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Vicky Calder - Police become interested
In early January, police became concerned that Lloyd might have been poisoned. Calder was interviewed by detectives on 6 January. She admitted being extremely angry with Lloyd and harassing him and had been annoyed to learn Newstrom was coming to New Zealand. However, she responded angrily when detectives put it to her, that she could have effected Lloyd’s condition with a neurotoxin. She vehemently denied this was the case.
An incredibly difficult and painstaking investigation followed. Police believed Calder’s anger at the break-up was a motive for the alleged poisoning and they had the evidence of cut up clothes and other harassment and bitter correspondence between the two. The problem was in establishing what poison had been used, by whom and if it had been administered, when and how?
A scientist told police there could be two explanations for Lloyd’s condition, a (natural) auto-immune response to an infection, or a neurotoxin - a nerve poison. He believed the symptoms favoured a neurotoxin. There would be a problem, however, if it was acrylomide because it would be flushed from the body within hours or days and three weeks had passed since Lloyd became ill. A world-wide scientific search began for information that might shed light on the poison and how its administration to a victim might be traced in the context of a criminal investigation and prosecution.
Meanwhile Lloyd was blind, paralysed, could not speak without an artificial valve and his breathing and digestion had to be artificially assisted.
By January 1994, ESR scientific blood tests had broken new ground and were sent to England for verification by prominent British scientists. There was consensus that Lloyd’s symptoms were compatible with acrylamide poisoning. Calder was arrested on 1 June 1994 and charged with attempted murder and alternatively, with poisoning with intent. Seventeen days later, Lloyd and Newstrom were married.
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