when a person is cremated, the heat usually destroys any evidence of foul play. at least, that was the theory until a scientist in texas found a way to test cremated remains. and in so doing, made forensic history. san angelo, texas, known for its oil, cotton fields, and extremely hot weather. >> it's great country. there's a lot of rural area to it. of course, the biggest problem they have out there is you don't get a whole lot of rain. >> olgie and leita nobles ran the town's air conditioning

business, and they had no shortage of customers. perhaps it was the strain of both living and working together, but the two didn't always see eye to eye. >> it was that kind of different relationship where there was love involved but you don't tell it from the outside. >> mr. nobles had a real drinking problem, and they argued like cats and dogs. >> at the age of 70, olgie died after a lengthy illness. >> shortly after the funeral, his wife leita checked herself into a hospital. she hadn't been feeling well for weeks. >> i was just sick. just vomiting all the time. just death little sick at my stomach and i just get weaker and weaker. >> leita blamed the stress of her husband's death for her illness but doctors found nothing wrong and released her. within days, the nausea and vomiting returned. and leita developed another symptom.

numbness in her fingers and toes. >> i woke up one night and i was so sick. and i got up, tried to get in the chair. and, of course, my legs didn't hold me and i just went down to the floor. >> leita went to the hospital once again. this time, doctors performed a whole battery of tests and found the problem. leita had been poisoned. the level of arsenic in her system was three times higher than a lethal dose. >> it made you wonder who in the world it could be that was doing it. >> arsenic is a tasteless, odorless element used in rat poison. leita could think of only one person who could have done this, her husband olgie. was it possible that olgie poisoned his wife before he died? >> i really didn't think the man had the nerve to do a thing like that.

>> to find out, scientists looked for evidence in her hair. >> it turns out that the hair and in some cases toenails or fingernails are good indicators of body loads of certain elements. in particular, in the case of arsenic, it's often used as hair where it's concentrated in the hair. >> since hair grows approximately one-half inch per month and liita's hair was three inches long this gave scientists a six-month time line to see when leita was poisoned. each half inch piece of hair was tested with neutron activation analysis. >> neutron activation has some advantages and one is that it is considered to be nondestructive. that is, solid samples can be irradiated directly without having to dissolve the sample in any way. >> the results were surprising. leita ingested a massive dose of

arsenic in the month before olgie died but she ingested a second large dose in the month after his death. >> they were able to conclude that she had had a large dose of arsenic in the time frame since her husband had been dead and he couldn't have possibly administered it. >> now investigators questioned whether olgie, too, had been poisoned. in new york state, we're changing the way we do business, with startup ny. we've created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it's not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov

tests on leita noble's hair indicated she ingested large doses of arsenic in the month before and month after her husband's death. at one time, arsenic was an ingredient in rat poison, but it's no longer used for that purpose. investigators looked in and around the nobles' home for clues. >> we took samples of the water, we took samples from the septic tank system, and we tested all the different things in the house to be sure that we could positively prove that they didn't get the poisoning from something that was in the house accidentally. >> we did find arsenic in one item was an antacid.

the actual concentration in there was sub lethal but it certainly would be toxic. >> with leita's permission, investigators exhumed her husband's body five months after he died. his autopsy revealed lethal doses of arsenic in all of his major organs. olgie nobles' death was now ruled a homicide. >> my first thought is that there's somebody that's real close to the nobles that needs them dead for some reason. >> only two people had access to the food in the nobles' home. >> they had a son who was disabled who lived in the house who, of course, had to be a little suspect. >> and it was telling, too, that the nobles' son showed no signs of arsenic poisoning. the other person was the man who bought the nobles' air conditioning business, timothy scoggin.

