Poisoned Love

by Caitlin Rother

  Blackbourne told them he’d done a quick autopsy and thought Greg had died of an overdose. He said he found some amorphous white substance in Greg’s stomach, and his esophagus was very irritated. Jerome asked if the irritation could’ve been caused by drinking alcohol. Blackbourne said no, it was something more corrosive. He also said that the paramedic who’d stuck a needle into Greg’s arm had punctured an artery—it must’ve been the paramedic’s first day on the job.

  Jerome asked if Kristin had a boss named Mike or Michael, and Blackbourne confirmed that she did.

  After that, Jerome and Wren went to Orbigen, where Greg’s coworkers said they were just as shocked by the news. Greg had seemed in such good spirits. Stefan Gruenwald recounted that Greg had come in the previous Monday and told a coworker that he’d only had a beer or two over the weekend but felt hung over. Gruenwald said they’d since become suspicious of that comment and wondered if Greg had been given drugs the week before he died. Like Jerome, none of them could see Greg committing suicide.

  Laurie Agnew had been a police officer for twenty-two years, first in patrol, then in community relations, juvenile investigations, street crimes, domestic violence, and special investigations. She’d spent the last four years as a relief detective in the homicide unit but had only been working full time there for two months. Her team was third in the rotation, which meant it was their turn to answer the phones that morning. Since the detective who handled suspicious deaths also wasn’t there, Agnew took Jerome’s call.

  Jerome’s voice sounded emotional and distraught as he spoke in rapid-fire sentences, jumping from one topic to the next. His brother died two days ago, he said. They were saying it was a suicide. He didn’t think it was. His brother’s wife was a toxicologist for the county, and he thought she was having an affair. Her office was handling the death, and he thought that was a conflict of interest. He wanted an independent autopsy. Kristin was trying to rush a cremation. He wanted to come down and talk to a homicide detective.

  Agnew didn’t realize that Jerome was calling from a cell phone, heading southbound on the freeway, so she told him she would talk to him the next time he was in San Diego. She was surprised when he and Chris Wren arrived at the station about half an hour later.

  As Agnew talked with them in the lobby, she thought that Jerome was acting very hyper, almost over the edge, so she wasn’t sure how credible his information would turn out to be. He wasn’t clear on many of the details she needed—the spellings of names, whether his sister-in-law had taken his brother’s last name, that sort of thing. In her experience, suicides were usually pretty straightforward, and it was not uncommon for relatives to be in denial about it. But she said she’d certainly look into the matter.

  She spent most of the day on the phone, first trying to figure out which agency was handling Greg’s death, and second, where the body was. There seemed to be some confusion among the various offices she called. Because Greg was the spouse of a county toxicologist, his death wasn’t being handled in the usual manner.

  Even though Greg and Kristin’s apartment was in the city of San Diego, Agnew’s department had no death report. When she called the Medical Examiner’s Office, they couldn’t find any record of an autopsy scheduled for someone named Greg de Villers. The head investigator, Cal Vine, called her back and told her that the autopsy had been done the day before at UCSD Medical Center. But when Agnew called the hospital, the staff couldn’t find a record of the autopsy being done there. Agnew later learned that since Greg wasn’t a patient at UCSD, his name wasn’t entered into the hospital’s computer.

  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Kristin called North County Cremation Service, a funeral home in San Marcos, at 3:36 that afternoon to make arrangements for Greg’s body. Kristin stopped in the next day to sign an authorization and pay for the service with her Visa card. But the cremation didn’t go forward as Kristin had planned.

  Once Agnew figured out that the autopsy had been done and Greg’s body was back at the Medical Examiner’s Office, Agnew asked her boss, Sergeant Howard Williams, if they could put a hold on the body. Williams called Blackbourne to make a verbal request, promising to send a written one within a few days. Blackbourne agreed.

