All language subtitles for American Greed s11e09 Recipe for Murder

In this episode of American Greed.

I'm convinced Linda just wanted the
American dream.

A Southern California beauty believes
she's finally found happiness.

But where Linda Curry sees the best in
people, Paul Curry sees only dollar

signs.

It was all about money.

The only thing that Paul Curry saw when
he looked at Linda Curry was a paycheck.

But to cash it in, Linda Curry must die.

And Paul Curry is willing to make it
happen.

They have somebody who's greedy, who's
smart, and who's selfish.

And that's a deadly combination.

Despite multiple attempts, Paul can't
seem to end her.

Here he is, stroking her hair.

Oh, baby, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And in his quietness of his own
thoughts, what do I have to do to get

dead?

In July 1993, 49 -year -old Linda Curry
lies in intensive care at Samaritan

Hospital in Southern California.

She got very, very sick, violently sick,
diarrhea, throwing up,

taken to the hospital.

They had no idea what happened to her.
They had no idea what happened to her.

I mean, she went through some tests and
procedures that are pretty

uncomfortable.

trying to determine, you know, she's got
cancer, she has this, she has that, she

has a virus, and the medical community
was unable to determine what is it

causing it.

The more diseases that are ruled out,
the more realistic a frightening

possibility becomes.

Linda Curry has been poisoned.

Law enforcement officers come to her
bedside to ask questions no one wants to

think about.

If somebody were trying to do something
to you, if they were trying to poison

you, Any idea who would try to do that?

Well, the only person I could think of
that would have a motive to do it would

be Paul.

And the only motive I can think of is
money.

Linda Curry, born Linda Kincaid, has
never been lucky in love.

She is married and divorced twice and
has multiple long -term relationships

other men, but they never seem to work
out.

The only reason I didn't.

Getting married to Linda was because
she'd been divorced twice.

I'd been divorced once.

And I'm saying I was always real leery
about divorce again.

It's easy to say I'm not ready, wasn't
ready.

But in retrospect, I keep thinking,
well, why not, you know?

She was just perfect. Maybe she was too
nice to me.

She's always had that beautiful smile.

Now that I think about it, I don't think
I've ever seen her frown.

Never one to give up hope, even in the
face of bitter experience, the sunny 45

-year -old soon has a new flame.

I do remember her calling me up and
saying that she had met a guy, and he's

a smart man.

Paul Curry works as a nuclear engineer
at the San Onofre Nuclear Plant, where

Linda works as an administrator.

And from the beginning...

Linda seems smitten.

When Mary Sebold meets him with her
boyfriend Tom, it seems there's nothing

Curry cannot do.

Tom and I went over to the house, and
Linda had this beautiful white piano,

Tom kind of said, yeah, who plays the
piano?

And Paul says, well, I can play. What do
you want to hear? Ragtime? You want to

hear classical?

What do you want to hear? And he sits
down, he starts pounding out some music

like he was Elton John, you know? And
that's not all.

Paul Curry is a member of Mensa, a
gourmet cook.

This is Jeopardy! And even claims to win
tens of thousands of dollars as a

contestant on Jeopardy!

Mary can see that Linda is in love, but
Mary doesn't find him quite as

endearing.

You know, you meet Paul, and he lets you
know how smart he is pretty much right

off the bat. You say something that's
not quite... maybe something about

history, something about anything.

He's there to correct you nicely, but he
will correct you. And so, you know,

you're kind of taken back like, hmm,
he's pretty smart. And Linda likes that

because that's kind of showing off what
she now has.

Ricky Rycraft is Linda's niece, and she
says that her family has some misgivings

about Paul as well.

The first impression we had of him was
kind of standoffish, and I don't

We lost that impression. I'm speaking
for all the family, I guess, when I say

we. We had the sense that he was
standoffish and not really interested in

getting too connected to us.

But he is connected to Linda.

He moves into her new house in an upper
-middle -class neighborhood of San

Clemente, California, and it appears
that Linda is willing to give commitment

one more try.

In September 1992, the two are married.

