[dramatic music]
- Jan as a mother was incredibly devoted
and absolutely doted on her son.
- Janet Overton was a public figure.
You are gonna have people that are for you and against you.
I would call them enemies.
- She was fatigued and sick all the time.
Doctors did not know why.
- She collapsed suddenly in her driveway.
- The investigators begin to look at it a lot closer
to see if there's outside influence in her death.
- What surprised me about this case was the method of murder,
something you don't normally see.
- He was a classic villain.
He always thought he was smarter than everybody else.
- To watch someone suffer over time is just unthinkable.
- My heart bled for Eric.
- You're gonna get the once in a lifetime experience
to see inside the mind of a murderer.
* *
- Orange County is the personification
of Southern California, weather and the water.
- Dana Point,
of all the communities in Orange County,
is really this little hidden gem in Orange County.
- We have beaches, we have mountains,
we have desert, we have it all.
It's an affluent community, more conservative
than the other communities in California.
- Most people that live in Dana Point feel safe.
[tense music]
In reality, crime happens anywhere and everywhere.
* *
narrator: With its sweeping ocean views
and picture-perfect harbor, Dana Point is the embodiment
of the Southern California dream.
And doting mom Janet Overton
has planned a picture-perfect day
of whale watching for her family.
- My name is Linda Kroner, and I went to work
for the Capistrano Unified School District in 1981.
Jan was a school board member, and we became friends.
Jan as a mother was incredibly devoted
and absolutely doted on her son Eric.
She would be chatting about him and touting any success
that he had, particularly in school.
- Good morning, everyone. I'm Tricia Takasugi.
Thanks for tuning in.
My name is Tricia Takasugi, and in 1991,
I was a television reporter at OCN.
On January 24th, 1988,
Janet Overton was leaving her home with her son
on her way to go out on a boat to watch the whales.
* *
Collapsed suddenly in her driveway.
* *
- My name is Debra Jackson.
I worked for the Orange County District Attorney's office
in 1991.
Janet Overton suddenly collapses.
Her son, Eric, runs into the house
to notify his father that his mother has collapsed.
And they bring her into the house,
they lay her on the foyer,
and then they move her into the bathroom.
And then they called 911
for the emergency medical services to come out.
narrator: Concerned and confused,
Richard Overton and his son Eric follow the ambulance
as it races Janet to the hospital.
- Her pupils were dilated mid-position.
* *
Her respiratory was having a problem.
* *
She was in full arrest.
* *
That's where they pronounced her deceased.
* *
Eric Overton, her son, when he got the news
at the hospital that his mother had died,
he just collapsed.
He was distraught.
That was his lifeline. He loved his mother.
- When the coroner's office conducted the autopsy
on Janet Overton, the result was inconclusive.
They did not have a cause of death.
narrator: Janet's untimely passing is a tragic stain
on the otherwise idyllic portrait
of this close-knit Oceanside community.
How could a seemingly healthy wife
and mother die so unexpectedly?
- My name is Gene Endsley, and I worked
with the Orange County Sheriff's Department
for 27 years, hiring on in '68 and retiring in '95.
Janet Overton's death was questionable.
Without some known, definable cause of death,
a case cannot be closed.
The investigators who took the initial report of her death
begin to look at it a lot closer
to see if there's outside influence in her death,
and they do it through talking to her friends and family,
looking into her medical records
to see what the cause of death was.
* *
narrator: Janet's family,
particularly her husband Richard,
are struggling with her sudden and tragic passing.
With no apparent cause of death,
Richard is desperate for answers.
- Richard Overton, professed his deep love
for Janet Overton.
He wanted to get closure.
And he had pushed very hard for the Sheriff's Department
to complete the autopsy.
Families want to get closure.
- My name is Frank McAdams,
co-author ofFinal Affair.
Richard Overton was daily calling the coroner's office
to get any kind of updates on the lab tests.
They would just look at the clock
and know that Richard Overton was gonna be calling.
