Patsy Wright - strychnine laced Nyquil

[crystaldawn]

I have always wondered if there was any new info or any arrests in this case. I finally found an article (a few years old) but apparently no updates. Its still being investigated thankfully through a cold case unit. Here's the part of the article that pertains to her:

Posted on Wed, Nov. 17, 2004

Arlington police create cold case division

By Susan Schrock

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


ARLINGTON -- Patsy Wright sometimes drank a capful of Nyquil to help her sleep.

Hours after she took a dose on Oct. 22, 1987 she became violently ill. She telephoned her sister, saying something was "really, really wrong."

Investigators know the 43-year-old Arlington woman's Nyquil was laced with strychnine, but 17 years later, who put it there remains a mystery.

Wright's children's belief that their mother's killer will be caught got a boost this month when Arlington police created a cold case unit to review 76 unsolved murders dating back to 1968.

"I hope we find out who did this so we can put it to rest and move on," said Wright's daughter, Leslie Potenzo. "It would give so much peace to our family."

Sgt. Mark Simpson, Arlington's homicide supervisor, spent three years trying to create a full-time investigative team dedicated to probing unsolved murder cases. Simpson said some of the slayings were not sufficiently investigated because homicide detectives were overwhelmed by heavy workloads. In addition to investigating murders, homicide detectives are also responsible for investigating robbery, kidnapping and adult missing persons cases.

"We have a responsibility to investigate homicides as far as humanly possible to bring the families resolution," Simpson said.

Arlington is among dozens of large cities nationwide that have created cold case units. The Fort Worth Police Department's is reviewing 767 unsolved homicides that date back to 1966. Kansas City police created a cold case unit 18 months ago and have already solved 39 cases.

[cuba_libre]

Thanks for that article!

That case has always baffled me. Someone putting poison in a woman's cold medicine...? And the 2 dinner plates in her room....The killer had to be someone very close to her and one she, perhaps, confided details. A secret boyfriend...?

[crystaldawn]

I don't totally buy the theory UM stated that Patsy had someone in her bedroom that night. All they showed was two plates on a tray. There could have been a miriad of reasons why Patsy used two plates. I think if someone were there with her shortly before she drank the Nyquil, she probably would have mentioned it to her sister on the phone before she collapsed. I've always thought the ex-husband was responsible. Either he or someone he hired went in earlier in the day or maybe even a few days earlier and put it in the Nyquil. They said Patsy was set to testify against him soon in some sort of trial and she had noticed him driving slowly or even parked outside her house shortly before she died. Being he had been married to Patsy prior he definitely would have known her habit of taking Nyquil when she couldn't sleep and would possibly have known the best way to enter the home. Just my opinion.

[Kane]

Originally Posted by cuba_libre

The killer had to be someone very close to her and one she, perhaps, confided details. A secret boyfriend...?

I couldn't agree more. The thought of the killer being a total stranger would be hard to sell. Someone had to have known Patsy well enough to know her habit of taking cough medicine whenever she had trouble falling asleep.

The idea of a secret boyfriend has crossed my mind. It's possible that she was dating someone unbeknownst to everyone close to her, and that the person's identity has never been known because of it.

It's also possible that the cops have suspected other people, but don't have enough evidence to charge them, or even publicly disclose their names.

[starlette]

Sorry thought I had found a link but it was wrong - the Patricia I found was only 13 when she was murdered.

Sorry for bringing up an old case!

[starlette]

Found one interesting link anyway -

Grand Prairie - Palace of Wax and Ripley's Believe It Or Not. - Reported to be haunted by victims of a fire, there have been strange noises like bells ringing, someone screaming, whispering or talking and the feelings of strange presences. Also electrical malfunctions are said to be a common occurrence and motion detectors go off all the time, but when security investigates, nothing is out of the ordinary. Authors Note: I lived across the street from this museum when it caught on fire. My (then) husband and I and ran over to see if we could help. No one died in this fire, so there are no logical reasons for this haunting. I don’t live there anymore, but I do intend to go check it out.

