Then suddenly, she was gone. A mystery illness that baffled even her doctors. She shook like someone with the start of parkinsons. What had killed her . Something at home . Something at work . Household items . Thats a possibility. Listen carefully. In this case, the most important clue of all just might come from the victim herself. This just seems like there is some suspicion things that have occurred. Could this be murder . Do you think that someone might be trying to poison you . Thats an unpleasant way to die. Yes. And could she help solve it . Your disk are griping kind of a murder and should slow motion. Yes, rather diabolical. Its a mindboggling. Hello, and welcome to dateline. Linda curry was thriving with a dream job and a dreamy new husband. Then she got sick and doctors were stumped. But was started as a medical mystery soon took a sinister turn. A Lab Test Result veal that one piece of the puzzle, but it would take investigators years to put all the pieces together. Heres Josh Mankiewicz with toxic relations. What was wrong with linda curry . Something is happening with you lynda, youre ingesting something in your body that shouldnt be there. She went to the doctor. A lot of doctors. And it wouldnt go away. And it will get worse. Nausea, vomiting dizziness, confusion. Medicine didnt seem to help her. You could have Respiratory Failure within a number of minutes. Those who knew lynda watched something unfold. But what exactly did they see . It would take 20 years to unravel this mystery. Linda curry, born linda kilgore, with six years younger than her sister path. Linda grew up to be a Southern California beauty. She loved the sunshine, horses and family. Pats daughter ricky looked up to her aunt linda. She would call me over to her house to go read her closets and i would leave with my backseat loaded from the floor to the roof with clothes. She sounds like a lot of fun. She was a lot of fun. She was a blast. Linda worked from the power company, Southern California edison, thats where she met mary segel. Where we really met was on the fourth floor where we would go for lunch. She ate like a horse and never gained an inch. She and it drew me to her. And we became the best buds ever. But looks, generosity and brains dont guarantee happiness in love. Linda was married twice and divorced twice. She did choose guys that didnt seem to be a nice fit for the long term. So she got her heart broken a couple of times . She got her heartbroken i think more than a couple of times. But if her personal life wasnt going well, her professional life was. She climbed the ranks at edison, becoming the Trading Coordinator at the Nuclear Power plant. And it was there that linda a man named paul curry. He was 13 years younger than linda, and worked as a nuclear physicist. Pauls boss mike flower. Paul had an impressive resume . Yes he did. And a good reputation. He had a senior reactor operator license, and thats not such an easy qualification to find. And just a few months before linda and paul started dating, hed won 24,000 on jeopardy. So is this younger guy younger guy. Gourmet cook. Gourmet cook, a pianists. Hes in mensa. Mens a member . Nuclear physicists. Nuclear physicists, all the right things. Paul moved into lindas home in the picture perfect city of san clemente. They send their Marriage Vows in 1992. That part about in sickness and in health would be tested less than a year later. In the spring of 1993, linda came down with an illness that put her in the local hospital. Mary came to see her. She looked like a little girl in a big bed. She just looks so weak and not vibrant, like Linda Frightening to see her like that . Yes, you bet you. Her newly minted husband paul was sick to, with many of the same strange symptoms. Both were weak, vomiting, like a bad food poisoning. Or the worst summer stomach flu imaginable. Paul recovered quickly. Linda did not. We knew that she was very sick. And that they couldnt identify what was causing the problem. Paul kept a vigil by her bedside and kept their Edison Colleagues updated with daily emails like this there still is not much clue as to the original infection. But if she continues to improve and gets well soon, i dont think it will really matter what the name of the problem was. I think we can all live with a mystery. As long as linda is around to be mystified with us. How was paul when linda was sick . Very concerned. Worried . Yes. Eventually linda recovered enough to go home. Paul fixed her gourmet meals. Drew her a hot bath every night. And soon linda bet went back to work at the Nuclear Plant. But months later, she was in the hospital again. Seem strange symptoms. Linda again recovered enough to go home and back to work. But she worried about a relapse. She and paul planned to meet with some specialist who might be able to help. On june ninth, 1994, paul emailed mary. It was, mary im worried about linda. She is wobbly and weak. Paul wrote that she was mumbling incomprehensible stuff in her sleep about work and projects and meetings. And shes working all these hours. And shes working too many and maybe mary, shell listen to you. When linda came home from work that day she was tired and went to bed without eating dinner. A few hours later, the phone rang at mike flowers house. I answer it and he said mr. Flowers, this is the chaplain. And he said, can you come to paul and lynda currys house . Mike rushed over and found his friend paul, who told an awful story. How he woke up to an odd sound and found linda not breathing. He called 911. But by the time paramedics got there it was