* *
narrator: Janet's sudden collapse
piques detectives' curiosity.
So they turn to her family and friends
to see if there were any underlying health issues
that could have caused her tragic passing.
- My friendship with Jan, it really took off
when I was actually home ill,
and she called me to see how I was.
And as part of the conversation, I said,
"Well, you know, I feel pretty crummy.
How are you?"
And she said, "You know, Linda,
I have these funny sores, and I don't know what they are."
narrator: Investigators question
whether a seemingly innocuous conversation between friends
could hold the key to a dark history
of unexplained illness.
- Janet Overton, she had a history
of long hospital stays.
She had blemishes on her feet and on her hands.
Nobody could understand what was causing all of this.
- These sores had popped out on her.
And she had no idea what they were.
The doctors couldn't figure it out.
Over the next year or so,
they would pop out here, there, and everywhere.
They were very, very painful.
She was incredibly miserable and in pain.
It was so hard to watch.
- She could not pinpoint the cause
of those various aches, and pains, and skin rashes.
She had gone to her doctor.
No one could determine what was causing these things,
so it was a bit of a mystery.
narrator: Janet's harried health history
just adds to the mystery surrounding her death.
But when detectives learned that she was a well-known
and controversial school board figure in Dana Point,
it raises new questions
about whether someone might've had it out for her.
- Janet Overton was a public figure.
You are gonna have people that are for you
and against you.
I would call them enemies.
* *
There was a community group that did not agree with her
and where she was taking things on the school board.
- The story broke in the newspaper
that she was having an affair with a school official.
- Janet had her secrets as well.
[dramatic music]
* *
narrator: Investigators looking
into the mysterious death of Janet Overton
have recently learned that as a public figure in Dana Point,
Janet had managed to make some waves
with her progressive ideas.
[tense music]
- She was very outgoing in a lot of respects.
One would think that being a politician
and getting on the school board,
you'd have to be outgoing and love people.
* *
- Obviously during any election process,
you are gonna have people that are for you and against you.
She was somewhat controversial in the community
because she wanted to promote things in the school
that this very conservative community
maybe wasn't quite on board with.
At the time in Orange County, it is a very conservative,
heavily Republican area.
So when these proposals that Janet Overton presented
regarding teaching sex education in the classroom,
same-sex type of things.
There was a lot of pushback from the community.
* *
- People came and said, "You shouldn't be doing it."
And the board stood up to it,
and the board went along with the changes.
Some parents were so vehemently opposed
and said that they were wrong,
and they shouldn't have done it.
- There was apparently a community group,
very conservatively based group that did not agree
with Janet Overton's actions.
They just didn't agree with her
and where she was taking things on the school board.
And at some point,
they mounted a bit of a smear campaign against her.
- Investigators learned that Richard Overton said
he didn't have any knowledge that this was taking place.
narrator: Janet's husband, Richard Overton,
doesn't seem to have a clue
who might've had it out for his wife,
but investigators soon discover
that Janet's progressive policies
had ruffled some feathers in the school district.
- One day, there was a note put on all of the cars
in the parking lot at the district office
saying that Jan Overton was having an affair,
and isn't that terrible,
and she shouldn't be a board member,
and we were all very taken aback.
When the flyer came out, I think Jan was upset.
She was appalled.
But she was embarrassed because her relationship
with Richard was so important to her.
She was just really hurt and embarrassed.
narrator: Turns out, the smear campaign took a toll
on Janet emotionally and physically.
- There was this one incident
when the meeting had barely started,
when she stood up, grabbed her purse,
and headed out the door,
and said, "You have to take me home."
And I said, "Okay." I drove her home.
And it turned out that night, she ended up in the ER
because those terrible sores
that she was getting had gone internal.
She was just extremely ill from it.
* *
narrator: Investigators discover that Janet's
deteriorating reputation in the community
paralleled her developing illness.
Their next step, determine if the rumors are true.
