prime suspect of the Carr family murder.
It’s April 1989. Sherry Guin is at a Murder Mystery weekend and is playing a dangerous mind game with a killer who poisoned an entire family. Everybody plays their role but Sherry needs to stay more alert than anyone else: her name isn’t Sherry and she needs to take down the host of the party: the prime suspect of the Carr family murder.
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00:00 This was the Duberley family.
00:02 Before 1988, they lived a happy life in Alturas, Florida.
00:06 They went to church every Sunday and never caused any trouble.
00:10 On June 14th, 16-year-old Duane Duberley found a disturbing letter in the mailbox, threatening
00:16 the family to move out of Florida, or they would all die.
00:19 When Duane showed the letter to his parents, his mother Peggy started to worry, while her
00:23 husband Pi dismissed it as a prank.
00:26 October 23rd, four months later, Duane's mother Peggy fell suddenly ill, complaining of nausea
00:32 and extreme pain, losing large amounts of hair.
00:36 As her condition got worse, Peggy's husband Pi refused to take her to the hospital.
00:40 One week later, Peggy fell into a coma.
00:43 Her son Duane started having the same symptoms.
00:46 December 2nd, police identified the cause of the sickness as thallium, a deadly chemical
00:51 used in rat poison.
00:53 When authorities tested the remaining members of the family, all of them showed high amounts
00:57 of thallium, even Pi, Peggy's husband.
01:00 The mystery that threatens the life of Duane and his family would remain unsolved, unless,
01:05 by some miracle, one undercover agent could catch the killer before he makes another victim.
01:11 "To murder somebody by poisoning is exceptionally rare."
01:14 "This takes a great deal of intelligence.
01:16 This is not a brute force weapon."
01:18 "He was a very evil, very devious person."
01:21 "Susan could have very well been his next murder victim."
01:25 "They want to sit from afar and watch someone suffer."
01:29 "I hope I'm not a prime suspect."
01:31 "He's not the kind of person to get mad.
01:34 He's the kind that would get even."
01:36 "I could be mad, too."
01:37 "Yeah, I would imagine."
01:39 The year is 1988.
01:44 Sixteen-year-old Duane Duberley lives a happy life with his loving family.
01:48 His mother, Peggy, works as a waitress at the local diner.
01:51 After years of raising three children on her own, she marries Pi Carr, who has two children
01:56 himself.
01:57 "They seem to be happy.
01:58 My mom loved him more than anything."
02:00 "We've seen all the heartbreak that she had gotten in her life.
02:05 I was hoping that Pi was going to be the one."
02:09 The nuclear family moves in together in the quiet town of Alturas, Florida, a perfect
02:13 place to raise a family, where nothing bad ever happens, and no one locks their door.
02:18 October 23rd.
02:19 In the early hours of the morning, Peggy leaves for work.
02:23 Shortly after arriving at the diner, Peggy begins to feel ill, complaining of burning
02:27 in her legs and feet, and an intense chest pain.
02:30 When Peggy is taken to the hospital, she is almost incapacitated.
02:35 Doctors put her under observation and collect blood samples for tests, but as every test
02:39 comes back negative, her physician is unable to make a diagnosis.
02:43 Peggy is sent home with nothing more than a prescription for the pain.
02:46 "She was laying in bed and she couldn't move.
02:49 She said she couldn't open her eyes.
02:52 She was nauseated.
02:53 She was sick.
02:54 She was very sick."
02:57 October 30th.
02:59 One week after her first symptoms, Peggy, her son Dwayne, and her stepson Travis are
03:04 all rushed to Winter Haven Hospital.
03:06 All of them have the same symptoms.
03:08 "Throwing up, super dehydrated.
03:10 The pain that I had was unbearable.
03:13 It was like a thousand needles just wrapped around your foot."
03:17 "I was just crying.
03:19 Me and Travis were both just crying.
03:21 I honestly thought I was going to die."
03:24 As Peggy is put in the intensive care unit, infectious disease specialist Robert Van Hook
03:29 notices something alarming.
03:31 "At one point she was noticed to have her hair coming out.
03:35 It was not just a few hairs, she was losing excessive amounts of hair."
03:39 Dr. Van Hook fears the worst.
