more potent biological weapons in their possession. had they been used, the results would have been catastrophic. >> the epidemiology alone or a criminal investigation alone would have cracked this. it took both to put it together. just after opening a vintage car restoration business, phil rousch became seriously ill. doctors found difficulty finding the cause. but to forensic scientistses, it looked like foul play. from the day he found an abandoned model a ford in an old cotton warehouse, phil rouse knew that vintage automobiles would be his life.

for most of his career, phil was a salesman. in 1997, he quit to finally pursue his dream of starting an antique car restoration business. he called it top quality and it was housed in the garage near his home in bartlett, tennessee. >> phil was real excited about going into business. that was his dream. >> to no one's surprise, the shop was successful from the day it opened. and with that success came the need to expand. for capital, phil turned to his best friend and next door neighbor steve white who was anxious to invest in the business in exchange for part ownership. phil's good friend also joined the company. >> as a matter of fact, everybody was happy with the way things were going. everybody was happy we got off to a good start. >> it was phil's knowledge,

talent and experience that made the company so successful. when phil rouss became ill just two months after the shop opened, it was a serious blow. >> i got to write didn't have any energy. and my stomach gave me a lot of trouble. i had trouble with digestion. i had severe chest pains. my hands and feet began to get numb. >> and to make matters worse, medical tests couldn't find the cause. >> i had an ultrasound done, a c.a.t. scan and an ultrasound. and all those tests came up negative. >> inexplicably, phil's condition continued to get worst. he lost 30 pounds and had difficulty walking and his cognitive abilities were also affected. >> he came home and he says, joe, i think i got alzheimer's. i'm getting alzheimer's. and i said, why, phil?

he said, i forgot my way to the shop. >> to protect his investment while phil was ill, steve white ran the day to day operations of the business. by december, phil was convinced he was going to die. >> i was so sick that night. i was in such bad pain that i actually took my shirt off and laid on the kitchen floor. i thought maybe that cold floor would take the pain and burning out of my stomach. >> restoring automobiles sometimes involves chemicals and solvents that can cause illness if the workplace is not properly ventilated. phil wondered whether this had been his problem. but his doctors were doubtful since no one else in the shop became ill. then phil became convinced that someone was trying to kill him. so he went to police headquarters with an unusual request.

he said if he died, he wanted the police to perform an autopsy because he thought someone was poisoning him. the police were skeptical. >> i notice that the other detectives were walking around. one of them was kind of doing this. and i got upset. i got very aggravated with that. >> phil's family thought he was exaggerating. >> i wanted proof that something was being done to him. and i said we should have waited. >> nothing in the world could convince me i was wrong that night or i would have never gone to the police station. if you don't think it took cohones to go to the police station, you are wrong. >> phil was desperate. he was afraid that nothing would be able to save his life. e annoy aveeno® positively radiant has an active naturals® total soy formula.

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♪ just months after opening his vintage car restoration business, phil rouss was so sick he could no longer run the business on a day to day basis.

his best friend, next door neighbor and business partner steve white was now running the business. >> my business partner said don't worry about it. if you're sick, stay home. stay home and get well. >> while sitting home, phil rouss heard rumors that his company wasn't paying its bills. >> we were taking money in. money was never given back to the suppliers to pay their bills. >> rouss went to the bank and discovered that ten company checks written by his partner had bounced because of insufficient funds. and they also learned why the company had no money. >> and when i got copies of the checks i can be honest with you, i was not happy with what i saw. he was paying for his personal cell phone bill. $70, $80 a month. he was paying for his own military insurance. he was making checks to his

local wine and spirits company somewhere close and buying booze. >> and phil noticed that steve white had written a check to a company called american national for $127. when he didn't recognize the company, rouss decided to call. >> she said it's life insurance. i said can you tell me more about it? she said, well, it's for $100,000. and the beneficiary and owner of the policy is stephen allen white. >> but the life insurance policy wasn't on steve white's life, it was on phil rouss'. and there was no policy on his policy naming rouss as the beneficiary. her husband did nothing wrong, that they were only trying to protect their investment in the event of phil's death. >> he wasn't into auto restoring.

