The Story
Timeline and Facts in the Case of Richard Overton
by Traciy Curry-Reyes
1970's: Dorothy Boyer is having some strange symptoms. She notices that every time she drinks a cup of coffee in the morning before work, she starts to feel really sick. She suspects that someone is putting something in her coffee so she makes sure she notices just how she leaves the can on one particular morning. She finally realizes that someone is definitely tampering with her drink so she calls the police. The police discover the fingerprints of her ex husband, Richard Overton on the can. He admits that he was angry about her divorcing him and taking the house. She does not press charges against him, and he is not charged.
January 1988: Janet Overton, Richard Overton's third wife, dies slowly and painfully from Selenium poisoning. She collapses in the drive way of their home. Richard Overton had been poisoning her gradually by lacing her eyeliner with Selenium. Dorothy Boyer become suspicious of her death and decides to tell the police that her husband had tried to poison her years earlier. Though Jan's body was cremated, they were still able to find traces of cyanide in her ashes. Overton is then arrested and the police began to gather evidence against him for the trial. In his home the police find a disk which contained parts of a diary that he kept detailing the problems that they were having in the marriage.
October 1988: Richard Overton pleads not guilty in the murder of his wife. He is indicted by a grand jury. During this first trial Overton claims to have pains in his chest. The judge declares a mistrial.
March 1995: The second trial begins and Overton is then convicted of the murder of his wife and sent to prison for life without parole.
Tidbits
The movie did not confirm this, but according to court transcripts, Janet L. Overton was indeed having an affair with a fellow school official. She worked for the Capistrano Unified School District.Richard Overton was working as a professor at the University of Southern California at the time of his arrest. Jan Overton really died at age 46 instead of 38 as depicted in the movie. Richard Overton's first wife died in 1999 due to cancer...a direct result of the poisoning she endured in the seventies. The Overton case is often referred to as the coffee can murder.
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