Lester Holt

She was handling his meals.

And then from that point on, Jake's children said he started complaining about nausea, diarrhea, constant vomiting, and even sudden seizures.

But the real turning point in the case came when Rachel, Jake's daughter, gave her dad's hairbrush to a private investigator.

And that investigator handed it off to the DA's office, who submitted it to a crime lab for testing.

What did the lab find or determine?

The results came back and showed several toxic chemicals in his hair sample, things like DEET, antifreeze, arsenic, and other heavy metals.

And in the first trial, the prosecutor said that Susan was poisoning Jake by putting the chemicals into his food since she was the one giving him all of his meals.

What did the defense say about it?

The defense really attacked the credibility of the hairbrush evidence.

They zeroed in on concerns over chain of custody because it was found by Jake's daughter, Rachel.

And they also argued that Jake could have been exposed to those chemicals in a number of ways, such as being a heavy smoker or working on cars, things like that.

Lots of things to consider.

But obviously, the jury at Susan's first trial bought the poison theory and convicted her.

But since her conviction was overturned, things have become a little more complicated, right?

Yes.

So that has been a huge twist in this case.

The lab that came back with these results has been barred from doing forensic testing in criminal cases because of inaccurate results they provided in a different case in 2022.

Right.

So when it came time for Susan's retrial, the judge ruled that prosecutors couldn't present the lab's tox report or any of its findings to the jury.

Yeah, we should point out the lab issue is part of the reason that Susan's second trial was stopped in its tracks in December.