Associated Press
2:06 PM CDT, August 11, 2010
COLUMBUS, Ind.
The stepbrother of a man who authorities say was poisoned by his estranged wife said his family had always had doubts about how he died three years ago.
Alan Duvall died in August 2007 after having dinner with his wife at their home in Columbus.
Tami Duvall, 51, now of Jeffersonville, has been charged murder, insurance fraud and obstruction of justice by the Bartholomew County prosecutor, who claims she wanted to collect on a $100,000 life insurance policy.
A judge entered a preliminary not guilty plea for Duvall during an initial court hearing Tuesday. She has been jailed without bond since her arrest on Friday, but a defense attorney had not yet been appointed for her on Wednesday.
Authorities say in court documents that Duvall may have stolen morphine while working at a local nursing home and taken prescription muscle relaxants from one of her husband's relatives. Investigators have said they believe Duvall used those drugs to poison her 61-year-old husband's dinner.
She reported finding him dead the next morning in a chair on the back porch of their home in the city about 40 miles south of Indianapolis.
Investigators initially called Alan Duvall's death accidental alcohol poisoning based on his blood-alcohol level of 0.436 percent and his wife's claim he essentially drank himself to death.
But Alan Duvall's blood also contained more than 82 times the maximum therapeutic level of morphine, according to court records.
His stepbrother, Henry McCune of Butlerville, said Alan Duvall liked to drink, but the presence of drugs made him suspicious.
"Both of us never believed in drugs," McCune told The Republic newspaper. "If somebody walked in his house and had drugs, he would throw them out."
Prosecutors said Tami Duvall had told people she planned to divorce her husband but persuaded him to sign a life-insurance policy with her as the beneficiary by leading him to believe the two would reconcile. The policy was filled out by hand and signed in front of a Columbus restaurant a month before Alan Duvall died.
Duvall's family became more skeptical of his death when they learned Tami Duvall was anxious to have his body cremated quickly, McCune said.
"I was suspicious of it at the start," McCune said. "He was in too good of health."
Court documents say that as the death investigation continued, Tami Duvall asked several times when the case would be closed because it was delaying her efforts to collect the insurance money.
The affidavit said she later changed her account of the death, telling investigators that Alan Duvall drank the morphine and took the pills to kill himself because "he wasn't willing to live if he couldn't move back home and have free reign to do the things he wanted to do."
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