Note: Rikke Wettendorff transcribed the document for this page. The editors of this website are deeply grateful for her invaluable assistance.
To: Jim
For Carolyn and Maria to read also.
RE: Poisoning
Please read and take seriously. I know you now believe this Jim – but I think we should keep on record these things. I felt like saying “please believe me” for awhile now. I’m glad this is taken care of. I’ve watched Joyce Touchette’s every move and action.
- Each time the poisoning was obvious she had an excuse already prepared showing total denial that there even was poisoning – a cover
- Bitterness of the meat – she had it already figured out that it came from the breadboard before I got there to talk to her – her main mistake was showing us the foil the meat was cooked in and tasting the juice which proved the poison was put in after cooking and bringing it inside the kitchen. Since it could only have been she or the security guards who messed with the meat then, I doubted security. She figured we would doubt her and them so it was set up by the breadboard, that there was no poison. (I did however get terrible headache and diarrhea to substantiate the poison]
- 1/11/78 Milkshake #1 – Joyce said to Mary Lou – “Be sure to have him drink it soon or it won’t be any good”. She never said this before that I know of. She says this to her daily people, however, to get them to drink it before the crushed powder or pills sediments to the bottom.
- 1/10/78 [1/11/78] – Milkshake #2 – Joyce T. told Agnes to say “It won’t be as rich this time; it’s made with powdered milk.” This is a cover for sediment left on the side of the container. I taught Joyce that line when we made Lovie Jean some milk.
- Milkshake #3 – 2/11/78 – she for some reason kept staying when he drank this. Within 1 hour, he was out of it, could hardly hold head up. She said, “Oh, I taste a lot of them during the day and I get sleepy too.” How ridiculous – it was obvious something was in the milkshake, why pretend not. The blood sugar was 90 – I checked three times. (so it’s not hyperglycemia) (with milkshake #1, I drank half because I suspected it and got terrible headache and severe diarrhea.)
- Joyce said to me after seeing him sick “Jesus Christ, he looks like the people I drug. Where are these people getting it from, I guess from town. (Dumb, because phenothiazine[1] drugs aren’t given to just anybody in town.]
- Must not have thought she was a suspect
- I told her one night (because at that time I didn’t think she was doing it) “Joyce, we’ve got to find out who’s poisoning Jim. He’s so sick.” And she would answer in her kindly way, “I hate to see him so sick, it is so pathetic.”
- I told Joyce another time “It must be someone close in the organization to get this done.”
- Jim openly told her he had been poisoned, leading her to think it was Larry.
- Joyce comes back for extra pills and doses, claims things aren’t working for her people, even when it seemed like a high dose, so I gave her more.
- Shifty-eyes when talking about poisoning – looks guilty. Appeared hostily guilty later in evening after Jim was not dead from all this batch of three milkshakes. Jim said she looked shocked to see him when he walked up on the podium.
- Admittance that she had been the one who stole Jim’s sleeping pills form the nurse’s office refrigerator and put them in Charlie’s food to do him in. Said she had absolutely no guilt.
- Joyce’s handwriting reveals schizophrenia and disintegrated personality. Has slant change severely in different parts.
- Only one reported coffee being peppered at the time the juice was added. Said she tasted the grounds and they were ok. I believe she did this.
- Has been confronted on the floor. Hostile about special privileges, dishes being sterilized, hostile at men.
- Marci once said, “if you think Charlie is bad, watch out because when Joyce gets mad, she is vicious.”
- Under transitional state you said, “Joyce Touchette is a born murderer. She and Helen are two of the most cold people you have seen.” You said “I think may have put something in my food tonite – I became very ill after eating something. Can’t remember what.”
- Joyce gets a real kick out of poisoning people’s food.
- The morning of November 2 she was warned explicitly to take extra care to see that no one got close to the ingredients of the milkshakes. She said she would take and change the locations so it couldn’t happen again. Then she brought the most horrible milk shake of all. No way if she had done what he said could all that poison be in the last milkshake.
- Joyce says she can’t taste the bitterness awhile after adding and tasting a lot. This is probably what happened to the meat.
- After the meat poisoning she said she felt so paranoid (an announcement of guilt) and guilty that someone got to the meat. [Except for the bitterness, the poison had no trace and would have to have been done painstakingly and cleverly. This is why I suspected her at first.] Only Greg Watkins and Danny Moton handled the meat afterwards – I don’t believe they did it. Poison is hard to leave no traces of.
- After the milkshakes Joyce said to more than one “so it was the milkshakes that’s making him sick”. I said I didn’t think so.
- Possibilities of reasons why she is doing this
- Poss. CIA agent for long time since C.T. turned us in to the FBI. Family is a clan similar to Mertles with van, travel on own. Own house here and special priveleges [privileges].
- Schizoprenia [Schizophrenia].
- Jim said she is so totally lesbian she does not want to accept any male as good i.e. Jim may have had some notions of her and Jim because she had a hostile look when Jim said that he would love Marceline to the end of the world.
- Joyce can look you in the eye and lie through her teeth, also try to make you think you yourself are crazy. She had stolen these sleeping pills of Jim’s from the refrigerator then when I reported this to her she had me thinking that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that they weren’t really there in the first place. I halfway believed her but knew they were there. I thought this whole time that Vincent did it.
- Am worried she will do Stephen this way. If she thinks Stephen has rejected her little Michelle (in her mind) she will do him the same way. She fixes all of his food.
- When she brought Jim a milkshake yesterday (Nov. 4) (as a test) she said “well if he gets sick from this milkshake, we’ll know that he must be allergic to them or something in them.” (She seems insistant that it is the shakes. No one suggested this. She is clever but not enough to fool us)
[1] Definition of Phenothiazine
Phenothiazine: One of a group of tranquilizing drugs with antipsychotic actions thought to act by blocking dopaminergic transmission (messages sent using the substance dopamine) within the brain.
Examples of phenothiazines include: chlorpromazine (brand name: Thorazine), fluphenazine (Duraclon), mesoridazine (Serentil), perphenazine (Etrafon and Trilafon), prochlorperazine (Compazine), promazine (Robinul and Anectine), thioridazine (Mellaril), trifluoperazine (Stelazine) and triflupromazine (Robinul).
Originally posted on February 17th, 2013.
Last modified on December 30th, 2020.