investigators described it as a one in a million chance. a tiny manufacturing flaw on an envelope exposed a murderer who was willing to kill innocent victims to get at the one person he wanted dead. it was a typical monday morning at the transamerica title insurance company in tempe, arizona, there were only four employees, all friends who spent their days processing paperwork. 46-year-old julie williams had

been working at transamerica for two months. >> she had gotten this new job. things were going really well for her, when i talked to her on the phone she always expressed how well things were going and how she was really starting to experience a sense of peace and joy in her life. >> on monday morning around 9:00 a.m., julie got a drink from the water cooler. after taking a sip, she said that her lips and tongue were burning and warned her co-workers not to drink the water. >> she walks into the bathroom, goes into the bathroom. the people were kind of worried about her. >> the other employees were baffled. >> they got some water out of the water cooler and tasted it and they burned their mouths a and they had to spit it out. >> meanwhile, julie never returned from the bathroom. >> she is in the stall. they can't open the door because basically her body is against the door.

somebody has to crawl up over the stall or underneath the stall. >> they found julie unconscious. comptely unresponsive. paramedics arrived minutes later and rushed her to the hospital. >> she was in a coma, and by that time we knew that that was pretty serious and that the doctors were telling us they needed to get their quickly because they were not sure how bad this was. >> at first they thought julie had suffered a massive stroke but it was even worse. >> mri tests and the cat scans and things like that were showing that she was basically brain dead and that we couldn't understand. >> doctors were telling her three grown daughters she probably wouldn't survive. >> her heart and kidney and liver was fine and she could basically go ongoing like this for who knows how long. >> the hospital asked them to check on transamerica's water

line. >> there was an obvious odor i could spell. >> to toxicology experts this meant only one thing, cyanide. >> people say if you have smelled it, it smells like bitter almonds, about 40% of the population can't smell it. >> as a precaution everything inside the water cooler room was sent for testing. >> they were examining all the items in there, the coffee cups, creamer, just everything in there. there appeared to be a crystalline substance in all of these. >> investigators tested the substance with a chemical strip and it turned blue. >> so what you're producing is prussian blue, which is one of the forms of cyanide. scientists found a massive amount of it in the coffee pot. >> well, five grams of pure cyanide as it is in total is

enough to kill about probably 25 people. >> the water cooler alone had 32 grams of pure cyanide, enough to kill 150 people. but who wanted to kill the employees of transamerica title company. and why? narrator: these are the skater kid: whoa narrator: that got torture tested by teenagers and cried out for help. from the surprised designers. who came to the rescue with a brilliant fix male designer: i love it narrator: which created thousands of new customers for the tennis shoes that got torture tested by teenagers. the internet of everything is changing manufacturing.

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48 hours after julie williams ingested a massive amount of cyanide, her three daughters made the difficult decision to take her off life support. there was nothing medical science could do. >> that is a difficult decision, you're not ready to say good-bye as it is and now suddenly you have to make the decision to now end somebody's life. >> investigators found the source of the cyanide julie had ingested. it was in the office coffee pot and water cooler. >> it would not have been difficult for all four people in that office to have been killed because cyanide is really a

strong poison, i mean, they could have died before anyone figured out what happened. >> police questioned the three remaining employees in the transamerica office. one of them, diane harry made a surprising admission. she said that she may have been the intended target. diane said that a few nights earlier she was drinking some scotch whiskey at home with her husband and it made her ill. >> she also told him that there was something wrong with the tea kettle. she tried to make coffee and when she put cream in it, it curdled. >> investigators tested the bottle of scotch from harry's home and confirmed their suspicion. the bottle contained lethal amounts of cyanide. diane's husband, lewis harry said he thought he knew who was responsible. he said it was roy fitzpatrick, a 43-year-old delivery man.