Thanks to Selby Schwend who writes: Even though there was no one killed in the fire itself, the event is surrounded in mystery since one of the owners was murdered a year before the fire. Her name was Patsy Wright and she was poisoned with strychnine that was put into some medicine she was taking. Three years before that, in 1984, Patsy's manager and director of marketing at the wax museum, Lori Ann Williams, died mysteriously. Both bodies were later exhumed to determine the cause of death and if they were related. These poisons evidently don't show up without a urine test. The results were inconclusive. There is a lot more mystery there than can be imagined. Another event occurred just after the fire when a man, Stanley Lester Poyner, was caught stealing a ledger book from the rubble. He had been previously arrested for arson and was later shot and killed by Dallas Police in 1991. Lots of murder and intrigue
associated with this one and I suppose quite a few spirits looking for
closure or justice or both.


http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:o...u&ct=clnk&cd=3

[Beavervalleygirl]

to be off topic, but Starlette did you ever see the Loch Ness Monster ?

[starlette]

haha unfortunately not. I am back in Sydney now but lived in Scotland for 2 years. We went to Loch Ness but were sadly disappointed.

Maybe next time!

[crystaldawn]

I spoke with someone recently who is more familiar with the case. Apparently the wax museum Patsy owned with her sister burned down not long after Patsy was killed. He had some other interesting facts about the case and he has given me permission to post this:

"There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the events that
occurred before, during and after the wax museum fire of September
1988.
Not only was Patsy Wright, one of the owners of the museum, poisoned
(October, 1987) by an, as yet, unidentified suspect, there was another
death prior to Patsy's that was equally intriguing. It involved Patsy's
administrative assistant Lori Ann Williams (age 23) who died suddenly
and without apparent reason following an appendectomy in 1984. Her body
was exhumed in 1989 to determine if she had also been poisoned, but the
results were inconclusive. Strychnine or Arsenic poisoning can
evidently
only be determined by testing a fresh corpse or through a urine test,
neither of which existed. Even more bizarre was the case of a man named
Stanley Lester Poyner who was arrested 2 weeks after the fire for
trying
to retrieve a ledger book from the ashes. There were gun remnants worth
thousands and thousands of dollars in the rubble and Mr. Poyner is
arrested for stealing a ledger book? The investigation revealed a
connection between Poyner and Wright. Poyner was the lead suspect as
well in the case for arson of the museum. He was ultimately released
due
to lack of evidence. He was also a suspect in the death of Patsy Wright
but never charged. Poyner was later shot and killed by Dallas Police
after they attempted to re-arrest him for more questioning. He
attempted
to run down a police officer to evade capture and was shot to death.
All
this information was taken from the archives of the Dallas Morning
News.
The investigative reporter was Al Brumley, who provided me with many of
the articles. I believe the fire was deliberately set to collect the
insurance and to fund the construction of a new facility and new museum
which by 1988 was very worn out after 25 years. I believe that Patsy
Wright was against the plan to torch the place and paid for that with
her life. She also would have been entitled to half the proceeds of any
insurance settlement. All the motives are there.

The sad part for me was that my family gun collection burned in that
fire and I've been on the search for remnants since 1989. Please see
www.schwendguns.us for the results. Thanks again for all your help.
Please let me know if you have any other questions."

[Huskerz85]

The whole fact that this centers around poisoning makes this one of my personal favorites........like Agatha Christie, I've got a certain 'fascination' with poisonings & what not.

This is quite puzzling though.......

1) Like RS said.....the powder version of strychnine is the most tightly regulated in the US and there are only 600 or so places in the country who deal with it. So I think, finding out who had the necessary credentials/contacts/whatever needed to obtain this, would help narrow the suspect list down......to me, the only two people who could've done it were either a) Robert Cox, Patsy's ex husband or b) this Stanley Poyner character......however noone really knows how easy it would've been for either guy to get their hands on some strychnine

2) Like CrystalDawn........I'm leaning towards the theory that there was a plan to burn one of the museums and then use the insurance proceeds to rebuild it. Now whether Poyner was one of the key players who was privy to the plot, or whether he was just the guy hired to torch the place, I don't know..........but I believe that Patsy's stance on not committing insurance fraud made her a liability and the other party/parties to this plot decided things would be a whole lot easier for them if she was snuffed out.