Linda may believe that she is finally on
the road to happiness.

But shortly after the marriage, Linda
tells her friend Mary something strange.

She said, you know, Paul wants to take
out a million -dollar life insurance

policy on me.

What do you think?

I said, well, you know, you're married
now. I said, get one on him, he gets one

on you. I said, so you're both covered,
sure.

He goes, no, no, no. He says because I'm
older that...

I should just have it, you know, for me
because I'm older.

And I said, Linda, are you crazy?

No, you get it on both. Why after, you
know, a few months of marriage, he's

looking of a life insurance policy.

But that boing is a red flag in my
little brain at that point.

For better or worse, her husband Paul
becomes the beneficiary of more than

,000 in life insurance policies.

and thousands of dollars more in
retirement benefits from her employer,

California Edison.

But for now, Paul treats Linda like a
queen.

Linda had called me and said that Paul
was kind of experimenting with all these

exotic salad dressings.

and what a good husband he was, how he
would go upstairs and pour her a nice

bath. And he'd tell her, now you've got
to come up, take a nice bath, I want you

to soak.

And so she was very proud of that. And
so that's something that never really I

thought anything about other than, well,
that's nice.

Or is it?

Less than a year after they wed, Linda
falls sick, violently sick.

And she's hospitalized with a mysterious
gastrointestinal pain.

To law enforcement and to family and
friends, red flags abound, and they all

center around Paul.

Any other periods of illness before this
hospitalization?

Before, it's always felt visible. I take
good care of myself. I eat good.

I've never been sick.

When former boyfriend Bruce Brandt
visits Linda at the hospital, he is

confronted with the suspicions.

It was in those visits to the hospital
that she told me that, you know, he was

making these funny sauces and weird, you
know, meals for her that then she'd

get ill. And her friends were saying,
you know, that there could be something

going on there.

Once in the hospital, Linda's condition
seems to stabilize, though her pain

persists. And one evening, the nurse
taking care of Linda, Sherry Bundy,

discovers something suspicious.

I medicated her, and at that time I
reassessed her, got her comfortable,

her IV.

And when I was looking up at the IV bag,
I noticed that the IV bag was cloudy.

I have never seen a cloudy one, never.

And not to appear too alarmed, I ran
down. I got a new IV bag.

I came back and calmly hung it up.

And I took the bag back to the nursing
station and called my supervisor because

it's not normal to have a cloudy
solution in there.

The contaminated IV bag is taken to a
lab.

And though they cannot immediately
determine what has been added to it,

knows something isn't right.

When I called the next day to find out
how she was and what had transpired,

they... told me that they couldn't tell
me much, but there was something

definitely wrong with the IV bag and
that she was in intensive care.

Linda's condition worsens.

What was once extreme discomfort is now
a fight for her life.

And I just remember how she looked. She
was in ICU, and I got to see her, and

how she looked, and she was so frail,
and she looked bad, very bad.

If her turn for the worse is the result
of a contaminated IV bag, who could

possibly be responsible?

Linda's friends immediately think of one
person.

When we found out that her IV bag had
been contaminated at the hospital while

she was there, I told Linda at that
time, I said, good God, Linda, who do

think's trying to kill you?

She didn't believe it was Paul.

I said, there's nobody else that you
have exposure to.

The hospital staff suspects the same
thing.

Every time I was in the room to assess
her, Paul was in the room with her.

No one else.

Under the circumstances, the hospital
decides that at no time should Paul be

left unsupervised in his own wife's
intensive care room.

But has the damage already been done?

When American Greed returns.

Paul Curry may have earned the
suspicions of friends, family, and the

but when law enforcement turns its
investigation towards him, will it stop

greedy plan?

The spouse is not permitted to visit his
spouse without being supervised by

somebody. That's unheard of. How does
that happen?

Well, it happens when you're trying to
murder your wife.

As Linda Curry lies in intensive care
fighting for her life, her husband Paul

acting strange.

Despite the severity of her condition,
Paul sees no need to inform Linda's

family.