03:41 This might be a result of poison, one that wouldn't show up on regular lab tests.
03:46 But he's only read about this type of poison in medical books.
03:49 He then decides to run one more test.
03:52 For thallium poisoning.
03:54 Thallium was widely used in rat poison until 1972, when it was banned in the United States.
03:59 If ingested, it can cause delirium, paralysis, even death.
04:04 The worst part is, there is no known cure to thallium poisoning.
04:08 When the test comes back, it shows that Peggy has, in her system, 50 times the maximum amount
04:14 a human can survive.
04:16 October 31st, Peggy falls into a coma.
04:19 Her stepson Travis is put on a respirator, and her son Dwayne is not showing any signs
04:24 of improvement.
04:25 "I remember waking up in the hospital, hysterical, 'What's going on?
04:30 Where's mom at?
04:31 Is she okay?'"
04:32 Despite the pain, Dwayne asks to be wheeled up four floors to see his mom.
04:37 But nothing can prepare him for what he's about to see.
04:40 "Her hair was gone.
04:41 She weighed probably 90 pounds.
04:44 They had a cap on her.
04:46 They didn't want to give me the shock of my life to see her laying there.
04:51 I remember me thinking and hoping, you know, everybody tells you, 'She can hear you.
04:56 Talk to her.
04:57 She can hear you.'"
04:58 Right away, police do everything they can to find the source of the poisoning.
05:02 Detective Ernie Mincy of the Polk County Sheriff's Office is assigned to the case.
05:06 "Our sole purpose was to identify that poison and have her removed from the environment
05:11 to prevent further entry to any of the persons."
05:14 They investigate the orange groves surrounding the area, the neighborhood water supply, even
05:19 the restaurant where Peggy works.
05:20 But no trace of thallium is found.
05:22 It isn't long before the public is made aware of the situation, and panic begins to spread.
05:27 "The community was clamoring for answers so that they would know whether or not they were
05:33 safe."
05:34 "I mean, we truly didn't know in the very beginning how this all came about.
05:38 How did these people ingest?
05:40 How did they touch?
05:41 How did they inhale?
05:43 Some of your first thoughts are the worst thoughts.
05:46 How many more people will show up at the hospital with this heavy metal poisoning?"
05:52 Investigators scour the car home, collecting dust samples, and gather more than 400 household
05:56 items for laboratory analysis.
05:59 One of them comes back positive, a six-pack of Coke bottles, where three remained unopened.
06:04 Inside, test results show each contained more than a gram of thallium, enough to kill an
06:09 adult.
06:10 Detective Minzey knows there are only two possible scenarios, the first one being product
06:15 tampering at the Coke factory.
06:17 If that's the case, how many more people have drunk the poison?
06:20 "Where else could this be throughout not only the county, but the state or the nation?"
06:25 "They had people down here who were scared to death to drink Coke.
06:29 The initial step was to look at the bottling company and see what could have happened there."
06:35 But with Coca-Cola's collaboration, a large-scale tampering is quickly ruled out.
06:39 "It was actually physically impossible to tamper with the product at the plant."
06:44 Which leaves Detective Minzey only one scenario.
06:47 This is a targeted attack on Peggy Carr and her family.
06:51 As the investigation focuses on finding a suspect, they first take a look at the family
06:55 members.
06:56 "Her husband was a suspect when Peggy was very sick, and Pi didn't appear to be.
07:04 Obviously, you think of him."
07:05 "We dug very deeply at that point into Pi Carr's background.
07:10 Anything that would show motivation to poison his wife."
07:14 Although Peggy and Carr got married only seven months earlier, it seems their honeymoon was
07:18 short-lived.
07:19 Pi had been working long hours at the mine, and Peggy had grown suspicious.
07:24 One night, she found him with another woman.
07:27 Detective Minzey also learns that the weekend Peggy first became ill, Pi was conveniently
07:32 out of town.
07:33 When he came back, he resisted taking his wife to the hospital.
07:36 "I specifically remember my sister saying, 'No, I'm taking her.
07:40 I'm taking her to the hospital.'
07:41 He's like, 'No, no, no.
07:42 It's just flu.
07:43 It's a flu.