but leita refused to believe either one was responsible. she had an excellent relationship with her son and tim scoggin was like a member of the family. >> i didn't know what to think because i just -- i just couldn't, you know, believe it. >> leita nobles will look you right into the eye and tell you exactly what she thinks and that's what she did. she looked us right in the eye and told us tim scoggin wasn't doing that, that we were on the wrong track and he would never do that. she trusted him completely. >> tim scoggin was 33 years old, single and had a close personal relationship with the nobles but a background check revealed an unusual past. before buying the nobles' business, scoggin lived in llano, texas, about 130 miles away. while there, he met two elderly sisters, catherine and cordelia

norton. the last surviving members of an old texas family that made millions mining granite. the two sisters never married and lived in a large mansion while running separate businesses. 75-year-old catherine was the younger of the two. >> her nickname was girlie. she was very frilly, very lady-like. >> catherine ran a flower shop and met tim scoggin while he was working for a local funeral home. 83-year-old cordelia was a beer distributor and a cattle rancher. >> she was rough. she had a man tile haircut. she wore khaki clothes and she could cuss better than any sailor you ever saw. >> as scoggin got to know the sisters, he spent increasing amounts of time doing their chores, cooking for them, he acted as their driver and helped them with their medications. >> they were lonely. they needed someone to talk to them. they needed someone to care for

them. and that's what he did. and they trusted him just like a son. >> he was at their beck and call. he would drive them anywhere, take them to the doctor's. they would often go to the university of texas football games. >> not surprisingly, the sisters appreciated scoggins help and apparently led him to believe his generosity would be rewarded. >> he knew the ladies had a lot of money and he was going to befriend them and he said that catherine and cordelia had told him that they were going to remember him in the will. so he was really thinking he was going to make a lot of money. >> he bragged that he was wealthy or that he was going to be an heir or already was an heir of a wealthy family that -- i believed he said he was related to the norton sisters rather than just a friend. >> then all of a sudden, the two sisters died within a day of one another. >> the doctor signed off and said death, heart attack, old

age and no one really knew anything about it or thought a whole lot about it. >> the sisters' estate was estimated to be approximately $5 million. when investigators learned that olgie nobles had been poisoned, the deaths of the norton sisters appeared suspicious. >> right away, i thought, well, we need to exhume the bodies of the norton girls. but they hit a dead end. both norton sisters had been cremated. >> so i was afraid we'd lost everything. >> if tim scoggin killed the norton sisters for their money and murdered olgie nobles too, he had committed the perfect crime three times. >> you can't be around three deaths and one near death under very similar circumstances and just say it's a coincidence. >> but without forensic evidence, there was no way to

prove it.

when investigators looked at tim scoggin, they had to wonder, did he simply have bad luck, or was he a cold-blooded serial killer?

within a 12-month period, scoggins' two closest friends, leita and olgie nobles were both poisoned with arsenic, and his friends catherine and cordelia norton also died suspicious deaths within a day of one another. >> he was the last person alone with cordelia and he was the last person alone with catherine. >> he wanted money, he wanted riches and he liked the lavish style of particularly the nortons. i mean they traveled all over the world. they had friends from all over the world come visit them, and he was included in that circle. >> if scoggin poisoned the norton sisters, no one could prove it. they had both been cremated. all that remained were their ashes. >> he believed he could burn up the evidence and he would be safe. >> in the average cremation, the body is subjected to temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees fahrenheit for up to three hours.

virtually nothing remains. >> it takes a lot of temperature to reduce a body to nothing but a little pile of ashes. >> investigators called laboratories and universities around the country, but no one knew of any way to test cremated remains for forensic evidence. but rod mccutcheon, a toxicologist at the texas department of public safety crime lab, was willing to try. >> so i started thinking about the possibility of detecting arsenic in a cremated remains sample, and decided it might be possible. there were a lot of things to consider. >> mccutcheon knew that arsenic is actually a metal and some metals survive fire and intense heat. >> you may change its form from a solid to a gas but you aren't going to destroy the arsenic itself. >> so he took the sisters' ashes and added an acid solution to dissolve all of the organic

material. what was left was primarily sulfuric acid. in a process called colorimetric testing, he added hydrochloric acid and zinc to the mix. >> as it bubbles through this device, the arsenic will react and form if it's present a purplish violet color. the more arsenic present, the stronger the more purple the color is. >> rod mccutcheon's chemical cocktail made forensic history. the solution turned a deep purple. conclusive proof of the presence of arsenic. the depth of color in the reaction showed that cordelia norton ingested a massive amount of arsenic. the test results on catherine's ashes were inconclusive.

