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Dakota

FORUM BITCH / Beloved Cunt
Bold Member!
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A prominent Pittsburgh neurologist died with what city homicide detectives are calling “toxic amounts of cyanide” in her system.

Dr. Autumn Marie Klein, 41, chief of women's neurology at UPMC and an assistant professor of neurology, gynecology, obstetrics and reproduction sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, died April 20 at UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland after collapsing at home three days earlier.

“The homicide unit is conducting a death investigation of a UPMC employee who died with toxic amounts of cyanide in her blood,” city police Lt. Kevin Kraus, acting commander of investigations, said on Wednesday. “At this time, the cause and manner of death are undetermined.”
[...]

Paramedics were called to the Oakland home Klein shared with her husband, Robert J. Ferrante, and daughter, Cianna, when she collapsed at 11:52 p.m. April 17, investigators said.

Williams said police received their information about the level of cyanide in Klein's system from the hospital.

Autumn Klein's mother, Lois Klein of Towson, Md., said Wednesday evening that she was surprised to learn that police were investigating her daughter's death.

“I had no idea,” Klein said.

Klein said that neither she nor her husband, William, had any reason to be concerned about her daughter's safety.

She said she had no other comment until the couple have a chance to contact city homicide detectives.

Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a former Allegheny County coroner, said his private forensic practice has been contacted to look into Klein's death. Wecht would not say who contacted him or when.
[...]

Kraus would not say how police believe the cyanide got into Klein's system.
http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/3947000-74/cyanide-klein-died#axzz2SKJwCKXX

The death of a Pennsylvania doctor who had "toxic levels of cyanide" in her system is being investigated as a possible homicide and a possible suicide, authorities said today, before later launching a search of her home.

This evening, investigators with the Pittsburgh police and FBI descended on Autumn Marie Klein's residence, where they were in the process of conducting an extensive search of the home and backyard. Two Mobile Crime Scene Units were stationed in plain view in front of the house.

Investigators declined to discuss precisely what they were doing or looking for but they confirmed to ABC News that they were in the process of an "official search" of the home. Two investigators, wearing blue lab gloves, were seen carrying in large garbage bags.
[...]

When Cook Klein got word of her daughter's death she and her husband were preparing to travel to Pennsylvania to babysit the daughter while the parents went out of town for a medical event. Cook Klein was packing her suitcase late the night before she was set to leave when she said Ferrante called her.

"Bob was saying something had happened to Autumn and he was there in the house by himself with Cianna," Cook Klein said. "He had called 911 and they had taken Autumn to the emergency room."

Cook Klein said she was initially told her daughter may have suffered a stroke.

When she heard about the cyanide, her first concern was her granddaughter and who would pick her up from school if police needed to speak to her father. Cook Klein said police told her that Cianna was with her father.

She said her young granddaughter "just knows her mommy isn't home."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/doctors-cy...micide-suicide/story?id=19100947#.UYT_wco7bKc

When Dr. Autumn Klein's husband called 911 the night she lost consciousness, he told dispatchers she was showing stroke-like symptoms, records reviewed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette show.

At 11:52 p.m. on April 17, Robert J. Ferrante called 911 and stated that his wife was not alert in their Oakland home.

Two minutes later, a call-taker noted that Dr. Klein was "conscious breathing" and then "not alert."

The call-taker wrote that Mr. Ferrante, a professor of neurological surgery, told dispatchers he thought his wife might be having a stroke and that "about 10 minutes ago" she began "just staring off into space."

A medic unit was dispatched at 11:56 p.m. and a note made in the system at 11:57 p.m. says, "Female is groaning right now ... is conscious and breathing."

Three days later she was dead in what officials have since described as a rare cyanide-related death that investigators are probing as either a homicide or suicide.
[...]

Dr. Klein's mother, Lois Klein, said on Friday that she does not know what to make of her daughter's death and investigators have not given her details of the case.

"I certainly am working under the assumption she certainly would not do that to herself," Ms. Klein said. "I'm just totally dumbfounded. I can't imagine anybody that would want to harm her."
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...rds-detail-911-call-for-ailing-doctor-686204/

Authorities have said Dr. Klein was taking fertility drugs and her mother said, "She never liked being an only child. She didn't want her child to be an only child."

She said Ferrante also told her the couple was trying to have another child.

