DEATH BY ANTIFREEZE: Judy Church Convicted of Poisoning Boyfriend Leroy Fowler She said it was a joke. The jury didn't laugh.

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher. Tuesday, April seventh, twenty twenty six. A few weeks ago, on this show, we spent a few minutes on a case out of Salem, Massachusetts. A sixty seven year old woman named Judy Church her boyfriend Leroy Fowler, fifty five years old. She was charged with poisoning him with anti freeze. We told you the jury was seated. We told you the trial was just starting. We told you we'd come back. We're back. The jury convicted Judy Church of first degree murder on March thirtieth. The judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Five days later. His exact words at sentencing under Massachusetts law, that sentence is mandatory. Then he added, and I want you to hear this. That is the exact sentence I would impose if I did have disc aggression.

1:01 She showed no emotion, she said nothing. She is planning to appeal. Today. We are going to tell you the whole story. Who Leroy Fowler was, what his relationship with Judy Church actually looked like, what the evidence showed happened on the night of November eleventh, twenty twenty two, which was also his birthday. What the jury heard over nine days of testimony, what the family said when they finally got their chance to speak, and what it means when someone tells you they are afraid and nobody moves fast enough to help them. This is daily crime and justice. Let's start at the beginning, because to understand what happened on November eleventh, the twenty twenty two, you have to understand what was happening for years before that night. Judy Church and Leroy Fowler had been together for roughly a decade.

1:52 He was her tenant, first living in her home in Salisbury, Massachusetts on the North Shore. Then they became a couple. She was his girlfriend, he was her live and partner. By outward appearances, they were building a life together. Church bottom things, clothes, a motorcycle, whatever he needed. She talked about the two of them moving to Florida, getting a fresh start. She was, by all accounts, deeply attached to this man. The problem was that Leroy Fowler was also with someone else. Her name was Barbara Randall. Fowler had reconnected with Randall on Facebook, and by the time of his death, that relationship had been ongoing for approximately eight years, on and off, but ongoing. Randal new Church existed, Church knew Randall existed. Both women knew about each other, and the arrangement was not a source of peace for anybody involved. Randall, for her part, had a nickname for Church, She called her Grandma. She testified to that at trial without any apparent embarrassment. Fowler's son also named Leroy. Leroy. The third describe what Church thought of Randal in somewhat more pointed terms.

3:04 Church would call Randal names that don't belong in audio without a warning. She kept a doll with Randall's name written on it, a voodoo doll. She would stick pins in it, throw it around the house. This is not the behavior of someone who has made peace with a situation. This is the behavior of someone who has been consumed by it. Investigators also found notebooks in the bedroom, Church's handwriting her words, I hate being alone. I hate you for all the lies. You don't love me. This is not love. She had put her rage into writing stacks of it. Apparently, the defense would later call these entries private venting journal entries taken out of context, the outpourings of a heartbroken woman who ultimately forgave him every time he came home, which, to be fair, he did keep coming home. But here's where the outward story starts to diverge from what was happening beneath it. Doller's cousin, John Heywood Junior, testified that he was present when Church made a specific statement. He wasn't close with Fowler, but he remembered the moment clearly. Church had said directly, if he ever cheats on me, I'll poison him. The defense would argue this was a joke, an off color remark between people in a messy relationship. You have heard that defense before.

4:25 The jury heard it too. Then there is Michael Hawkins, Fowler's step son. Not biological, but the relationship was real. Fowler had gotten him into construction, mentored him, treated him like family. Hawkins testified that Fowler came to him with something specific. Fowler told Hawkins he thought Judy Church was poisoning him. He described his symptoms stomach bloating, dizziness, diarrhea, vomiting, difficulty breathing, and he told Hawkins something that I want you to sit with for a moment. He said, every time I leave Judy's house. I feel better. He knew, he said it out loud, he told someone he trusted, and he went back. But that's not even the most alarming thing, Hawkins testified to. Hawkins told investigators that Church had come to him with a proposal. She allegedly offered him ten thousand dollars to kidnap Leroy Fowler from Barbara Randall's home, tie him up and bring him back to her.

5:28 Ten thousand dollars to kidnap a man because he was spending time with someone else. That is not a relationship. That is a hostage situation waiting to happen. And one more detail from this period because it matters for what comes later. Approximately one year before Leroy Fowler's death, Judy Church had taken out a life insurance policy on him, not on herself, on him a man. She was not married to a man. She had no legal claim to a man. She was allegedly already worried about losing. The defense had an answer for all of this. Their answer was that Fowler was already getting ready to leave Randall and come home to Church permanently. Defense attorney Liam Scully told the jury that about a week before Fowler died.

