On May 2, 1953, fragments of love letters written by Joyce to Richard during the previous summer when Joyce and her husband Robert were in Alaska, were read aloud in court. Richard told the truth about the existence of the letters.

Did Robert know anything about her affection for his friend? On the witness stand, Robert admitted he knew Joyce had deep feelings for Richard and he had “turned-the-other-cheek.” Joyce said she wrote the letters (26 of them, each at least 20 pages) to cheer Richard up and, “to keep him from committing suicide.” Joyce denied Richard’s claim that he was the father of her unborn child. Joyce responded to his claim, “Hearing that read in court from his confession didn’t surprise me–or Robert, either. We’d read it before. Richard is like that, always imaging things. He’s making all that up.” But was he? He didn’t lie about the letters.

Whether the jurors would hear the contents of the letters was up to Superior Judge Mildred L. Lillie. One important question about the letters was whether they were Joyce wrote them. Had Richard forged or tampered with them? Joyce was sworn in and handed a bundle of letters. She gave them a cursory look and then said that she didn’t think all of them were in her own handwriting. “I’d have to read them all,” she said. “There’s been all kinds of stuff added,” although she finally conceded that “basically” she was the author. Judge Lillie instructed Joyce to go through the letters and delete whatever was not in her handwriting. Then Judge Lillie allowed the letters to be entered into evidence. Maybe the letters would reveal the truth about Joyce and Richard’s relationship.

On June 3, 1952, Joyce wrote to Richard telling him she received two letters which were delayed by a storm. She said she went off by herself to read them. “Anyway, I got to sit down–all by myself–in the ‘Garden’ (we know nothing will grow before we leave) and read them–which made me very happy.” She continued. “The only time I can really be alone is when it’s nice, so I can go outside and at nite after everyone leaves and Robert is asleep. And then I am not only alone but lonely. Richard, don’t worry about if I’ll be interested at least a little bit–I am interested very much in everything you write and do, so make it a problem to write me, just write exactly like you have been and tell me anything or everything you think, do or feel and I’ll be very happy. OK?”

Joyce asked Richard to take the time to sit down and write her a long letter. She wanted to know how he would have planned his life if he had done anything he wanted “from grammar school on.”

On June 6, Joyce wrote, “What I said about all the hours we spent–I didn’t mean wasted. I just was thinking how nice a few of those hours would seem now and it seems like there is so much to be said that could have, but really, I guess it’s like you say, there are better ways of saying things than words. That’s what is lacking because we can use all the ‘words’ we want now — and nothing else! But I do remember, too, surely you expected me to. And it makes me very happy, but I can’t keep from thinking–then what!”

In one of her letters Joyce talked about marriage: “You ask if I would have accepted to marry you–yes, I would and it seems, Richard, that our dreams are very similar.” Joyce signed most of her letters “All My Love.”

Was Joyce in love with Richard? She described her loneliness to him in many of her letters. She may have sought the attention she felt Robert didn’t give her. No matter how sophisticated the situation seemed, it is important to remember that each of the principal players was only 19-years-old. The extreme emotional highs and lows of teenagers are well documented.

Joyce’s denial of loving Richard stung. A Los Angeles Times reporter observed the defendant lower his head when he heard the love of his life testify that once she and Robert arrived home from Alaska, her feelings for Richard changed. “He hung around too much, and he was very moody. I was a little tired of him,” she said.

During the middle of the trial, a note from Joyce to Richard written prior to the 1952 Alaska trip surfaced, and it shed some light on the relationship. Joyce and Robert were married for only a year when Richard confessed his love for Joyce in a letter. Joyce confessed she loved both Robert and Richard, but she felt she was better suited to Robert. She said, “Richard, you and I–I feel are really genuine friends and I feel will always be, even now, but it’s horrible to ruin a beautiful friendship.” She encouraged him to find someone who would make him happy.

What would the jury of eight women and four men make of the case? Was Richard’s testimony that he and Joyce were intimate credible? And what about the suggestion that Joyce, and not Richard, tried to poison Robert?

The jury failed to reach a verdict after the first four hours of deliberation. They returned to the jury room and at last decided Richard’s fate.

They acquitted Richard of attempted murder, but found him guilty of mingling poison with beverages with intent to harm Robert.

