Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 21 - Writer's Block - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] a brilliant young architect mysteriously died just before she testified in a
criminal trial her diary contains stories of sex betrayal and intrigue investigators needed to know if the
stories were true [Music] university park texas just outside of dallas is better known as the bubble
it's a place of privilege and prestige and a dress many would like to have but few can afford
it's kind of the beverly hills of dallas that's the way the park city sits nancy dillard lyon lived most of her
life in texas she was a harvard trained architect and the daughter of a wealthy and
well-connected dallas family nancy met her husband richard while at harvard they married and soon had two
children they had great energy uh great friendliness when we moved in they they gave gifts of
ice cream and they baked cookies and bring them over to us and my husband who i've said is rarely hyperbolic about
anything used to say she was the nicest person in the world nancy quickly became the youngest
partner in the history of trammell crow a large real estate development firm but success came at a price
i think she always had as many women did at that time a conflict between the amount of hours that she wanted to work
to develop her career and time spending with her children nancy was also experiencing some
physical ailments and on a january night in 1991 her symptoms included vomiting and severe
stomach pain her husband richard took her to the hospital emergency room doctors were initially baffled
she was seen by multiple consultants infectious disease a gastroenterologist pulmonologist nephrologist
and because of her multi-organ failure and still inside in spite of all the resuscitation measures
she was done recovering nancy's condition deteriorated but she provided doctors with the potential clue
she said she first got sick several months earlier after drinking some wine from a bottle left on her doorstep
she thought it was a gift from a neighbor but then it was just a you know a housewarming gift so to speak from a
neighborhood and she drank that wine and became violently ill later that day she
had nausea vomiting and abdominal pain but that had been months earlier and didn't explain her illness now
even though i suspected uh something foul play but really can't you couldn't pinpoint
anything doctors sent nancy's urine samples for testing but her condition began to deteriorate
her organs failed and she was put on life support it was clear that she was not going to
recover it was clear it was really beyond nobody could really understand it six days later
nancy dillard lyon was dead i didn't quite understand what it was that had killed her so there was a great
deal of sadness uh for for what was lost but doctors were suspicious and they weren't the only ones
i was married to a nurse she uh taking care of nancy dillard in the trauma center she said she looked like
she'd been poisoned to me [Music] when the daughter of a wealthy dallas family nancy dillard lyon died under
mysterious circumstances her doctors made two telephone calls one was to the medical examiner to suggest a thorough
autopsy and i told him listen i have a patient here and i suspect a foul play the other was to police you know they
thought the death was suspicious and it needed to be investigated and it was suspicious and it was
investigated they were absolutely correct investigators learned that nancy was about to testify at the embezzlement
trial of her former boss from trammell crow nancy told friends she was uncomfortable at the thought of
testifying against her former colleague part of that may have resulted from a threatening letter she received
stay out of the bagwell case or you and your family will face the wrath of god it was a i guess kind of a failed threat
no one ever knew where it came from at nancy's autopsy the pathologist found no signs of disease in her internal
organs but toxicology test revealed some surprising results nancy lyon had been poisoned with arsenic
well all the specimens showed significant amounts and levels of arsenic and what that shows is that the
poison was absorbed through the gi tract then it was distributed through the blood
patients often don't know they're poisoned since the symptoms are so common you know people don't think about a
poisoning immediately they think it's just some natural thing and when you have nausea and vomiting that certainly
is a common symptom most of the poisonings that you see nowadays are of a much more
sophisticated variety that are harder to detect initially or even after doing tests so
arsenic was a surprise the manner of death was ruled a homicide but questions remained
investigators discovered a receipt among nancy's papers a receipt for arsenic nancy's husband richard said she bought
the poison to kill a colony of fire ants in their yard fire ants can be a really big problem and a bad problem
especially with individuals who have really small children fire ants can get all over you and almost cover
parts of your body before they even start biting and stinging and friends also revealed
nancy had been depressed over the past year she discovered her husband was having an
affair and the couple briefly separated richard had you know met another woman and she felt he was going
through a midlife crisis so she said at first her take was hey i'm going to stay patient
i'm going to get some counseling because she was just devastated really i wouldn't
discount a woman making herself ill or even taking something to make herself ill
