- I'm Craig Melvin, and this is
"Dateline: "Secrets Uncovered."
- She didn't
deserve this.
To kill someone over months,
and months, and months,
there's a lot of ways
to kill someone,
but I've never seen
anything like this.
- A devastating
mystery illness.
- She was in
a lot of pain.
She was in
excruciating pain.
- I saw her walking,
and she walked like a--
- Like a zombie.
- I knew she was gone.
- What was happening
to this young mom?
- So, when you're
seeing this...
- We're like,
oh, my gosh.
Someone said,
"Could this be a poison?"
- This is the kind of stuff
that was used
by Russian KGB agents.
- Who in their right mind
would even think of this?
- You need to search
those computers.
You need to search
those phones.
- This is being done to her
on purpose,
and she is in danger.
- This evil
came into our lives.
How can this be?
**
- Hello, and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
Brigida Uto was
a vibrant young mother
married to
her high school sweetheart
when suddenly
her health collapsed.
Doctors were stumped
as her symptoms multiplied.
Then the case
took a sinister turn.
Someone protecting
a secret wanted Brigida dead.
Could investigators
stop the evil plot in time?
Here's Natalie Morales with
"The Prussian Blue Mystery."
- From the moment
the ambulance arrived
at the San Diego
Emergency Room in March 2018,
the situation was
frightening and desperate.
Triage nurse Laura Comstock
took one look
at the young woman
on the gurney
and knew something was
terribly, terribly wrong.
- She was losing
her vision.
She couldn't feel
her extremities,
her feet, and her hands.
She couldn't even see the water
that I was giving her.
- The patient's name
was Brigida Uto.
She had just turned 28.
Yet, she seemed to be
near death.
At that point, I mean,
she was very, very sick.
- Oh, she was probably the
sickest patient in the ER
at that time.
I had told my co-workers
that, you know,
she might code on me.
- Whatever was killing Brigida,
wasn't evident.
There were no bruises,
no wounds,
no obvious signs
of infection.
And yet, when Dr. Jeff LaPoint
examined her...
- She was critically ill.
She was very ill.
- So began an unusual
detective story.
First, the doctors
had to unravel
a medical mystery.
And soon enough, real detectives
would be on the case, too.
But at that moment...
- We saw someone who was
almost-almost apathetic.
Didn't have a personality.
I mean, she could barely talk
and tell us anything.
It was really hard
to get a history.
- Looking for clues,
Dr. LaPoint dove into
her medical records,
and they were extensive.
Brigida had been
suffering for months--
nausea, fatigue,
excruciating pain.
She had been in and out
of doctors' offices
and ERs repeatedly.
Her sister, Olga,
says Brigida's illness
would come on suddenly.
- She was, all of a sudden,
violently sick,
um, had to call out from work,
and just sick for days.
- Various doctors
had come up with theories,
from fibroids to cancer.
- There was one doctor
that actually told her
that, "Oh, you just have
really bad menstrual cramps,"
'cause she felt like--
one of her symptoms was,
she felt that her ovaries
were about to fall out
of her body.
And she called me,
and she told me this,
and she was crying,
and she was upset.
She was like,
"I don't know what to do."
And I'm frustrated
because no one can tell us
what is wrong with her.
- Brigida had wondered if stress
could be making her sick.
She had a toddler
to chase around,
a husband in the Navy who was
trying to find a new career,
and a new job
teaching special ed.
It was thrilling
but overwhelming.
So, doctors put her on
medication for depression,
but then
she got sick, again.
- Then she kept going
to the doctor's,
and she kept feeling worse,
and worse, and worse,
and then she started
losing a lot of weight.
- Brigida's mom,
also named Olga,
felt helpless as her
daughter's illness progressed.
Were you getting
more and more worried
seeing your daughter
waste away?
- Yes. Yes, oh, yes.
I guess she was getting tired
of going to the doctors
and-and them
finding nothing.
[sighs]
She says, "Mom, I give up.
I'm not gonna go
to the doctors anymore."
I said, "No, you can't.
"You have to go back.
You can't give up."
She was not even walking
normally anymore.
- Just when it seemed
things couldn't get worse,
a disturbing new symptom.
- I went next door
to see her,
and she-- we ended up
on her kitchen floor,
and she was crying to me,
and she said she had pulled out
a chunk of her hair.
Like, just in the shower,
it came out.
- Brigida's beautiful
dark brown locks
started falling out
by the fistful.