  That same morning, Amborn learned that Michael had looked at the biological specimens in the refrigerator, going against Amborn’s explicit instructions not to touch them. When Amborn confronted him about it, Michael said he’d committed to Kristin’s family that he would keep them informed. Amborn, a former navy captain, was irritated that Michael had disobeyed a direct order. He told Michael that his actions were inappropriate.

  While Jerome and Agnew were conducting their own separate investigations, the UCSD Police Department got a break in the case. At 1:35 P.M., one of Jones’s investigators got a call from Russ Lowe, who’d been the acting chief toxicologist at the Medical Examiner’s Office before Michael arrived from Pennsylvania. Lowe said he thought it was important for the investigators to know that Michael and Kristin were having an affair.

  Of the choices listed on Jones’s report for the means of death—suicide, or equivocal death—he and Officer Garcia had decided on the latter. But when Jones heard about Lowe’s call, he talked it over with his assistant chief, and they decided it was time to call in the SDPD homicide unit.

  Neither Kristin nor Michael had mentioned any such relationship—not that adulterous coworkers would readily admit to an affair—but Jones thought it certainly created a motive for homicide. He communicated his feelings to a homicide detective and suggested that the city’s department take over the investigation.

  By the end of November 8, Agnew and her boss had reached the same independent conclusion. But since they still didn’t know whether they were looking at a suicide, accidental death, or homicide, they decided to open a “special death” investigation. Agnew didn’t do that officially until the next morning, when she entered the details into the computer under case #00-071646.

  On Thursday morning Bertrand picked up his father at Los Angeles International Airport. They met up with Jerome in Huntington Beach, where he’d stayed the night at Chris Wren’s house, and the three of them drove down to San Diego. Their first stop was Kristin’s apartment.

  Yves asked her to sign a permission slip allowing Scripps Memorial Hospital to release his son’s medical report to him. She signed it, and they took it to the hospital to pick up Greg’s records. They found it interesting that Kristin had told the medical staff she’d purchased oxycodone and clonazepam in Mexico to help her come down from methamphetamine in the past. The day before in Claremont, Jerome remembered her mentioning only oxycodone and Vicodin as drugs Greg might have taken.

  Their next stop was the Medical Examiner’s Office. They showed Greg’s medical report to Blackbourne, who said the page about Kristin’s methamphetamine use had not shown up in the report that his investigator, Angie Wagner, had filed. Jerome wondered whether she was involved in some kind of cover-up.

  Asked again about Michael Robertson, Blackbourne told them Michael’s coworkers had suspected he was having an affair with Kristin, but when confronted, he denied the allegation. After hearing Jerome’s concerns the day before, Blackbourne said he’d reexamined the puncture wounds on Greg’s arm and taken a new tissue sample from that area.

  Jerome asked whether he was aware that Kristin was a former methamphetamine user. Blackbourne said no. Jerome also asked whether he drug-tested his employees. Again, the answer was no.

  Jerome remembered Kristin pointing Blackbourne out to him at Greg’s college graduation ceremony and saying that Blackbourne might help her get a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office. At this point, Jerome was seeing conspiracies everywhere and wondered whether Blackbourne might be involved in Greg’s death. Maybe he, too, was having an affair with Kristin.

  Blackbourne still wouldn’t say which drug he thought Greg had taken. That information would have to wait until the toxicology tests came back. Jerome emphasized that he didn’t b
elieve his brother had committed suicide.

  Next, the de Villers family went back to Orbigen, where Greg’s coworkers had been doing their own investigation, on Greg’s computer. They had gone through his e-mails and retraced his steps on the Internet browser to see which sites he’d visited and what if any other clues they might find. They did find what they thought was a significant e-mail from Kristin, which she’d sent to Greg on October 9, detailing three different prescription drugs she was taking. That was the first they learned that Greg’s relationship had been in trouble.

  Around 9 A.M., Jones got a call from Jerome, who told him he questioned the suicide story and thought an independent autopsy should be conducted because the Medical Examiner’s Office had a conflict of interest. Jones told him he’d already talked with the San Diego Police Department about investigating Greg’s death as a possible homicide.

