Jerry Sternadel walked into a hospital complaining of severe abdominal pain, and nausea. Several tests were conducted but all came back clear.
Despite the results, Jerry’s condition turned fatal and he passed away.
Doctors were baffled. How could an otherwise seemingly healthy man suddenly fall ill? As it turns out, Jerry knew exactly how. Unfortunately, no one believed him.
Jerry was a millionaire entrepreneur who lived in Texas with his wife of 8 years, Lou Ann. He shared two young children with his ex-wife, Jeannie.
Jerry’s income allowed the Sternadels to live a lavish lifestyle. They had a beautiful house, extravagant cars, and anything they could ever want.
When Jerry told Lou Ann that he was hiring a bookkeeper for his ranch where he raced horses, she recommended her best friend, Debra Baker.
Debra had been married to her high-school sweetheart, Tony, for over 20 years and they had a 14-year-old son together named Charles.
Although Debra didn’t have any experience, Jerry gave her a chance to appease his wife. He even let the Bakers move into a house he owned.
Lou Ann and Debra spent a lot of time together. They worked in the same office, ate lunch together every day, and even went on vacations together.
Over time, Jerry began to suspect that they were more than just friends. They argued constantly and soon, Jerry told Lou Ann he wanted a divorce.
Lou Ann was livid. A divorce meant that she would no longer be able to sustain the glamorous lifestyle she had become accustomed to.
A few weeks later, Lou Ann checked Jerry into the hospital with a mysterious illness. He was given medicine but he never recovered.
Before he died, Jerry made a startling accusation:
“Lou Ann and Debra poisoned me! They’re trying to kill me!” Jerry screamed. Lou Ann laughed and insisted he had become paranoid from the medicine.
Doctors agreed with Lou Ann and they forcefully restrained a hysterical Jerry onto his hospital bed with leather straps. He died on June 12, 1990, at the age of 49.
At Jerry’s funeral, Lou Ann was seen grinning from ear to ear, as though she didn’t have a care in the world. She quickly cashed in on his $350,000 life insurance policy and received his estate, worth over a million dollars.
An autopsy determined that Jerry had in fact been poisoned — with arsenic. Unfortunately, aside from his last words, there was no other evidence.
That was until 1992 when the police received a call from a man who worked at a storage facility. He was cleaning out an abandoned locker when he found documents with Jerry’s name on them and a bottle of rat poison.
The storage locker was registered to Debra Baker.
She was immediately charged with first-degree murder.
After her arrest made the news, a teenager came forward, claiming he nearly died after visiting Jerry’s ranch where he drank cranberry juice.
Investigators found the bottle and it had traces of soap, indicating someone had tried to wash it, and arsenic, a poison commonly found in rat poison.
During the murder trial, Jerry’s ex-wife, Jeannie, dropped a bombshell.
She testified that shortly before his death, Jerry discovered that Debra had embezzled $30,000 from his business. He was killed before he could act.
The prosecution argued Debra murdered Jerry for her best friend Lou Ann, who did not attend the trial, before he could go through with the divorce.
A jury convicted Debra and sentenced her to 10 years of probation, wreaking havoc on Jerry’s loved ones, especially his grieving children.
“I talked to jurors about why they would give her probation. They said they felt she was the scapegoat, that the widow was the one who had committed the crime,” Jeannie later told local news reporters.
However, in 2003, Debra cashed a fraudulent check worth $65. Her probation was revoked and she was sent to prison for 10 years. She was released in 2013 at the age of 56.
It was widely believed that Lou Ann was involved in the murder of her husband but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge her and she walked away scot-free.
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