When you're seeing her
lose her hair,
she felt that that was
her most beautiful trait.
- Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.
She-- yeah.
- How concerned were you?
- We were very concerned.
I think March 5th is when
she called me in the morning
and said, "Mom, I need to go
to the hospital."
She goes,
"I can hardly breathe."
- Brigida lived
in the country
in a house right next
to her parents.
And yet, that morning,
she couldn't really see
her way to their place,
and the pain in her legs
was so bad she could barely
get into her mother's SUV.
- So, I tried to help her
by raising her leg,
but even the touch
was painful.
She screamed.
- Her mom raced her to the
naval hospital in San Diego.
- She said, "Mom, just drop me
off as close as you can
to the entrance."
And, uh...
[crying]
I still remember.
I saw her walking,
and she walked like a--
you know, the-
the walking dead.
- Like a zombie.
It was horrible.
- But the Navy doctors
couldn't figure out
what was wrong, either.
Brigida's husband took her back
to their family doctor,
who called an ambulance
when he saw how sick she was.
Now, at Kaiser Hospital,
she was Dr. LaPoint's
mystery patient.
- One of the emergency
physicians who was working,
he saw her and said,
"It's just not right."
And from there,
our team was called.
- Dr. LaPoint
has board certification
in medical toxicology,
a rare thing in an ER.
As it happened,
his expertise
would prove critical.
- As a medical toxicologist,
I'm a little bit more
in the detective,
like, role.
- So, what was causing
Brigida's hair to fall out,
not to mention
the severe pain,
vision loss,
and weakness?
The doctors, when they
first saw her, said,
"Oh, it could be,
you know, lupus or..."
- Right. She had, like,
this chronic,
kind of withering,
slow course,
and so autoimmune stuff
was on the list.
Uh, malignancy
is on the list.
Although, not-- cancer doesn't
make you lose your hair.
It's the chemotherapy
that makes you lose your hair.
- Dr. LaPoint knew he had
to solve this mystery fast.
Brigida was fading.
The clock was ticking.
- When I saw her,
and I knew she was dying,
she was in a lot of pain.
She was in
excruciating pain.
And I remember being
in the hospital room
when she's like, "I want to be
close to my sister."
And she, like, put herself
through insane amount of pain
just to turn her body,
so she could look at me.
- How close was she
to dying?
- I watched my sister
almost die.
I knew she was gone.
- Brigida's loved ones
braced for the worst,
and the race
to unravel this mystery
goes into overdrive.
Coming up...
- Your daughter is getting
weaker and weaker.
- Weaker, and weaker,
and weaker.
- She was losing
her vision.
- She was losing everything.
- Were her husband and
young son in danger, too?
- I have a child
in the equation now.
I have a spouse.
Let's make sure
the child is safe.
Make sure that they
haven't been exposed.
**
- Here at Kaiser Permanente
Hospital in San Diego,
Brigida Uto was so weak,
she couldn't even
conjure up the energy
to care about what was
happening to her.
Doctors have a term for patients
in this apathetic state,
la belle
indifference.
- You've lost your hair,
and you can't walk,
and you're wasting away.
You're so sick.
You don't have
the insight to go,
oh, my gosh,
I'm really sick.
It's almost just like,
oh, it's fine.
- And that tells you right
there, like, she was as sick
as she could get and possibly
was near death.
- I-I think so. Yeah.
- Dr. Jeff LaPoint
didn't know for sure
what was making Brigida sick
but to his toxicologist mind,
her symptoms indicated
she might have been exposed
to a toxic chemical,
and he realized she might
not be the only one.
- There's so many
moving pieces.
I have a child
in the equation now.
I have a spouse.
And let's make sure
that we're observing them.
Make sure the child
is safe.
Make sure that they haven't
been exposed.
- He had Brigida's
husband and son
admitted to a separate
hospital for testing.
And for safety's sake,
he banned all visitors
from Brigida's hospital room,
even immediate family.
And there was a time
where you didn't know
what was happening
with your sister.
- Mm-hmm.
- Did you think
this is it?
She might be gone already,
and nobody is telling us.
- Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I was like a zombie,
a walking zombie,
just going through the motions
and hoping that she's okay,
knowing that
if they hadn't called me
to tell me that she's gone,
it's because she's still here.
- Olga is two years younger
than Brigida.
They've always been close.
- We shared a bedroom
when we were little,
so, of course,
we had-- like,
every night
was like a sleepover.
We did everything
together.
