In 2018, we covered the case of Pam Lanier on the podcast.

Pam and her husband Dorian were turkey farmers in Chinquipin, North Carolina,

a small crossroads community of about 2,000 residents.

Back in August 1997, Dorian injured his leg when he was using his bulldozer to clear

farmland. Pam then began caring for Dorian, who was stubborn and refused to see a doctor.

Soon, Dorian's physical and mental health started taking a turn for the worse, with Dorian

eventually passing away on the night of November 19, 1997.

An autopsy eventually revealed that Dorian had lethal levels of arsenic in his system,

which led to suspicion that Pam had been fatally poisoning her husband.

That said, there wasn't really any evidence that Pam had poisoned her husband, but her first husband had also met an unexpected demise.

Specifically, Pam and her first husband, Johnny Ray, lived on Topsla Island on the North Carolina coast back in 1991.

But one night in September, Johnny Ray fell into the intercoastal waterway while checking

crab pots and fatally drowned. Now, the state had no evidence that Pam had poisoned Johnny

Ray, but he wasn't kind of a fugue state in the days before his accident, somewhat similar to

the brain fog that had clouded Dorian's judgment.

And so, Pam was charged with Dorian's murder, with the state noting its intention to present evidence of Johnny Ray's drowning under the doctrine of chances.

This is an evidentiary doctrine that allows the state to present evidence of similar tragedies

at trial without any evidence of wrongdoing and simply asking the jury,

what are the odds that in this case, an innocent wife, would have two separate husbands, die under suspicious

circumstances? As you might imagine, this wasn't the strongest case in the world. As a result,

the state offered Pam a pretty sweet plea deal, pre-trial.

If Pam pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, she would get only 20 months in prison.

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