Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 33 - Penchant for Poison - Full Episode | Forensic Files

when a person is cremated the heat usually destroys any evidence of foul play at least that was the theory until
a scientist in texas found a way to test cremated remains and in so doing made forensic history
[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] san angelo texas known for its oil cotton fields and
extremely hot weather it's great country there's a lot of rural area to it of course the biggest
problem they have out there is you don't get a whole lot of rain olgie and lita nobles ran the town's air
conditioning business and they had no shortage of customers perhaps it was the strain of both living
and working together but the two didn't always see eye to eye it was that kind of different
relationship where there was love involved but you couldn't tell it from the outside
mr nobles had a real drinking problem and they argued like cats and dogs at the age of 70
olgi died after a lengthy illness shortly after the funeral his wife lita checked herself into a hospital she
hadn't been feeling well for weeks i just sick just vomiting over time just deathly sick at my stomach and i just
get weaker and weaker and get to where i couldn't walk leeda blamed the stress of her husband's
death for her illness but doctors found nothing wrong and released her within days the nausea and vomiting
returned and lita developed another symptom numbness in her fingers and toes i woke up one night and i was so sick
and i got up trying to get in the chair and of course my legs didn't hold me and
i just went down the floor leta went to the hospital once again this time doctors performed a whole
battery of tests and found the problem lita had been poisoned the level of arsenic in her system was
three times higher than a lethal dose it made you wonder who in the world it could be that was doing it
arsenic is a tasteless odorless element used in rat poison lita could think of only one person who
could have done this her husband olgie they loved each other but it's one of those
marriages that that stayed rocky all the time you know they just fought back and
forth all the time and she did say that he's probably the one who did it was it possible that olgie poisoned his
wife before he died i didn't think he had the nerve i really didn't think the man had the nerve to do
a thing like that to find out scientists looked for evidence in her hair it turns out that hair and in some case
toenails or fingernails are good indicators of body loads of certain elements in particular in the case of
arsenic it's often used as hair where it's concentrated in the hair since hair grows approximately one half
inch per month and lita's hair was three inches long this gave scientists a six-month timeline to see when lita was
poisoned each half inch piece of hair was tested with neutron activation analysis
neutron activation has some advantages and one is that it is considered to be non-destructive that is solid samples
can be irradiated directly without having to dissolve the sample in any way the results were surprising
lita ingested a massive dose of arsenic in the month before og died but she ingested a second large dose in the
month after his death they were able to conclude that she had had a large dose of arsenic in the time
frame since her husband had been dead and he couldn't have possibly administered it
now investigators questioned whether og-2 had been poisoned [Music] tests on leda noble's hair indicated she
ingested large doses of arsenic in the month before and month after her husband's death
at one time arsenic was an ingredient in rat poison but it's no longer used for that purpose
investigators looked in and around the noble's home for clues [Music] we took samples of the water we took
samples from the septic tank system and we tested all different different things
in the house to be sure that we could positively prove that they didn't get the poisoning from something that was in
the house accidentally we did find arsenic in one item was an antacid the actual concentration
in there was a sub-lethal but it certainly would be toxic with leta's permission
investigators exhumed her husband's body five months after he died his autopsy revealed
lethal doses of arsenic in all of his major organs olgie noble's death was now ruled a
homicide my first thought is that there's somebody that's real close to the noble
that needs them dead for some reason only two people had access to the food in the noble's home
they had a son who was disabled who lived in the house who of course had to be a little suspect
and it was telling too that the noble son showed no signs of arsenic poisoning the other person was the man who bought
the noble's air conditioning business timothy scoggin but lita refused to believe either one
was responsible she had an excellent relationship with her son and tim scoggin was like a member of the family
i didn't know what to think because i just i just couldn't you know believe it lena noble and she'll look you right in
high and tell you exactly what she thinks and that's what she did she looked us right now and told us tim
scoggins wasn't doing that we were on the wrong track and that he'd never do that she trusted
him completely tim scoggin was 33 years old single and had a close personal relationship with
the nobles but a background check revealed an unusual past before buying the noble's business
scoggin lived in llano texas about 130 miles away while there he met two elderly sisters catherine and
cordelia norton the last surviving members of an old texas family that made millions mining