his involvement was still more from a business management standpoint. >> we kept trying to have business meetings so we could see the checkbook, which we have never seen. every time we go to have a meeting, steve would get up and get angry and storm out of the house. so we were getting a little bit suspicious. >> the final straw came when steve white closed the company's bank accounts without telling phil who found out through the bank teller. >> she said mr. white came in two days ago, walked out of the bank with $2,943 and closed the account. and she said the reason i mentioned you, mr. rouss is because they were checks outstanding. he said he didn't care. he just wanted the money. >> rouss believed that as 50% owner of the business he had the power to halt all such transactions. but he was wrong.

when phil's lawyer reviewed the partnership agreement, he discovered that phil only owned 2% of the business. steve white owned the remaining 98%. >> well, i signed a lot of things in 1997. if steve said you need to sign this this is whatever, we would sign it. >> he was completely duped. >> phil now began to suspect his partner and decided to visit dr. kevin marigian, one of the top forensic toxicologists in the united states. >> he was one of the worst cases i had seen. so i mean it's very, very sick. i said well i think i'm being murdered. i don't how. i don't know what is being used on me. >> the doctor analyzed phil's urine test which had been done

earlier and he also performed a physical examination. but before the results were in, phil had more bad news. all of the business assets he brought with him to the company which included the building and real estate had been transferred to his partner steve white and put up for sale. phil rouss was not only dying, he was now penniless. that one. the one who seems like he's already got the job 'cause he studied all the right courses from the get-go. and that's an accountant, a mom, a university of phoenix scholarship recipient, who used our unique --scratch that-- awesome career-planning tool. and that's a student, working late, with a day job, taking courses aligned with the industry he's aiming to be in. ready to build an education around the career that you want? let's get to work. i quit smoking with chantix. before chantix, i tried to quit...

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phil rouss began to suspect the improprieties in his business and suspicions of being poisoned might somehow be related. >> mr. rouss wasn't very functional cognitively. he had a lot of the -- he had inability to concentrate, focus. he was very anxious. >> to find the cause of the illness, phil's urine was sent for a heavy metals test. the test revealed phil had arsenic in his system. a level of 63 is in the high range but far from lethal. normally, there is no arsenic in

one's system unless the person consumed large amounts of seafood which phil had not. >> he said mr. rouss, do you know anybody that might want you dead? >> dr. marigian suspected phil was being poisoned. phil tried to recall anything suspicious about the time he spent with his partner steve white. and then he remembered. every time he and steve had a meal or a drink together, phil's health deteriorated. >> i noticed it several times. i would get sick afterwards. >> even more alarming, steve white was a chemist by training and taught chemistry at the local high school. as a final forensic test, dr. marigian gave phil rouss very specific instructions. >> i told him, don't cut your hair. then i was able to clip it and send it to a laboratory for analysis.

>> when someone is exposed to poison, it goes through the body and is usually excreted. but it also gets deposited in the hair root at the time of the exposure. when the hair grows out, the shaft becomes a historic record of when the exposure took place. when phil's hair grew longer, a strand was sent for an icp test which tests for 22 different metal components at the same time. the hair was cut into quarter inch pieces and marked and mixed with water and boiled for seven hours. this cocktail was then put through the icp. the test results were startling. when he was in the hospital, his hair showed no exposure to poison. prior to that when phil was

living at home, dr. marigian found traces of another poison, mercury. >> i believe that he was ingesting it. i don't know who or why it would be delivered to him. i had no doubt he was poisoned with heavy metals. >> state law requires that police be notified when any poison is found in someone's system. when the police department learned of the poisoning and the financial dispute between phil and his partner, they took out a search warrant to search steve white's home. >> i thought at that time we have something to look into and we were going to investigate as a criminal matter. >> in white's backyard, in a storage shed they found a laboratory. >> it is like a mini science lab, like a chemistry lab. make shift lab, you know? there were several different jars of unusual looking powders,