>> roy fitzpatrick was the ex-girlfriend of a girl that harry has now befriended, the way he described it. >> fitzpatrick's ex-girlfriend was 33-year-old sharon jones. >> well, i had dated mr. fitzpatrick briefly and he would never accept no. he would stalk me. he would choke me and he threatened to kill me if i started dating anyone else. mr. harry was very, very persistent that i go to get a restraining order against mr. fitzpatrick. he even went with me to the courthouse to get it done. >> sharon jones and lewis harry then realized that the restraining order back fired. it angered fitzpatrick who responded by sending threatening letters to lewis harry and his wife, diana. >> mr. harry described the content of the letter and said basically that roy fitzpatrick was threatening him and his wife

and that they were getting increasingly more sinister. >> the letters were laced with racial epithets. this one was sent to diana harry. >> i am having a hard time overlooking your husband, harry, i think i will take you away from him so you will see how it feels. >> and he wrote this to lewis. >> you won't have to hurt for long because your ass is mine. >> investigators asked harry if he sent the threatening letters, and initially he denied it. >> he decided he wanted to tell the truth and admitted he sent letters to mr. harry. >> but fitzpatrick claimed he was angry with lewis harry not because of the restraining order. but because he was sexually involved with his ex-girlfriend, sharon jones. >> i met lewis harry in a club.

i was in love with mr. harry. he had asked me to marry him. as soon as the divorce was through, he had said that we would get married. >> roy fitzpatrick discovered this was all a lie. >> mr. fitzpatrick followed lewis harry home one night from my condo. and he called me within minutes of mr. harry leaving stating that he was still married. the wife was still in the home. and that he wasn't going through any divorce. >> when police confronted lewis harry about the affair he denied it. and roy fitzpatrick gave police one last piece of information. he admitted sending lewis and diane harry four threatening letters, but claimed that the three typewritten letters, the most incriminating, were forgeries. investigators noticed that one of the typewritten letters was in an envelope with a

distinctive flaw. the spot where the flaps met was offset. they didn't match up the way they were supposed to. apparently this was a manufacturing flaw. >> when you have been in the business for any length of time you know that this is a very significant flaw. and that especially in a murder case this is going to be a very important piece of physical evidence. >> on an envelope assembly line, blades slice through reams of paper creating a form with four flaps. when the flaps are glued the left and right ones are supposed to meet in the center of the envelope. in this case, the right flap overlapped the left. >> these were coming down the assembly line. they were moving further and further out of whack the way they should be. >> investigators believed if

>> police were investigating the cyanide death of 46-year-old julie williams and the attempted poisoning of her co-worker, diane harry. the prime suspect in the case, roy fitzpatrick admitted sending

harry and her husband, lewis, four threatening letters. but fitzpatrick denied sending the three most incriminating ones. >> he had given me something but now was taking away the last three letters. >> but if fitzpatrick didn't send the three typewritten letters, who did? on a hunch, investigators got a warrant to search the office. he worked in a local community college. >> it was interesting that they went to mr. harry's work place and they took this big shelf that was in his office. it is like five or six feet long. that ended up going out to their expert out at asu arizona state university. >> also in lewis harry's waste

paper basket they had a label from a chemical company. >> the label had a warning about the use of cyanide. >> but it was signed by somebody who identified himself as charles holly. he told them he needed it for a college class. the forensic examiner, bill flynn was asked to compare it. >> it is is an ovate round letter in harry. there is a very distinctive style that he used from the letter h to the next ovate letter. >> both ended with a y, and flynn discovered they were virtually identical as were the h's at the beginning of each name. >> for instance, the right side of the h in holly is made with that right curving clockwise movement circle on the h. which we saw was replicated in harry's own name. >> the investigators showed a photo lineup. the clerk identified lewis harry as the man who purchased the cyanide. in lewis harry's office

investigators found and open box of envelopes. when they looked at the ones left in the box they found that three of them had the same defect as the one with the threatening letter. >> in fact, it was a progressive and linear defect, meaning that you could see the progression, how the defect had enlarged as the envelopes moved down the manufacturing line. normally the people in production and quality control would have culled those out rather than put them in the box. >> i was actually amazed something like that would occur. it was probably one in a million that this would have happened. >> this proved that lewis harry

sent himself at least one of the threatening letters, perhaps more. and on the shelf in his office scientists found trace amounts of cyanide. but how did lewis harry gain access to his wife's office building to poison the water? >> a key card system is used to gain access on weekends. you have to use the card to scan to get in the door. >> the office security system indicated somebody entered the office on the weekend before the poisoning. >> the card that was used was diane harry's, used early that morning. >> but diana insisted she had not gone into the office that weekend. >> the information raised the