6:15 He had broken up with Randall by text message. Fowler and Church were planning to move to Florida together. Church had in the defenses framing one Judy is won. If it's a competition, Scully said, so, how could her motive be to kill him? Then it's a fair question. The prosecution's answer was that jealousy and control don't always follow a logical timetable. A person who has spent years making voodoo dolls and writing furious notebook entries and offering money for kidnappings doesn't necessarily stop when the other woman is out of the picture. Sometimes the damage is already done. Sometimes the plan is already in motion. November eleventh, twenty twenty two, Leroy Fowler's fifty fifth birthday. The night of November eleventh, twenty twenty two, Leroy Fowler was at home with Judy Church. It was his birthday. He was fifty five years old. According to prosecutors, At some point during that day or evening, he drank from a power aid bottle, a red fruit punch Poweraid, the kind with red liquid in it, except this one didn't have red liquid in it.

7:35 It had orange liquid in it. The ethylene glycol changed the color, and because Fowler had lost much of his sense of taste after a COVID infection, he couldn't taste the difference. He liked sweets, he trusted what was in his own home, he drank it. Prosecutors say Church called nine one one that night at approximately eight pm. Her words to the dispatcher, my boyfriend must have ingested something he couldn't stand. He was pulling the bedroom apart. He had a bloody nose. But there is a detail that came out at trial that changes the shape of that call. Prosecutors told the jury that Church did not dial nine one one on her own. She made that call after Fowler begged her to. He was dying and he had to ask her to get help. When the first responders arrived, firefighters, then EMTs, then police, they found Leroy Fowler on the floor of the bedroom. Firefighter Adam Foss entered and found him in medical distress, unable to communicate, making only noises.

8:39 Fire Lieutenant Matthew Swemson tried calling Fowler's name. Fowler was unable to answer. He was reaching out with his arms. Swemson tried to get vital signs but Fowler kept moving. His breathing and pulse were still intact. They got him out. Lieutenant Richard Delary of the Salisbury Police Department was also on scene. He found one Fowler seated on the floor, struggling, grunting, trying to get up. When medical personnel asked questions, Fowler couldn't answer them. Church answered for him. Delaria noted there were no visible drugs or paraphernalia in the apartment. E. M. T. Jonathan Lemke took over and transported Fowler by ambulance. He asked Fowler about possible drug use. Fowler was responsive enough at that point to identify himself and describe how he was feeling. He admitted he had used percocet the night before.

9:31 That detail became part of the defense's theory that Fowler's medical problems were the result of his own substance use, not poisoning. When detectives came to speak with Church afterward, she refused to let them inside the door. She stepped outside and spoke with them on the threshold. She denied that Fowler had eaten or drunk anything before becoming ill. Her adult son, Douglas, was also there. He suggested the victim had suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. Neither of those explanations lined up with what Fowler's blood would show. Now, I need to tell you about the video. Massachusetts State Police digital forensic Sergeant Thomas Sullivan examined Church's iPhone. On it, he found videos that Church had recorded herself. Videos of Leroy Fowler struggling on the floor of their home, unable to speak, unable to get up, in obvious distress. The ethylene glycol was already attacking his kidneys, moving through his body, shutting things down. In one of those videos, you can hear Church's voice, She is asking him a question, the question is you having fun? The defense had an explanation for this too. They said Church was filming Fowler to document what his substance abuse looked like, to show him afterward how bad it had gotten. Maybe that's true. The jury heard it. The jury also heard the judge at sentencing described Church as having callously and heartlessly videotape mister

11:01 Fowler's suffering. The jury deliberated for eight and a half hours and came back with first degree murder. Fowler was taken first to Anajaq hospital in newbury Port. The situation was serious enough that he was transferred to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge for a higher level of care, and then to Beth Israel Hospital emergency room. Physicians assistant Angela Scheideger observed him there incoherent, unable to follow commands, thrashing on the stretcher. Lab work came back with abnormal results. A cerebral fluid test couldn't be administered because Fowler was too agitated. The doctor started to understand what they were looking at, the kidney damage, the specific pattern of organ failure.