We didn't know she was sick. Paul did
not call us. He did not inform us. He

notifying all kinds of other people, you
know, that he was sending emails to

everybody at work. And we didn't get
emails. We didn't get anything.

Rycraft feels like Paul is hiding
something.

Hospital staff agrees.

And they limit Paul's access to Linda
after they find a contaminated IV bag.

They also inform the police.

And it points to one likely conclusion.

But law enforcement can't prove
anything.

It was fairly clear that this was an
intentional act.

And to some degree it was fairly clear
it was Paul who did it.

But having something be fairly clear.

And being able to prove it beyond a
reasonable doubt in court are two

things. At this point, there are
hundreds of possible elements that could

causing Linda's illness.

There is no test that you can run on
somebody's blood that will tell you

everything that is in the blood or in
tissues. There is no one test that says,

okay, I'm going to use this test and
this will tell me everything that's in

there. You have to have an idea about
what you're looking for. But if you

know what you're looking for, right,
it's very hard to find it.

And so far, neither doctors nor police
have been able to find it.

What they are discovering, however, is a
lot of circumstantial evidence of

motivation.

And even Linda seems to realize that
Paul may be involved.

When I met him, he didn't have anything,
any credit or anything. I had a nice

big house, a nice car.

I had pretty much taken care of myself.

So financially, you've got everything
and he's got nothing.

And all of a sudden, he's got access to
everything.

Paul Curry not only has access to her
finances, but her stored up assets as

well. Linda now has more than $600 ,000
in life insurance, plus more than

$230 ,000 in employee benefits.

All told, it's nearly $1 million.

According to Assistant District Attorney
Brahim Beytai, getting his hands on

those policies is Paul Curry's objective
from day one.

Money.

Simple as that. It was all about money.
The only thing that he saw when he

looked at Linda Curry was a paycheck.

But it's not as simple as Paul may
think.

Linda survives her illness and survives
the tampering of her IV bag.

As Paul Curry sits by her bedside,
nearly $1 million sits just outside his

grasp.

Here he is, stroking her hair while
she's having severe vomiting and

and that, oh, baby, I'm sorry, I'm
sorry.

And in his quietness, his own thoughts,
what do I have to do to get this woman

dead?

As Linda recovers...

Orange County law enforcement tries to
get to the bottom of what is causing her

illness, or more to the point, who is
causing it.

Let's say that somebody else is trying
to poison her. Who else could you think

of that would possibly want to do that?

I can't even think of, even Paul, it's
even hard for me to even think would do

that.

I can't possibly think of anybody else
that would have a motive.

Nevertheless, Linda seems unwilling to
believe that Paul is trying to hurt her.

He's always thoughtful.

He's a nice person.

He appears to be a nice person.

I don't know.

He seems to be very attentive.

You can tell she's almost debating in
her mind. She's almost weighing in her

mind. Here is everything that shows me
that this is a bad guy who's taking

advantage of me.

But here is what he tells me.

And here is what he's capable of making
me feel.

And that's why she used that term theme,
because she's trying to reconcile these

two things. You can't reconcile them
because one of them is fake.

I'm too trusting. I'm too, you know, I
just like to give people the limit, fear

the doubt, and sometimes it gets me into
trouble.

I love him very much. Do you believe he
loves you?

I want to believe that he does.

He certainly is convincing.

But he doesn't convince everyone.

When American Greed returns, Paul Curry
plays the loving husband.

But Linda's friends fight to make her
see the fiend behind the friendly face.

And I said, just get away.

Get away from this man. He's a monster.

But he's stuck.

To the end.

While law enforcement gathers evidence
against Paul, Linda's friends and family

don't have the luxury of time.

They're trying to save her life.

I wouldn't pull punches because I was
fearful.

that she was being made sick by Paul,
and my suspicion was he was poisoning

I was talking to her about this, trying
to get her out of the house.

My mom would do the same thing.

It was not going to be left out of any
conversation we had with her.

An ex -boyfriend, Bill Sandretto, never
stops caring about Linda.

He implores her to take away any
possible incentives for Paul to do her

I said, who's the beneficiary on your
life policy?