When she heard the news, Joyce said, “We are going to try to forget we ever knew Richard.”

EPILOGUE: I always try to find out what happened to the people involved in a criminal case–and this one is no exception. Joyce and Robert’s teenage marriage survived for nearly twenty years before they divorced in 1970. Joyce may have remarried, but I don’t know if Robert did.

Richard LaForce earned a Ph.D. He moved to Modesto in 1986, and died there in 1992 at 58. His obituary names his children, and a brother. No spouse is mentioned, so he was probably divorced or widowed.

Joyce found Richard peering into her refrigerator and he seemed startled when she spoke to him. Joyce couldn’t tell what Richard was doing, but she wasn’t alarmed. Richard visited Joyce and Robert so often that it wasn’t surprising to find him searching the fridge for a snack.

The refrigerator incident took on a more ominous aspect when Joyce and Robert noticed a “funny taste” in their water and milk. Then they recalled how ill Robert became after he and Joyce paid a visit to Richard at Caltech. They didn’t want to think the worst of Richard, but it got harder to believe the best.

Joyce and Robert went to the L.A. County Sheriff’s substation and told the deputies of their suspicions. They brought a bottle of milk with them that they suspected was tainted. Sure enough, an examination of the contents proved that someone had tampered with it.

On February 6, 1953, Sergeant Bert Wood and Detective A.S. Martin sent the couple out for the evening and then waited in the dark outside their home to see if Richard would turn up. He did.

Joyce and Robert routinely left their door unlocked (hey, it was Downey in 1953). The two cops watched Richard let himself in and then waited for him to come out. Sergeant Wood and Detective Martin stopped him as he exited and found two half-pint bottles of arsenic trioxide in his possession. Enough poison, said one investigator, “to kill off a whole town.”

Richard confessed he had put some of the arsenic into a water bottle in the fridge. When asked if he was trying to kill both Joyce and Robert, Richard said no. He knew Robert was the only one to drink from that bottle. He also confessed to poisoning Robert’s soft drink at Caltech and said that he tried at least five times over several weeks to kill Richard.

Why had he tried to poison his friend? He said, “I have always wanted Joyce for my wife and I felt that if my plan to poison Bob was successful, I would have a chance with her.” He continued, “I’ve never been out with any other girl–she’s the only one I loved.” Richard said he had chosen poison to kill Robert, “Because of its convenience.” He could acquire the poisons at school. He admitted that, “It could have been done in a more perfect way, but I got to where I had to do something.”

What made Richard think he had a chance with Joyce at all? According to him, he had visited Joyce many times in her home when Robert was away. He told investigators that he and Joyce had taken long car rides and walks. During their time together, Richard said he and Joyce, “talked a lot about love and marriage.”

On February 10, 1953, the Los Angeles County Grand Jury indicted Richard on two counts of poisoning with intent to kill. Each count carried a sentence of 10 years to life in prison. Joyce and Robert told reporters they bore their former friend no ill will. They felt sorry for him.

Psychiatrists Dr. Frederick J. Hacker and Dr. John A. Mitchell examined Richard. The doctors said they found indications of, “a thinking disorder, in the direction of schizophrenia.” According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “schizophrenia can occur at any age, the average age of onset is in the late teens to the early 20s for men.”

Was Richard schizophrenic? The doctors didn’t offer a firm diagnosis and, despite their concerns, they declared Richard was sane at the time of the poisonings and was sane enough to stand trial.

Interestingly, Dr. Hacker said Richard told him he, “wanted to take suspicion of poisoning attempts from Joyce.” Was Richard falling on his sword to protect his lady love, or was his statement a calculated move to shift blame to Joyce?

By the time his trial began in late April 1953, Richard claimed he and Joyce were having an affair. In fact, he figured that her unborn child had an 80% chance of being his and not Robert’s. In 1953, when DNA tests were decades in the future, a blood test could rule a person in or out, but that was it. No definitive test for paternity.

Joyce vehemently denied that she was romantically involved with Richard. But rumors surfaced that Richard kept over a dozen love letters written to him by Joyce while she and Robert were in Alaska. If the love letters existed, they could turn the case on its head.

NEXT TIME: A few more twists in the Love Poisoner case.