We literally were there
for each other
for everything that happened
through our childhood,
teenage years,
adult life.
You know, she was
my go-to person.
- Their dad,
John McInvale,
had worked for U.S. Customs
at the border.
They'd grown up
in rural San Diego County.
There's no real dangers.
It's a safe,
idyllic upbringing
for your daughters?
- It's safe.
Every place
has its dangers.
I mean, we, over the years,
we've had, you know,
a rattlesnake here
or there, or, uh,
you know, somebody came through
and stole a pickup truck.
There's dangers,
but that goes with anywhere.
You know, you can't
protect 'em from everything.
- From their dad,
the girls learned caution.
From their mom,
they learned
the importance of faith.
- I put 'em in
a Catholic school.
They teach you
a lot of moral values
and things that are
important in life.
- And Brigida would beg to
go to church during the week.
Is that true?
- During the week, yes.
- A little girl who begged
to go to church
grew into an accomplished
young woman
who ran cross country
and excelled in school.
Did she put a lot of
pressure on herself then?
- Oh, yes.
- To be perfect.
- Always. She's always
been that way.
Even in kindergarten,
they used to get
a lot of homework,
and she's the type of girl
that if she made
a little mistake,
she didn't want to have
her pages show that
she had erased something.
She would start all over.
- Near the end of her
senior year in high school,
Brigida met a young man
named Race Uto,
a runner like she was,
a grade behind her,
but ambitious,
and determined to go to
the Naval Academy
in Annapolis.
When did you first hear
about Race?
- I was 16 years old.
I remember she met him
at a car show.
She was there doing the event
for her graduating class.
He didn't go to
our high school,
but he was there,
and I just remember her
saying something afterwards
like, "I met this guy,"
basically.
And I was like,
"Oh, okay."
I didn't think much of it
'cause my sister
didn't really,
like, date that much.
- But as Olga
got to know him better,
she thought Race might just
be the guy Brigida needed.
- She was always very,
like, into her books,
very, like,
she stuck to the rules.
He took to that adventurous
part of her life.
- Kind of got her
out of her shell.
- Oh, definitely got her
out of her shell.
I saw a different side of her
when she was with him.
- Race made it to
the Naval Academy
like he wanted,
but he suffered a hernia
that never healed properly,
and eventually
he had to withdraw,
without graduating.
He did join
the Navy, though.
Then, in 2014,
Brigida and Race married.
And very soon,
she was pregnant
with their son.
Everyone was thrilled
when the baby came.
- We were all excited,
really.
We'd sit there, like-like
when we were little,
and we had a little doll,
and we'd hold my nephew,
and we'd take turns,
and, like, you know, like,
I'd take care of him
while she's sleeping
or trying to rest.
And watching her learn
and, like, experience being
a mom for the first time,
how she wanted to be,
it was beautiful.
- Then just before
her son turned two,
Brigida got sick.
Soon, she could barely
pick up her child.
And your daughter is
getting weaker and weaker.
- Weaker, and weaker,
and weaker.
- And she can barely walk.
She was losing her vision.
- She was losing
everything.
- Now, in the hospital,
toxicologist Jeff LaPoint
developed
a chilling suspicion
about what was wrong
with Brigida.
- We're all just like,
do you think?
Oh, my God.
- Coming up...
- It's really good at
killing things,
um, at the end of the day.
- A rare and devastating
diagnosis.
- Highly toxic.
- This was
your very first case.
- Yeah.
- Growing danger
at the hospital
and a sudden alert
at the FBI.
- We were notified
immediately.
That's something that
we're very concerned about.
- You triggered all kinds
of alarm bells.
- I triggered all kinds
of alarm bells. Yes.
**
- Like any good detective,
Dr. Jeff LaPoint
was keeping his mind open,
letting the clues
lead him to a theory
about what might be
killing Brigida.
- I just gotta figure out
what's wrong
and get the treatment started.
- Most of her symptoms
could have been caused by
a range of toxic chemicals
like arsenic, cadmium,
or cesium,
but to Dr. LaPoint,
one particular symptom
stood out,
sudden hair loss.
- That's the telltale sign.
I mean, I think that
any medical toxicologist,
if you tell them that
you have a young woman
who has lost her hair and
now can't walk
because her feet hurt so bad,
um, thallium is gonna be
on our list.
It's-it's like straight out
of the books.
- Thallium is a heavy metal,
atomic number 81
on the periodic table
of elements.