The couple met while Klein was a student where Ferrante worked at the VA Hospital in Bedford, Mass. They were married in 2001 and moved to Pittsburgh after being recruited to join the university's neurological surgery team.

Lois Klein said Ferrante was sensitive in explaining the medical situation to the couple's young daughter at the hospital before his wife was pronounced dead.

"He said something about, `Mommy's sick, and I don't mean a headache and I don't mean Mommy has a tummyache,' and `Mommy's heart stopped beating and the doctors are trying to help her and get her heart to start beating again,'" Lois Klein said.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/sta...cle_6dba01c7-ed3d-58cb-bb0e-3bb7d8770c90.html
 
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Husband Ordered Cyanide Before Former Boston Doctor’s Death
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The husband of a former Brigham and Women’s doctor is now a suspect in her in death.

Dr. Autumn Klein passed away last month. Her husband claimed it was a stroke, but investigators now believe she was poisoned.
[...]

Now investigators appear to be focusing on Klein’s husband Dr. Robert Ferrante, a former Harvard Medical School researcher. Police searched his Pennsylvania office and the couple’s home and sources tell KDKA that Dr. Ferrante had ordered cyanide before Autumn’s death.

“We don’t even know if he’s going to be charged with anything at this point and hopefully he wont be,â€￾ said Ferrante’s lawyer Bill Difenderfer, who acknowledged his client was a person of interest in the case.
[...]

Police have reportedly removed cyanide from Dr. Ferrante’s lab and investigators are also said to have traveled to Boston.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/05/...ston-doctor-ordered-cyanide-before-her-death/

Sources confirm that her husband, who is also a medical expert at Pitt, bought cyanide two days before she died.

Sources confirm Dr. Robert Ferrante purchased cyanide with a University of Pittsburgh credit card a few days before his wife, Dr. Autumn Marie Klein, died from a lethal dose of cyanide.

Attorney Bill Difenderfer says his client, who is a Pitt professor, used cyanide as part of his teaching.

Police say the purchase of the poison so close to her death is part of their investigation.
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/05/16/sources-husband-ordered-cyanide-before-wifes-death/
 
so i was reading the oa and thought to myself...where do you get cyanide? it's not like i can go to wall mart and buy it. and then i read the rest...apparently you get it from your husband :(
 
A researcher whose wife died of cyanide poisoning in April is expected to be arrested in Florida and then returned to Pittsburgh to face a charge of criminal homicide.

The arrest, to be made by the Pittsburgh police, is "imminent," sources said.

William Difenderfer, who represents Robert J. Ferrante, a professor of neurological surgery, said he was disappointed with the development.

"He's adamant he had nothing to do with her death and plans to fully defend himself," Mr. Difenderfer said.
[...]

Allegheny County Medical Examiner Karl Williams has said that toxic levels of cyanide were found in Dr. Klein's body, and the death was initially investigated as either suicide or homicide.

Over the ensuing months, dozens of search warrants have been obtained, and the investigation, being handled by prosecutors from the Allegheny County District Attorney's homicide and white-collar offices, has included assistance from the FBI.

Included within the subpoenas and search warrants were one for the couple's home and one for the University of Pittsburgh, pertaining to cyanide.

The highly lethal chemical interferes with the ability to breathe and can render a person unconscious quickly.

Although it is hard to obtain, it is used in university and pharmaceutical labs.
[...]

Dr. Karen Roos, who edited several articles Dr. Klein wrote for Seminars in Neurology and stayed in regular contact with her until her death, said the couple met when Dr. Klein was doing her residency.

She said Dr. Klein wanted to have another child, possibly within a year. Dr. Klein occasionally mentioned her husband but spoke primarily about her daughter, Dr. Roos said.

"She did not run into cyanide in the context of her research," Dr. Roos said. "I am absolutely a million times positive of this. There's probably no neurologists using cyanide in the context of her research."

News of a possible arrest comforted Dr. Roos, who said she was confident her friend did not commit suicide.

"She would have never taken her own life," Dr. Roos said. "It just never would have happened."
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...iminal-charges-in-wifes-cyanide-death-696755/

A witness told police that Klein planned to leave Ferrante, and that she described him as controlling and unsupportive with her fast-rising career and their daughter, according to the criminal complaint.
[...]