nevertheless, their deaths were ruled homicides. and it appeared the sisters got the last laugh. they died before changing their will. >> when they read the will, he found he got nothing. they said he was very distraught, very angry when he left. in new york state, we're changing the way we do business, with startup ny. we've created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it's not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov

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tim scoggin was the prime suspect in the murders of cordelia and catherine norton, olgie nobles and the attempted murder of leita nobles. >> mr. scoggin had no criminal record. he certainly didn't appear like any kind of tv crook, in fact, he was the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. he appeared to be completely nonthreatening. and a loving friend to all his victims. >> investigators found arsenic in some antacids in leita's home but couldn't find out where it came from. until the owner of a local supermarket called to offer some information. he said when he saw scoggin's picture in the newspaper, he remembered selling him a large amount of rat poison.

he even remembered the brand. cowley's original rat and mouse poison. >> he remembered mr. scoggins coming in looking for some sort of poison to kill varmints of some kind. >> i think he didn't buy it that day but he came back several days later and bought more than one bottle. i don't recall how many. >> forensic document examiners analyzed the cremation request orders signed by the norton sisters and a $30,000 check the sisters made out to scoggin shortly before their death. they concluded the documents were forgeries. it was written during the time of the death which made it even more suspicious because the ladies were extremely ill at this time and they wasn't in the stage of just giving away $30,000 because they were deathly ill. >> prosecutors believe that scoggin set his sights on the

norton sisters almost from the minute he met them. the norton sisters liked scoggin and he would often eat meals and stay overnight in their hillside mansion. prosecutors think scoggin poisoned them after he learned the sisters planned to include him in their will. as a mortician, scoggin had access to the necessary paperwork to forge the sisters' names on cremation papers. but in a forensic first, scientists found a huge amount of arsenic in the ashes. when scoggin learned the sisters had left him out of their will, he was angry, but undeterred. for his trouble, scoggin forged a check on the sisters' account for $30,000, discovered later by forensic experts.

scoggin then moved 130 miles away to san angelo where he met the nobles. they lent scoggin the money to buy their air conditioning business. he was to repay them in monthly installments. prosecutors believe he poisoned the couple so he could avoid making those payments. olgie nobles died from the poison but 69-year-old leita built up resistance to it. >> this lady was so tough, her inner strength was so strong, her will to live was so strong, and her body was able to absorb this and build up a tolerance to it, but probably if you had ten people out there, you know, nine of those ten would have probably died from it. >> had leita died, police would never have questioned the cause of her death or her husband's. so they would never have made the connection to the norton

sisters. >> and nobody would have ever known the difference. >> tim scoggin was arrested and charged with murder and intent to commit murder. >> he's a very effeminate kind of a man. in fact, when he talked on the phone, people thought he was a woman and he passed himself off as secretaries sometimes and called himself kim. by his voice, you couldn't tell the difference. he had to be a cold, calculating individual. >> i've talked to a lot of serial killers, but this guy here was the cold-bloodiest, most ruthless killer that i've dealt with. >> scoggin was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences. >> people kill for money. it's the root of all evil. it really is. that is absolutely true. that's all he done it for was money.

>> leita nobles still suffers from the poisoning. to this day, she has trouble walking. >> yes, i get angry sometimes. i get to thinking about it, and at first, i couldn't talk about it. i'd just go to crying. i just couldn't talk about it. >> now, scientists all over the world can test cremated remains for various substances. thanks to the hard work and dedication of the scientists involved in this case. >> people sit around trying to think of the perfect crime. and one could say that he nearly did commit four nearly perfect crimes, and there were just a few mistakes. >> i'm not a chemistry major, but i just felt like i hate to lose and i hate to see someone get away with a crime and so it just happened to work out, and i was very blessed that it did.

>> even though in this case the perpetrator had gone out of his way to try to destroy the evidence, the evidence was persistent and it was still there even after cremation. criminals usually leave some kind of trace evidence at the crime scene. the trick is to find it. scientists used some aurora pink powder, cyanoacrylate fumes and a computer database to identity a suspect in the midst of a senseless crime spree. it was 4:00 a.m. on an october morning, and kim miller was manning the police switchboard. >> stay on the line, please. i was working the night shift. i think i had only worked there like around six months, so i