- It was discovered
late 1800's
and then quickly began
being used medically, um,
early 1900's as, like,
a depilatory agent.
If you had lice or something,
and you wanted a child
to lose their hair,
they would give them thallium.
- Oh, my gosh.
- Right.
- Dr. LaPoint also knew
that for decades,
thallium had another use,
as an ingredient in rat poison.
- And it was really,
really good as a rodenticide,
and so it was--
that was outlawed in the 1970's.
It's really good
at killing things, um,
at the end of the day.
- Highly toxic.
- You had never treated
anybody else
for thallium poisoning.
- No, no.
- So, this was
your very first case,
right there
in front of your eyes.
- It was. Yeah.
- Yet, there was no quick way
to confirm his suspicion.
Hospitals rarely see patients
with thallium poisoning
and don't have a way
to test for it.
- So, no hospital is just gonna
put a drop of blood
and have it come back
yes, thallium, right?
So, you have to send
these things away.
So, now I'm looking at a two
to three maybe day delay.
- Days that he knew
Brigida might not have.
- We have, like,
a really scary situation
where I have a test
that's infrequently ordered
that I need now, um,
that is a send out, right?
And it's scary,
it's serious,
it's infrequently done,
and it's exotic.
- You're in a race against time
when it comes to
trying to save her life.
- Yeah.
So, I'm-I'm, like,
trying to advocate to
all these different people, um,
lots of hours on the phone
just trying to get someone
on the phone
and be like,
"This woman is gonna die."
So, as soon as we sent the test,
we said,
"How do I get the antidote?"
- He wanted it ready to give her
as soon as results came in.
What is the antidote?
- So, the antidote
is called Prussian blue.
- You've probably seen
Prussian blue in paint.
Yes, paint.
It's been used as a pigment
since the 1700's.
You can see it here
in Vincent Van Gogh's
"Starry Night Over the Road,"
but it wasn't until 1965
that scientists discovered
Prussian blue could be used
as an antidote.
It works by speeding up
elimination of certain poisons
such as thallium.
But while you can buy
blue paint in any art shop,
pharmaceutical grade
Prussian blue
is nearly impossible to find.
- And so, we started
calling pharmacies
around town
at different places.
We started calling the Navy,
or, you know,
we called our local
public health people.
Uh, we got in touch
with the CDC,
and we finally found a storage,
um, you know, kinda--
they're all, like,
confidential storage sites,
but we found one
up in Los Angeles.
- Prussian blue
is so hard to get
because it's also an antidote
for radiation poisoning.
The U.S. Government
keeps it under close guard,
stockpiled in case of
a nuclear attack.
- So, no one really wants to
give me an antidote
before I've proven it, right?
'Cause we don't just
throw around Prussian blue
but keep 'em in storage
in case there's a dirty bomb.
- We have several trip wires
set up.
In this case, the patient
was here in San Diego,
and we were notified immediately
of the Prussian order.
- John Gill is a Special Agent
with the FBI in San Diego.
His focus is weapons
of mass destruction.
A request for the antidote
to thallium poisoning
put his office on alert.
- In the past, uh,
several decades,
there's been instances
where thallium has been used
as an assassination weapon
against, um, former spies
and former dissidents.
- So, that's what
you're thinking
when you get this call first,
is, uh-oh,
what is happening
here in San Diego, right?
- Right.
That's something that, um,
we're very concerned about
in the United States.
- All this just as
President Trump was days away
from a trip to San Diego
to talk about the border wall.
You triggered
all kinds of alarm bells.
- I triggered all kinds of
alarm bells, yes.
- Coming up...
- So, when you're
seeing this...
- We're like, oh, my gosh.
- A deadly substance
in Brigida's system, but how?
- I said, "I think
I have a poisoning case,"
and I'm proceeding like this
is an intentional poisoning
until proven otherwise.
**
Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin.
Could doctors
save Brigida Uto?
Her toxicologist believed
she had been poisoned.
The only remedy,
a closely guarded antidote
stockpiled in case of
a nuclear attack.
Now, Brigida's test results
were about to solve
one piece of this mystery
and send the case
in a chilling
new direction.
Once again,
here's Natalie Morales
with "The Prussian Blue
Mystery."
- Brigida's mom
couldn't visit her daughter
in the hospital.
No visitors were allowed,
so she waited,
and she prayed.
That's all she could do.
Thirty miles away
at Kaiser Hospital,
Dr. LaPoint
was waiting, too.
Three days had passed
since he sent out
Brigida's samples.
