A Princeton grad and his girlfriend tried to kill two women he met on dating apps by using rat poison, cyanide and a homemade concoction derived from ground-up rosary peas, authorities said.
Paul VanDuyne Jr., 43, and gal pal Andrea Whitaker, 41, of Wisconsin now face attempted-murder charges as well as raps for aggravated battery, recklessly endangering the public and stalking for their fiendish plot, court documents state.
VanDuyne, a Princeton University graduate and former mechanical engineer, had recently gotten divorced when he decided to try his hand at dating apps. He had two short-lived liaisons with the victims before meeting Whitaker more than a year ago, authorities said.
Prosecutors said that soon thereafter, VanDuyne and Whitaker, a pharmacology student, launched a plan to poison the women’s personal belongings — including their vehicles and water bottles — with a variety of toxic substances.
It appears Whitaker was allegedly jealous of the women.
The poisonings involved the toxic rosary-pea plant, cyanide and thallium, a rodenticide which has been banned commercially in the US since 1975 because of a high number of accidental poisonings tied to it, officials said.
One of the victims, who is from Rock County and still requires the use of a wheelchair because of her poisoning, landed on authorities’ radar last month after she was hospitalized with high doses of thallium in her system, NBC reported.
Given the rarity of the substance, a doctor who treated her is quoted in court documents as saying, “The only way a human could have this amount of thallium in her system is if they were intentionally consuming it.”
The poisoning occurred as she was driving with her middle-school-age sister to the movies and the pair suddenly became sick, according to court documents.
The victim then brought her vehicle in for service, and workers noticed a foul smell like rotten eggs and found a storage tote in the vehicle that contained an unknown substance.
Detectives later concluded based on the workers’ description of the noxious odor that the substance was likely hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas.
The victim also was poisoned by thallium, authorities said. She was only saved by an antidote that was flown in overnight from California, Rock County Sheriff Curtis Fell told the outlet.
The other victim, who is from Dane County, said in court Friday that she went on two dates with VanDuyne more than a year ago before telling him she no longer wanted to see him. Those two dates served as a springboard to an alleged murder plot hatched by he and Whitaker, she said.
“I was never his girlfriend, yet he and Andrea developed the delusion that I was,” she said.
“This delusion was so strong, they tried to murder me. Their actions and motivations are disconnected from reality. Both have shown their capacity for evil,” the woman said.
She had fallen ill after drinking a bottle of water she left in her vehicle while parked at a Costco. She recalled the water tasting terrible.
Witnesses at the Costco later reported seeing someone breaking into her car before getting into a Chrysler Pacifica minivan that authorities eventually linked to VanDuyne.
As investigators worked to figure out who might have wanted to do the woman harm, they started looking into VanDuyne when she revealed he sent her disturbing text messages earlier this year.
In the messages, he allegedly called her “evil” and falsely claimed she caused Whitaker — who is still alive — to take her own life when she learned they had dated.
The couple’s plot included them even lacing the ventilation system of one of their victims’ cars with a powdery substance, authorities said.
Upon searching VanDuyne’s minivan, detectives found multiple glass vials as well as rosary peas and a seed grinder in his home, court documents say.
VanDuyne remains behind bars on $10 million bail; Whitaker is currently being held on $4 million bail.
Prosecutors say VanDuyne’s bail is substantially higher because he has access to significant financial resources, though more information about what that entailed was not immediately apparent.
Whitaker’s next court appearance is set for July 2, and VanDuyne will appear in Dane County Court on Aug. 4.