- You must remember, looking at Janet Overton from the outside,
you would never suspect any of those things.
But Janet had her secrets as well.
narrator: As detectives untangle fact from fiction,
a story from before Janet's death surfaces,
changing the course of the investigation.
- After the flyer, the story broke in the newspaper
that she was having an affair with a school official.
It didn't name the person.
But something clicked in my head.
Bill Dawson was an assistant superintendent.
Jan would have known Bill Dawson as she knew
all of us who were department heads.
Bill Dawson was a tall, very big-built guy.
Bill was outgoing, friendly.
He handled all of the non-academic operations,
maintenance, and construction,
that end of the world for the district.
And he was knowledgeable and very practical-minded,
knew how to get things done.
Jan would have responded to anyone
who showed her some attention
because that was apparently not happening at home.
I happened to know about Jan going out on his boat
'cause she would mention it
'cause she and Eric would go out on the boat.
And I went into Bill's office, and I said,
"It's you, isn't it?" And he said, "Yes, it is."
- Investigators learned
Bill Dawson and Janet Overton were involved
in a relationship
that apparently Richard Overton had become aware of.
Bill Dawson apparently was some years younger,
and there was some jealousy there.
* *
- Bill Dawson was a colleague of Janet Overton's.
He was also her lover.
On the day that she died,
investigators found that Janet Overton
was gonna go out with her son on Bill Dawson's boat.
[dramatic music]
* *
narrator: News that Janet Overton was involved
in a love triangle forces detectives
to look at her case in a whole new light.
They take a deep dive into her relationship
with OC education colleague Bill Dawson.
- Janet was having an affair
with a younger man on his boat down in the harbor.
You know, that boat was rocking more than it should have.
* *
- Bill Dawson did speak with investigators.
And he did reveal to investigators
that Richard Overton was very jealous.
* *
- But according to Richard Overton,
their marriage was a very good marriage.
He loved his wife dearly, and there was no problems.
- Richard Overton was very intelligent.
I believe he qualified for Mensa.
Richard Overton was a professor,
and I believe he worked at UCI at one time.
- Richard felt that he was the brains of the family,
but when Janet not only got on the school board
but became elected president of the school board,
that really stuck in his craw.
narrator: Jealous or not, no husband would want his wife
to grapple with the very public attempts
someone was making to humiliate Janet.
- There was a flyer that was put on all these cars
at a school board meeting
saying Janet was having an affair,
and she was bad for the children,
and everything to try to get her not elected.
- We just assumed it was somebody trying to smear her
for some reason.
We didn't know who had planted the flyers.
And we couldn't imagine somebody doing something
so personally degrading to a person.
narrator: While Janet's colleagues
didn't know who was behind the dirty deed,
Janet apparently had her suspicions.
- Janet Overton got someone to open up Richard's locked files
and found the original flyer in there.
- And it came out that Richard had planted those flyers.
* *
narrator: When police hear this,
it confirms their suspicions that Richard knew all
about Janet's fling with her school district colleague.
Now they must figure out
if Richard's jealousy over the affair
pushed him to do something downright sinister.
Six months after Janet's death,
an unexpected call helps shed light
on Richard's marital mindset.
- Investigators received a call from Dorothy Boyer.
- Dorothy Boyer was Richard Overton's first wife with whom
he had a family some 15 years prior to him marrying Janet.
- Dorothy Boyer said she could not understand
why it had taken so long for a death certificate
for Janet Overton not to come out.
narrator: Dorothy tells police that back in 1969,
she divorced Richard Overton.
And strange things started occurring.
- Dorothy Boyer decided she was ready to file for divorce.
She did not want to be part of this marriage.
The other things that came forward were the fact
that she also was suffering similar symptoms
to what Janet Overton was suffering.
* *
- After the divorce, Dorothy had developed blisters,
red blisters on her feet,
and she had these violent vomiting spells,
and she was just fatigued all the time.
And she went to doctors, who did not know why.