granite the two sisters never married and lived in a large mansion while running
separate businesses seventy-five-year-old catherine was the younger of the two her nickname was gurley she was very
frilly very ladylike catherine ran a flower shop and met tim scoggin while he was working for a local
funeral home 83 year old cordelia was a beer distributor and a cattle rancher she was rough
she had a man style haircut she wore khaki clothes and she could cuss better than any sailor you ever saw
as scoggin got to know the sisters he spent increasing amounts of time doing their chores cooking for them he acted
as their driver and helped them with their medications they were lonely they needed someone to
talk to them they needed someone to care for them and that's what he did and they trusted
him just like a son he was at their making call he would drive them anywhere take them to the doctors they would
often go to university of texas football games not surprisingly the sisters appreciated
scoggins help and apparently led him to believe his generosity would be rewarded
he knew the ladies had a lot of money and he was going to befriend them and he said that catherine and cordelia had
told him that they were going to remembering in the will so he was really thinking he was going to make a lot of
money he bragged that he was wealthy or that he was going to be an heir or already was an heir
of a wealthy family that and i believe he said he was related to the norton sisters rather than just a
friend then all of a sudden the two sisters died within a day of one another the doctor signed off and said
death heart attack old age and no one really knew anything about it or thought a
whole lot about it they were buried everyone went about their business [Music] the sisters estate was estimated to be
approximately 5 million when investigators learned that olgi nobles had been poisoned
the deaths of the norton sisters appeared suspicious right away i thought well we need to
exhume the bodies of the norton girl but they hit a dead end both norton sisters had been cremated
so i was afraid we'd lost everything if tim scoggin killed the norton sisters for their money and murdered olgi nobles
too he had committed the perfect crime three times you can't be around uh three deaths and one near death under
very similar circumstances and just say it's a coincidence but without forensic evidence
there was no way to prove it when investigators looked at tim scoggin they had to wonder did he simply have
bad luck or was he a cold-blooded serial killer [Music] within a 12-month period scoggin's two
closest friends lita and olgi nobles were both poisoned with arsenic and his friends catherine and cordelia
norton also died suspicious deaths within a day of one another he was the last person along with
cordelia and he was the last person alone with catherine he wanted money he wanted reaches and he liked the lavish
lifestyle of particularly the norton i mean the norton's traveled all over the world they had friends from all over the
world come visit them and he was included in that circle if scoggin poisoned the norton sisters
no one could prove it they had both been cremated all that remained were their ashes
he believed he could burn up the evidence and he'd be safe in the average cremation
the body is subjected to temperatures of more than two thousand degrees fahrenheit for up to three hours
virtually nothing remains it takes a lot of temperature to reduce a body to nothing but a little
pile of ashes investigators called laboratories and universities around the country but no
one knew of any way to test cremated remains for forensic evidence i knew we had to try and course when we
went to the laboratory our lab people were pretty negative that we didn't have anything and they kind of had the same
idea it had been burned up but rod mccutchen a toxicologist at the texas department of public safety crime
lab was willing to try so i started thinking about the possibility of detecting arsenic in a
cremated remain sample and decided it might be possible there were a lot of things to consider
mccutchen knew that arsenic is actually a metal and some metal survive fire and intense heat you may change its form
from a solid to a gas but you aren't going to destroy the arsenic itself so he took the sister's ashes and added
an acid solution to dissolve all of the organic material what was left was primarily
sulfuric acid in a process called colorimetric testing he added hydrochloric acid and zinc to
the mix as it bubbles through this device the arsenic will react and form if it's
present a purplish violet color the more arsenic present the stronger the more purple the color is
mccutchen's chemical cocktail made forensic history the solution turned a deep purple
conclusive proof of the presence of arsenic theoretically it could be done but when
it happened that was that was a surprise i was elated when i found the results to
tell you the truth i couldn't i couldn't believe it the depth of color in the reaction
showed that cordelia norton ingested a massive amount of arsenic the test results on catherine's ashes
were inconclusive nevertheless their deaths were ruled homicides and it appeared the sisters got the last laugh
they died before changing their will when they read the will he found he got nothing
that they said he was very distraught very angry when he left tim scoggin was the prime suspect in the
murders of cordelia and catherine norton olgi nobles and the attempted murder of
lita nobles mr scoggin had no criminal record he certainly didn't appear like any kind of