07:44 It'll pass.'
07:45 I physically picked her up out of bed because she couldn't walk and carried her to my sister's
07:51 car."
07:52 Everything seems to point to Pi Carr.
07:55 Even Duane thinks he might be guilty.
07:57 "I think he treated my mother horrible.
08:00 I thought that he poisoned my mother because he wanted out of the marriage.
08:04 I mean, my mom was in the hospital, and I don't remember him ever shedding a tear, ever,
08:08 not one time."
08:09 But something doesn't sit well with Detective Minzey.
08:12 Why would Pi Carr poison his own son, Travis?
08:15 When they interrogate him, Pi reveals a clue that would confuse the police even further.
08:20 June 14th, four months before Peggy is poisoned, Duane finds a letter in the mailbox.
08:26 Inside is a yellow post-it with a threatening note typewritten on it.
08:29 "It said, 'You and all your so-called family have exactly two weeks to move out of the
08:33 state of Florida or you will all die.'
08:34 And then at the bottom it said, 'This is no joke.'
08:38 We were kids and we just laughed it off.
08:41 Pi laughed it off.
08:42 Nothing happened.
08:43 And then they called the cops."
08:45 The letter is addressed to Pi Carr, with his name misspelled.
08:49 Could Pi Carr have sent the letter to himself?
08:51 Then, Detective Minzey learns of another incident a few years prior.
08:55 "Two of the Carr dogs died suddenly within a couple weeks of each other."
09:01 "Both dogs had become very ill.
09:04 Their fur had fallen out."
09:05 "We suspect they experimented on the dog first."
09:10 As Peggy's state continues to deteriorate, and Duane and Travis show no sign of improvement,
09:15 the rest of the family are tested for thallium.
09:18 The results are far worse than anyone expected.
09:21 "Everyone in the house had thallium in their system."
09:25 Including Pi Carr, which means he's no longer a suspect.
09:29 "I wouldn't hold thallium powder in my hand.
09:34 Anybody that had enough knowledge to do this crime wouldn't ingest thallium and take
09:40 that risk.
09:41 They just wouldn't do it."
09:43 Two-year-old Casey, Peggy's granddaughter, also has traces of thallium.
09:47 March 3, 1989, Peggy has been suffering for five months when Duane is asked to come to
09:53 her bedside for the last time.
09:55 The family now needs to make the difficult decision to take her off life support.
09:59 "She's not coming back.
10:01 She's brain dead.
10:02 They said that you're going to see her lungs inflate and deflate quite a few times, and
10:10 then that's it."
10:11 "That was it.
10:12 It was terrible.
10:13 I just lost the most important thing in my life.
10:21 She was gone."
10:23 Peggy Carr dies at the Bartow Memorial Hospital.
10:27 She was only 41.
10:29 The nuclear family is shattered.
10:31 As Duane is recovering slowly from the poisoning, he and his siblings are sent to live with
10:35 relatives.
10:36 Pi and his kids also move out.
10:39 The house in Alturas is abandoned.
10:42 For Detective Mincy, her tragic death changes everything.
10:45 This is now a murder investigation.
10:47 "To murder somebody by poisoning is exceptionally rare.
10:51 It is something that has to be thought up in a very demented mind by a very brilliant
10:58 person who thinks that they're smarter than everyone else."
11:03 When the FBI examines the contaminated Coke bottles, they find tiny scratch marks.
11:08 This indicates the bottles were meticulously opened, the thallium added in, and the caps
11:12 were replaced and sealed shut.
11:15 Thallium is tasteless, odorless, and easily dissolved.
11:18 It also causes soda to overflow, changes its color, and leaves a sediment at the bottom.
11:24 But the mixture found in the soda avoided these problems.
11:27 Whoever laced the Coke bottles with thallium has a sophisticated knowledge of chemistry.
11:32 This was the work of a highly intelligent individual, one that would be very hard to
11:36 catch.
11:38 Police begin questioning neighbors of the car house and around town.
11:41 "Alturas is a very small community, a few hundred people.
11:44 I think interviewed every single person that lived in Alturas."
11:47 The closest residence in the vicinity is that of George Trapal and his wife Diana.
