Toxic Death | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

On Maryland's Eastern Shore, a couple's romantic weekend getaway turns deadly when a man dies in a deadly fire, Although all evidence suggests a tragic accident, a routine investigation exposes some troubling irregularities in Florida, a Apparently healthy woman dies at home and examiners can't find anything. to explain

death

even though police suspect murder It will be years before new forensic technology offers any hope of proving it when an untraceable poison is used to commit a murder homicide

detectives

face a difficult challenge seeking help they turn to forensic

toxic

ologists to follow a killer's trail and expose a

toxic

death

st michael's is a historic fishing town turned resort on maryland's east coast.

Quaint tree-lined streets, old homes and boutiques have made it a popular towboat county for weekend getaways In the early morning hours of February 15, 1998, an emergency dispatcher received a frantic call from a local resort employee: is anyone in the room? One of the rooms was on fire and he believed a guest was trapped inside I-36 east. Respond to the St Michael's resort fire. At least one guy in the room within minutes. Rescue workers. The Talbot County Fire Department and Maryland State Police officers arrived at the scene, the fire confined to a single room was quickly brought under control, although hotel employees managed to remove the guest from the room in which the victim was located. , Stephen Frico, 35 years old.

Declared dead at the scene and his face had been burned beyond recognition, police learned shortly before 1:30 a.m. At 9:00 p.m., the victim's wife rushed to the hotel lobby to report that her room was on fire, employees called 9-1-1 and then ran to the room. They found the victim lying on the bed and quickly pulled him out, but it was too late. The victim's wife, Kim Rico, 33, said she and her husband Steve were spending Valentine's weekend together that same night. She and Steve had dinner with friends at the hotel dinner. drama kim said that steve had been drinking heavily and had taken antidepressants and cold medicine kim said that steve became carelessly drunk she and her husband returned to their room a few hours later steve continued drinking and then began pressuring her to have sex are you drunk when Kim refused, he got angry, hey hey, to avoid a fight, she grabbed her things and left for a walk when she returned a few hours later, walked into the room and was immediately overwhelmed by smoke.

She couldn't believe her husband. It's been 10 years as investigators searched for answers to explain the deadly fire. Maryland Deputy State Fire Marshal Mike Mulligan began searching for the origin of the fire. The point of origin is key to determining the cause of the fire and determining whether it was accidental or intentional. What you want to do is start in the area of ​​the least fire damage and work your way toward the most fire damage and the idea is that the place where you have the most fire damage is the one that has been burning the longest on the nightstand. next to the bed.

Investigators found their first clue: a partially melted soda bottle. The heat softened the plastic on the side facing the fire while it was still cold on the other side and the plastic began to melt and pointed the neck of the bottle toward the point of origin. The fire had apparently started near the pillow where Steven Rico's head would have been. The burn patterns showed their progress across the bed and onto the charred carpet. Investigators then discovered a possible cause of the fire on the nightstand and found an open pack of cigarettes. What was missing to the fire chiefs was the reason behind the fire seemed tragically clear we could eliminate the electrical system we could eliminate the heating and air conditioning units we could eliminate the wood stove and what that left us with was that well, one of the possibilities was careless smoking In At the autopsy, the medical examiner found that Steven Rico had suffered severe burns to his head, arms and torso, but surprisingly no traces of soot or carbon monoxide were found in the victim's lungs, suggesting that he had stopped breathing. breathe before the room filled with smoke, having found no cause of death, blood and tissue samples were collected for further analysis.