Who was Stanley Poyner though?? Could he have been a secret 'boyfriend' to Patsy? In any event, things will no doubt be alot harder, if not impossible to figure out given that Poyner was shot to death down in Dallas........

[kadrmas15]

Well I have a hard time believing it was a total stranger that poisoned Patsy. The only way I would buy that would be if the stranger was hired by someone Patsy knew quite well. From what I have seen when someone decides to poison another person it is very personal. A lot of times when someone is poisoned it is actually a spouse or an ex-spouse doing it. Another infamous case in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with poison occurred when Nancy Lyon died in 1991. Her husband Richard Lyon was convicted at the end of 1991 of poisoning his wife to death slowly over the course of several months with arsenic. Lyon was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 and became eligible for parole late last year. Lyon was busted because he had forged receipts from the place he had the arsenic bought from. Richard did not buy the arsenic but he tried to forge the receipts to make it look like his wife had bought it to as he said "kill fire ants." However it was the woman that Richard was having an affair with that actually bought the poison. That is why I have a hard time believing whoever killed Patsy would buy the poison themselves. I imagine they had someone buy it for them.

[wiseguy182]

Wow. I had no idea Patsy's co-worker died mysteriously also, and then the fire. Definitely some strange goings on here.

Other posters have mentioned the possibility of a secret boyfriend, which is definitely possible. Also, an idea I just thought of is that it could be somebody she was dating for the first time. A similar theory surfaced in the Gayle Delano case (until they learned she committed suicide in a state far from where she lived, and checked into a motel under an assumed name.)


However, if I had to lean towards somebody being guilty, it would have to be Poyner. It seemed like Patsy was too nice of a person to make any real enemies, so the insurance/museum motive seems to be one of only a few possible motives. However, I don't trust the ex-husband at all, and think he should remain a key suspect.

[Leslie08]

Patsy Wright was not the only one who passed away in that horrible incident...In 1984 My Aunt, Lori Williams passed away Mysteriously. She was Patsy's Art director and worked with Patsy very Closley. So mayn\be I can help you guys...Coming from a family member....Ill give you some information... NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT EITHER ONE OF THIER DEATHS. they were both wonderful Ladies and the dont deserve people trying to pry into things that they know nothing about. My Aunt left this earth happy...and I dont believe that she did stay behind to haunt the museum like people are saying....please let them rest and leave it alone

[nohwheregirl]

Originally Posted by Leslie08

Patsy Wright was not the only one who passed away in that horrible incident...In 1984 My Aunt, Lori Williams passed away Mysteriously. She was Patsy's Art director and worked with Patsy very Closley. So mayn\be I can help you guys...Coming from a family member....Ill give you some information... NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT EITHER ONE OF THIER DEATHS. they were both wonderful Ladies and the dont deserve people trying to pry into things that they know nothing about. My Aunt left this earth happy...and I dont believe that she did stay behind to haunt the museum like people are saying....please let them rest and leave it alone

Leslie, thank you for posting. It is my understanding that you do not want your aunt's death or Ms. Wright's death further investigated. Is that true? I assure you that no one here is trying to "pry" into anyone's private life. Ms. Wright's case was featured on a public television show, and the people on this message board truly care about these cases being solved. We've had many family members of victims visit the message board and we try to be as sensitive as possible.

[lilmissd]

What has always bothered me about this case is: How did this person get into Patsy's home without detection? Wouldn't she have noticed that someone was in her home, and or had moved stuff around? I am a pretty observant person, and I know that I could tell if someone has been in my home or not. Don't you think this person would have left some evidence of being there of some kind (besides the poisoned laced Nyquil)? And if it was done after Patsy arrived home she would have had to been incompacitaded in order for her to allow someone to lace her cold medicine. I am assuming that she didn't take the Nyquil every night or she probably would have died sooner than she did. We have no way of knowing how long the poison sat in that bottle before it was consumed? And why would someone have picked the cold medicine? If your going to poison someone, wouldn't you do it to a more common item i.e one that's found in a refrigerator or pantry? Such as some kind of food item, or soft drink? That is just strange to me why just out of the blue the killer would have picked the cold medicine.