Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 31 - Sniffing Revenge - Full Episode | Forensic Files

what happens when a healthy middle-aged woman suddenly collapses and dies and medical science can't find the cause of
death months later a second forensic look discovered evidence that had been right under their noses the entire time
[Music] [Music] [Applause] Dana Point California just 60 Mi South and a world away from Los Angeles is a
Haven for those seeking a quiet Oceanside lifestyle in 1988 it was home to Janet
and Richard Overton and their 17-year-old son Eric 60-year-old Richard was a successful computer consultant and
part-time Professor 46-year-old Janet was a member of the local school board she was such a genuinely nice
person uh smiling and and um had good things to say the Overton lived on a tranquil
cuaac after 19 years of marriage they seem to be a classic example of when Opposites Attract While Janet was
outgoing and high school educated Richard held a PhD and was much more reserved he was always the loner and I
don't uh I understand that he graduated from high school after 3 years he was editor of one of his campus newspapers
uh as I said he was a very smart man Janet was passionate about her work on the school board a job she took
seriously at one point she served as president but her number one priority was her son she took such pleasure in
him and I know that one of her goals was to hand him his diploma when he walked across the stage uh graduating from Dana
Hills High School on January 24th J and her son Eric packed up the family van to spend a
day on a yacht with some [Music] friends but before leaving the house Janet collapsed Eric told his father who
immediately called for an ambulance by the time emergency Personnel arrived Janet was
unconscious when they got to the hospital she was dead an autopsy found no indication of
how she died they did not find anything that they were comfortable calling a cause of death or even close
surprisingly Janet's medical records indicated she had made 60 visits to different doctors clinics and hospitals
in the last year there was just an amazing amount of work up done on the deceased Janet Overton uh in the
previous year because she had been very sick and had been to all sorts of special clinics working things up they
didn't find anything she had complaints of of pains in various parts of her body
um she began to get like ulcerated areas on her skin Janet had complained of a number of
various ailments from nausea to skin irritations to General Pain she was walking very slowly and had a a
cane to help her walk and was really looking miserable it appeared to the medical
examiner that Janet's death was as mysterious as her other medical problems over the past year her death would have
remained a mystery had it not been for a telephone call about an incident 14 years earlier tried to kill me and
[Music] I Janet Overton's death at the young age of 46 was officially listed as pending
investigation which is another way of saying unknown but the next 6 months there was
no further investigation into Janet's death that is until the local sheriff's department received a telephone call
from darthy Boer who was once married to Richard Overton Dorothy had heard about Janet's
death and had a story to tell about Richard's past Dorothy said she divorced Richard when she found out that he was a
bigamist he was married to another woman at the same time he was married to her and had children with both women he
maintained a two households and he deceived two women he consistently had troubled relationships with women all of
his adult life which went to his first marriage the bigamous marriage with Carolyn Hutchinson and his uh third
marriage with Janet there was a definite pattern there when the couple divorced Dorothy gained custody of their children
and took possession of their house which infuriated Richard almost immediately Dorothy began to suffer from skin
lesions NAA and pain the same symptoms that plagued Janet Overton one day after their divorce
Richard visited daroy to discuss some issues relating to their children after he left Dorothy noticed
an unusual odor coming from her milk she took the milk to police for testing scientists discovered large amounts of
selenium a type of poison Dorothy accused Richard of placing the selenium in her Milt during
his visit when confronted with the evidence Richard confessed in return Dorothy refused to
press charges against Richard he had to admit yes I did do this and he was sent into anger counseling when he came out
of anger counseling he made another attempt which he denied and that was when Dorothy confronted him and just
told him you make any more attempts on me or anybody in my family and I'm going to have you taken away in handcuffs and
from then on he backed off and he didn't do anything to Dorothy after hearing this news Lieutenant Carney wanted to
exume Janet Overton's body for another autopsy but there was a problem Janet Overton had been been
cremated toxicologist Paul sedwick's only option was to re-examine Janet's Blood and Tissue samples left over from
the autopsy when he tested those samples for selenium he could find none present despite the setback
investigators pressed on and soon discovered the Janet had a secret life of her own she had been involed involved
in a longtime affair with Bill Dawson someone she worked with on the school board and who owned the yacht she was
going on the day she died Mr Dawson was very forthright very honest he knew his career was on the line by revealing this
Mr Dawson was also adamant that he had nothing to do with Janet's death in Janet's home police discovered 133
computer discs and dozens of Diaries written by Richard Overton some were written in Russian and