question number one who used the card? and it also made sense that if somebody used the card, namely hers, that person would have access to the office. >> no one reported seeing a woman enter the building that weekend. but a workman recalls seeing a man enter. >> the subject, who had been there as a workman, an outside contractor had been there waiting to get inside the building because it was locked and he said it was sometime between 10 and 10:30, an african-american man got out of a sports car. he was not very friendly. opened the door for him. >> he was not able to pick him out in the lineup. but remembered there was a tennis racket in the back seat. >> lewis harry was arrested and charged with the murder of julie williams and the attempted murder of his wife, diane. but why did he do it? about a year after julie

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williams' murder, lewis harry went on trial for murder and the attempted murder of his wife, diane. prosecutors believe lewis was unhappy in his marriage to diane whom he had been married to for less than three years. then one night in a bar he met sharon jones, a student at the community college where he worked.

initially, he misled sharon by telling her he was separated. >> it became serious very quickly. within three to four weeks. >> lewis proposed marriage to sharon while still living with his wife, diane. sharon's ex-boyfriend, roy fitzpatrick, learned about a relationship with lewis harry, grew angry, then mailed the threatening letters to lewis and his wife. these letters gave lewis what he believed to be the perfect alibi. he killed his wife with cyanide, pinned the murder on roy fitzpatrick, then he would be free to marry sharon. he typed three more letters, even more incriminating than the originals. and mailed them to himself. but lewis used an envelope with a significant manufacturing flaw that tied him to those letters. lewis bought the cyanide in a local supply store using an alias, but forensic handwriting

analysis concluded that lewis signed the receipt. lewis tried killing his wife by putting cyanide in her alcoholic beverage but she stopped drinking it because of its foul odor. he also put cyanide in her tea kettle. this, too, was unsuccessful. so that is when lewis decided to use his wife's security pass to put cyanide in the office water cooler and coffee pot. on monday morning, julie williams was the first one to drink from the water cooler. and she ingested a massive dose of cyanide. she was an innocent victim of a marriage gone horribly wrong. at the trial, lewis' wife and his girlfriend sat together, neither one thought he was capable of murder. >> two girls would sit back there, the two ladies, look at me, give me dirty looks and they were supporters of lewis harry. >> prosecutors presented what

they believed to be a possible financial motive, as well. >> diane harry had a life insurance policy for $75,000. and he was the beneficiary. if she died, he was the beneficiary. he would have gotten that money. >> lewis harry was tried and convicted of first degree murder and four counts of attempted murder. he was sentenced to life in prison. after almost two decades, his girlfriend is finally convinced of his guilt. >> mr. harry did a very horrible thing. i tried to forgive him. and i can't. i still can't forgive him. >> diane harry's brother went into her attic, found more cyanide.

i think it was only at that time that she realized that he had been trying to kill her. >> lewis harry is now in the arizona state prison complex. during a recent telephone interview he still maintains his innocence. >> i'm very sorry for julie williams' family, you know, for them to have gone through this. as far as the actual crime itself i didn't commit the crime so it is kind of hard to have remorse for something i didn't do. >> investigators believe the evidence proves the exact opposite. the handwriting. the flawed envelopes. the eyewitness, and cyanide particles in his office allocate that lewis harry was prepared to do anything to end his marriage. even if it meant killing others to do it. >> it would have been much more difficult to obtain a conviction without the evidence of the matching envelopes and without

the handwriting comparison. >> it was like the work of art. it started. it grew, and then it came to completion and then it was all there. there was nothing they could dispute. i don't care what defense they brought up. we defeated all of them. a computer hard drive holds hundreds of secrets. every key stroke, every download. every deletion tells a story. but if someone downloads a song about murder does it make him a killer? it was a hot august night in jacksonville, florida. and a time of celebration for april and justin barber. it was their third wedding anniversary. and april was about to finish her training as a radiology technology. >> april had gone into the field of oncology, particularly why the radiology field.