The Characteristics Of A Female Poisoner (Scary) - Serial Killing Traits

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[00:00:00]with the poisoning.

[00:00:01]Sarah Smith was Tony's patient who had died during surgery. [music] Anthony thought that Dan Smith was trying to get even with him for taking his wife away from him and he thought enough to say, "Well, maybe then Dan was trying to take my wife away from me."

[00:00:21]Investigators searched for arsenic throughout the Pignataro's home.

[00:00:26]We searched the house from top to bottom looking for arsenic, uh pesticides and insecticides, uh anything that may contain arsenic.

[00:00:37]Anything that looked suspicious, powdery, was taken [music] to be analyzed at the lab.

[00:00:42]And uh came back negative. First [music] thing where the camera >> Detectives interviewed Debbie's daughter since she too had some of the same symptoms as her mother.

[00:00:50]They asked her what she ate on the day [music] she became ill.

[00:00:56]There was soup left on the kitchen table and she ate some of that.

[00:01:00]That night she was vomiting.

[00:01:04]Debbie then remembered an important [music] detail.

[00:01:09]That Tony made the [music] soup that day.

[00:01:13]He brought me the bowl and I I remember saying, "I can't eat all this." He said, "No, eat [music] it.

[00:01:19]It's good for you."

[00:01:21]Their daughter found some of that soup left over on the stove and took some.

[00:01:28]To find out exactly [music] how long Debbie had been ingesting arsenic, doctors decided to study her hair.

[00:01:35]Arsenic combined to keratin, which is the major protein in hair.

[00:01:40]So, as the blood circulates through the body and it circulates to the root of the hair follicle, some of the arsenic will become incorporated in the hair follicle.

[00:01:51]When poison [music] circulates in the body, it comes into contact with the hair follicles. So, traces [music] of the poison will remain in the hair as it grows.

[00:02:02]Since [music] hair grows approximately 1 cm per month, a strand of hair can identify [music] exactly when a person was poisoned.

[00:02:12]First, Debbie's hair [music] was divided into pieces, each 1 cm long.

[00:02:19]We first need to convert it from the solid hair sample to a liquid hair sample.

[00:02:25]And we do that by adding some acid to it and digesting it in a specially designed microwave oven.

[00:02:33]Using atomic [music] absorption spectrophotometry, a beam of light is passed through each hair sample. When that light is absorbed, the amount of light that is hitting the detector on the other end decreases.

[00:02:48]That change in the intensity of light that's reaching the detector is directly proportional to the amount of arsenic in that sample.

[00:02:56]The computer-generated results were startling.

[00:03:00]Debbie started receiving small doses of arsenic in May of 1999.

[00:03:06]And towards the end of July of 1999, she received a large dose, which was approximately 80 times what a normal human being should have in their system of arsenic.

[00:03:20]This timeline excluded [music] members of Sarah Smith's family as possible suspects because they had [music] moved to the Midwest after Sarah's death.

[00:03:30]Investigators had only one other suspect with a possible motive.

[00:03:38]>> [music] >> The scientific analysis of Debbie Pignataro's hair told a horrific [music] story.

[00:03:45]The people who did the hair analysis asked when the funeral was.

[00:03:50]>> [music] >> I remember they just couldn't believe that someone with this level was still alive.

[00:03:57]>> [music] >> Debbie's hair established a timeline of the poisonings.

[00:04:03]In March of 1999, [music] when Tony and Debbie were living separately, Debbie had no poison [music] in her system.

[00:04:10]The couple reconciled in May, and in Debbie's hair grown [music] that month were the first signs of arsenic poisoning.

[00:04:19]The largest dose of arsenic [music] was administered in July.

[00:04:24]This coincided with Debbie's hospital visit in which Tony recommended removing his wife's gallbladder, a procedure medical experts say Debbie would not [music] have survived.

[00:04:37]When questioned by police, the couple's daughter Lauren remembered [music] something.

[00:04:44]Around this time, she saw her father >> [music] >> setting small traps around their home.

[00:04:50]When we asked her, "Can you tell us what that bait was?"