Spanish as you read the Diaries and read the uh diset it tells a whole different story
of Richard Overton's relationship with Jen the relationship Richard pointed out to me at my time of interview of they're
having a loving relationship uh and the bonds of Love were strong was totally inconsistent
with what he wrote in his Diaries and Lieutenant Carney noticed an interesting deletion in the Diaries I
opened up the diary for January 24th the handwritten Diary of January 24th this is the date that Janet died he had cut
the page out of the Diary many of the discs contained portions of documents that had been
deleted the discs were sent to a computer forensic examination firm for analysis
when material in a computer document is deleted it's not actually deleted instead the material is identified on
the disc as space available to be reused if needed if that space isn't needed the
deleted material is still there the recovered information from Richard's hard drive revealed that
Richard knew of his wife's affair with Bill Dawson and was angry about it overall his writings chronicled a deeply
troubled relationship approximately one week before her death he made an entry that
said the love hate relationship between Jan and I has turned to Pure hate I will
deal with this soon some passages of the handwritten Diaries had been covered with correction
fluid Carney suspected incriminating information might be underneath to find some way to see
underneath the deletions the Diaries were sent to the forensics lab the forensic document examiner um had
brought the diary for us to look at and was curious if we could use some type of
a light source that was available to us in the dentification bureau to illuminate that information that was
underneath the correction fluid black used what a decade ago was a new and untested piece of equipment a
laser it was a very simple procedure using the light source of through the laser shining it through the back of the
paper uh trying to illuminate what was underneath the correction fluid the process worked some of those
hidden entries corroborated the severity of the problems in the Overton's marriage I recall him documenting words
that they had had what she had said to him about how they were getting along or not getting along the Overton marriage
was a marriage that slowly deteriorated over uh a period of time and then quickly deteriorated to the
point where uh there was no uh uh contact between Richard and Janet Overton they had separate bedrooms they
took meals separately um she confided to a couple of her friends that as soon as
Eric graduated from high school she was out of there and he knew it too the Diaries were important because it showed
motive we saw the relationship between Jan and Richard on a daily basis there was everything listed in these Diaries
and when I say everything I mean everything but if Richard was somehow involved in Janet's death the Diaries
gave no hint of how he killed [Music] her forensic scientists suffered a major setback when they could find no Trace of
the poison selenium in Janet Overton's tissue samples years earlier Richard Overton
admitted putting selenium in his ex-wife's drink because he was angry about the financial terms of their
divorce but his ex-wife never filed charges but this admission of an earlier poisoning prompted forensic scientist to
take a second look at Janet Overton's tissue samples almost immediately medely the
toxicologist made a startling Discovery he detected the odor of bitter almonds within
seconds the odor of cyanide didn't really overpower me but it just jumped out I was 2 or 3 feet away and there was
just no question this was this was Cyanide and large amounts only one person in three has the ability to
detect cyanide in this way but he would need more proof than his nose no Sedrick performed a Prussian Blue
test a sample of Janet's stomach contents were mixed with water and sodium hydroxide then after adding some
Ferris sulfate the mixture was heated to Boiling if there was cyanide present the
mixture would turn a deep Prussian Blue the result was positive cyanide in Janet's stomach
meant she had ingested it shortly before her death and toxicologists found something
else traces of cyanide in Janet's brain tissue an indication she had ingested cyanide on previous
occasions cyanide was found in Trace Amounts in some herbal and prescription medicines that Janet Overton had been
taking to see if any of Janet's herbal treatments could have produced the iide sedick tested all of the substances she
was taking I ground them up I took them fresh without grinding them I put them in tubes I made them slightly acidic
somewhat mimicking stomach contents I I tried crushing them and grinding them in the acid I tried
blending them any way I could to bring out any cyanide that might be might possibly evolve from these
compounds and then I smelled them and I tested them chemically and I found no cyanide in any of the
compounds another obstacle was reports that cyanide can be created in blood samples after death these reports of
cyanide being created in systems in stored blood after death are actually measurable amounts of cyanide but
they're extraordinarily small before heading to trial prosecutors needed to know whether the
storage process caused the iide in Janet's tissues and wanted testing done by an internationally known expert I
called Scotland Yard because Scotland Yard dealt with more poisonings than we did here in the state so I called up and
I said do you know of an expert that deals in cyanide that would know exclusively about Cyanide and I was
referred to Brian Valentine One of the foremost experts in the world on cyanide the level of cyanide found in