She said, well, it's Paul.

I said, God, get him off.

And she says, well, I'll put you on. I
said, don't put me on. I don't want to

on that.

Give it to your sister.

I said, what about your 401k? Well, I
need to change that, too.

After leaving the hospital fully
recovered in August, Linda concedes and

switches the beneficiary of her life
insurance and employment benefits from

to her sister.

But she doesn't tell Paul.

It certainly reflects her state of mind,
and she says it during an interview,

that her husband, Paul, would be the
only one with motivation to murder her,

it would be for the money.

But her state of mind seems to be
ambivalent.

After all, when she leaves the hospital,
she goes back home to Paul.

I think she has signs of being an abused
woman.

And if you're being tortured, it's
emotional, psychological abuse. So

abuse going on there. And so I think
it's feasible that he had the abused

syndrome. So she couldn't, in her mind,
leave.

Just after New Year's 1994,

law enforcement suspects that Paul tries
again.

Linda is taken to Mission Hospital.

Ten miles from the location of her first
hospitalization with the exact same

symptoms as before.

But even ten miles away and under the
supervision of an entirely different

hospital staff, nurses find her IV bag
tampered with yet again.

It happened again, and the police were
involved again, and Paul was

implicated again.

This time, authorities don't only
question Linda, they question Paul as

I know this has raised a lot of
questions within your marriage and a lot

talking to your wife yesterday that
she's got some doubts now about finances

things like that. Could there really be
something going on?

So that's why you're here today.

According to Paul, he has absolutely no
financial motivation for Linda's death.

Police don't buy it.

There's potential to make almost $1
million with Linda's death.

Finally, after her second
hospitalization, Linda seems to be on

the police.

Ultimately,

friends and family believe that Linda
has seen the light.

and will leave Paul behind.

But it's not so simple.

When American Greed returns, friends'
hearts break as Linda can't bring

to leave Paul.

She called and said, I can't do it.
Paul's a good husband. I can't do it.

There's nothing going on. I'll get
better.

As Linda Curry continues to suffer from
a mysterious illness, her future of

happiness seems to recede further and
further from her grasp.

I'm convinced Linda just wanted the
American dream, you know, the white

fence, the 2 .5 kids, and the man who
pledged to love her is the one

her murder.

And I'm convinced that in the previous
attempts, Paul just had to be very

frustrated, why isn't she dead?

Ironically, the source of her suffering
springs from a hope she never really

had.

But if there's one

thing Paul Curry can do, it's
manipulate.

And according to Assistant District
Attorney Brahim Betai, winning Linda's

is his plan from the beginning.

Very simple.

She's going to fall in love with me.

I'm going to marry her.

I'm going to kill her. And I'm going to
collect the insurance policies. And I'm

going to take over her pension and
retirement plan and move on.

There's nothing complicated about it.
It's evil.

It's diabolical.

But fairly simple.

For months, Linda's family and friends
have been pleading and praying that

will leave Paul once and for all.

But one afternoon, Linda's niece and her
niece's family are visiting, and they

realize that Linda isn't only staying,
she's renewing her commitment.

We met Paul and my aunt and had lunch
there at one of the restaurants, and she

had just bought Paul a new wedding ring.

I'm sure it cost her a pretty penny, and
I was trying to wrap my mind around,

why are you spending money on a gift for
this guy right now?

It's either a reaffirmation of faith or
a resignation to fate.

To her friend, Mary Sebold, it seems
like the latter.

I go to visit her all the way down in
San Clemente, and she doesn't look like

herself. I just notice her hands are
just shaking like an old room.

lady's hands shaking. Like I said, Linda
just held her hand. I said, why are you

shaking so much?

She said, Oh, I don't know, marriage is
probably just getting better, you know,

and everything. I'm just getting better.

And so she says, well, we need to go
upstairs because I have something to

you. So we go upstairs and we go to a
room and she's now sit down and she's

pulling all this stuff out of her
closet. And she says, and I want you to

it all.

