'Cold blooded' Paul Curry guilty of wife's 1994 murder

A "vicious, cold blooded" former nuclear engineer who was driven by an "insatiable appetite for money" was convicted of the 1994 murder of his wife.
Paul Curry gave a sleeping pill to his wife Linda and then poisoned her with a shot of nicotine because he wanted the $547.695 payout from her life insurance policy, prosecutors said.
The 57-year-old was questioned by cops after her death but it wasn't until 2010 that prosecutors put a case together and alleged that he murdered her.
Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh said she had a level of the sleeping aid Ambien, in her system after she was found at their San Onofre, Calif. home. This had not been prescribed to her, he said.
She also had injection marks on the temple behind her ears, he added.

"He had to make sure she was completely sedated before he injected the nicotine," he said, adding that high doses induce vomiting.
Curry admitted to fiddling his insurance but denied any role in her death.
However a California jury disagreed and he will sentenced for first degree murder at a later date.

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MELVIN PARKER GUILTY IN 1994 DOROTHY PAIGE SLAY

PARKER

PAIGE

THEY SUSPECTED him at the time, but when Melvin Parker's wife and the chief witness against him went into hiding, the case collapsed.
Fast forward 17-years and cops reopen the case of Dorothy Paige, who in August 1994 was found brutally stabbed and strangled in her Madison, WI, apartment.
And the cold case detectives immediately focus in on Melvin Parker, now 48, who just five years after Paige's murder was jailed on child abuse and burglary convictions.
He had been charged with murder in 1998, but that charge was dismissed after a key witness, Parker's wife Michele went into hiding, claiming that police were bending her story to make it fit their case. 
But it was the discovery that a witness who corroborated Michele Parker had lied to the original case detective, that finally cracked it for them.
So with little choice Parker ended with a no contest plea to first-degree reckless homicide. 
Assistant DA Brian Asmus told The State Journal: "This has been a long time coming for family members of Dorothy Paige, to finally have someone held accountable."
Paige's mother, Doris Koecher did not attend the hearing but said in a victim impact statement written by Amy Olson that Paige's death has been "a living hell" that has left her deeply depressed and withdrawn from the community.
She wrote: "I see no reason to give this person any type of leniency. Doris has expressed to me that if there is a possibility of the death penalty, that would be nice."

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DNA CRACKS 1994 COLD CASE MURDER

KILLER?

THE case baffled cops for well over a decade but a determined detective refused to be beaten and now thanks to DNA a brutal killer has been brought to justice.
Kevin Bernard Smith Jr is charged with the bloody shooting Rupert Thompson and the attempted killing of Thompson’s wife, Dorothy in their LA home back in 1994.
The pair were nearly asleep in their ground floor bedroom when Dorothy Thompson woke to find a gunman at the foot of their bed after hearing some glass shatter.
The man then blasted her in the torso before her husband got up and struggled with the thief in their front garden but he managed to escape. 
Rupert Thompson, then 73, later died and Dorothy Thompson was partially paralyzed in her right shoulder.
LAPD Detective Steven Castro refused to give up and after reviewing the cold case in 2009 he decided to give the blood DNA evidence another try.
He said: “There were a couple of drops of blood not id’d. I requested it be submitted again, with the advances in DNA.”
His attempt paid off and he got the hit on Smith, who was in a Mississippi prison on an unrelated drug conviction at the time, from a national database in August 2010.
He has since pled not guilty to charges including murder, attempted murder and robbery.
Castro added: “I am happy that I was fortunate enough to give Dorothy Thompson the news."
Now, he said he  hopes that she will be able to see Smith, who is currently undergoing a psychiatric evaluation judged in court.

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