Toxicologists at the Maryland State Police Crime Laboratory confirmed that no carbon monoxide was present in the victim's blood or tissue and the blood alcohol test results were in percentage. Examiners found no evidence to suggest Steve had been drinking or taking pills. While his wife claimed the results were transmitted to the Maryland State Police, homicide detective Joe Gamble struggled to reconcile all the facts of the case, they were unable to determine how he died, they were able to tell us that he didn't die for any reason. natural causes there was no alcohol in stephen's blood nor carbon monoxide soot in his lungs that did not match what kimberly rico told us that night to resolve the inconsistencies the

detectives

questioned the victim's wife again kim krieko was surprised by the laboratory findings in addition to drinking heavily at dinner, steve had bought beer and cigars earlier that day, she admitted that her marriage had been difficult, but claimed that she and steve had managed to resolve their problems, everything had gone very well as the interrogation continued , Kim got nervous and then asked for an interview. lawyer and ended the interview to find out what Kim Rico was hiding the police contacted the couple's friends they all agreed that Kim and Steve had been working hard to save their marriage but none of the friends had known that Steve smoked cigarettes the information Inconsistent addition to the autopsy findings led investigators to suspect that Steve Rico's death had not been the result of an accident, as his wife suggested that to prove it they would first need to determine exactly how the fire started.

They turned to arson investigators from the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office for training. facility in Eastern Maryland fire chiefs sought to recreate the damage seen at the scene, they lit the same brand of cigarette that was found inside the room and placed it on a pillow they had obtained from the hotel, it caught fire and then put out the ash of the lit cigarette. we failed to ignite the flame retardant pillow we took the cigarettes and placed them on the pillows which we did this repeatedly for about an hour and a half and what the evidence showed us was that smoking carols could not have been the cause of the ignition caused by the pillow Although investigators now suspected that an accelerant had been used to start the fire, laboratory tests did not reveal any trace of a flammable substance, however, the accelerant could have been burned during the fire, the only other way the Investigators were able to light the pillow and recreate the burn damage by applying an improvised blowtorch directly to it, the test confirmed that the fire was incendiary in nature, that it was not an accidental fire, it was not a cause of careless smoking, the fire had been intentionally provoked, the findings were passed on to police shortly after Stephen Crico's death.

The death was officially classified as a homicide. Authorities on Maryland's Eastern Shore have proven that the hotel room fire that claimed the life of 35-year-old Steve Rico was not the result of careless smoking, as his wife Kim suggested finding no traces of smoke. in the victim's lungs. It was also clear that Steve Rico was already dead when the fire started, but the medical examiner was unable to determine exactly how he died. All of the findings led police to believe that Kim Rico had murdered her husband. Now they are looking for physical evidence to prove it. Police located her co-workers at a Washington, DC, hospital where she worked as a surgical technician.

No one believed Kim was capable of murder. However, one doctor recalled an unusual conversation he had with her a month earlier. Kim had been complaining about her. she married and jokingly she offered him fifty thousand dollars to kill her husband, what are you talking about not taking her seriously, she joked that she could put Stephen to sleep forever by injecting him with a drug called succinylcholine. Now, what would that do to Kim's partner? -The worker described the drug as a powerful muscle relaxant used to prevent involuntary movements during surgery as a surgical technician. Kim wore it almost every day.

Homicide Detective Joe Gamble. Kimberly Rico's profession was important working as a surgical technician and she had access to certain medications that other people in the hospital that normal citizens do not have access to one of those medications, we found out with suction choline, although the toxicology tests did not They found traces of the drug on Stephen Rico's body. Detectives discovered that succinylcholine breaks down almost immediately without leaving detectable traces. In essence, the drug is a perfect murder weapon, it is injected into tissue, it doesn't have to go into the bloodstream, and it causes muscles to relax, including the heart, diaphragm, and breathing, and with enough succinylcholine, you simply it stops. you breathe and your heart stops and you die with the homicide investigation coming into clearer focus.

The detectives return to the crime scene as they search the hotel for a syringe or a bottle of drugs. Divers combed the Miles River located directly behind the resort. They spent hours combing the bottom of the river and its surroundings, but their search turned up nothing a few days later, however, a hotel employee found something lying on the grass, it was a discarded syringe, the evidence was sent to the police crime lab. State of Maryland, a comprehensive analysis of the needle. Unable to produce any trace of blood or succinylcholine from the victim, the examiners applied a laser light to the evidence in hopes of finding fingerprints that may have been left behind, but all their efforts found nothing without an obvious motive or a murder weapon. which researchers would have to trust.