11:45 They told Fowler's family what they believed he had ingested anti freeze. They believed he had been poisoned. Bowler's family did not hesitate. They called the police immediately. Bowler's sister, Tammy Carbone, spoke with Church during the period. She asked Church why she hadn't told the family sooner about how serious things were, and during one of those conversations, Church made a remark. She told Carbone, and I want you to understand the context here. Her boyfriend is in a hospital dying. She said, Oh, yeah, that's one of our jokes. I joke about poisoning him. I joke about poisoning his milkshakes. Leroy Fowler's son, Leroy the Third, saw his father on November thirteenth. His father was on a ventilator. The family made the decision together to remove him from life support.

12:33 Leroy Fowler died that day. He was fifty five years old. It was two days after his birthday. The police and prosecutors spent the next three and a half years building a case. The trial began March eighteenth, twenty twenty six, in Essex County, Salem. Nine days of testimony. I want to walk you through the key evidence the jury heard, because this case was one in the details. Start with the Poweraid bottle. Massachusetts State Police Sergeant David Strong executed the search warrant on Church's home, which he described as dirty and cluttered. Among the items found a red Poweraid fruit punch bottle that should have contained red liquid, it had orange liquid residue instead. Also found a rainexder bottle that had previously held orange liquid and was now empty, two notebooks in the bedroom. Forensic toxicologist Daniel Anderson from NMS Laboratories ran the tests. The results Fowler's blood came back at fifty two milligrams per desilator of ethylene glycol.

13:47 The Poweraid bottle tested at two thy four hundred milligrams per desolator. The renixdeiser tested at eleven milligrams per desolator for reference. There is no safe level of ethylene glycol in a human body. Any detectable amount is a medical emergency. DNA testing on the Power Aid bottle conducted by forensic scientists Julianna Hooper and Crista Lundgren from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab found Church's DNA on the cap, the mouth, and the exterior. Barbara Randall's DNA was specifically excluded from the results. The bottle was the murder weapon, and the prosecution said so plainly, let's talk about what ethylene glycol actually does. The active compound in anti freeze and many de icing products is sweet to the taste, genuinely sweet, which is why it has historically been consumed accidentally by children and pets. It's clear, largely odorless, easy to mix into a drink without detection. Once inside the body, it metabolizes into oxalic acid, which attacks the kidneys. The kidneys begin to fail. Calcium oxalate crystal's form in the kidney tissue the brain swells. Death from anti freeze poisoning can initially present as unexplained organ failure, which is exactly why it has been used as a domestic murder weapon for decades and exactly why Fowler's own doctors almost missed it.

15:12 Medical examiner and forensic pathologist, doctor Richard Atkinson reviewed the autopsy he performed on Fowler, as well as his medical records and the circumstances of his death. Upon internal examination, swollen brain, brainstem hemorrhage, heart disease, with an enlarged heart, atherosclerosis, slight fatty liver disease, and discolored granular kidney tissue. The calcium oxalate crystals in Fowler's kidneys were what confirmed it. That is the signature of ethylene glycol poisoning. That is how Leroy Fowler died. Doctor Edmund Crouch, a PhD toxicologist called by the defense, testified about the amount of ethylene glycol and fowler system. He concluded Fowler had twenty eight point five grams of ethylene glycol in his body, confirming the fifty two milligrams per desilt or reading. This was not disputed. The dispute was about how it got there.

16:09 The defense brought in their own chemist, Michael Kahn from MCR Labs, to address denatonium benzote, a bittering agent that manufactures add to anti freeze products, specifically to prevent accidental ingestion. The theory being that the poweraide would have tasted so unbearably bitter that Fowler would have immediately known something was wrong. The problem is that the prosecution had established earlier that Fowler had largely lost his sense of taste after COVID. He liked sweets, but he couldn't taste them well. The jury was left to weigh those two facts against each other. The witnesses, taken together, form a pattern that is hard to explain away. Fowler's cousin heard Church say she would poison Fowler if he cheated the steps un received a kidnapping offer. The sister heard the joke about poisoning his milkshakes.

17:00 At the hospital. While Fowler was dying, the son described the voodoo doll. The police found the notebooks with the rage filled entries. The digital forensics found the video. The defense's closing argument delivered by Stanley Norcunas tried to weave all of this into something more benign. Church and Fowler were in love. Fowler had chosen her. He was breaking up with Randall when he died. Church was a provider. She was transparent with police and gave them her iPhone password and email access. She was a bit of a fool, not a murderer. Fowler had real medical issues and was using cocaine. The relationship was bizarre, but not criminal. Prosecutor Andrew Camillio's closing pointed to something the defense couldn't easily explain the video. He told the jury that if you love someone and they were suffering like that in front of you, you would call an ambulance. You would not pick up your phone and film them asking if they were having fun. He called what happened to Leroy Fowler an act of extreme atrocity and cruelty. That language is not rhetorical in Massachusetts, it is a specific legal finding.