too late. Paul was extremely upset. For hours, i was basically holding him up and he was crying on my shoulder. Grief, shock and at the bottom of it all a question. What killed linda curry . Coming up. Lindas loved ones would wait years for an answer. An answer that would come. Whats your full name . Linda lee curry. From linda curry herself. When dateline continues. More active. Shingles doesnt care. I go to spin classes with my coworkers. Good for you, shingles doesnt care. Because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50. But shingrix protects. Proven over 90 effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. Shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. An increased risk of guillainbarre syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. Fainting can also happen. The most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. Shingles doesnt care but, shingrix protects. Shingrix is now zero dollars for almost everyone. 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It is. Is it possible to use predictive monitoring to address Operations Issues . We can help with that. Can we provide health care virtually anywhere . We can help with that, too. Is it possible to survey foot traffic across all of our locations . Yeah absolutely. With the advanced connectivity and intelligence of global secure networking from comcast business. Everyone who knew paul and its not just possible. Its happening. Lynda curry knew that linda had been sick for months. And a list for doctors could never explain. And paul had been sick to. Now suddenly, lindo was dead. Pauls friends steve wiggly. Everybody was in such shock, i dont think the reason mattered. It was just okay, we have to take care of our friend. How was paul . Grief stricken. So was lindas family. Her niece ricky remember how paul changed the funeral arrangements to help them deal with lindas sudden death. He allowed the casket to be open so that my mom could see her sister. Wrap her mind around her sister being gone. Linda was now only a memory. But she had left behind a perplexing medical mystery. What caused the Mysterious Illness that took her life . What were her symptoms . Diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness, fatigue and it wouldnt go away . It wouldnt go away. After lindas death, they discovered a medical chronology on her computer at work. She kept careful notes about her symptoms, from the very beginning. It went back a year to june 28th, 1993. She wrote, felt fine all day. Worked late. Had a solid for dinner woke up in the middle of the night vomiting. A month later, july 24th, 1993, approximately one hour after eating i began vomiting. I became extremely weak and sweaty. Lindas best friend. She worked at the Nuclear Plant . She did. Could it have been something she picked up there . Its not something that happens. And she never did that . No, not at all. They considered a third darker possibilities. You know there are people who make themselves sick because they want to be the center of attention . Sure, but she wasnt of that personality. Possible that she was depressed . She loved her job, she had friends. She had the perfect husband . Perfect husband, lots of nice high heels. What could you be depressed about . Lindas autopsy was inconclusive. Her Death Certificate listed the cause as, pending investigation. And, Sheriffs Detectives did investigate. The interviews taking place at mr. Currys residents. Six months after lindas death, the interviewed paul. Did you ever questioned them, why they never sure, we were making ourselves hysterical trying to figure out what was going on. Like Everyone Else in london s life, paul said he was puzzled and frustrated. Ive been a Problem Solver all my life and for the last couple of years, that was a problem that i couldnt solve. And its extremely taxing. And, like Everyone Else, he wondered if postmortem tests would finally solve the mystery. You understand that theyre doing, toxicological to try to determine yet they havent sent me any information. She has a forensic toxicologist at the Boston University school of medicine. She didnt work on lindas case, but in her lab, she often deals with the same challenges, when finding out how someone died. Linda suffered from dizziness, weakness, vomiting after eating, what does that sound like . It definitely sounds like the nausea and vomiting is persistent, thats suggesting that the body is ingested something that the body cant handle. Thats what lindas friend had thought all along. She said she shared her concerns with lynda. Lets have someone go into the house and check it, lets see if theres anything foreign in their. But she said linda never took that advice, never had her home tested. Now they all waited for the toxicology test on lindas body. And sure enough, the lab that examined linda sample did detect and identifies something quite curious. Linda curries body contained lethal levels of nicotine. It only deepened the mystery. Because according to everyone who knew her, linda curry did not Smoke Cigarettes or anything else, never had. Never. Never. Did that make sense to you, Nicotine Poisoning . Ive never heard of it, she never smoked, how could this happen . How could this be . No, i was shocked. I was shocked. Is it unusual to find nicotine in someones body . Its not unusual. We are exposed to nicotine either as a smoker or as a nonsmoker. There are more sources of nicotine and you think, besides cigarettes theyre actually small levels of nicotine in eggplant and potatoes. It also used to be an ingredient in insecticides. If