I said, Linda, I don't, I don't need it
all. I don't want it all, honey.

And she says, no, no, no. I want you to
have it all.

It was almost like a goodbye.

It was almost like a goodbye.

The hardest thing in my heart that I
remember was when Linda called me and

said, are you home? And I said, yeah.
And she said, can I come by?

And so she came by here to this house.

And she told me that she was really,
this can make me start crying,

worried about Paul, that he was doing
something.

And we stood there at her car, and I
said, well, just don't go home then, you

know.

And she still didn't want to believe it.

But there she was telling me that she
was afraid that he was going to kill

I mean, in retrospect, I know that she
was telling me that. And then she drove

off, and I feel that to this day I
should have done something more.

I wish I could have been stronger. I
made her leave or just kidnap her or

her out.

But how do you do that?

How do you do that?

On June 9, 1994, near midnight,
paramedics are called to the Curry

She is found unconscious, lying in bed.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital,
Linda Curry is pronounced dead.

I don't know what it was.

I have no idea what was going on.

She was just ready to go and see the
Lord.

The cause of her death is a mystery.

But this time, it's solvable.

When American Greed returned, the Orange
County District Attorney's Office sets

its sights on Paul Curry.

But is this Mensa member going to
outsmart the police?

His concern was, I don't care if you
think I'm a suspect as long as you don't

have enough evidence to prosecute me.
And to some degree, that was a genius on

their part.

Listen to law enforcement interview Paul
Curry at AmericanGreed .CNBC .com.

Want inside information from the show?

Join the Greed social network.

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page.

Don't go away. We'll be right back.

Six

months

after Linda's death, police question
Paul Curry once again.

Curry claims that Linda goes to bed
early, and when Paul wakes up in the

of the night, she's unresponsive. She
wouldn't wake up.

I couldn't get her awake.

Assistant District Attorney Brahim Betai
believes he knows exactly why Linda

won't wake up.

Paul Curry has dosed her with sleeping
pills.

The level of Ambien in her system was
almost ten times as much as you would

expect from her taking what the doctor
prescribed.

He used the Ambien to sedate her to a
point where she's not capable of doing

anything other than dying as she's being
poisoned by him.

Baytime believes Curry knocks her out
and then injects her with a deadly

But doctors have a difficult time
determining what that poison is.

There is no single test that reveals
every substance in a person's

So for Dr. Halka, who was assigned the
case...

It's a long, challenging struggle of
trial and error.

It was kind of a challenge because as
you probe deeper and deeper, you're less

willing to give up.

The deceased, I think, deserve that kind
of attention.

Eventually, clinicians determine what
everyone suspected.

It's homicide by poison.

What no one expected, however, is that
the poison that kills Linda is already

running through the veins of millions of
people across the country.

Nicotine.

So one of the things that I was curious
about and did not know is where would

somebody go to find nicotine in the form
that you can use to poison somebody and

be able to murder somebody?

But in the mid -90s, nearly a decade
before Baytai takes over the case,

almost no effective research on nicotine
poisoning.

Prosecutors don't know if it takes
industrial concentrates of the drug or

a simple pack of cigarettes.

In other words, this murder weapon is
practically untraceable.

According to Baytai, it's part of
Curry's diabolical genius.

He didn't set a goal for himself to
dissuade the police from thinking of him

a suspect. He did not care about that.
He was absolutely content with them

looking at him as a suspect forever, as
long as their suspicion does not get to

the point of, we now have enough
evidence to prosecute you. You're going

to jail. That's what he cared about.

And to everyone's dismay, his strategy
works.

Without proof of what nicotine poisoning
requires,

Orange County prosecutors in 1995 don't
think they can convince a jury of Paul

Curry's guilt.

The murder goes uncharged.

Nevertheless, Ricky Rycraft and her
mother continue to badger the lead

investigator at the time to get answers.

But at one point, he gives sobering
news.

There was a point where he told me, just
stop calling.

He goes, we know that Paul is the person
who did this.

If we arrest him right now, he's not
going to be convicted.