She thought every time she would drink wine,
coffee, tea, things her children didn't drink,
she would start vomiting and become deathly ill.
- She called the Orange County Sheriff's Department,
and what they had her do was to get a coffee can
and then wipe it clean with the denatured alcohol,
and then she was to draw a line from the plastic lid
down to the seam of the can,
and make sure it was completely a straight line
and put it on the counter.
- Move the cap exactly to a direction
where she could know if that cap had been moved around.
She let Richard Overton know that she was gonna be gone,
and she sprung this trap.
- And then when Richard called to set up his visitation,
Dorothy made sure that she was out of the house.
When the visitation ended and Dorothy returned to the house,
she went right to the coffee can,
and the felt tip line was broken,
which meant that Richard was in the house at the time
and he put some materials into the coffee grounds.
* *
- Dorothy had investigators come out
and take the coffee cans to have them analyzed.
They found selenium.
We all have selenium in our vitamins.
But too much selenium is toxic.
* *
narrator: In 1969, forensic testing took time,
but the results were worth the wait.
Dorothy's suspicions were confirmed.
And the unsettling truth about her illness was revealed.
- Dorothy then realized, oh, my God,
Richard was putting selenium
and several other substances into the coffee grounds.
Dorothy met Richard and said, "You do this again,
"and you're going to be taken out of the house in handcuffs.
You stop this right now."
- Dorothy Boyer just wanted
to maintain peace in the family,
and for the sake of her own family,
she didn't really want to see him in jail.
She just wanted this to stop.
And so when she confronted him,
he agreed he would stop.
- So they did make some sort of an agreement.
He did go for counseling.
But yeah, in hindsight,
probably charges should've been filed.
narrator: Could Dorothy's decision not to press charges
against Richard Overton in 1969
have given him a chance to cut short another marriage
almost 20 years later?
- Orange County Sheriff's Department,
knowing that Richard has the knowledge of how to poison,
said, "Maybe we need to look at this even closer."
We're looking for motive, method, opportunity.
- There was cyanide in her body that did not come
from anything that she had around her.
- How the poison was delivered to the victim
was very shocking.
[dramatic music]
* *
narrator: In July of 1988, thanks to a tip
from Richard Overton's ex-wife, Dorothy Boyer,
Orange County investigators now know
that he has a pension for poison.
But just because Richard may have tried
to harm his first wife back in the '60s
doesn't necessarily mean he just tried
to murder his second wife, Janet.
- When Dorothy Boyer heard about Janet Overton's death,
she called the department and said,
"This is what happened to me with Richard Overton.
"You really ought to take a closer look
at the cause of death."
And that's when investigators asked the crime lab
to take a look and check it.
- There are three categories of homicide cases:
Primary, secondary, and open.
Open usually had mitigating circumstances.
There were other cases that were much more important.
Approximately a year and a half went by.
- My name is Paul Sedgwick.
I was a forensic toxicologist
with the Orange County Sheriff Coroner's Office.
Once Janet Overton died, she became a coroner's case.
The scientific procedure for testing for poisons
at the time was to take a blood sample
and look for volatile compounds, primarily alcohol,
and then to take stomach contents.
What I did in the Janet Overton case
was opened the stomach sample,
and I smelled cyanide instantly.
* *
Cyanide simply should not be in a person's body
in concentrations strong enough to detect by odor.
- And when the news came out
that she had gotten some cyanide,
we were shocked and appalled.
We were trying to figure out how she ingested it
because Jan was careful,
and so we couldn't imagine how she got it.
- Some of the other items that I tested from Janet Overton
included the medications and herbal supplements
that I was told she had access to.
I found no cyanide.
Since there was no cyanide in any of the medications
or supplements that she was ingesting,
it strongly suggests
that the cyanide came from somewhere else.
* *
- I don't know a lot about cyanide,
other than it's deadly.
I also don't know how you get your hands on it.
