Lester Holt

What caused this woman's death was... Cyanide poisoning, period.

No doubt?

No doubt.

Nor was there any doubt, said the prosecutor, as to who poisoned Autumn.

Police discovered the defendant's laptop hidden in an office safe.

And inside it, a wealth of information that told them Bob Ferranti had indeed been a very busy researcher in the months before his wife's death.

Dr. Ferrante was Googling searches concerning cyanide, where to purchase it, how to purchase it, the effects on people.

And he didn't stop there.

The prosecutor said Bob Ferrante then made an interesting request to his lab associates, something later relayed to detectives.

He goes to the purchasing person in the laboratory, and he tells this person that he wants to order a bottle of cyanide.

Has he ever done that before, Detective?

Never.

Better yet, the detectives explained, the doctor asked for the cyanide to be delivered overnight.

And when is all this in relation to Autumn's slumping to the floor at her home?

Two days prior.

Two days prior?

Yes.

Ferranti, he said, had even left his fingerprint on the container, which, interestingly to them, had 8.3 grams of cyanide missing.

What, like a heaping teaspoonful, maybe, of cyanide?

I think about a teaspoonful would be about eight grams.