Brahim Betai doesn't join the district
attorney's office until 1997, but he

understands the disappointment of both
law enforcement and Linda's family.

That's probably the biggest frustration
that I have as a prosecutor, is when I

have facts that leads me to conclude
that a crime was committed.

that this specific individual committed
that crime, but I can't prove it beyond

the reasonable doubt. It's very
frustrating, because legally, we can't

charges. Ethically, we can't file
charges.

In the meantime, Paul Curry continues
living his life, but it may not be

the life he expects.

After he murders her, he is working to
get all the claims forms ready to submit

claims on the insurance policy.

He finds out shortly thereafter that on
one of these insurance policies, he is

not the beneficiary.

It's a shock to Curry that he's not the
beneficiary on all of Linda's policies,

but he's gone too far to give up now.

And the law is on his side.

California is a community property
state, and he fights and wins to recover

benefits from contributions made after
he and Linda are married.

So after Linda's death, Paul receives
$300 ,000 from two different life

insurance policies.

In addition to that, he received just
over $119 ,000 from a stock option plan

that Linda had through her employer that
he was entitled to as the spouse.

And then he received this pension
benefit of $564 a month. That monthly

check is particularly disturbing.

Every month, he's getting a reminder
that I murdered Linda for the money.

And he may need the money.

Shortly after Linda's death, his boss at
Southern California Edison discovers

that deception is a common ingredient in
this gourmet's cooking.

He's not a nuclear engineer.

He doesn't even have a college degree.

Think about it. This is a guy that never
graduates from college and was able to

convince federal regulators and multi
-billion dollar corporations.

that he wasn't just a nuclear engineer,
that he was one of the top experts in

the field.

As his facade crumbles, Curry decides to
construct a brand new persona.

He eventually ends up in the rural town
of Salina, Kansas, where he convinces

the city that he's qualified to be the
city building code inspector.

He remarries.

And 16 years after Linda's murder, he
may think he's gotten away with it.

But back in California, the Orange
County Sheriff's Department is back on

case. In 2002, I was working
specifically cold case homicides. And my

and I would review all the cases and
decide, do we think they were solvable?

And I started reviewing this case and I
started listening to the previous

interviews of Linda Curry.

And when I listened to one particular
interview, she told the investigator at

the time, if something happens to me,
it's Paul.

Then I thought it was solvable.

When American Greed returns, the Orange
County Sheriff's Department confronts

Paul Curry.

Paul, I believe that you are the cause
of Linda's death.

But can he slip out of their grasp one
more time?

Your mind about something which is
vicious and incorrect.

Okay. Tell me how I'm wrong.

Sergeant Yvonne Scholl begins working
for the Orange County Sheriff's

in 1986.

And when she joins its cold case unit in
2001, the hottest case on her plate is

the 1994 death of Linda Curry.

passes away at her house and the only
common denominator again is paul and by

2007 research and technology have
advanced to the point that law

a better understanding how exactly paul
curry commits the murder she was flat

when they got to the house it all comes
back to the nicotine so we first needed

to know what type of nicotine are we
dealing with and The University of

California, San Francisco took her blood
plasma and tested it and found that it

was a crude extraction from tobacco.

And the doctor told me one cigar or one
pack of cigarettes soaked in alcohol and

then evaporated to make a powder would
be enough to kill someone.

It's simple enough, but apparently
putting it in homemade salad dressings

sauces isn't doing the job.

In the end, Curry gets serious.

I think that's when he realized he needs
to do something where she will not make

it to the hospital.

Because the poison that he's using, if
you are taken to the hospital within a

certain amount of time, they were able
to save her twice.

And he realized that. So he made sure
the third time around that there's not

going to be a chance for anybody to save
her.

Dissolved in a liquid solution, the
powdered nicotine can easily be injected

directly into Linda's bloodstream with a
syringe.

It turns out that the needle in a
haystack law enforcement has been

in terms of a murder weapon is literally
a needle.

We found an injection mark behind her
ear during the autopsy, a very, very

injection mark.

Unlike in 1994, researchers know enough
about nicotine that they can now put

together a timeline for the night of
Linda's death.

