Penchant For Poison

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 a 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 Lita 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 couldn'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, Olgi died after a lengthy illness.

Shortly after the funeral, his wife Lita checked herself into a hospital.

She hadn't been feeling well for weeks.

I just sick, just vomiting all the time.

Just deathly sick at my stomach, and I just get weaker and weaker.

Lita 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 Lita 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 the floor.

Literally went to the hospital once again.

This time, doctors performed a whole battery of tests and found the problem.

Lita 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.

Lita could think of only one person who could have done this.

Her husband Olgi.

Was it possible that Olgi 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 hair and in some case 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 Lita's hair was three inches long, this gave scientists a six-month timeline to see when Lita 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 non-destructive.

That is, solid samples can be irradiated directly without having to dissolve the sample in any way.

The results were surprising.

Lita ingested a massive dose of arsenic in the month before OG 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 timeframe since her husband had been dead and he couldn't have possibly administered it.

Now investigators questioned whether Olgi too had been poisoned.

Tests on Lita 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 noble's home for clues.

We took samples of the water, we took samples from their 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 acid.

The actual concentration in there was a sub-lethal, but it certainly would be toxic.

With Lita'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.

Olgi Noble's 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 noble's 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 noble son showed no signs of arsenic poisoning.

The other person was the man who bought the noble's air conditioning business, Timothy Scoggan.

But Lita refused to believe either one was responsible.

She had an excellent relationship with her son, and Tim Scoggan was like a member of the family.

I didn't know what to think, because

I just couldn't, you know, believe it.

Lita Nobel and she'll look you right in 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 Scoggan wasn't doing that.

We were on the wrong track and that he'd 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 Lano, Texas, about 130 miles away.

While there, He met two elderly sisters, Catherine and Cordelia Norton, the last 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 girly.

She was very frilly, very ladylike.

Catherine ran a flower shop and met Tim Scoggan 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-style haircut.

She wore khaki clothes, and she could cuss better than any sailor you ever saw.

As Scoggan 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 doctors.

They would often go to University of Texas football games.

Not surprisingly, the sisters appreciated Scoggan's 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 believe 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 Olgen 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 girl.

But they hit a dead end.

Both Norton sisters had been cremated.

I was afraid we'd lost everything.

If Tim Scoggan killed the Norton sisters for their money and murdered Olgi 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.

My very last words to her were, I love you.

And not a lot of parents ever get to say that, you know.

In 2010, Aubrey Sacco vanished while hiking in the Himalayas.

Now, After 15 years of searching, her parents share what they've uncovered in a three-episode special of Status Untraced.

Dads are supposed to find their daughters when they're in trouble.

Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When investigators looked at Tim Scoggan, they had to wonder: did he simply have bad luck, or was he a cold-blooded serial killer?

Within a 12-month period, Scoggan's two closest friends, Lita and Olgi 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 lifestyle of particularly the Nortons.

I mean, the Nortons traveled all over the world.

They had friends from all over the world come visit them, and he was included included in that circle.

If Scoggan 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'd 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 sister's 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.

Tim Scoggan was the prime suspect in the murders of Cordelia and Catherine Norton, Olgi Nobles, and the attempted murder of Lita Nobles.

Mr.

Scoggan 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 non-threatening and

a loving friend to

all his victims.

Investigators found arsenic in some antacids in Lita'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 Scoggins' 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 varmits 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 the $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 Scoggan set his sights on the Norton sisters almost from the minute he met them.

The Norton sisters liked Scoggan, and he would often eat meals and stay overnight in their hillside mansion.

Prosecutors think Scoggan poisoned them after he learned the sisters planned to include him in their will.

As a mortician, Scoggan 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 Skagen learned the sisters had left him out of their will, he was angry, but undeterred.

For his trouble, Skagen forged a check on the sisters' account for $30,000, discovered later by forensic experts.

Skagen then moved 130 miles away to San Angelo, where he met the nobles.

They lent Skagen the money to buy their 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.

Olgi Nobles died from the poison, but 69-year-old Lita 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 10 people out there, you know, nine of those ten would probably died from it.

Had Lita 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 Scoggan 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 secretary 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-bloodedest, most ruthless killer that I dealt dealt with.

Skogan 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.

Lita Nobles still suffers from the poisoning.

To this day, she has trouble walking.

Yes, I'd get angry sometimes.

I'd 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 that 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.