It started like any other Monday. Early on a March morning in 1995, Natalie Lawson was making breakfast for her family. Her husband, Nick, was getting ready for work.
Seven-month-old Maggie was asleep in her crib. Natalie was supposed to drive 12-year-old Annie, her daughter from a previous marriage, to school. Then baby Maggie woke up.
The little girl suddenly got sick. She was hit with a severe bout of nausea. At that point, taking Annie to school was out of the question.
Natalie called for an ambulance. The emergency call was logged at 7:33 a.m. Dr. Edwards examined the baby and diagnosed a routine viral infection.
At first, that sounded ordinary enough. But the fever reducer he prescribed did nothing.
The baby’s temperature kept climbing. The vomiting wouldn’t stop. By evening, seven-month-old Maggie was in even worse shape.
Then Annie got sick too. Natalie called the on-duty doctor again. He gave the same diagnosis — a viral infection.
Natalie stayed up all night. Both girls developed severe swelling and began having seizures. By then, it was obvious this was no ordinary bug.
The next morning, terrified, the parents called for help again. This time the girls were rushed to the hospital’s infectious disease unit. That evening, Natalie was told that seven-month-old Maggie had died.
Hospital records showed that Maggie Lawson died around 6:30 p.m. from acute poisoning and respiratory failure. A few hours later, 12-year-old Annie died in her hospital room. Crushed by grief, Natalie barely noticed that she herself felt sick — or that when she brushed her hair in the bathroom, strands were coming out in clumps.
She left that large clump of hair there, and later investigators found it during their search of the home. To the forensic team, it was a strange detail. If Natalie had recognized the sudden hair loss as a warning sign and told doctors right away, it might have saved the rest of the family.
What that clump of hair really meant would become clear later, once the official investigation got underway. For now, Nick was only beginning to understand that something far more serious than illness was happening to them.
It appears Nick was the first to suspect severe poisoning, and he immediately drove his wife to a clinic. Tragically, she died in the admitting area. Nick himself was rushed into intensive care.
He survived only one more day. In all, investigators documented five deaths. Yes, five.
Natalie had been six months pregnant. She was expecting a son. Detectives immediately understood that this was no ordinary case…