We relied on circumstantial evidence to prove that Kim Rico had killed her husband and her best hope was to establish that she had staged the crime scene to mislead investigators, so we set out, of course, to discover where the alcohol came from. and where it came from. The cigars came from, hope

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y, proving that Kimberly bought these things or bought these things and preparing the room to prepare the room. What if she could take me a couple of minutes? Detective Gamble canvassed convenience stores near the complex and found an employee who remembered a woman who matched Kim. description of rico the store clerk told him that around the time of the murder the woman came in to buy a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes the customer had left a lasting impression on the clerk the store clerk remembered kimberly that day because kimberly was particularly rude kimberly had been so abrupt with her and that stood out in the store employee's mind that's how she was able to remember that her cop picked up a pack of cigarettes like the ones kim rico bought were the same brand that was Found in Rico's hotel Room investigators also collected the stamp gun used to affix price tags to merchandise.

The items were turned over to forensic document examiner Joan Dimartino at the Maryland State Police Crime Laboratory to establish a link between the evidence. She began to compare the price tag features. From the pack of cigarettes found at the crime scene to the one picked up at the convenience store, the most important feature would be the design cuts, the tamper-proof dies that caused something to break if, for example, A person close to being healthy would like to peel them. outside the price tag, it would separate, these are common to a part from a particular manufacturer, a visual inspection revealed no differences between all the stickers collected using an infrared light source.

Dimartino looked for commonalities and differences within the ink itself and discovered that the dyes and pigments that make each ink unique were the same in both packs of cigars. They all originated from the same stamp gun collected at the store. Kim Rico had purchased the cigarettes found at the crime scene, something she had previously denied. The police were building a strong circumstantial case against Kim Rico, but having revealed no official cause of death or any obvious motive behind the homicide, the policeInvestigators were still a long way from proving murder, Maryland police were convinced that Kim Rico, a 33-year-old surgical technician, had murdered her husband with an untraceable drug.

He staged the scene to make her death look like a tragic accident, but until now all the evidence accumulated against her was circumstantial, seeking to discover a motive, the police again interviewed people close to the couple, Kimberly, I understand that you are friends with her only friend. She admitted that just before Steven's death, Kim said that she wanted to divorce him. Kim had been having an affair with a man she had met a few months before they spent much time together and Kim was no longer interested in saving her. marriage to steve but kim feared a long and expensive divorce the information was enough for investigators to obtain a court order to search kim's house there in a desk drawer they found two life insurance policies taken out for stephen rich kim could earn two hundred thousand dollars from the death of her husband, it was the respite that the homicide detectives had been looking for, we felt that Kimberly had a motive, she had a large amount of money to make, she had been involved in an affair that she wanted to continue with Go ahead and those are the two things. we felt that kimberly wanted to profit from the murderer stephen rico an arrest warrant was issued for kim rico but before the police could act they received shocking information that kim rico had attempted suicide one of kim's friends had become worried when she had not news from him At some point when he went to check on her, he found Kim unconscious on the floor.

An empty bottle of pills lay near her. Kim Rico, the main suspect in her husband's death, was rushed to a nearby hospital, although she was in critical condition. Her medical staff had taken her. to her on time a few days later, Kim Rico was released from the hospital, the police were there waiting, they arrested her and charged her with murder based on evidence, investigators believe that Kimberly Rico was driven by greed and the desire to continue with her affair on February 15, 1998 she injected her unsuspecting husband with the untraceable drug succinocholine, paralyzing him immediately she staged the scene to make it look like stephen had been drinking beer and smoking cigars then set fire to the room kimberly rich was declared guilty of arson and first-degree murder was sentenced to life in prison in maryland circumstantial evidence alone was enough to convict kim rico of killing her husband, but in florida investigators need irrefutable scientific evidence to obtain a murder conviction Located in Bay County, on the Florida coast, where the wealthy and peaceful community of Panama Beach is located, around 9 a.m. m. on the morning of May 30, 1991.