[00:04:54]she said she didn't know what it was except that it was little round tins that he set out on the floor.

[00:05:01]Only one manufacturer made insect repellent [music] in small round tins.

[00:05:07]The president of the company revealed their product contained arsenic.

[00:05:12]He told me that two of those hand stacks, which would contain four tins, would be enough to be fatally toxic to a 150-lb man.

[00:05:22]Investigators found this brand of insecticide in a store not far from the Pignataros' home. You don't want to believe it. You don't want to believe that someone you loved and and lived with could actually do this to you.

[00:05:37]There's no There's no answer. I don't know.

[00:05:41]A check into Tony's background provided a possible motive.

[00:05:46]He became associated with a few cons in prison and was able to get involved with uh heroin.

[00:05:56]And he kept [music] in contact with one particular person who would supply him with his narcotics after he had released from prison.

[00:06:04]>> [music] >> And investigators discovered Tony was having an affair with another woman after he was released from prison.

[00:06:12]Friends say Tony feared his mother's reaction.

[00:06:15]His mother was against divorce and if he had divorced Debbie, he would have been cut out of any will in his family.

[00:06:26]But money wasn't the only motive.

[00:06:28]>> [music] >> In the Pignataro's home, detectives found a manuscript Tony had written entitled MD, mass destruction. [music] It was about Tony losing his medical license and what was described as the conspiracy [music] against him.

[00:06:46]It was a story about how he was wronged by the medical community and by the judicial system and, you know, by everyone in on Earth. The great wrong of that they did to Anthony [music] Pignataro.

[00:07:01]Investigators believe this entire episode might have been a ploy for Pignataro to get his [music] medical license back.

[00:07:10]He gave Debbie poison. She developed [music] gastric symptoms.

[00:07:15]He then tried to convince her doctors to perform gallbladder [music] surgery that she wouldn't survive.

[00:07:23]Had Debbie [music] died during surgery, Tony could argue, as he did in Sarah Smith's case, that people occasionally die in surgery and that he shouldn't have been singled out.

[00:07:35]And in Tony's eyes, that would have indicated Let's say my own wife died under a doctor's care in a hospital while having surgery.

[00:07:44]And that's what we felt was his prime motivation.

[00:07:50]But why [music] didn't she die from the massive dose of arsenic?

[00:07:56]Medical experts say this was miscalculation. [music] When Tony gave his wife smaller doses of poison, she developed a tolerance for it. So, the higher doses later [music] had less of an effect.

[00:08:10]I'm sure he was thinking, "I can't believe she's still alive. I can't believe I gave her so much and she's still here."

[00:08:17]And I think he just got [music] panicking, it wasn't working. So, I think that's when he just figured, "I'm just going to give her a massive [music] dose and be over with."

[00:08:28]Apparently, his daughter's ingestion of the arsenic was unintentional.

[00:08:34]>> [music] >> Investigators believe Tony vandalized his own home to make Debbie's [music] illness appear to be retaliation for Sarah Smith's death.

[00:08:45]He deserves [music] to be injected with as much arsenic as he gave me.

[00:08:49]He deserves [music] to go through the hell that I went through.

[00:08:52]And the pain. That's what I feel [music] he deserves.

[00:08:56]When I asked Tony if he tried to kill his wife, he looked down at the table and told me, "I can understand why some people might think that."

[00:09:07]But he never said yes and he never said no.

[00:09:10]And he changed the subject and continued to look me in the eye.

[00:09:13]When faced [music] with the scientific evidence, Tony Pignataro confessed. He pled guilty to attempted [music] first-degree assault and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

[00:09:26]Pignataro promised to tell [music] where he obtained the arsenic and how he administered it.

[00:09:32]But he never [music] honored that part of the plea agreement.

[00:09:36]Although Debbie survived massive doses [music] of arsenic which were 80 times higher than a lethal dose, she will continue to suffer side [music] effects for the rest of her life. The nerve damage and lack of fine motor skills are permanent.

[00:09:53]I can't believe [music] any human being