youre working in your garden and your using an old insecticide that that contain nicotine could possibly get absorbed to your skin. Enough to kill you . Yes. In sufficient quantity she said nicotine is a deadly poison. In the beginning the individual may experience some nausea, vomiting, thats going to be followed with tremors, leading to convulsions and then complete respiratory depression leading to the death of the individual. You stop breathing . You stop rethink. That is an unpleasant way to dine . Yes. Linda didnt garden either. And the coroner didnt believe that amount of nicotine got into her body by accident. So he classified her death as a homicide. You kept waiting for that investigation to go somewhere . Yes. It never did . Never. Did detectives could not determine where the nicotine came from or how it got into lindas system. Months passed, the new years. Lindas niece nikki spoke often with the lead detective, and one day hurt something that shocked her. He seemed to be inclined to think that she had committed suicide. That might have been the end of the story were it not for this man at the time it determined student, he never met linda curry, but one day he did know everything about her. Coming up. We went back through every interview with every witness. A new team makes a new discovery. When dateline continues. One the surgery to remove all the toes that it really hit me. You see the commercials. You never put yourself in that persons shoes until youre there. announcer you can quit. Call 1800quitnow for help getting free medication. Im adding Downy Unstopables to my wash. Now ill be smelling fresh all day long. sniff still fresh. Still fresh mmm, still fresh get 6x longerlasting freshness, plus Odor Protection with Downy Unstopables. In 2006, when the name linda curry caught the eye of an Orange County prosecutor the case was about as cold as it could be. Linda curry was already dead by the time you even came to work here. Linda curry was dead when i was in law school. Nevertheless, a sheriffs investigator decided to take another crack at solving the mystery. More than a decade after linda s death. We went back through every interview that was conducted, with every witness. They also went deep into lindas medical records, and found out something very strange had happened during her first hospital stay. The nurse came back to the room and found the iv bag had a discolored fluid in it. And changed it out. After the discovery, linda became seriously ill. Ending up in the icu. Eventually, she got better and went home. But then for months later she was sick again. Back in the hospital. And again, something odd occurred. At that hospital, the iv port was broken. This is a different hospital . Different hospital, different staff. Had someone tampered with those bags . Could it have been poison . That was never clear. They tested everything. They couldnt tell. Normal toxicology tests, normal hospital testing, wont pick up nicotine unless youre testing for . Unless youre testing for it, correct. The incidents were as troubling as they were mysterious. No Surveillance Video or security tape showing anybody doing it . No, the only common denominator is linda and paul. So, linda was getting the treatment and paul was right there by her side as a beautiful husband . Paul, the dutiful, doting husband. As they reviewed all their interviews and conducted nuance, they picked up on a theme. Lindas friends and family didnt much like him. Her niece, rickie. There was this was this arrogance about him. Remember, paul was a physicist. A member of mensa. A jeopardy winner. And apparently he didnt keep any of that a secret. He was on some other social level than we were. So, i felt he looked down his nose at us. He thought he was better than you are . Yes, definitely that. But linda of course loved pauls intelligence, and the way he spoiled her. But when linda got sick, her friend mary got suspicious. She was telling me, or paul is now making me the salads and hes making this new dressing. And you know what hes doing, mary . Hes such a good guy, hes drawing a hot bat for me right after i eat. And hes making me so and shes getting sick. And you think that this salads and the homemade dressing and hot bath all had something to do with it . I think hes a nuclear physicists, right . Yes hes mensa, hes a smart guy. I think he was trying different things. Things like nicotine . Was that even possible . Well, not impossible. According to toxicologist jones. So you could serve somebody a spicy or savory enough this that they would not know there is a significant enough amount nicotine. If you introduce it to someone s bathwater and put in some perfume or send itself of some kind it may be able to mask any order it may produce. So there is a lot of ways that you can get nicotine in your system without noticing it . Possible. Its worth remembering that paul got sick at the same time linda did. So whatever affected her, seem to affect him too. But as friends and family watched poll get well, and linda get sicker, their suspicions hardened. You always immediately suspected paul having done something . Yes, from the first phone call. I thought he definitely was trying to kill. Other people thought the same thing . Absolutely. Nobody called the police . There was no proof. Still, mary says, she tried to warn linda. I told her she had to leave. And she said what . Youre seeing things . She, mary, shes a good hes good husband. He wouldnt hurt me. Those worries from friends and family, and mystery illness. And questions about the iv. A lot of susp