Janet's blood sample 7 months after her death was 2 microG per 100 ml of blood while that amount was consistent with
other fatal cases of cyanide poisoning balentine's personal standard was much higher he studied the storage conditions
in the lab containing Janet's tissues and mathematically determined cyanides conversion and evaporation rates when
this was complete Dr Valentine knew that the s in Janet system was the result of
Foul Play This was a death of from of acute cyanide uh poisoning the quick acting
cyanide that killed Janet had to be administered minutes before her death this fact eliminated Janet's lover Bill
Dawson as the killer since he had an alibi that he was on his boat at the time of Janet's death but if Richard
Overton had given his wife the cyanide where did he get it it wasn't long before investigators
discovered the answer Richard's friend owned a gold and silver mine and he kept a lab in his house which contains
cyanide since it's used in mining operations to extract precious metal from the raw
core this individual was uh frequented these these mines mining operations and while he was gone
Richard would go over to his house and pick up the the person's mail and feed the animals Etc prosecutors could now
prove Richard had access to the murder weapon and had opportunity and motive 3 years after Janet's death
Richard Overton was arrested and charged with first deegree murder [Music] Richard Overton was charged with the
first-degree murder of his wife Janet he insisted he was innocent there is a very famous and
inspired saying that says you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free the truth is I am
innocent it's one thing to say look we have a cause of death and it's cyanide but it's another thing to be able to
prove it in front of 12 people and that was our job is to prove it to the jurors in the Box prosecutors
believe that Richard Overton was jealous of the notoriety his wife achieved as president of the local school board
their marriage deteriorated when Richard learned that Janet was having an affair
he was hurt when you're finished with the working day um and you're married whether it's been a long-term marriage
or a short-term marriage there should be something to come home to and in Janet's case there wasn't
anything to come home to when Richard discovered that Janet planned to divorce him he got angry and sought
Revenge just as he had done to his previous wife darthy when she divorced him at the trial Dorothy testified
against Richard about her poisoning incident Richard Overton also testified in his own defense he could not explain
logically uh the prior poisoning of uh Dorothy Boer and uh came off uh by making a comment that
he thought that the poison of her was just a neat joke and I think that was a uh a damning
thing to say and something that the certainly this jury could not understand in my opinion the forensic evidence
against Overton was overwhelming not just the toxicology which found the cyanide and Janet system but also the
forensic document examination of Overton's Diaries which clearly shows Overton's frame of mind at the time of
Janet's death the theory is that Richard Overton really fixed her a real good cocktail in the morning with her orange
juice after she drank it uh she uh went she was going whale watching with her son Eric and collapsed in the driveway
he was very clever very good and U Almost Got Away With It 7 years after Janet's death Richard
Overton was found guilty of first deegree murder this defended is sentenced to the
term of life without parole Richard Overton dropped down his guard he thought that he was so
intelligently uh far above these investigators that uh they weren't on to anything and uh he didn't realize really
how wrong he was until it was it was really too late I felt a great sense of relief that uh justice indeed had been
served that she did have her day in court and that um he did it and he was going to pay for it and I was still sad
that she was gone and especially under those conditions sadly in 1999 darthy Boer died of
lymphoma there is a possibility that the years of selenium poisoning could have cus
this U it's nothing that right now science or art technology can can prove Beyond a reasonable doubt we get people
off in our job as well as finding the guilty and either one is satisfaction but I will have to admit that finding
murderers and getting them off the Street's a big one we had to show the cause of death and the only way we were
going to show a cause of death is forensically and the forens those are scientists those are facts
those don't lie that you can't beat forensics you can't beat science the forensics were very important to this
case this case was primarily a science case uh and uh if I were to put a number to it I would say it was probably 90%
science and 10% [Music] investigation one [Music] [Music] [Music]

Brief Summary

Janet Overton's death was ruled a murder after cyanide poisoning was linked to her husband Richard Overton, who had a troubled past.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Janet Overton. A seemingly healthy woman collapses and dies, leaving medical experts baffled.
Richard Overton Charged with Murder. Three years after Janet's death, her husband is arrested for first-degree murder.

Episode highlights

Richard Overton Charged with MurderThree years after Janet's death, her husband is arrested for first-degree murder.“Richard Overton was charged with the first-degree murder of his wife Janet.”18:02Sep 16, 2024

Episode quotes

What happens when a healthy middle-aged woman suddenly collapses and dies?

0:06WatchSep 16, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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