11:52 When Detective Mincy interrogates him, Trapal's reaction to the subject of the cars is shock
11:57ingly harsh.
11:58 "He had went into a tirade about the problems with these red-necked children and family
12:04 that lived next to him."
12:06 Then Mincy asks him why he thinks anyone would want to poison the car family.
12:10 "The same question I'd ask too many other people, and the normal standard response was,
12:16 'I don't know.
12:17 I have no idea.'
12:19 His response was, 'Someone wanted them to leave.'"
12:23 The same message that was written in the threatening letter.
12:25 "He said exactly what was in the note.
12:27 Nobody else knew of his existence except for law enforcement."
12:31 "He made himself a suspect."
12:33 Police find out that George Trapal is a self-taught chemist.
12:37 His wife Diana has a master's degree in chemistry.
12:40 Both are highly intelligent people and members of MENSA, an elite society for people with
12:45 IQs in the top 2% of the population.
12:48 When they dig further into his background, investigators find out that George has served
12:53 time in prison.
12:54 "He had been the chemist in a major, major methamphetamine laboratory in the southeast."
13:01 One of the ingredients often used in the production of amphetamine, thallium, George Trapal is
13:06 now a person of interest, which comes as a surprise, even to Peggy's son, Dwayne.
13:11 "I said, 'They've got the wrong guy.
13:13 That guy couldn't hurt a flea.
13:16 There's no way this guy could do that.'"
13:20 Detective Menzi also finds out that Trapal had an argument with the cars over some loud
13:24 music.
13:25 "George Trapal was standing behind our vehicles, hollering, telling us to turn the music down.
13:30 So we turned the music down, and he's like, 'Is your mother here?'
13:33 We're like, 'No, no, we're sorry, we're sorry.
13:35 We'll keep it down.'
13:36 And he took off."
13:37 "But who would ever suspect a poisoning over some kids playing a television or a radio
13:45 too loud?"
13:46 Less than 48 hours after the argument, Peggy was poisoned.
13:52 Investigators are convinced they have the right man, but without any proof, they can't
13:55 arrest him.
13:56 In most cases, one possible option is to bring the suspect in for questioning and hope to
14:01 get a confession, but detectives think that wouldn't work on Trapal.
14:04 "He was introverted.
14:06 He was very quiet.
14:07 He was not confrontational."
14:09 "Grabbing a guy like that and bringing him in will only make him shut down."
14:13 The FBI suggests there's only one alternative.
14:17 Someone must go undercover and outsmart the certified genius at his own game.
14:22 Detective Ernest Minzey assigns Special Agent Susan Gorek to the case.
14:26 She's asked to infiltrate the Mensa group to which George Trapal belongs.
14:30 "We suspected it would only be for that weekend that I would have to do the undercover role."
14:35 "And I was told to be careful because the person had a photographic memory, so if he
14:40 saw us that he could remember our cars or our faces."
14:45 Under an assumed name, Susan is planning to attend a Mensa murder mystery weekend that
14:49 George and his wife Diana are hosting.
14:52 Susan Gorek becomes Sherry Gwynn, a woman on the verge of divorce from an abusive husband.
14:58 April 14, 1989.
15:00 Susan Gorek heads to the local hotel where the event is being hosted.
15:04 When she arrives, she's greeted by George Trapal himself.
15:08 Detective Gorek is now face to face with the suspected killer.
15:11 "The biggest fear that I had was that he had seen me when I was doing surveillance.
15:16 I really took a deep breath and I looked for any recognition in his eyes."
15:21 Trapal doesn't seem to recognize Susan, but she can't be sure.
15:25 After all, he's not a confrontational person who would just come out and say it.
15:29 Susan has to play along.
15:31 "He's not going to get in your face.
15:33 He's going to poison you so that you die a slow, painful death.
15:38 We put her in a very dangerous position."
15:42 "I told him who I was, Sherry Gwynn, and that I needed to register.
15:46 And he handed me a packet with the weekend's information."
15:52 The pamphlet was made by George himself.
15:55 It includes several well-planned out murder scenarios members will have to solve during
15:59 the weekend.
16:00 One of them is a poisoning.