  Jones talked to Detective Laurie Agnew at 10:40 A.M. and learned she’d officially opened the investigation, then called Jerome a couple of hours later to give him the news. Jones took all the evidence he’d collected, his report, and the crime scene video to the police station downtown that afternoon and handed them all over to Agnew and her boss.

  Every day since Greg had died, Stefan Gruenwald became more and more convinced that something wasn’t right. First he was told Greg had died from an allergic or adverse reaction to some cough medicine or other drug. Then it became an overdose or accident. And now Gruenwald was being told that it was a suicide, that Greg’s organs and tissues had been donated, and that his remains were going to be cremated.

  With eighteen months’ experience working in forensic medicine, Gruenwald felt strongly that the police ought to hear his concerns. So he and Greg’s former coworkers decided to write the San Diego Police Department a letter that day.

  They wrote that they’d never seen any symptoms of suicidal behavior in Greg and asked to speak with a homicide detective. “He has been a very hardworking, happy, ambitious, and extremely optimistic person that always looked into the future and had many goals for himself to accomplish in the following years,” they wrote.

  On Thursday evening Jerome told his father and brother that he wanted to talk to Kristin again. Yves cautioned that it would be better if his sons, given how upset they were, spoke with Kristin one at a time. They were acting like bulldogs, he said, and they’d never get anything out of her that way. So Bertrand volunteered to go up to the apartment alone and tell Kristin that Yves and Jerome had gone to get coffee.

  Bertrand knocked on the door, and Kristin answered. Michael was there and stood up as Kristin introduced him as her boss. The two men shook hands. Bertrand was surprised and confused about why Michael was in her apartment at night. He started to get scared when Michael disappeared into the kitchen and started opening drawers, as if he were looking for something. Bertrand left rather abruptly, saying he was going downstairs to see whether Jerome and Yves had come back yet. Bertrand was pale when he got back in the car and told his brother and father what happened.

  Jerome was so upset and eager to confront Kristin and Michael about what was going on that it took twenty minutes to calm him down. But by the time Jerome and Bertrand went back upstairs, Michael had gone. Jerome noticed that Kristin had dumped Greg’s Nike sandals and some of his clothes into the trash can on the balcony. Greg’s body was barely cold, and Kristin was already throwing out his personal belongings?

  He and Bertrand told Kristin they weren’t trying to confront her or to blame anybody. They just wanted to make better sense out of things. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Bertrand or Kristin, Jerome had slipped a small tape recorder into his jacket pocket, and it was running.

  “It’s hard for me to believe that my brother committed suicide,” Jerome said.

  “I don’t think he did,” Kristin said. “I think it was accidental. I don’t know if he had a reaction to something. Maybe he’s allergic to a drug. Maybe, maybe he just—Jerome, I don’t know. I know we don’t know, and we won’t know until the [toxicology] results are back. I’m just as confused as you.”

  Jerome explained that he couldn’t sleep, thinking about it all. Kristin asked him to recognize that she was feeling pain and loss, too.

  “I can certainly understand your confusion and frustration,” she said, “because, whereas my parents, my family, knew about our problems and Greg. He didn’t talk to you about it.”

  No, he didn’t, Jerome said. All he knew was that Greg loved her very much. Jerome asked Kristin to walk him through the days before Greg died, starting with Thursday night. He also reminded her of their conversation a few days earlier when she said Greg had been upset because she hadn’t stopped seeing “the past relationship.” But she cut him off and changed course. Given her history, she said, Greg thought her job was a bad influence and unhealthy for her.

  “Since my problem, I’ve been very interested, especially in the psychosis of meth and similar drugs,” she said. “And when I bring it up at home, Greg didn’t like that…thought that the job was a bad environment. He thought that I was pushing him away, and he thought that I was taking drugs, and it hurt so badly. I told him that I wanted a separation. That’s it. And he gave me an ultimatum: Kristin, you either quit your work or I tell your work about your drug history.”

  Jerome said that didn’t sound like something Greg would say. “There’s got to be a reason he didn’t want you to work there if he’s threatening you,” he said. “What about these conventions?”

