The Dentist Who Poisoned His Wife While Pretending to Help

When Jim told his girlfriend Karen that his wife Angie had a history of suicide attempts and mental instability, it sounded like a tragic backstory. He described rushing her to the hospital, worrying she had tried to hurt herself again, and even keeping reversal agents like Narcan at home to save her. The problem was that none of it was true. Angie had no history of suicide attempts, no history of mental illness, and no idea her husband wanted a divorce. She was a healthy, energetic mother of six who had just returned from a genealogy conference in Utah, where her sisters described her as "fantastically happy." Within two weeks, she was dead from cyanide poisoning—and Jim had been the one feeding it to her.

The Double Life Unravels

Detectives arrested Jim for Angie's murder and immediately turned their attention to Karen, the woman he had been seeing. When Sergeant Walinak showed up at her hotel room, Karen seemed genuinely shocked. She explained that she and Jim had met at a dental conference in Las Vegas, that he had told her he was filing for divorce, and that he had described Angie as emotionally unstable with a history of self-harm. Karen believed she was entering a relationship with a man who was leaving a troubled marriage.