Jennifer Cybers, 18, went into her parents' room to wake up her mother Kaye but Kaye was not responding. Jennifer panicked and called her father, the Florida State Medical Examiner. He said not to worry, he was sending help and said he would be there shortly. Emergency workers and a doctor from the medical examiner's office were sent to the scene. The 52-year-old mother of three was unresponsive and showed no signs of light. The apparent victim of a heart attack was pronounced dead at the scene. A Bay County sheriff's deputy heard the call on the radio and responded to the home.

He was informed that the death had occurred from natural causes and was not necessary. A short time later, the victim's husband's medical examiner, Dr. William Cybers, arrived at the home and learned that his wife of more than 20 years was gone. Dr. Cybers asked for her body. Being taken directly to the funeral home the next day, agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a call. An anonymous tipster was concerned about several irregularities surrounding Kaye's death and the actions of her husband after hearing all the details that Special Agent Scotty Sanderson accepted. Take a closer look at Dr.

Cyber. Certain warning signs emerged. She was a medical examiner. An autopsy had not been performed. Dr. Cyrus' staff asked them to leave as medical examiner. Dr. Cybers knows that all unattended deaths require an autopsy to be performed. His wife was no exception in discovering why she had not followed protocol. The researchers arranged an interview. It is important that an autopsy be performed, could you tell me why he didn't order it? Dr. Cybers admitted that he had made a mistake, he was distraught and not thinking clearly, he loved Kaye very much and her death was completely unexpected the night before she died, the two of them had later gone out to dinner and felt like he had a bit.

He has a very bad pain in his chest, but around 4 am he woke him up. I can barely breathe. It hurts when I breathe. Kaye was feeling pain in her chest and left shoulder. Dr. Cybers was concerned that Kaye had a family history of heart disease and diabetes, but he refused to go to the hospital. Dr. Cybers said he tried to draw some blood so he could have it tested the next morning, but he said she botched the job after two failed attempts. In the attempts she gave up, I'll be right back, Kaye finally went back to sleep.

Dr. Cybers said he called her to check on her several times the next morning, but he never got through as a matter of routine. Agent Sanderson asked for the syringe, but Dr. Cybers did not. I don't have it, he said on the way to work the next morning he threw the needle in the trash and then threw the trash in a dumpster a few blocks away. That's what your family normally does with household garbage, most of our garbage, yes. all of the information, including how the needle was disposed of, upset Officer Sanderson, he is a doctor, has a needle on a syringe exposed in the household trash, throwing it into the dumpster supposedly down the street, all of these different factors were alarming .

Me and the other agents who were with me about what we were going to work on, concerned about all the irregularities, the investigators began to dig deeper into Cyber's medical history. Special Agent Dennis Norid reviewed her records for any clues that might help explain her. death, he found no records to suggest she suffered from diabetes or heart disease, as her husband stated that we had collected documents from the time Kaye was born to the time she died in Panama City and there was nothing to indicate that she would have experienced some type of health problem the information suggested that dr. cybers was not being truthful about his wife's medical history to find out why investigators needed to examine the victim's body after obtaining a warrant.

Authorities were sent to the funeral home to recover Kaye's remains. They arrived just in time, the agents were sent to that funeral home where they discovered that she had been embalmed and was in a casket for display and they were about to transport her body back to her home in Iowa. It seemed that Dr. Cyber ​​had rush to bury his wife Kay. Cyber's body was transported to an independent medical examiner's office located in Pensacola. It was now up to them to determine whether her death was due to natural causes or something else. Authorities in Bay County, Florida, are seeking to explain the death of Kay Cybers, an apparently healthy 52-year-old woman.

The mother of three one-year-old children was found dead in her home, although her husband's medical examiner, Dr. William Cybers, stated that she had a history of heart disease and diabetes. Her medical records told a different story. Investigators hoped an autopsy would give them answers. The medical examiner, Dr. Gary Cumberland, sought To identify a specific cause of death, an external examination revealed the presence of two distinct puncture marks on the victim's right arm, which was consistent with Dr. Cyber's claim ​​that he tried to draw blood shortly before his death, but the marks were also consistent with something.

