Woman Accused of Slipping Deadly Poison into Daughter's Drink Will Not Face Death Penalty
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By Charlotte Phillipp
Published on March 2, 2026.
North Carolina woman, Gudrun Linda Casper-Leinenkugel, is accused of poisoning the drinks of at least four people and killing two of them, including her daughter, Leela Jean Livis. The alleged poisonings occurred during a Thanksgiving gathering when three attendees, Livis, Richard Pegg and Mia Lacey, drank from the same wine bottle laced with acetonitrile, a chemical used in manufacturing that metabolizes into cyanide and leads to delayed toxicity. The case also led detectives to evidence linking Casper to the 2007 death of Michael Schmidt in Henderson County.
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