One witness told police that Ferrante's reaction to seeing his wife on the exam table “seemed fake and like ‘bad acting.'â€￾

Even as doctors struggled to keep Klein alive, Ferrante began talking about her in the past tense, a witness told police.

Klein died of acute cyanide poisoning, according to a release from the medical examiner's office on Thursday.

Doctors did not learn of the results of the test from an outside lab until after she died and after her autopsy was performed, the statement said. Ferrante opposed the autopsy, Klein's parents told police. When the toxicology tests found cyanide, the Medical Examiner tried to get Klein's body for further testing only to find that she'd been cremated at Ferrante's request.
[...]

Police learned that Ferrante, co-director of the Center for ALS Research and a visiting professor of neurological surgery at Pitt, bought cyanide and ordered overnight delivery using a university credit card on April 15. It arrived April 16, the day before his wife collapsed.

A witness who worked for Ferrante said the purchase was the only time he ordered a chemical himself and that Ferrante had no ongoing research projects that required cyanide.

In the lab where he kept the cyanide, a witness told police Ferrante mixed the dietary supplement creatine into a drink, something police said he was trying to get his wife to start drinking, supposedly to aid her fertility treatments. The witness said he or she helped Ferrante measure the powdered creatine into a one-gallon resealable bag. Paramedics spotted a similar bag later that night when they arrived at Ferrante's home to treat Klein, police said.
http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/4420971-74/ferrante-klein-pittsburgh#axzz2a6CnVWIm
 
When University of Pittsburgh medical researcher Robert J. Ferrante ordered cyanide in April, he exploited some loopholes in the university and chemical company's policies that allowed him to obtain a deadly chemical quicker than normal.
[...]

Cyanide, which can kill a human in a few minutes, is difficult for the average person to get hold of. But within the scientific community, cyanide is relatively easy to obtain.
[...]

Most rules regarding its sale are set by the chemical companies that sell cyanide or by the institutions that researchers work with, according to those who work with the substance. And the Ferrante case shows that those safeguards sometimes have loopholes.
[...]

On April 15, Mr. Ferrante, 64, asked a lab colleague to buy 250 grams of potassium cyanide and have it shipped overnight, according to the arrest affidavit. Two days later, his wife, who was the head of women's neurology at UPMC, collapsed in the couple's Oakland home and was rushed to UPMC Presbyterian. She died on April 20.

Of 145 chemical purchases made by Mr. Ferrante's lab at the Pitt medical school and reviewed by city homicide detectives, the cyanide purchase was the only one that did not directly relate to a project or grant associated with his work.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...te-exploited-loopholes-to-buy-cyanide-698041/
 
The search for two new jurors delayed opening statements in the homicide trial of a University of Pittsburgh medical researcher charged with poisoning his neurologist wife.
Dr. Robert Ferrante, 66, is accused of lacing an energy drink with cyanide to kill 41-year-old Dr. Autumn Klein in April 2013 after telling her the drink would help them conceive another child. Their daughter, Cianna, was 6 when her mother fell suddenly ill and died three days later.
[...]
police have said in court papers that Ferrante suspected Klein was having an affair and was, at the same time, pressuring him to have another child. Klein was an only child and didn't want her daughter to be one, too, her mother told police.
[...]
County Judge Jeffrey Manning dismissed two alternate jurors Thursday after they said serving during the three-week trial would cause them work-related hardship. Two other alternates remain on the panel.

Opening statements were scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday as the attorneys planned to pick two replacement jurors in the morning. There will be 12 jurors and four alternates.
[...]
Authorities contend he bought the poison with his University of Pittsburgh credit card two days before his wife became ill, and that someone used his computer to research whether treatments his wife received after falling ill would remove the toxin from her system.

In a still-to-be-decided issue, prosecutors Lisa Pellegrini and Kevin Chernosky want the judge to let one of Ferrante's lab assistants testify about tests he did on a mouse using a different toxin, 3-nitropropionic acid, also known as 3-NP.
[...]
substance is a brain-damaging toxin and prosecutors contend Ferrante tested it on the mouse so he could gauge its effect on a human.

Defense attorneys William Difenderfer and Wendy Williams, in a written response, argue that evidence is unfairly prejudicial because Ferrante was known to use that substance in his research on Lou Gehrig's disease and because they contend there's no other evidence he intended to use that substance illegally on Klein.