tv crook in fact he was the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing he appeared to be
completely non-threatening and and a loving friend to all his victims investigators found arsenic in some
antacids in lita's home but couldn't find out where it came from until the owner of a local supermarket
called to offer some information he said when he saw scoggins picture in the newspaper he remembered selling him
a large amount of rat poison he even remembered the brand cowley's original rat and mouse poison
he remembered mr scoggins coming in looking for some sort of poison to kill varmints of some kind i think he didn't
buy it that day but he came back several days later and bought more than one bottle i don't recall how many
forensic document examiners analyzed the cremation request orders signed by the norton sisters and the thirty thousand
dollar check the sisters made out to scoggin shortly before their death they concluded the documents were
forgeries it was written during the time of the death which baited even more suspicious because the
ladies were extremely ill at this time and they wasn't in the stage of just giving away thirty thousand dollars
because they were deathly ill prosecutors believe that scoggin set his sights on the norton sisters almost from
the minute he met them the norton sisters likes gagan and he would often eat meals and stay overnight
in their hillside mansion prosecutors think scoggin poisoned them after he learned the sisters plan to
include him in their will as a mortician scoggin had access to the necessary paperwork to forge the sisters
names on cremation papers [Music] but in a forensic first scientists found a huge amount of
arsenic in the ashes when scoggin learned the sisters had left him out of their will he was angry
but undeterred for his troubles scoggin forged a check on the sister's account for 30 000
discovered later by forensic experts scoggin then moved 130 miles away to san angelo where he met the nobles
they lent scoggins the money to buy their air conditioning business he was to repay them in monthly installments
[Music] prosecutors believe he poisoned the couple so he could avoid making those payments
olgi nobles died from the poison but 69 year old lita built up resistance to it this lady was so tough her inner
strength was so strong her will to live was so strong and her body was able to absorb this and build up a tolerance to
it but probably if you had 10 people out there you know nine of those 10 would probably die from
it had lita died police would never have questioned the cause of her death or her husband's
so they would never have made the connection to the norton sisters the big mistake he did he didn't finish
out leeda or he would have got away scott clean and never nobody would ever know the difference
tim scoggin was arrested and charged with murder and intent to commit murder he's a very effeminate kind of a man in
fact when he talked on the phone people thought he was a woman and he passed himself off as secretary sometimes and
called himself kim by his voice you couldn't tell the difference [Music] he had to be a cold
calculating individual i've talked to a lot of serial killers but this guy here was the cold bloodiest most ruthless
killer that i dealt with scoggin was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences
people kill for money at the root of all evil it really is that is absolutely true
that's all he done it for was money lita nobles still suffers from the poisoning
to this day she has trouble walking yes i get angry sometimes i get to thinking about it and it's the first i
couldn't talk about it it just i just don't cry i just couldn't talk about it now scientists all over the world can
test cremated remains for various substances thanks to the hard work and dedication of the scientists involved in
this case people sit around trying to think of the perfect crime and one could say that he nearly
did commit for nearly perfect crimes and there were just a few mistakes i'm not a chemistry major but
i just felt like i hate to i hate to lose and i hate to see someone get away with a crime and so it just happened to
work out and i was very blessed that it did even though that in this case the perpetrator had gone out
of his way to try to destroy the evidence the evidence was persistent and it was
still there even after cremation [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Three seemingly unrelated deaths proved to be serial murders. The killer had been careful - he used poison which had no taste or odor. Fortunately for investigators, it also had a unique chemical signature.

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

Lita and Olgie Nobles were poisoned, leading to a forensic breakthrough in testing cremated remains for arsenic, implicating Timothy Scoggin.

Key points

A Shocking Discovery. Lita Nobles was found to have been poisoned with arsenic, raising suspicions about her husband's death.
The Unraveling of Trust. Lita Nobles trusted Tim Scoggin, but his background revealed a suspicious past.
The Perfect Crime?. Investigators ponder whether Tim Scoggin could have committed multiple murders without leaving evidence.
Forensic Breakthrough. Scientists developed a method to detect arsenic in cremated remains, changing forensic history.
A Twist of Fate. Lita survived the poisoning that killed her husband, leading to the investigation of Scoggin.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You couldn't tell it from the outside.

Describing the complicated relationship between Olgie and Lita Nobles.

1:25WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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