  Kristin acknowledged that she’d gone to a conference in Milwaukee with her lab supervisor, Michael Robertson.

  “The guy who was here earlier?” Bertrand asked.

  “Yeah, he was dropping off a paycheck,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”

  Jerome asked if she was having some kind of emotional relationship, not necessarily sexual, but something that would make Greg upset. Yes, Kristin said, she’d had an emotional relationship with Michael and she’d told Greg about it, but she’d also told him that it was over and that she and Michael were “just good friends.” Greg believed her.

  “Does Greg ever take any type of aspirin?” Jerome asked.

  No, Kristin said. When he got sick, he often couldn’t sleep, so she’d tried to give him some cough syrup, but he’d “stopped taking [it] because it didn’t work anymore. Or Vicodin, but he didn’t like Vicodin because it upset his stomach.”

  Bertrand said Greg didn’t seem “like the type of guy” to take Vicodin, and Jerome wanted to know why they even had it in the house. Kristin said Greg got a prescription for it when his wisdom teeth were removed and another one for when he had a cough or a cold. She said he also would “take Nyquil when he was home sick to knock himself out. Most people do that.”

  “I just know Greg doesn’t do drugs,” Jerome said.

  Kristin told Jerome he was right, that Greg didn’t normally take aspirin or a lot of other drugs. It was unlike him.

  Bertrand tried to reduce some of the anxiety in the room. “I know. That’s why we’re trying to ask you,” he said. “…I know it’s hard for us; it’s hard for you.”

  “It is,” Kristin said. “It’s so hard for me because I feel partial responsibility because I got him so upset. I miss him, and I love him, and I didn’t appreciate what I had. I am so lost right now, and I am hurting so badly. I’m trying to understand, just like you, but I crushed him. I devastated him. He thought he lost me. I was looking at apartments.”

  Kristin’s mind was going all over the place, and Jerome wanted to get her back on track. Why had Greg taken half a day off work on Thursday? To talk, Kristin said. Jerome wanted to know more.

  “I came home, and I made him lunch, and, um, he became very, very aggressive and accusatory towards me, saying, ‘You’re doing drugs. I know you’re doing drugs,’” she said. “He searched my purse, and he started searching me, and he found an old letter. It was from Michael.”

  Kristin said she shredded the letter. She knew it wasn’t a nice thing f
or Greg to see. From the tone of the letter, it was obvious that Michael was falling for her. Bertrand asked why she would bring home a letter like that.

  “Because it is not something that you keep at work,” Kristin said.

  “Weren’t you afraid that Greg might find it?” Bertrand asked.

  Jerome was getting frustrated. Didn’t she understand why they thought it was strange that Michael was writing her love letters? Especially when she told them that Michael had come by just to drop off her paycheck?

  “There’s other emotions going on here, Kristin,” Jerome said.

  “No, there aren’t,” Kristin snapped. “He dropped off the check and—”

  Jerome cut her off. “For you to tell me, real defensive, he just came here to drop off the check—there’s something else here going on,” he said.

  Kristin insisted that Michael was just a good friend. He, too, felt responsible for hurting Greg. Jerome countered that guys didn’t feel bad about that kind of thing.

  “Well, maybe he’s a good BS-er,” she said, “but he does feel emotions.”

  Jerome asked if Michael was in a relationship. Yes, Kristin said, he was married. That’s why they decided that what they were doing was wrong and that they should work on their marriages. Bertrand asked if she and Michael were hoping to have a relationship.

  “No, no. I was, I am very fond of him,” Kristin replied.

  Jerome said he thought it was weird that Michael was in her apartment three nights after her husband had died there. Kristin said she didn’t have any friends in San Diego outside of work who weren’t Greg’s friends, too. She was at the hospital, she told him, “scared out of my mind, not knowing what to do.” She’d called her parents, and her father said he’d be there as soon as he could, but in the meantime she had no one else to turn to. So she called Michael.