Ferrante had his wife cremated shortly after her death, but tests on her blood stemming from her hospital treatment revealed the cyanide, prompting police to charge him about three months later.
[....]
defense attorneys had sought an out-of-county jury based on pretrial publicity. Although Judge Jeffrey Manning granted their request, the defense decided without explanation a few weeks ago to pick a jury locally.

A court-imposed gag order prevents the attorneys and witnesses from commenting until after a verdict.
http://www.wtae.com/news/juror-search-halts-openings-in-ferrante-trial/29298126#ixzz3GzgDtZNM
 
Guilty: The 'master manipulator' neuroscientist who almost got away with murder after handing his wife a drink to boost her fertility - and lacing it with cyanide
  • Dr Robert Ferrante, 66, found guilty of murdering wife Dr Autumn Klein
  • He laced her fertility-boosting energy drink with cyanide bought at work
  • Respected neurologist branded 'master manipulator' by prosecutors
  • His lab assistant said he requested 'the purest' cyanide in overnight order
  • Jury deliberated for 2 days, Ferrante claimed Klein died of natural causes

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rchers-cyanide-murder-case.html#ixzz3ISfY7T9l
 
Robert Ferrante, Doctor Who Poisoned Wife, Seeks Trust For Daughter
former University of Pittsburgh researcher convicted last month of fatally poisoning his neurologist wife wants a judge to unfreeze his assets so he can pay his legal bills and establish a trust fund for their 7-year-old daughter.
Attorneys for Robert Ferrante, 66, argued in a court filing Tuesday that a previous court order freezing his assets is violating his rights to fund his defense, and merely preserving the money so his wife's family, and its attorney, have assets to go after in a wrongful death suit,
[...]
John Gismondi, who represents Dr. Autumn Klein's mother, Lois, in that lawsuit, said he doesn't necessarily oppose a trust fund, since any money won in the suit would be used to compensate Ferrante and Klein's daughter, Cianna. But he objects to Ferrante's request that the trust be administered by Ferrante's adult son from a previous marriage, a financial planner

[..]
"He shouldn't be the one determining what terms of a trust may be acceptable to her,"

[....]
referring to Ferrante. "This seems to be an attempt by him to try to exert control from his jail cell."

But Ferrante's attorneys contend that, "No authority, statutory or otherwise, permits the commonwealth to freeze defendant's assets in order to ensure that Lois Klein's personal injury attorney, John Gismondi, can recover a fee of several hundred thousand dollars." Attorneys in wrongful death lawsuits typically receive anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of any monetary verdict.

[...]
Because he was convicted of first-degree murder in Klein's April 2013 death, he faces a mandatory life sentence without parole.


Ferrante previously was given court permission to use some assets for his criminal defense, and it's not clear how much he has spent.

[...]
William Difenderfer has suggested Ferrante has little remaining wealth to go after.

But apart from the wrongful death litigation, the Allegheny County district attorney's office filed a motion asking a judge to require that Ferrante account for his assets.

[....]
DA is doing that because prosecutors may seek restitution as part of Ferrante's sentence, and because records indicate Ferrante has transferred some assets to his two adult children from his first marriage. Testimony at trial indicated Ferrante had assets worth at least $2.5 million.
[...]
Ferrante denied poisoning Klein and disputed whether that caused her death at all. He testified he ordered the cyanide because it could be used in stem cell research related to his work involving Lou Gehrig's disease.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/11/robert-ferrante_n_6311020.html?utm_hp_ref=crime
 
What a strange case, traceable plain to see credit card purchase from a man who worked in medical research at Harvard.
The husband looks so familiar, like an old uni tutor I had.

So skeevy to try to use the money to pay his own legal bills. Hopefully it will not drag out for years, but just go into a trust for Autumn's daughter.
 
Cyanide. For a Neuro Prof. he was definitely a few neurons shy of an intelligent plan. LWOP works for me. Dirty fucker.
 
We're talking 99 44/100% pure asshole here. KILLING YOUR SPOUSE is not the answer, people! Look, I understand...I've been there. Some spouses can be especially aggravating. But you don't have to kill them...let them go and just get on with life. Jeez, it's not like there isn't a million other people in the world you could settle down with! Now the dumbass will die in prison. Nice way to end your career and be remembered, eh idiot?

It just drives me nuts how people think murder is the answer.
 
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