MADISON (WKOW) -- New information revealed in court sheds light on the connection between three hazmat scenes in the Madison area this week.
According to Dane County Assistant District Attorney William Brown, the suspect, Paul Van Duyne, attempted to poison two former love interests with cyanide. He's been booked into the Dane County Jail on charges of attempted homicide and stalking.
A woman named Andrea Whitaker has been arrested on a charge of harboring/aiding a felon in connection with this case.
The hazmat scenes on W. Skyline Drive, N. Spooner Street and Schroeder Road are all a part of this investigation.
During a bail hearing for Van Duyne's co-defendant, Whitaker, Brown described an elaborate scheme he accused Van Duyne of concocting to poison two women. Brown accused Van Duyne of breaking into a woman's car while she was in the parking lot of Costco in Middleton and putting cyanide in her water bottle. Brown said this happened on two occasions.
Brown said Van Duyne attempted a similar cyanide poisoning with a separate woman in Rock County. He said in this case, the woman's gym water bottle was poisoned with cyanide, and a powdery substance was located in her car. She had to be hospitalized.
Van Duyne was arrested on Sunday night when he arrived at the second woman's Rock County home.
When Van Duyne was arrested, Brown said he called Whitaker and instructed her to remove a variety of items from his home that Brown said would implicate him in the crime like his computer and "very likely" poisons involved in this case.
Whitaker's attorney argued there was a lack of evidence or a complaint citing Whitaker's direct involvement and that she had not been charged. He said Whitaker may have just been completing a favor for Van Duyne by removing items from his home, without the full scope of his request.
Brown said Whitaker's involvement in the crimes Van Duyne is accused of committing may be more intimate than the removal of that property.
"This is not a situation in which we have someone who's just a girlfriend or someone who does something bad, and they call and say, hey, help me out. That case happens every week in Dane County," Brown said. "This is beyond that. I can't remember in my career, seeing a situation where the risk to the public is so great, but also the evidence seems to be so documented and clear of what the plan was, in which these two women have almost lost their lives, so we're not speculating," Brown said.
He also said Whitaker's search history included phrases such as "cyanide lethal dose" and "Does potassium cyanide powder go bad?" Brown called message conversations between Van Duyne and Whitaker "extraordinarily concerning." He said they talked about different poisons and how to make them, adding that Whitaker has an academic background in pharmacology.
"It does appear that this defendant [Whitaker] and Van Duyne have started dating and apparently created this plot to kill his ex-girlfriends by poisoning them," Brown said.
Dane County Court Commissioner Karie Cattanach said the severity of the potential charges against Whitaker warranted her issuing a $750,000 cash bail. Whitaker and Van Duyne are scheduled to be back in court on Friday, following Thursday's Juneteenth holiday.
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