Brigida in pain
the whole time.
Finally, the lab results
came back.
Just as he suspected,
it was thallium, a lot of it.
Brigida's husband
and young son
seemed to be clear
of the toxic metal,
but she was in serious danger.
Her levels were
off the charts.
- Yeah, they
were really high.
- More than 1,000 times
the acceptable level.
Wow.
That's unbelievable.
A hospital staffer had
driven through the night
to get hold of
Prussian blue pills.
Dr. LaPoint started
Brigida on them immediately.
But with so much thallium
in Brigida's system,
Dr. LaPoint worried
Prussian blue
would not be enough
to save her.
He also put her on dialysis
to filter her blood.
It was a slow process.
When FBI Special Agent John Gill
arrived to question her,
Brigida was
still desperately ill.
How would you describe
her condition
at that point in time?
- It was a very
serious condition.
She struggled with
answering simple questions.
- Sick as she was,
he knew he couldn't wait.
- She looked very bad,
and it is concerning because,
uh, at that point,
we didn't know
if she was gonna make it.
- He needed to
figure out quickly
how she'd been
exposed to thallium.
Brigida did her best to help.
- She brought up several points
where she thought
she could have been
exposed to thallium.
She had received holistic
medical treatments in Mexico.
- Or maybe, she said,
she could have been exposed
at the school
where she worked.
It was an old Army base.
There might be traces of
old rat poison there.
- So, some of these
older school structures,
they were used
during World War II,
and, um, and that's a time
when they used
thallium based rodenticides.
- Investigators
followed Brigida's leads.
The holistic treatment,
nothing there.
San Diego Sheriff's
Detective Brad Farr
checked out the school.
- And I talked to
some other teachers
that work in the same area
she worked.
There had been some rumors that,
the previous year,
there were some teachers
that w-went out sick a lot,
so I had to
look into that.
It turned out to be
not in any way, shape, or form
involved with this.
- Meanwhile, a hazmat team
searched the Uto house
but found no thallium,
and they considered
another possibility.
- We also had to
explore the fact
that sometimes in these cases
a person may try to
poison themselves
if they're struggling
with depression
or crying out
for-for attention.
- Brigida had been depressed
around the time
she first started getting sick,
but Brigida
and everyone who knew her
told him no way
was she suicidal.
- I told the detective
I know my sister
more than anybody.
She would never do this
to herself.
- And as a mother
of a young child,
I would imagine,
much less.
- No, no, and she always
wanted to be a mother.
She always wanted to
have a family.
She wouldn't throw it away
like that.
- As they eliminated
all the other possibilities,
the detectives,
along with Dr. LaPoint,
came to a sinister conclusion.
- I'm proceeding like
this is an intentional poisoning
until proven otherwise.
- Why would somebody
choose thallium?
- Someone would choose thallium
because it looks like
a medical mystery.
It presents as someone
just having a slow decline,
and withering away,
and dying
that you would associate with
a chronic illness.
It's poison
to get away with it.
- The next step to
solving this mystery
was figuring out
how Brigida had been poisoned.
Dr. LaPoint did his own
kind of detective work.
- And you see this kind of
really bright spots everywhere,
like, all throughout her colon.
- Those little
white flecks.
- Yeah, those
little white flecks.
- The little white flecks
are thallium
in Brigida's digestive tract.
So, when you're seeing this,
was this--
- In the context of
what we're seeing,
we're like, oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
- Telltale sign.
If it's in her gut,
what does that tell you about
how she was getting it?
- Yeah, I mean, it's,
I mean, food is-- right?
- Somebody is
feeding it to her.
- Yeah.
She's eating it.
Someone is
giving it to her, yeah.
- It was what Dr. LaPoint
had feared
when he took
that unusual precaution
that left Brigida's family
in the dark.
- I cleared everyone
out of the room
'cause everyone was
bringing gifts and food.
Everything out.
Everyone out.
A lot of people get poisoned,
come to the hospital,
and get worse if they--
if someone else
is bringing them more poison.
So, I just want
all the variables off the table.
- So far, Dr. LaPoint
had done a lot of things right,
but he knew,
against thallium,
that might not be enough.
- In a lot of these cases,
people don't recover.
A lot of these cases,
people can't feel
their legs again,
or they never
grow their hair back.
- Even if Brigida survived,
there was no telling
if her life
would ever be the same.
- Coming up...
Who could
be behind this?
- Your circle is narrowing.