16:02 "One of the paragraphs that he wrote in this report said, 'When a death threat appears
16:07 on the doorstep, prudent people throw out all their food and watch what they eat.
16:13 Most items on the doorstep are just a neighbor's way of saying, 'I don't like you.
16:18 Move or else.'"
16:20 The message is eerily similar to the one the Kars family received before Peggy was poisoned.
16:25 Right away, Susan knows she has the right suspect.
16:28 "After I read that, I knew that it was just not coincidence."
16:33 As she tries to engage Trapal in conversation, Susan watches every word she says.
16:38 One slip, and it could cost her her life.
16:40 "When he asked me about my background, I told him that my husband was a lawyer from
16:45 Houston, Texas, and that I had left him.
16:48 I talked about how he knew someone was lying by the way that their neck muscles moved.
16:53 It made me very nervous."
16:56 Before the weekend is over, Sherry confides in George that she intends to move to Florida
17:00 to get away from her husband.
17:02 That's when Detective Gorrick gets her first break.
17:05 "We have two winners.
17:07 Because one winner is nasty."
17:08 "George said that they were thinking about moving his wife's practice and that they would
17:14 be selling their house.
17:16 After I talked to my supervisors, they immediately wanted me to follow up.
17:21 They said, 'It'll just be a week.'"
17:23 The undercover operation, which was supposed to last only for a weekend, is extended.
17:28 Susan will continue to put her life at risk and carry on the role of Sherry.
17:33 But she knows this could be the perfect opportunity to find evidence that could help her team
17:37 get a search warrant for the house.
17:39 "Maybe he'd open a closet and I'd see lab equipment or maybe some chemicals or something."
17:45 "The following week, I went over to the house."
17:47 While touring the house, Trapal tells Sherry that Alturas is so safe, no one locks their
17:52 door.
17:53 What Susan discovers around the house raises suspicions, but nothing is enough to get a
17:58 search warrant.
17:59 "He did show me a small secret passageway that he had built into the library.
18:05 Upstairs he did have a mannequin that had some bondage-type things."
18:11 The plan has failed.
18:15 After leaving the house, Susan must maintain her Sherry Gwynn persona in order to collect
18:19 as much evidence as she can against George Trapal.
18:23 All while knowing that he's a highly intelligent killer.
18:26 "I had to be very careful.
18:27 I had two children at home and a husband that could be my life and my family's life."
18:34 "If he found out that she was an undercover detective with the sheriff's office, then
18:41 she would end up poisoned as well."
18:43 Over the passing months, Susan meets Trapal over a series of lunch dates.
18:47 A surveillance team watches from afar, capturing his every move.
18:51 "Every time I left the table and came back, I would never eat or drink anything else."
18:56 "It took me a long time for him to confide in me enough for me to understand just how
19:03 much he hated people that had less intelligence than him."
19:08 After eight months, Susan has collected a large amount of small evidence, but not enough
19:13 to build a case against George Trapal.
19:15 Her supervisors are beginning to question the value of her operation.
19:19 They could shut her down at any moment.
19:21 To Susan, this means more than just a failed assignment.
19:24 She can't help but think of her own family.
19:26 It could have been her husband, Gary, or her 12-year-old son, Greg, or even her 2-year-old
19:31 son, Steven, who drank the poison.
19:34 Peggy and her family deserve justice.
19:36 Susan has to bring in results, and soon.
19:40 December 1989.
19:41 Detective Gorick gets the call she's been waiting for.
19:45 George and his wife, Diana, have moved out of town and are allowing Sherry Gwynne to
19:48 move into their home.
19:50 Without a warrant, Susan now has legal permission to invite the Polk County Crime Scene Unit
19:55 inside the house.
19:57 But because they believe Trapal would be too smart to leave thallium around the house,
20:00 they look for traces of residue instead.
20:03 "I truly believe that if we were going to find thallium, that it would probably be either
20:08 in the air conditioning filter or possibly down one of the drains."
20:14 George Trapal and his wife left the house filled with their stuff, which allows the
20:17 unit to collect samples.
20:19 In the garage, they collect vials and chemistry bottles to be sent for analysis.
20:24 Susan hopes one of them will come back positive for thallium.
20:27 But while they're waiting for the results from the FBI lab, Susan needs to continue
20:31 her role of deception.
