RF: Adolf Czojor Murder Case Part II: A Re-marriage and Poison

When Joan found out about the death of her husband, she had been concerned with a $10,000 life insurance policy and a profit-sharing plan worth in today’s money over $100,000. In 1996, though, the pay-out seemed enticing.

Joan was the one most concerned with the money. But she had other worries on top of the cash. She instructed her neighbors Helen and Fred Marini to come over to her house.

Joan brandished a bottle of pills in front of Helen’s face. The woman was incredulous. Helen had no clue what the pills were or where they originated.

In fact, they were nitroglycerin drugs that aided Czojor’s angina. Joan had no knowledge of them. Only his daughter knew of them as he tried to hide them from his family.

But things then got very suspicious. At the house, Joan’s ex-husband Joe made his presence known while wearing one of Czojor’s jackets. This eerie scene played out as something that would bother the Marinis for years to come.

Just a few hours after her husband’s death, Joan had already devised a way of searching through paperwork to discover the funds and to whom they were entitled.

She took everything. And what wasn’t money or something of value to be traded, she threw away or gave away.

In time, Joan would invite Joe into her house indefinitely and they would once again be man and wife soon after Czojor’s demise. This strange arrangement would be compounded by news from the Delaware State Police.

They informed Joan the original cause of death had been reversed. The classification became not a heart attack, but murder by cyanide.

Although poisoning is a radically rare way to kill someone in the United States, the cyanide still found its way into the sausage maker’s body.

Who was looked at as a primary suspect? Joan, of course. Her odd behavior made the attention square directly on her. With the poisoning element, Joan would be probed in the investigation. Unlike Margaret H. Fisher, a Delaware woman in the 1960’s who poisoned her husband with arsenic and cyanide, Joan would never be sent to prison for life and then released in six years like Fisher.

The idea of the use of cyanide to murder Czojor can be related to deaths of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries featuring either this poison or arsenic. The rarity factor of having been poisoned with a substance that destroys cells and leads to loss of consciousness and prevents the victim from breathing are factors.

With Czojor’s death ruled a homicide, the family and friends had to contend with the fact someone wanted the man dead. Why? Did he have outstanding debt to a local gambler? Why did cyanide fall into the wrong hands and eventually make life a living hell for the people who loved the well-respected sausage maker?

Czojor was buried about a minute away from his beloved race track. Though the classification would occur after the burial, Medical Examiner Dr. Richard T. Callery said cyanide poisoning can mimic a heart attack or stroke. That’s why the initial ruling had been etched into history. Later, a professional like Dr. Callery would determine that a murder had been committed. He knew through his expertise and sharp mind that he had to reverse the classification and establish the grim results.

Cyanide seemed to have been the only thing that could stop Czojor. A buoyant personality and a jovial demeanor, ultimately both became snuffed out with a bit of poison.

For Jeanette, she wished to get back belongings and even snagged a flag Czojor earned upon becoming an American citizen. As she found ways to honor her father, she was instructed by Joan to pay for the burial plot. Jeanette began to allow the already frayed lines between her and her stepmother to undo even more.

No matter how many issues Joan may have had at the time, she had picked out a decent headstone. It included a passage that read: "Ruhe sanft," German for “rest easily.”