to get the attention of her husband yet medical experts were skeptical that nancy committed suicide
i don't believe that for a minute i mean you've got someone who's dying a very i would consider hideous death
certainly capable at any time of voicing that she had taken the poison because the symptoms are you know both
painful and you certainly are deteriorating with this absolutely ludicrous i mean she had two
children she loved very dearly as a mother she was young she had everything to live for
though you know it is absolutely ludicrous to believe that somebody would poison themselves with arsenic also
among nancy's papers was a diary and it contained a blockbuster revelation she accused her older brother bill of
sexual abuse when they were younger nancy said she feared her brother and questioned his ability to control
himself sex sick sex the notation read with me my girls nancy's brother angrily denied the
allegation but couldn't explain why she had written this in her diary her family strongly suspected richard
was the killer since they knew he was having an affair with another woman i did not
poison my wife nancy dillard lyon nor did i have anything to do with her tragic death
so there was no shortage of suspects who sent the wine to nancy's home who sent the threatening letter
why did nancy accuse her brother of sexual abuse and would he kill to keep her quiet
and was nancy planning to divorce her husband in the event that this case becomes
a murder charge this will be an honest to goodness perry mason style who done it
investigators had plenty of suspects but little evidence in the poisoning death of nancy lyon
the only thing they knew was that nancy didn't kill herself no way you would do it
it's too painful it's too drawn out it's it's a horrible way to die and you're very aware and very conscious up until
the very end of it there's no way you would kill yourself that way when a person ingests arsenic
the poison attaches itself to the hair follicles as the hair grows the poison residue remains on the hair
shaft and becomes a permanent record so scientists cut nancy's hair into seven millimeter pieces
each piece corresponded to a two-week period each piece was placed in a separate vial
and then exposed to radiation in a nuclear reactor the sample can be analyzed as is in most
cases just simply weighed into a radiation bile most other methods require dissolution
of the sample when scientists examined the hair with gamma-ray spectrophotometry they
discovered a startling piece of information nancy had ingested small doses of arsenic every week starting four months
before her death the dose of arsenic increased four weeks before her death the highest amount of arsenic was in
nancy's system two weeks before her death her levels were anywhere from four to 100 times what normal levels were so it
was a very significant level and it was lethal the forensic test showed the poisoning
started when nancy's husband richard moved back home after the separation but richard wasn't the only person in
nancy's life who had both motive and access nancy's handwritten diary alleged her
brother bill had sexually abused her as a child investigators wanted to know whether
this was a possible motive to see if these entries were written by nancy investigators sent the diary to a
forensic document examiner hartford kittle handwriting examination is based upon two
distinct facts no two people write exactly alike within the writing of a single individual there's normal variation
it's this normal variation that we associate or we don't associate with the question writing
surprisingly nancy and richard's handwriting looked strikingly similar friends said this was intentional while
in college nancy had written some of richard's research papers and she mimicked his writing
the similarities in these two writers was significant but they weren't able to completely
make their handwriting look the same because they had two different minds that were
picturing things a little differently but they tried to make them look the same kettle first looked at known handwriting
samples from both nancy and richard despite their similarities there were differences
she used her ampersands quite extensively through her writing so every fifth sixth line will have an a
percent on it in her known handwriting whereas richard always used the a-n-d for the verbage and
kettle also noticed that nancy and richard made their capital eyes differently richard just used one downstroke like a
one whereas nancy used a down stroke like the one and then across at the top and the bottom she was willing to take
a lot more time in executing them than richard was their lower case f's were different as
well richard used a clockwise motion coming down from the top of the f down to the bottom he'd
swing off in a clockwise motion to finish off the lower loop of the f whereas nancy always came down and went
counterclockwise to finish off the f kittle concluded richard wrote the diary entries about
nancy's brother bill absolutely certain that he had written that 100 certain yes
prosecutors now believed richard lyon had forged nancy's diary to cover up the murder
he never crossed his mind he was going to be caught he thought he had it aced and he
certainly didn't think he'd be his own handwriting no one granted him the power of god to
take her life she was slowly poisoned to death play one of the most hideous things that you can do to someone this
wasn't done in a moment of passion or or anger of picking up a weapon that was handy to
him this was done with slow premeditation and over a period of time and it's a hideous hideous way to murder