18:11 The jury agreed. The verdict came back on March thirtieth, twenty twenty six, after eight and a half hours of deliberations, guilty of first degree murder with premeditation and with extreme atrocity and cruelty. Five days later, April second, twenty twenty six, Judy Church stood in an Essex County courtroom for sentencing. She was asked if she wanted to address the court. She chose not to. Her attorney, speaking on her behalf, told the judge that he had advised her not to speak, they were already working on an appeal. She maintained her innocence throughout. She had nothing to say to the family of the man she was convicted of killing. She stood there emotionless and received the sentence. Judge James Lane noted that under Massachusetts law, first degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

19:08 There is no discretion, there is no range. That is the sentence. And then the judge said something he didn't have to say. He added that even if he had discretion, even if the law had given him the option to sentence her to something less, that is the exact sentence I would impose. The family had their moment before the sentence came down. Barbara Randall, Fowler's second girlfriend, the woman Church had made the voodoo doll of the woman. Church had tried to have Fowler kidnapped away from had a statement read on her behalf by prosecutor Andrew Camillio. She wrote, what she and Leroy had may not have been a conventional love story, but it was theirs. When Church took LeRoy's life, she didn't just take him from Barbara. She took him from his children and grandchildren, and from Barbara's grandchildren who had looked at him as their own. She wrote that Church didn't just take his life, she made him suffer. His final days were filled with confusion and pain and fear. He was left struggling, not understanding what was happening to his own body, fighting for his life as it was slowly being taken from him. Her words, no one deserves to suffer like that. No one deserves to have their life ended in fear and pain at the hands of someone he thought he could trust. Fowler's sister, Tammy Carbone, the same sister who had spoken to Church at the hospital, the same sister who heard Church call it a joke, delivered her own statement describing the grief of losing Leroy the way they lost him. She said,

20:40 losing a loved one is painful no matter what, But when it happens at the hands of someone else. It brings a pain like you've never felt before. She described sleepless nights, grief beyond explanation. Judy Church said, nothing showed, nothing is going to appeal. Here is what I keep coming back to. Leroy Fowler told his step son he thought Judy Church was poisoning him. He described the symptoms. He said he felt better every time he left her house. He said those exact words to someone he trusted, and he went back and nobody stopped him, and she did it anyway. I'm not here to assign blamed a Fowler or to the people around him. Fear and love and control look different from the inside. People stay in dangerous situations for a thousand different reasons, and very few of them are simple. But I will say this, when someone tells you they feel better every time they leave a person, that is not a relationship problem. That is a safety emergency, and it deserves to be treated like one. The defense will file their appeal. Whether anything comes of it remains to be seen. But as of today, Judy Church is sixty seven years old and she will die in prison.

21:54 That is the verdict of the jury of her peers. That is the judgment of Judge James Life, and that is the law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Leroy Fowler was fifty five years old. He had children and grandchildren who loved him. He had a step son he mentored, a sister who will not sleep, a second girlfriend who wrote about him in a victim impact statement because she had no other way left to honor what they shared. He died two days after his own birthday on a ventilator after his kidneys failed from a poison put into his drink by someone who claimed to love him. His name was Leroy Fowler. He should be here. That is the story of Judy Church and Leroy Fowler start to finish verdict to sentencing. When we touched on this case on March twentieth, we called it what it was, a man trapped in a house with someone who had decided she would rather see him dead than see him with someone else. The trial confirmed what the evidence had always suggested.

22:58 The jury took eight and a half hour. The judge took five minutes. The verdict is life without parole. Tomorrow we'll be back with whatever the day brings. If you've got a case you want us to cover. You know how to find us. I'm Garrett Fisher, Do Better. Disclaimer. Daily Crime and Justice is produced by Calarogus Shark Media. Research for this episode drew on reporting from Court, TV, CBS Boston, NBC Boston, The Boston Globe, and additional digital sources, as well as AI assisted research and aggregation. This program is intended as entertainment and informed commentary, not as legal fact or as substitute for court records. Details of ongoing cases are subject to change. The producers have made reasonable efforts to verify factual claims, but cannot guarantee the accuracy of all third party source material. This show does not represent the views of any court, law enforcement agency, or party to any preceding discussed herein four