You're looking at her family.
You're looking at her sister.
And, of course,
you're looking at her husband.
- Absolutely.
**
- Dr. Jeff LaPoint
believed someone
was determined to commit
the perfect murder
by feeding bits of
the highly toxic metal thallium
to his patient,
Brigida Uto.
For tense hours and days,
the doctor and his team
fought to save
Brigida's life.
She'd consumed
more than enough thallium
to kill her, and yet...
- I don't know
why I'm here.
I don't know
why I'm still alive,
and that's scary.
- Meet Brigida.
She's still with us.
Did you feel like
you were dying?
- I-I did.
I did, but I-I was too afraid
to admit it to myself.
- What kept you alive
in that time?
- Uh, my son,
wanting to see my son.
- As the antidote took effect,
Brigida,
in essence, woke up.
She found herself
in a hospital bed
with only wisps of hair
on her head,
but she couldn't walk
or really see,
and doctors couldn't really
tell her what to expect.
- They pretty much
were-were very open about
not knowing
what was going to happen.
- But then, one day,
her cell phone came into focus.
Days later, she caught sight
of something else.
- I was really excited
because I could see the TV,
like, what brand the TV was, um,
across the room, so...
- Small victories.
- Right.
At first, my goal was to
be able to walk with my walker
to the door of my room.
And then after that,
it became, you know,
walk to the nurses' station
and then come back, um,
and sometimes they would
have to wheel me in.
- While Brigida continued to
make a slow physical recovery
in the hospital,
she also had to
face the hard truth that
someone had plotted against her.
- We asked her, "Is there anyone
that has an agenda, um,
against you or anything?"
And she vehemently stated that,
"No, I-I don't think there is
anyone in my life
that would attempt to
poison me."
- But Agent Gill knew
that intentional poisoning
was usually personal.
- Statistically and
historically speaking, um,
when you do have a poisoning,
it's either a close, uh,
family member
or a close friend.
- Sitting alone
in her hospital room,
Brigida found herself terrified
at the thought of
doctors lifting their ban
on visitors.
Did you start to become
more fearful
as you started to then realize
that this was
intentional poisoning?
- Yeah. I started, um,
getting fearful.
I started thinking about
what would happen
when I got out of the hospital,
if I--
if I got out of the hospital,
and who would I have to
protect myself from.
- I imagine, at this point,
your circle is narrowing
as to who could have done this.
You're looking at her family.
You're looking at her sister.
And, of course,
you're looking at her husband.
- Absolutely.
- They talked to everyone,
including Brigida's husband,
Race Uto.
- He was a very friendly,
very cooperative individual
throughout
the entire investigation.
- Was he at all concerned
about his wife?
- When we first talked to him
in the hospital,
he did have some tears, um,
and he kept saying,
"I just wish I could do
something to help her."
- He said the right things
to detectives,
but Special Agent Gill
learned quickly
that something about
Race Uto seemed off.
- Some of the medical staff
had expressed some concern over,
um, Mr. Uto's behavior
at the time.
Uh, it came out
that he wasn't acting
as a concerned husband
should be acting.
Um, he was asking
the wrong kind of questions.
He didn't seem concerned about
what is happening to her.
- Suspicious as detectives were,
Brigida couldn't go there.
At this point,
are you suspecting
your husband at all?
- No.
Anybody who would suggest
that idea had started--
why would you think that,
that my husband would do
something like that?
Like, I-I don't know.
He-he is the one
that brought me here.
How does that
make any sense?
- It was true.
Race was the one who took
Brigida to the doctor's
that day she was transferred
to the hospital.
To Brigida, that was an act
of an innocent man.
She also remembered
how Race cared for her
as she fell ill.
As you were getting
more and more sick,
did he show that
he was concerned
by bringing you food?
Was that part of his way
of taking care of you?
- That was-that was his way
of taking care of me.
When I started
staying home,
he would bring me
breakfast sandwiches,
uh, in-in bed.
He would make sure
that I had food.
- And you're thinking,
wow, he's showing a side.
He's taking care of me.
- Yeah, he's
taking care of me.
He really loves me.
He really cares about
what happens at this point.
- But Brigida also
told the detectives
something else
about her husband.
It turned out Race had
a very strange hobby,
collecting the types
of plant seeds
that are used
to make poisons.
And when you hear this,
are alarm bells going off?
- Absolutely.
This isn't a n--
a normal amateur hobby
to have.
- Uh-uh.