It's not something you buy at the local drugstore.
narrator: If Richard was
behind Janet's cyanide overdose,
how would he have gotten his hands
on the poisonous substance?
To find out, detectives look back at Richard's days
as a university professor with an interesting side business.
- Investigators had heard that Richard Overton
had a partner that was involved in gold mining,
and he had access to the cyanide
and other metallurgic type material.
- Mel Hubbard,
he did a lot of lab work out of his house in his garage.
His garage was converted into a home office.
He separated a lot of the ore from the precious metal,
and to do that, you needed sodium cyanide.
* *
- Richard Overton had the keys to the office
and to the area where the cyanide was being kept.
So that led investigators to determine
that Richard Overton had access to the cyanide.
* *
narrator: Confirming Richard Overton's past actions
and present access to cyanide,
OC sheriff's investigators now have a reason to suspect
he may have played a role
in his wife Janet's puzzling death.
- The lead investigator said,
"We need to speak with Richard Overton."
Richard Overton said, when he got there,
he had a loving marriage, things were just hunky-dory.
Richard said he had no access to cyanide,
never did, never has.
When investigators confront him
and challenges him on that,
as far as Jan having an affair and the fact
that "You poisoned your first wife."
And he said, "Oh, I'm done here."
And abruptly stops the interview.
* *
narrator: While Richard Overton refuses
to play into investigator's hands,
Janet and Richard's only son,
16-year-old Eric, provides some valuable insight.
- Jan didn't talk about Eric
and Richard's relationship to me.
There was never a story of Eric
doing some activity with his father,
which seemed odd 'cause in a family,
normally activities would be done together.
- Eric Overton was approximately 16
when this occurred.
He was a high school student.
I know Jan was looking forward to watching him graduate
and handing him his diploma.
He was just a young man waiting for his future.
And his mom was just always there
by his side.
- Eric Overton told investigators
that he was concerned that his parents' marriage was
about to break up, that they were on the verge of divorce.
So when investigators asked whether it was
in the realm of possibility
that his father could have killed his mother,
he was honest, and he says,
"Yes, it is possible that my father killed my mother."
* *
- I remember at the funeral
seeing Richard sitting with Eric.
They're both kind of stony-faced,
but it didn't strike me as odd
'cause sometimes that's the way people react
to sad events.
People grieve in different ways.
narrator: As Eric Overton mourns the loss of his mother,
the investigation into who may have killed her is telling.
- The details of this case when it was revealed,
how the poison was delivered to the victim,
was very shocking.
This was something very subtle,
so it showed just how devious he was.
[dramatic music]
* *
narrator: Detectives suspect now more than ever
that Janet Overton's jilted husband Richard
may be to blame for her recent and sudden death.
And the fact that he may have tried to poison his first wife
Dorothy Boyer two decades earlier
gives them the ammunition they need
for a search warrant.
- In order to do a search warrant,
one has to have probable cause.
You've got to show the reasons
why you want to go into that house.
Was there cyanide there?
They were looking for cyanide in the house.
They were looking for any kind of selenium in the house.
They went to Richard Overton's house and collected items.
Two newspaper articles on selenium
collected from the living room.
Four bottles of prescription medicine for Jan.
Packages of vitamins,
supplements containing selenium.
Opened coffee containers collected from the kitchen.
Syringe with needle.
Two chemistry books collected
from bookshelf in downstairs office.
* *
They found Jan's makeup in the drawer.
And so they took a couple of swabs of that.
narrator: While potential evidence is sent for analysis,
something else in the house
captures detectives' attention.
- A computer, two drives collected
from downstairs office.
Two diaries collected from master bedroom attic.
The computers we went to--in fact,
I flew to San Francisco,
and we had an expert undelete anything
that was deleted on the computer.
- This all was technical top-level police work
because the floppy disc,
that was the beginning of the digital age.
- They were able to go into his computer,
and the average person thought
once they hit the delete button,
it was gone.
But in truth, nothing is ever gone.