somebody richard lyon insisted he had nothing to do with the poisoning death of his wife
nancy as proof he offered a receipt for arsenic that he said nancy had signed prosecutors asked forensic experts
whether this was in fact nancy's signature i wasn't able to reach a conclusion as to authorship
but the owner of the company listed on the receipt told prosecutors all they needed to know
did you sell her these chemicals no i didn't is this a receipt do you sell chemicals no i don't is this your
receipt from your your business no it's a forgery it's not mine investigators also discovered that
arsenic was not shipped to the lion's home but to a post office box richard opened
there was no reason in the world to have a post office box set up at preston uh center for him to to get this arsenal
if everything is completely legitimate why aren't you having it delivered at home or will you work
that's because it's nefarious reasons of having it delivered to a post office box
in the hospital before she died nancy lyon told her doctor about a suspicious incident that occurred
several months earlier she said well one time when they were separated they had gone to the movies together
and richard had gone and got her a drink and when he brought it to her and she drank some of it and she said it tasted
awful and she looked in there there was a white powder on the top of the drink nancy said she became violently ill
later that night and she told her doctor something else my husband he's been giving me these
capsules for the last several months and he said nancy go take these these are like
vitamins and these are good for you police confiscated every pill in the lion's home and sent them for forensic
testing two pills tested positive for barium carbonate a toxic chemical used in the
production of glass despite her suspicions nancy never directly accused richard of poisoning
her you know nobody wants to believe that they've married to somebody that they can
can murder i mean because then what do you ask what are you saying about yourself
and it's kind of outside the realm of most people's i mean reality that someone would
poison you and i don't think she wanted to believe it and and i think that she was embarrassed
or ashamed to say anything about it prosecutors believe the motive was money and the desire to live with his
girlfriend he didn't want her but he wanted the family affiliations and the alliances i think
that it was partly money and it was partly just the position that he wanted and he
couldn't have either one with just a divorce prosecutors believe richard first tried to kill nancy by
putting barium carbonate in her vitamin pills and may have put it in nancy's soda at
the movies when that didn't work he used arsenic forensic testing showed nancy started
ingesting arsenic in september around the time she and richard reconciled the fatal dose was administered two days
before nancy was admitted to the hospital where she died to hide his involvement richard created
the fake invoice for the arsenic and forensic analysis proved that it was richard who wrote the sex-related
entries in nancy's diary implicating her brother as a possible suspect i think he was calculating
he thought of himself as a ladies man i think he was a cold-blooded killer and he did it
in the most conspicuous way possible slowly ingesting arsenic to his wife when he went on trial for murder
richard lyon pled not guilty but the forensic handwriting analysis the timeline of the poisonings captured
in nancy's hair and the discovery of poison in vitamin pills found in the home were difficult to deflect
richard's girlfriend even testified claiming richard lied by telling her that nancy had a rare and fatal blood
disease any time that you catch a defendant or any witness in a lie and that was a
pretty big one and i don't think a coincidence that she was going to die from a fatal blood disease i think that
those things immediately begin to color their their view of him and he was a liar he
would lie it took a jury less than three hours to convict richard lyon of first degree
murder he was sentenced to life in prison i worked lots of cases like this and the question was always
why not just a divorce you know they may be intelligent but they're criminally stupid
and for a good reason and thank god they are because we we couldn't catch them it was hard for
me to believe that he had actually killed his wife and it had just finally broken down based on the shape
of an f and an l and an r and just scratchings on on a piece of paper [Music] [Music]
[Music] you

A brilliant young architect became ill and died just before she was to testify in a criminal trial. The autopsy revealed she'd been poisoned with arsenic. Investigators had to determine which person who knew her had a motive for murder.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Nancy Dillard Lyon was poisoned with arsenic before testifying against her boss; her husband Richard was convicted of her murder.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Nancy Dillard Lyon. A brilliant architect dies just before testifying in a criminal trial, raising suspicions of foul play.
Revelations from Nancy's Diary. Nancy's diary contains shocking accusations against her brother and hints at her troubled marriage.
Richard Lyon's Trial. Richard Lyon is convicted of first-degree murder after a jury deliberates for less than three hours.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was the nicest person in the world.

Describing Nancy's character and friendliness.

1:39WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from Forensic Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.