Being injected into her body, I've seen some new images around these and I believe they occurred before she died, so let's make sure we get some of that tissue for toxicology and general histology. Dr. Cumberland focused his internal examination on the victim's heart. There was no evidence of disease or signs of damage, in fact, all of the victim's organs appeared healthy. Dr. Cumberland found nothing to explain why the cybers had died so suddenly, concerned by the findings, he collected tissue and blood samples for more detailed analysis, basically what. We have a person who died without any natural disease process responsible for the death and in those cases we start looking at toxicological agents.

Is there any medication or poison that was given to her that resulted in her death? The samples were sent to Dade County. medical examiner's office, but toxicologists were at a disadvantage because Cyber's body had been embalmed shortly after her death and those fluids had likely destroyed any traces of drugs or poisons that might have been injected into her system. The test results came back negative, the findings did not help much. Investigators suspect that the cybernetics had come across foul play, we have agents who will accompany this material and, despite the lack of conclusive evidence, they refused to close the case, although the victim's husband explained that the puncture marks in Kaye's arms had been the result of an attempt to draw blood.

Investigators formulated a different theory, speculating that he had injected her with a lethal drug, but a search of trash bins near the couple's home did not. He couldn't find a syringe or any evidence that could prove it. Investigators turned to the couple's children in hopes of shedding light on a possible motive for the murder, but the cyberneticist's daughter insisted that her parents' relationship was strong. It seemed normal. Her father was devoted to Kaye and her children. The daughter said she had last seen her mother the night before she died. Yes, wonderful, we went to that new restaurant.

When her parents returned home after dinner they seemed happy and were both in a good mood she and her mother stayed up and talked for a while neither of the children believed that their father had anything to do with their mother's death thanks to the investigation I wasn't going anywhere Jerry Blover, thanks for coming today, the authorities had no choice but to hand over the victim's body to his family. Her remains were flown to her hometown in Iowa, where she was buried, but agents refused to give up and combed through the case files searching. Anything they missed in her statements to the police.

Dr. Cybers stated that he had attempted to call his wife numerous times on the morning of her death to check on her. Investigators subpoenaed his cell phone records and discovered that he was telling the truth, but FBI agent Dennis Norrid. I noticed something else. Numbers he called over a period of approximately three months. There were approximately 140 strange calls made from Dr. Cybers to a particular phone number. Two of those calls took place on the morning of Kaye's death. The number was traced to an old laboratory. Technician who worked with Dr. Cybers, the woman admitted that the two were close friends at the hospital.

I took care of him. He had called her the day of Kaye's death, but she said he was heartbroken and just wanted to be comforted, but investigators felt she was not telling them everything. Under persistent questioning, she admitted that she and Dr. Cybers were romantically involved at first, she considered him a father figure, but as they began to spend more time together, her feelings for him deepened and they soon fell in love, how are they related? he she didn't believe she was capable of murder investigators disagreed that dr. Cybers was not the dedicated husband and father he portrayed himself to be, they theorized that he had murdered his wife to clear the way for them to continue their affair, police sent in K-Cybers.

Tissue samples collected at the autopsy were sent to the National Medical Services Laboratory in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, one of the most advanced forensic laboratories in the country. There, renowned toxicologist Dr. Frederick Readers agreed to investigate the case and, after reviewing K Cyber's autopsy report, found a possible clue. An elevated level of potassium was detected in the eye fluid, although potassium is naturally found in the body in small amounts, if a large dose is injected into a person's bloodstream, it will cause the heart to stop immediately in the human body normal. Potassium and iron are found in equal amounts within red blood cells to determine if cybers had an unnatural amount of potassium in his body.toxicologists used a newly developed system that measures the ratio of potassium to iron the procedure was successful readers reviewed the findings the ratio of potassium to iron in critical areas were much higher than normal which led me to the conclusion that there had been administered potassium to this person and that it was potentially a cause of death for this the findings had provided powerful evidence that the cybers had not died of natural causes but to confirm the results the examiners needed additional samples from the victim's body for investigators to presented a problem in the state of iowa where k cybers was buried state law will only allow a body to be exhumed if the family gives consent dr cybers who insisted he had nothing to hide refused to give his permission, desperate not to Let the case slip away, authorities turned to Florida State Attorney Harry Shorestein for help.