The amount of nicotine that she had in
her system would have caused her to die

within 20 to 25 minutes.

That was the biggest piece of evidence.

That was the smoking gun.

Because the only person that had access
to her during that period of time was

Paul Curry.

Around the same time, Yvonne Shull
discovers a startling new piece of

Paul Curry's previous wife, Leslie,
tells law enforcement that she

the same illnesses in the 80s that Linda
goes through years later.

So shortly after they get married, he
says, you know, I want us to get a life

insurance policy. And she told us that
she was kind of surprised, like, why?

But she never second -guessed what he
said. So they both apply for a life

insurance policy.

And she told us at that time she was
starting to get sick. She went to a

They had no idea what was wrong with
her.

The symptomology was vomiting, diarrhea,
etc., which is consistent with

poisoning. The same as Linda. And then
she gets rejected for life insurance

policy.

And within a week or two after that, he
leaves her.

And she said after Paul left her, she
got better. And she's never been sick

since.

According to Baytai, Leslie is now
convinced that if she had been approved

life insurance, she would now be dead.

Linda is simply Paul Curry's plan B.

He's very selfish.

Didn't care about anybody else. So you
have somebody who's greedy, who's smart,

and who's selfish.

And that's a deadly combination.

Law enforcement believes they are now
ready to confront Paul Curry in Salina,

Kansas.

I guess this involves something with a
woman named Melinda.

I knew that

he would never admit to me that he
killed Melinda. I knew that going in.

I just wanted to get enough to show that
you can't believe him, no matter what

he says.

Do you have a physics degree?

No. No.

Did you ever tell anybody you had a
physics degree? I've told people that in

past. Yes. How come?

Self -inflation.

Bragging. I knew from the first lie that
I was going to paint him into a corner.

However, I never expected him to say I
was less than truthful. It was self

-inflation. I didn't expect that.

Paul thinks he's the smartest guy in the
room.

And maybe he is.

But he thinks he's just talking to some
locals, so he's putting on a good game

face. But then Scholl brings in a
surprise witness, Linda Curry.

What did she just say?

This is when I think you start realizing
that these detectives are serious and

he's in trouble.

Paul, I believe that the cause of
Linda's illnesses and the cause of

death are at your hand.

And before I ask you any other
questions, I feel like I need to read

right.

Are you arresting me?

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say may be used against you
in court. Do you understand that?

Paul Curry is taken back to Orange
County, California to face the murder

charges.

So let me tell you why we're here.

Greed.

The evidence is going to show that the
man sitting at the end of council table

killed his wife.

She died from nicotine poisoning.

He pleads not guilty.

Nicotine has a lot of uses, and nicotine
has some medicinal uses.

The defense argues that the nicotine
could have been introduced several ways

Linda herself, either with purpose or by
accident.

They tried to argue that maybe she was
trying to give herself a nicotine edema,

and she accidentally poisoned herself.

There is no way to make that argument
even with a straight face.

On September 30th, 2014... We, the jury,
find the defendant guilty of the crime

of murder.

Paul Curry is found guilty and given a
life sentence.

Linda's friends and family are still
confounded by how such an evil could

a woman they consider an angel.

I'll see her again, and like I say, the
first thing I'm going to say is, Linda,

why won't you leave?

Tell me why won't you leave?

That's my first question to her.

Yeah.

But for Ricky Rycraft, there's only one
person who has to answer for Linda's

death, and it's not Linda.

I couldn't be mad at her for that. You
know, just because she's sweet and

to give Paul the benefit of the doubt
unto death, I'm mad at him.

I've prosecuted a lot of murderers that
shoot and execute other human beings.

That's horrible.

But it's quick.

You take a gun, you point the gun, you
pull the trigger.

That's not what he did.

What he did is tenfold more diabolical.

Because he's holding the hands of that
human being saying, I love you.

And he's watching the pain that they're
going through.

At the same time, he is causing that
pain.

And for a very, very simple reason,
money.

It doesn't get any more diabolical or
more evil than that.