strange looking, like burners and things like that, that you would see in a science lab. >> the reason her husband had the lab was for their children had a way to interest them in science. >> he would do things like mix baking powder and vinegar to make a volcano. >> but investigators soon discovered items in the shed that were anything but child's play. in a glass jar labelled baking powder, forensic scientists found traces of mercury and arsenic. the arsenic was a special formulation which won't be identified here except to say it was odorless and tasteless. detective bailey confronted white with the test results. he said that was crazy, absurd and ridiculous. he said there is no way there is arsenic in that. bring it to me and i'll drink

every bit of it. a few minutes later he said if i was going to kill this guy, i wouldn't use arsenic, i would do it with something much quicker and legal. everything in his statement that he gave to police, 21 page rambling statement was false. and i'm not even sure that steve white is his real name. >> a search of the car restoration office produced an envelope hidden behind the electrical panel. analysis of the materials inside revealed arsenic,ant moany, mercury, and lead. each a highly toxic medal. a forensic document examiner compared the handwriting on the envel lope to known samples of steve white's and concluded they were both similar. steve white was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of phil rouss. but important questions remained, how did the poisons

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forensic toxicology proved phil ruuss had been poisoned by heavy metals and similar poisons were found in the home of his

business partner, steve white. but prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to show how phil rouss was poisoned. >> we were never able to prove conclusively how he got the compounds into mr. rouss' system. we were able to prove he had ample opportunity. >> phil rouss recalled a number of incidents with steve white marked by unusual behavior. prior to his illness, phil and steve were having dinner at a local restaurant. not long after placing their order, white complained about the poor service. he got up and went into the kitchen and came back with phil's entree but not his own. there was another incident involving a bottle of whine. >> when white brought a bottle of wine and insist he drink all of it and insisting he get give the bottle back. he wanted to give him some more.

>> and white would often visit phil at home to share a cup of coffee and talk about work. but phil says steve would frequently ask phil to get something from another room, leaving steve alone with the coffee. phil and another man recalled a time when he offered to get them hamburgers for lunch. >> after eating these, they both became very ill. and they actually made a joke about how they're never going to send steve white out to get food again because it's going to make you sick again. >> when confronted with the evidence, steve white denied any involvement with phil's illness. his lawyer claimed that accusations were circumstantial and there was no proof white was in any way involved. the defense also pointed out that the lab results showed only trace amounts of the various heavy metals in rouss' body but

never a lethal amount. the prosecution claimed this was intentional that, mr. white wanted phil to die slowly after a prolonged illness so there would be no suspicions. >> i hate to say ideal but it actually is the ideal way of trying to harm someone because if you're not focused or you're not suspicious of it, the physician won't see it. >> the prosecution says the motive was money. that phil rouss' death would enabled white to get out of debt. white had over $90,000 in credit card debt, a substantial amount for a public schoolteacher. >> 100,000 life insurance policy could pay his way out of debt. >> if mr. rouss died, he he also

would inherit 100% of a maul business. >> after a week long trial, the jury found steve white guilty of first degree attempted murder, theft, and sales tax violations. he was sentenced to 31 years in prison. >> if it hadn't been for the heavy metals test and dr. marigian running all the tests on my husband, he would have been dead. >> his antique automobile restoration business is now closed. to this day, white maintains his innocence. >> these people were our friends for 14 years. i mean we thought they were our friends. i couldn't believe he made that charge against steve. i know steve didn't do it. >> phil still has numbness in his extremities and unable to walk due to nerve damage. >> this guy that i know, he was my business partner, he's going to jail.

i don't know for how long. i don't know. i may be crippled the rest of my life. i said two families are devastated. who won today? you tell me. tell me who won here today. happening now, terrorists targeting oil fields and air bases in iraq. u.s. military advisers working to keep the country together. syria and iran may have their own plans. we are live. >> breaking news this morning, the search for flight 370 shifts south. investigators explaining where they now think the vanished jet liner crashed. we are live with the latest. world cup fever. taking hold of the country and hold of the studio here. team usa hours away from