Read Everything She Ever Wanted Online
Authors: Ann Rule
Tags: #General, #Murder, #Social Science, #Case studies, #True Crime, #Criminology, #Serial Killers, #Georgia, #Murder Georgia Pike County Case Studies, #Pike County
nail tip, that tells you that arsenic has been in the nail long enough
to grow from this site to this site here," he said, demongrating.
Dr. Burton explained that the same progression was true in human
hair.
Speaking of Paw Allanson, he said, "There have been two episodes of
arsenic introduced into the system.
. . . It's very rare to find a
level this high unless someone has introduced into his system a large
bolus of arsenic to give you that level.... The same is true for Nona
Allanson ... a very high level of arsenic found.
There is no way that
these amounts that we see in the nails and hair are within any normal
range."
It was Burton's opinion, given the Allansons'medical histories and
based on his tests, that someone had administered 'arsenic to the
elderly couple about six months before their hospitalizations in June
and July, and then again just before they were hospitalized.
"This is
consistent with chronic arsenic intoxication Burton said.
"Let me ask you this," Weathers continued.
"If someone were taking .
. . arsenic in their system-bearing in mind respective ages of the
people .
. . would this have any effect whatsoever on their mental
stability?"
"It could," Burton replied.
"Arsenic has been proven to cause changes
in one's mental attitude, capability, thinking, and reasoning; it can
cause neurological complaints and GI symptoms, headaches, muscular
aching, weakness, affect peripheral nerves and changes in sensation of
the legs and feet."
"With the type you found, would that be consistent with arsenic being
ingested through milk, orange juice, food preparation?"
"It can be ingested through any number of mechanisms or methods.
In
most forms, it is an odorless, colorless, tasteless process where one
does not know that they are ingesting arsenic."
Asked if he had ever seen a case of suicide by chronic arsenic
ingestion, Burton shook his head.
"No, sir."
"Never?"
probed Weathers.
"No, sir .
. . I have never seen one documented.
Several people have
committed suicide by the acute ingestion of arsenic, but each
individual's susceptibility to arsenic varies.
It would be hard to
predict on a chronic basis how much one would have to take .
. . to
induce sickness or death.
. . . Oftentimes, an individual becomes very
sick and it's a very unpleasant .
. . If one got very sick, he might
be hospitalized.
He might be treated and survive .
. .
unpredictable.
"Is not pain one of the manifestations of chronic ingestion of
arsenic?"
"Yes, sir."
If a would-be suicide chose to end his life in one gulp,
Burton stressed, the pain would be intense, even unbearable.
It would
be prolonged agony when administered slowly.
On cross-examination, Dunham McAllister did his best to shake Dr.
Burton, to show that arsenic is all around, everywhere, easy to ingest
accidentally easily misdiagnosed.
He maintained that many diseases
might have the same symptoms as arsenic poisoning.
Burton did not dispute that.
"So it's possible," McAllister said, "that arsenic poisoning can be
misdiagnosed for different ailments?"
"Yes, sir."
"More than a dozen?"
"Possibly, yes."
"What about a stroke?
Could it be misdiagnosed as a stroke?"
"Yes n to testify.
"Mr. Allanson," Weathers Paw was wheeled back i
began.
"I am going to ask you just a few questions, please, sir.
Can you understand me, sir .
. . ?"
"Yes."
"Did you give yourself arsenic?"
"Nope."
"Did you give any to your wife?"
"No.
"Do you know how it got into your system?"
"Nope."
"I have no further questions."
"Never seen any Paw trailed off On cross-examination, McAllister tried
to connect Paw's long history of farming with the supposition that
there must have been poison on his property.
But he didn't seem to
have the heart to bear down.
Cross-examination fell flat, showing only
the tremendously hard labor old Walter Allanson had performed for six
decades.
The witness could never remember using or seeing arsenic
preparations.
"No further questions."
jean Boggs took the stand next, and if she
felt a certain triumph to find herself in a courtroom where Pat
Allanson was being prosecuted, it was understandable.
She allowed her
eyes to flicker over the defense table from time to time.
Andy Weathers used jean's answers to catch the jury up on the violent
history of the Allanson family.
"You know, of course, Mr. and Mrs.
Walter Allanson?"
"Yes, sir, my mother and father."
"Now, I believe you also had a brother?"
"Yes, sir .
. . Walter O'Neal Allanson."
'And was he murdered in
Fulton County?"
"Yes, sir."
"Trial held in Superior Court of Fulton County?"
"Yes, sir."
'Who was convicted in your presence?"
Dunham McAllister objected.
"It's irrelevant to the trial in this
case."
"I intend to show motive," Weathers argued.
"I intend to stand by
that."
"[There's] been absolutely no testimony about motive at this point,"
McAllister countered.
"Fixing to be some," Weathers said agreeably.
"That is why I am
offering it."
The defense's objection was overruled.
jean was allowed to say that
Pat was the third wife of the man convicted of his parents' murders-Tom
Allanson.
Jean went on to describe her growing suspicion that something was wrong
in her parents' home.
Dr. Jones had alerted her that her father had
been drinking moonshine whiskey.
"My father doesn't drink," Jean
said.
She also recalled her conversation with Pat on the front porch of the
Washington Road house.
"She [said she] knew what funeral arrangements
that he wanted and that he wanted to be put away in a pink satin
interior casket, which didn't sound like my father.
She picked out the
clothes and my son was [to be] one of the pallbearers.
It didn't make
sense to me.
. . . When I started to leave .
. . she leaned across
the rails and said this to me, says, 'I hope he dies.
The prosecutor was also able to elicit testimony from jean that showed
the utter devotion Walter had shown toward Nona, the confusion and
upheaval that Pat Allanson had brought to their household, and the fact
that the old man neither drank nor took pills.
"Have you ever seen your father-has he beaten your mother?"
"Oh, my goodness.
No," Jean gasped.
McAllister suggested on cross-examination that Jean had neglected her
parents, visited them infrequently.
She explained that she too had
been ill in 1973 and unable to drive.
No, she had not visited often
after she recovered.
She admitted that it had not been pleasant
visiting her parents.
There had been "a coldness" after Tom's trial in
1974.
No, she had never been close to her brother, Walter-not even
from early childhood.
"We were just two different personalities."
When Weathers objected to the line of questioning, McAllister said he
was striving for materiality.
"It is a most complex family.
13M ting
to elicit from this witness some illumination of ry this family, some
explanat' n of this family."
10
They wrangled, and Judge Holt finally ruled that Jean's relationship
with a brother who had been dead for two years was irrelevant and
sustained Weathers's objection.
McAllister pounced.
Based on the
judge's ruling, he again insisted that no allusions at all to the
double murder or Tom Allanson should be made in this trial.
Judge Holt ruled against him again.
McAllister kept Jean Boggs on the stand for a long time, drawing forth
the information that she and her husband were now serving as her
parents' guardians, paying their bills, hiring their nurses.
He ended
his cross with "You asked the police-or I believe you said you
instructed the police-to carry out a full investigation, to go to the
crime lab with it?
Is that correct?"
jean sat up straighter.
"Certainly."
Andy Weathers had only three questions on redirect.
"Since Pat
Allanson left that house-answer this question'Yes' or'No' -has there
been any problem with your father as far as overdose of alcohol?"
"No, sir."
"Any problem as far as overdose of pills?"
"No, sir."
"Any problem of arsenic?"
"No, sir."
"No further questions."
Jean had done well, but this trial would, in the end, cause her pain.
She would be portrayed again and again as a neglectful daughter.
Perhaps if relationships had not been so strained in her family, all
this would never have happened.