It can be found on your computer,
and these detectives found it.
narrator: Investigators know the key
to arresting their prime suspect
is likely locked
within the deleted computer files and journals.
And after two long years,
investigators finally get a firsthand look
at Richard Overton's twisted innermost thoughts.
- Richard Overton started keeping journals back in 1952.
By the time the search warrants were put into effect,
they confiscated about 40 bound journals
in Richard's very, very miniscule handwriting.
And he started to white out various sections
of those journals.
And in some cases, he put two and three levels of whiteout
on various paragraphs.
- They seemed to be in very specific places,
where the whiteout or the cut marks were done.
So it looked as though
there were some things trying to be hidden.
- They used the latest,
most high-tech tools available to them.
They were able to use a laser in order to detect the writing
that was underneath these layers of whiteout.
You were literally getting an insight into his thoughts.
He was laying them all out in this diary.
So it was almost chilling because you could feel
and hear what his thoughts were
and what his intentions were.
- In that computer hard drive,
they found these diaries that he had left,
and it was his feelings toward not only Janet,
but his first wife, Mrs. Boyer.
- He would also do computer journals.
He was documenting everything down to his bowel movements.
The diaries were filled with it.
Indications that he was watching Jan
to see what Jan was doing,
making sure she was going where she was supposed to go.
One of the phrases that I recall,
"If things don't change soon, our marriage,
or our relationship, is headed for the rocks."
So it showed that they were having problems.
- He had his hatred and wanting to get even was
because he suspected her of having this affair
with a younger man down in the harbor.
narrator: The diary passages directly contradict
Richard Overton's earlier statements to police
about his supposedly blissful union to Janet.
* *
- If you don't like your wife, you could tell them,
"We don't have the best of a relationship."
If you dislike your wife, and you're telling investigators,
"Oh, everything's just hunky-dory,"
you're lying.
He was lying to the officers. That shows a motive.
* *
- He wrote a lot about his jealousy.
He felt like he was being disrespected.
So he was angry. He was outraged.
He was jealous.
And then he decided he was gonna do something about it,
and he wrote about how their love/hate relationship
had turned into a relationship of just hate.
narrator: Investigators now had chilling insight
into Richard Overton's true feelings
about his marriage to Janet.
And when the lab results come in,
they're convinced he lashed out at her
in the most unthinkable way.
- They found in her mascara that there was selenium in it.
Well, it was a Revlon mascara, and so they contacted Revlon.
Revlon said, "No, we have no selenium in our mascara."
* *
- Your skin is your largest organ on your body,
so by her simply applying that eye makeup,
it is being absorbed through the skin
in a small enough dose not to be detected right away,
but that could accumulate in her body over time.
- I mean, that's a slow death in some regard,
although the cyanide was fast.
She was being poisoned chronically with selenium,
but acutely with cyanide.
- A laboratory technician came back with the results
of the stomach contents were what he called "free cyanide."
She took some sort of a cocktail
the morning of the whale watching.
That was the final dose that eventually killed her.
* *
- Richard Overton had means,
had motive,
and he had the intellect
to carry out this sort of poisoning.
[dramatic music]
narrator: On October 1st, 1991,
Dana Point resident Richard Overton
is arrested for the murder of his second wife, Janet.
Eight months later, Orange County residents
are glued to their TVs as the local news
chronicles the trial's twists and turns.
- This is OCN, the Orange County News Channel.
- Good morning, everyone. I'm Tricia Takasugi.
Thanks for joining us here for OCN's live coverage
of the Richard Overton murder trial.
The Richard Overton trial happened early
in my reporting career,
but it definitely had an impact.
It was memorable for a number of reasons,
and was very bizarre.
He was actually on trial twice.
In his first trial,
people believe he faked a medical ailment.
- It appears that the trial is gonna go to recess.
- Richard Overton allegedly had a heart attack.
- And he had to be taken out
and to the hospital to be examined.
- I thought he should've had an Oscar.
