United States v. Joseph Meling

In 1990, Joseph Meling took out several hundred thousand dollars in life insurance on his wife; in early 1991, he added accidental death benefits. All told, Meling stood to collect $700,000 if his wife happened to die in an accident. Meling was not just being prudent; he was planning for the future.

Meling, however, wasn’t satisfied to leave such important matters to chance: The day after the coverage became effective, he fed his wife a capsule of cyanide-laced Sudafed. Miraculously, she survived, but Meling’s amateur pharmacology continued. Worried he might be suspected in the poisoning, Meling concocted a scheme to divert official attention elsewhere. What better place to hide a tree than in the forest? So Meling laced five packages of Sudafed with lethal amounts of cyanide and planted them on drug store shelves, killing two people before Burroughs-Wellcome could institute a national recall of its product.

This macabre scheme wasn’t Meling’s only attempt to divert suspicion. First, he played the dutifully distraught husband: When his wife collapsed from the poison, Meling phoned 911 and feigned hysteria, then melodramatically vowed to the paramedic who arrived on the scene…