Man on trial for cold case 20 years later

A case gone cold for two decades could finally see justice. California police charged Paul Curry with the 1994 death of his wife.

ABC: "Jury selection is under way in the trial of Paul Curry, the 57-year-old accused of poisoning his wife Linda 20 years ago, cashing in on insurance money and moving to another state to start a new life."

According to the Orange County District Attorney, Curry collected $400,000 from his wife's life insurance policy. In 2010, police arrested him in Kansas, where he had been living after she died.

Paul and Linda were married two years before she started to develop a strange illness that baffled doctors for more than a year. She died before physicians could come to a conclusion. However, forensic investigators found she had high levels of nicotine in her blood. Linda was a nonsmoker.

Investigators say the husband and former resident of San Clemente has been a suspect from the start. Even though some outlets report it's taken police two decades to link him to the murder, the case was only reopened in 2007.

So what will put Curry on the stand? The district attorney's office refers to "newly developed evidence" that was not previously available. The lead prosecutor told KABC, "Science's ability to determine the amount of nicotine in somebody's system and how lethal it is, and the timing of it, was able to help us."

After Linda's death in '94, Curry told the Los Angeles Times, "I'm not convinced that she died of nicotine poisoning. I'm not convinced that this diagnosis is any different from the long list of others that we got before she died. They were all wrong."

Curry has pleaded not guilty in the case. If found guilty, he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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