They didn't find any evidence of any damage to his heart.
- But a judge cannot keep that jury indefinitely.
So at some point, the judge had no other option
than to declare a mistrial.
- After a period of time, the trial resumed.
- Council if you'd like to make your opening statement, please.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
- My name is Arthur Shappy.
Back in 1991, in the Richard Overton case,
the trial I was on, which was the second trial,
I was a juror.
I was told we were gonna find out all the facts
around Janet Overton's death and why this took place.
I wanted to do a good job at this.
We have a man's life involved here.
- You're gonna get the unique once in a lifetime experience
to see inside the mind of a murderer.
- Richard Overton, for anybody saw him in the courtroom,
came across as very meek, quiet.
You would never suspect this man of committing the crime
that he was being accused of.
- You will see inside the mind of Richard Kenneth Overton
when he killed his wife Janet with poison
on January 24th, 1988.
- In the opening statements, the District Attorney painted
a picture of a jealous husband
who was too meek to confront his wife,
but he was gonna go around her and get back at her
for everything that he thought
she had done to ruin their marriage.
- Evidence will show
that he writes everything down constantly.
The littlest detail of the day gets written down.
- I believe in his diaries he talked about
how bad the marriage was.
- We are in the second week of the trial.
Dorothy Boyer, Richard Overton's first wife,
took the stand this morning.
- It's possible that Richard knew
I was allergic to sulfide.
He was putting medication--he admitted to putting
medications--medicine in some of my foods.
- One of the early revelations and one of the things
that really kicked the investigation off
was Richard's former wife Dorothy Boyer
reaching out to the Sheriff's Department
saying you really ought to look
at whether or not Richard poisoned Jan
because he tried to poison me.
- You had believed
that Mr. Overton had been poisoning you?
- I believe so.
- Dorothy Boyer's testimonies, that meant a lot
about painting a picture of what kind of guy this was.
On July 22nd, 1988, Richard Overton did say
that he did spike his ex-wife's coffee I believe,
and--though it was just a prank.
I could not believe he said that.
When he said it was a prank,
I started leaning towards guilty.
- It is just one more way that a classic sociopath
would rationalize something.
He tried to turn it around
and make it a little bit of a humorous thing.
He really saw nothing wrong with that.
* *
- The atmosphere in the courtroom
when Eric took the stand was, "this poor kid."
I think we all feel very sorry for Eric that day,
looking at his father over there
who was being accused of killing his mother.
- I can't even imagine what was going through his head,
how dreadful, much less he had lost his mother,
then they were so close,
then to find out your father murdered her?
I just--I can't even imagine
what that poor young man was going through.
- When the Overton verdict was read,
you could hear a pin drop in that courtroom.
- Court is satisfied that the defendant in fact
murdered his wife by poisoning.
I have no doubt at all.
- Richard Overton was convicted
of murder in the first degree.
He was also sentenced to life in prison.
* *
- I found Richard Overton guilty because of his diaries,
what he did to those diaries, and Dorothy Boyer's comments,
and the way he poisoned her also,
by slowly poisoning her and having her do it herself.
That just blows me away how cruel this guy was
and what kind of a monster he was.
* *
- People using poison to torture people,
I mean, that's a slow death.
* *
- If Jan was still alive today,
she would be involved in any way she could
in education in California
'cause that was something that was important and her passion.
- I think with any human being,
a loss of life is great.
Janet Overton was a dedicated and loving mother,
as well as public servant,
and for that, she will be missed.
- Jan had so much wanted to hand Eric his diploma,
and of course, that all happened
after she passed away.
I remember the board meeting when they were talking
about which board member would go to which high school.
And I remember the board member saying,
I would like to go to Dana Hills
and hand Eric his diploma for Jan.
And there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
- As a mother and a grandmother,
my heart bled for Eric.
[soft music]
He loved his mother.
* *
Sorry.
Her life, so in pain every day...
but yet, she still tried to thrive.
* *
It's very sad.
* *