20:32 "I was starting to run out of ideas and run out of scenarios to put him through."
20:38 Time is running out.
20:39 January 1990.
20:41 With no news from the lab, Susan can no longer wait for the results.
20:45 She has to take action, and decides to try and trick Trapal into incriminating himself.
20:50 What Susan doesn't know is, Trapal is also preparing a trap for her.
20:54 "I had George meet me at a little picnic area behind a McDonald's in Sebring."
21:00 The meeting between Detective Gorick and George Trapal is recorded on tape.
21:04 "How are you?"
21:05 "Fine."
21:06 "Good."
21:07 "How's your world showing?"
21:08 "Well, not real good, and that's what I need to talk to you about."
21:11 "Okay."
21:12 "I think he neglected the thallium at pumpkin."
21:14 "Oh, what's that?"
21:15 "Did something happen in the neighborhood?"
21:18 "I told him that I'd had two detectives come and talk to me when I moved into his house."
21:25 "Oh, oh, yeah, somebody else wants to talk to you."
21:28 "That might not be his opinion, but it's a lot to me."
21:33 "Oh, well, sorry."
21:35 "And he said he never caught the person that did it, and it really frightened me."
21:40 "You don't seem overly concerned.
21:42 That's not how you moved out, is it?
21:44 You weren't afraid, were you?"
21:46 "Apparently, some folks are afraid of that.
21:49 It's not like they're running around forcing everybody."
21:54 "No one knew that the crime had not been solved.
21:59 At that point, there was really no doubt left in my mind that he was the one that had done it."
22:04 Susan hands him a business card she says detectives left behind.
22:07 She tells him they came looking for him.
22:09 Right away, Trapal's behavior begins to change.
22:13 "He started getting extremely nervous."
22:16 "I'll pass him, don't you think?
22:18 He seems to be really interested in me.
22:20 I really don't know what's going on.
22:22 There's something about this calling me a police here."
22:25 "I hope I'm not a bomb suspect.
22:27 That could be messy."
22:29 "Yeah, that was a mess."
22:31 Then, George asks her repeatedly to come over to his new house.
22:36 "Do you want a grand tour of the house?
22:38 I'll be happy to give you a driving tour."
22:40 "I'll take a rain check on it."
22:42 Susan declines.
22:43 But what would have happened if she had agreed to go to his house?
22:47 After meeting, Trapal walks away, visibly shaken by the news.
22:51 "Final 11th, 3rd, and he's leaving.
22:57 Very worried."
22:59 April 4th, 1990.
23:01 Susan gets a call she didn't expect.
23:04 "And I said, 'You're kidding.'
23:06 And he said, 'No, they're on the phone, and they found thallium.'"
23:10 The FBI confirms that one of the vials found in Trapal's garage
23:14 contained thallium-1 nitrate,
23:16 the exact compound used in the murder of Peggy Carr
23:19 and the attempted murder of her entire family.
23:22 "We had a lot of circumstantial evidence,
23:25 but this was the only piece of real evidence."
23:29 "I was just elated."
23:31 April 5th, George Trapal is arrested at his new home of Sebring.
23:36 "I seen it on TV, them walking George Trapal in his orange outfit
23:41 into the Polk County jail.
23:43 The same guy that I trusted in Moda's driveway."
23:49 He remains unfazed, even when his friend, Sherry Gwynn,
23:52 presents her true identity to him.
23:54 "I said, 'George, my name is Special Agent Susan Gorek.
23:58 I work with the Polk County Sheriff's Office,
24:00 and I'm here to serve this on you and to get handwriting samples.'
24:04 And he looked at me and said, 'Oh, okay,' and just smiled at me."
24:09 But Susan has no idea yet just how close she came
24:12 to becoming his next murder victim.
24:14 When police search Trapal's home in Sebring,
24:16 they make a shocking discovery.
24:18 As they look for a hidden room,
24:20 like the one in George Trapal's previous house,
24:22 they find a door behind a pegboard.
24:24 "He opened the door, and there's no inside door handle."
24:28 The only window in the soundproof space has been sealed.
24:31 Inside the room is a platform bed with wood stirrups.