- Um, so, obviously, it was
very concerning for us.
- Sixteen days into
Brigida's stay at the hospital,
detectives had
enough evidence
to get a search warrant
for the Uto home.
Race was there
to greet them.
- He was wearing
these dark sunglasses.
No reason for anyone
to wear sunglasses,
especially inside
your residence.
- He was fidgety
but seemingly candid.
- We asked him,
"Well, if we image your phone,
um, is there anything
in your search history
that is gonna be con--
any concern to us?"
And he said,
"No, not at all.
Uh, by the way,
I had recently erased
all the search history of
all my electronic devices."
- That made the detectives
even more suspicious.
They took his electronics,
they scoured the house,
the garage,
and then they got
to his car.
- And then within the hole
for the spare tire,
we find, um, an odd
mix of materials,
um, a canister
of acetone,
uh, packets
of exotic seeds.
- Still barred from visiting,
Brigida's family was at home.
Sister Olga called
the detectives over.
Earlier that day,
her mother had seen
Race toss out
a black trash bag.
- I was like, okay,
I'll go get it.
- She's a great
junior agent.
She actually went
dumpster diving.
- What'd you find
in that black bag?
- Some of the more
serious things,
so we found, um, receipts
for some of the exotic seeds
that he had ordered.
We saw some of,
um, the crude
filtering mechanisms
that he had.
We found, um, solutions
in which to purify
and refine
some of the poisons.
- Agent Gill says
they found evidence
Race had tried to
grind up castor beans
to make the poison ricin.
He says they also found
rosary peas like these,
a seed that makes
another deadly poison,
and seeds like these
from something called
the suicide tree
of India.
And on Race's
electronic devices
that he thought
he had wiped clean,
they found two books,
"Criminal Poisoning"
and "The Poisoner's Handbook."
As bad as it all looked,
there was one thing
they didn't find,
thallium,
not a trace of it.
Without that, detectives
felt there wasn't
enough evidence
to make an arrest.
At the end
of the search,
Race Uto remained
a free man,
but Detective Farr knew
he needed to warn Brigida.
- So, I went to the hospital,
and we had a very long talk,
and I showed her
some of the stuff
that we found and basically
laid it all out for her
that, if you get out,
you need to not go back
to your husband.
- Coming up...
- I told
investigators, "Fine."
You know, "Continue with
the investigation,
"but I need proof."
- Would investigators
get the proof they need?
- I think he thought
he had it beat.
- And a haunting,
terrifying moment.
- He had made
a breakfast sandwich for me,
and my son climbed up
and wanted a piece.
- Welcome back.
Investigators believed Race Uto
poisoned his wife, Brigida,
but they could not
tie him to the toxin
that made her so sick.
Without hard evidence,
Brigida held out hope
the authorities
were wrong.
Now, detectives were
about to uncover
not one but two
jaw dropping secrets
and blow this case
wide open.
Here's Natalie Morales
with the conclusion
of "The Prussian
Blue Mystery."
- By now, the doctors,
and nurses,
and law enforcement
all believed
they had to protect Brigida
from her husband,
even if Brigida still couldn't
wrap her mind around it.
- I finally had gotten
to the point
where I told
investigators, "Fine.
You know, "Continue with
the investigation,
"but I need proof."
- So did law enforcement.
They kept digging
and learned Race Uto
had a secret life.
There was a girlfriend
who thought his wife was dead.
- He had taken
his son with them
on so many of their dates
that, uh, the son
was actually calling her mom.
Mr. Uto painted
this picture
like he was, um,
a former Navy Seal,
and he specifically
mentioned he wanted
to work for the FBI
in the poisons department.
- Kinda like what you do.
- That's very ironic.
Yeah.
[laughing]
- Then they found
another girlfriend.
- He specifically told
that girlfriend
that he wanted his wife
to get hit by a bus
and for her to die,
so he can get sole custody.
- Go ahead and come in
the room here.
- Investigators decided it
was time to confront Race.
They asked Race
to take a polygraph.
- Uh, and he's a person
that seems
to have gone through life
by talking himself
out of situations.
- It started off easy,
almost a casual chat.
- And what are
your hobbies?
What do you do for fun
when you're not working?
I know you spend time
with your son.
- I spend time with him.
I like to, well,
when I could, surf.
- Then he got
more serious.
- Can you pass this test
if I ask you
if you poisoned her?
- Yeah.
I wouldn't hurt her.
- The sensors
were strapped on.