He agreed to prosecute the case, but almost immediately faced a crushing setback. The only scientific evidence that could prove the murder had been questioned by Defense experts because potassium is found naturally in the body, the judge ruled that without additional samples there was not enough evidence to prove that the cybercriminals were had administered a lethal dose. Put very simply, when you die your red blood cells break down almost immediately, they are

full

of potassium and as a result the potassium inside your body goes everywhere and the general thinking among the scientific community is that if you are injected Potassium, unless it can get to the body almost immediately, you will not be able to distinguish between the potassium that has been injected into you. in the body and the potassium that is naturally inside his body Despite the court's findings, everything the authorities had learned convinced them that dr.

Cybers had murdered his wife, but until they could find irrefutable evidence they couldn't prove it. Several years had passed since the 1991 attack. The death of 52-year-old K Cybers, although toxicology tests convinced Florida authorities that Her husband had injected her with a lethal dose of potassium, the court ruled the findings inadmissible, yet special prosecutor Harry Shorstein did not believe K Cybers died of heart disease like her. Her husband's medical examiner, William Cybers, had suggested that the heart examination that had been carried out at the autopsy showed no indication of heart disease and that we were going to proceed with the trial without an actual cause of death based solely on circumstantial evidence in February.

In 1997 an arrest warrant was issued for Dr. William Cybers. He had since retired and married the woman with whom he had been having an affair. He voluntarily surrendered to the police due to health problems. He was released on bail of three hundred thousand dollars, but not before. Equipped with an electronic monitoring device, he was only allowed to leave his home to visit lawyers and attend church as the trial approached. Prosecutors struggled to prepare his case for the jury and then received unexpected news in the years since K Cyber's death. Toxicologists at the National Medical Services Laboratory in Willow Groves, Pennsylvania, had developed new forensic tests that could detect previously untraceable poisons.

Although the samples collected at the autopsy were several years old, according to Dr. Kevin Ballard, they were well preserved. Her brain tissues were taken from her at the time of her original autopsy but since those tissues had been embalmed, those organs were kept frozen for all the years between the time of her death and the time of our analysis. First, Dr. Ballard wanted to test the samples for the presence of paralyzing drugs. These drugs are known to increase potassium levels in the body. which could explain why high levels of potassium were found in tissue samples from k years earlier, he subjected the samples to a process called qtof, which stands for quadrupole time of flight, essentially the process acts like a molecular microscope, first all the Molecules that are present in the samples are separated, each individual molecule is broken down into pieces using sophisticated detection equipment, the individual pieces are then weighed, the molecular weight of the samples is compared to the molecular weight of known paralyzing drugs in samples. of tissue taken from k cyber's kidney, the analysis revealed lethal amounts of the drug succinylcholine, suction choline and these other paralyzing drugs, when administered to a person, paralyze the skeletal muscles of our body.

These are the muscles that move our limbs. They also paralyze the specialized skeletal muscle that is the diaphragm. It is the main muscle we use when we breathe, so part of the effect is to stop a person's breathing. The analysis had finally given investigators the evidence they needed to prove the murder as a doctor. The victim's husband had easy access to the drugs and the knowledge to do so. Use it to deadly effect driven by the desire to continue your affair and avoid a costly divorce. Police believe that on May 30, 1991, Dr. William Cybers injected his wife with a lethal amount of the paralyzing drug and then attempted to use his position as chief medical officer. examiner to conceal the crime of him state of florida in january 2000 dr. william cybers was found guilty of the murder of his wife kaye was sentenced to life in prison the murderers believe that by using an untraceable drug their crimes will go unpunished but with each advance in forensic science there are fewer poisons that can escape detection and that It means a better chance for researchers to solve those once-elusive toxic death cases.