24:34 "He was building a bed on which to torture.
24:39 He even had a pulley system to lift people."
24:42 [indistinct radio chatter]
24:47 "And I was so glad that I had not gone.
24:50 They might have not found me."
24:52 "She just saw herself as being the person
24:54 George had built that for."
24:56 January 1991.
24:58 As George Trapal's trial begins,
25:00 the jury is presented with overwhelming evidence against him.
25:04 They show the items collected at Trapal's house,
25:06 a journal titled "General Poisoning Guides,"
25:09 in which the use of thallium is described
25:11 as the poison of choice by criminals.
25:13 In this journal, there is even a reference
25:15 handwritten by Trapal about getting rid of the neighbors.
25:19 A total of 55 fingerprints are found in that journal,
25:22 all belonging to George Trapal.
25:24 The prosecutor also shows the tools used
25:27 in the decapsulating of the Coke bottles.
25:29 "He had a set of very tiny screwdrivers,
25:32 like jeweler's screwdrivers."
25:34 When they compare the tools to the marks on the bottle caps,
25:37 the jury is shocked.
25:38 "Those tool marks fit perfectly with one screwdriver
25:44 that was missing in the jeweler's screwdriver set."
25:49 During the entire trial, Trapal remains calm, emotionless,
25:53 sometimes even smiling.
25:55 "George Trapal was truly evil.
25:57 He knew what he was going to do.
25:59 The little girl had thallium in her, and he didn't care."
26:03 "The reasoning behind what he'd done over loud music,
26:07 he took somebody's life."
26:09 "He did the most horrible act that I've ever seen
26:12 as a homicide investigator.
26:14 He killed one person, put her through torture before her death."
26:19 "He justified it with his superior intelligence
26:23 and the fact that people with lesser intelligence
26:27 did not deserve to live."
26:29 The trial lasts for two whole months,
26:31 but it only takes the jury four hours to reach a verdict.
26:34 March 6, 1991, two years almost to the day after Peggy's death,
26:40 George Trapal is found guilty on all counts.
26:42 He is sentenced to death.
26:44 "The defendant, George James Trapal,
26:46 shall be electrocuted until he is dead."
26:48 "It's been a long, hard struggle.
26:50 Peggy was in hell.
26:52 You'd have to have seen her to know what she went through."
26:56 "And I'm glad it's over with."
26:58 The genius who thought he could commit the perfect crime
27:01 has been defeated.
27:03 "He might have had a higher IQ than most of the world,
27:06 but he certainly wasn't smarter than Susan."
27:09 "I was relieved because the family needed closure."
27:14 Susan Gorick brought justice to Peggy's family.
27:17 She risked everything to put this criminal mind behind bars.
27:20 "She put her life at risk just to, you know,
27:24 bring somebody's killer to justice.
27:27 I think she's awesome."
27:29 The rest of the family who were poisoned all recovered successfully.
27:33 As for Dwayne, losing his mother at the young age of 16
27:36 has been very hard.
27:38 "Mother's Day comes around and you think,
27:40 'Okay, this year I'm not going to be upset.'
27:43 You can't get around it.
27:44 That's all you think about all day long.
27:48 What's going to happen when my son asks me, you know,
27:53 'Where's my grandma? Where's Mimi at?'"
27:57 In the years that followed her death,
27:59 Dwayne expressed his grief through anger and outbursts.
28:02 But after getting in trouble, he decided to write to his mother.
28:06 His letter reads, "Dear Mom, this is your baby boy.
28:10 I'd like to tell you that I love you
28:12 and I'm sorry for all the bad things I've ever done to you.
28:15 Hopefully, you're in a better place now.
28:18 I often think about you and wish you were here.
28:21 I haven't been so good, and I'm sorry.
28:24 I'll try to get my life straight."
28:26 Dwayne made good on his promise.
28:28 Today, he's married and has become the father figure
28:31 his own family deserved.
28:33 He makes sure every day that his mom is proud of him
28:37 and that her memory lives on.
28:39 Dwayne Dubberly is living proof that even after tragedy,
28:43 there is a life worth living.
28:45 [dramatic music]
28:48 ♪ ♪
28:55 ♪ ♪
29:02 (static)