- All right, so, I'm gonna
go ahead and get started.
- His demeanor during
the first half was confident.
I think he thought
he had it beat.
- Paul Reizen was
the prosecutor on the case.
It almost looked like,
all right, I got this.
I'm gettin' through this.
We're good.
- Please remain still.
The test is about to begin.
Are the lights on
in this room?
- Yes.
- Regarding poisoning
your wife,
do you intend to
answer truthfully?
- Yes.
- Were you involved in
poisoning your wife?
- No.
- Did you poison
your wife?
- No.
- Please remain still.
The test is about to end.
- Nine times,
the investigators asked
the same questions.
Every time, Race Uto
assured him
he did not poison
his wife,
and he seemed sure
he passed.
- The testing went on.
The polygrapher
eventually stopped,
let him take a break,
came back in.
- You can have a seat
in the regular chair there.
- Sweet.
- Confronted him
and said,
"I don't believe
anything you're saying."
- So, you failed
your test.
Not only did you
fail the test,
you failed miserably.
- And that's when
he confessed.
- Right then and there.
- Right after the polygraph.
- Race broke.
The details of how
he tried to kill his wife
began tumbling out.
- When did you start
giving this stuff to her?
- I can't really remember.
Most of it's a blur.
- Race told the investigator
that the first time
he fed thallium to Brigida,
it was in a sandwich.
- Uh, it was a egg, cheese,
uh, breakfast bagel.
- And the second time,
walk me through what you did.
- Uh, just threw it in
with a, uh, soup.
- Race told law enforcement
he doled out the poison
based on Brigida's weight,
starting with
one gram of thallium
in late summer 2017.
- You thought that based off
her weight and what you read,
one gram would kill her
the first two times.
- I was basing it, um, like,
a lethality kind of level.
- Brigida got sick,
but she obviously didn't die,
so he upped it
the last time.
He upped it up
to five grams.
He thought
that was gonna do it.
- It should have
been a lethal dose,
but Race didn't factor in
his wife's will to live.
All the doctors, the nurses,
the detectives say
it's your quiet strength
that allowed you
to pull through.
You believe that, too?
- Um...
[laughing]
Yeah, I struggle
with that a little bit.
- Don't be humble.
Don't be humble.
[laughing]
- Uh, thank you.
[laughing]
I mean, I-I would hope so.
I would hope
that I-I have that
to give to my son,
but I think it's
all the work
that they did together
that has helped me
be here now.
- You are gonna be
arrested today.
- Police arrested Race
immediately after
his confession.
- Do you have anything
in your pockets now?
- Eight months later,
Race Uto pleaded guilty
to three counts of
attempted murder.
He's serving
21 years to life.
- My parents saw him
as their son, at one point.
I saw him as a brother.
And he took advantage
of us wanting to be
open and caring with him.
- It was upsetting,
and I couldn't
believe it for a while.
I was like,
how can this be?
Right under our nose,
he was doing all this
to our daughter,
and I thank God that
they're right next door
because I think,
if they had been living
someplace else,
she would have died.
I'm sure of it.
- So, then you start
going back in your head,
and you're replaying
all the times
he brought you food
and made you food.
Was there an instance
that stands out in your mind?
- He had made
a breakfast sandwich
and taken it to
the bedroom for me,
and my son climbed up
and wanted a piece,
and immediately
his reaction is,
"No, don't give him
any of it."
I think about that
all the time.
- A moment that could have
easily gone a different way.
It haunts her.
Emotionally,
how are you doing?
- It's rough.
It's still hard to stop
and think about
what happened,
the amount of deception.
I can't really
trust people.
And what I've discovered
is, you know,
trusting myself
is difficult, too.
- Before they were married,
Brigida told Race that,
as a Catholic, she believed
marriage was forever.
How do you feel
about divorce now?
- Um, yeah.
[laughing]
I love the idea.
[laughing]
- This strong woman,
who once couldn't walk,
is now running, again.
- It's been hard when,
at first, I could--
I couldn't even walk
without a walker.
So, it's been
a very slow,
um, slow progress.
- Is this your therapy now?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, um, I remember
being in the hospital
and finding everything out
and being so angry
that I couldn't get up
to go for a run.
[laughing]
- Right now, though,
Brigida's focus is on
embracing life
and all its thrills.
- I've gone skydiving.
I mean, I've done
different things.
- You're living life
to the fullest now.
- Absolutely.
- That's all for
this edition
of "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin.
Thank you for watching.