Overton Alleged Wife’s Affairs in Lurid Detail

On his home computer and in notebooks, accused murderer Richard K. Overton kept meticulous diaries of his wife’s suspected lovers and her activities, including an ongoing inventory of what he called her “seduction gear”--lingerie, condoms and other sexual aids.

Transcripts from an Orange County Grand Jury hearing, released Monday, detail the extent to which Overton spied on his wife, Janet L. Overton, before she died of cyanide poisoning on Jan. 24, 1988.

They also reveal passages from his diary that sharply contradict public statements he has repeatedly made about Jan Overton, a popular Capistrano Unified School District trustee, whom he said he loved and had “a normal life with.”

“This isn’t a diary of his Kama Sutra, of the sexual relationships with his wife,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans told the grand jury. “This is a diary of hate and loathing. . . . You read his diary; he suspects the town of Dana Point” of having affairs with Jan Overton.

Defense attorney Robert D. Chatterton declined to discuss the evidence presented to the grand jury, which indicted Overton on a murder charge Oct. 1 after taking testimony from 22 witnesses. He said he would not argue the case in the news media. Overton has pleaded not guilty.

Chatterton pointed out that the grand jury hearing was a “one-sided proceeding; (the jurors) didn’t hear from me or from Mr. Overton. Almost anybody can win before the grand jury.”

Nearly 500 pages of testimony, which include the contents of Overton’s notebooks and computer disks, show an apparent disparity between his statements to sheriff’s officers investigating Jan Overton’s death and his alleged admission, in 1973, of having poisoned his first wife.

The transcripts further reveal an unusual twist in the saga in the form of testimony from a family friend who recalled a discussion between Jan and Richard about suicide. According to the witness, Jan in that discussion said that if she committed suicide, she would want to die by taking cyanide administered by Richard.

Overton’s diaries surfaced during a search of his Dana Point home, where sheriff’s deputies confiscated 131 computer disks and 30 hard-bound notebooks. The disks had been erased and many entries in the notebook for January, 1988, the month Jan Overton died, were either whited out or cut from the page with a razor blade.

With the help of a San Francisco-based data recovery firm, sheriff’s crime-lab technicians said they retrieved the computer entries, and intense light was used to decipher the whited-out portions of the notebook.

The recovered entries were compiled by the district attorney’s office in 10 printed pages that were presented to the grand jury.

From the diaries, Evans characterized Overton as harboring “incredible suspicion against his wife for cheating on him, incredible suspicion for certain sexual practices that his wife was engaging in, and incredible suspicion about paramours of his wife.”

According to the grand jury transcripts, Overton kept track of such things as his wife’s condom supply and sexual aids, including a vibrator. Overton noted in detail the vibrator’s size and location in a locked file. He apparently knew when it was there and when it was not.

In one entry labeled “BACKGROUND,” Overton wrote: “On 3 December ‘86, and again around April 1, ‘87, I had taken inventory of seduction gear. . . . In a chest of drawer, she had two pair of . . . panties from Frederick’s. One pair is purple, the other very light pink. . . . Other seduction gear from Frederick’s--gowns, . . . bras, etc--were still missing. So were the two silk sheets. (All those items had been missing for a couple of years).”

On Oct. 21, 1987, four months before his wife died, he made an entry into his computer about “a secret lunch date” Jan had that day. “She left at 10:45 and returned at 2:40. She said she had gone to the new hotel, a couple of miles from our house. She had driven 16 miles. I saw (her lover) too. He had acted totally congenial. He is a superb actor and liar.”

Overton wrote that Jan had modified her Dodge van in 1985 to make the rear of it suitable for having sex, and she once told him in March, 1987, that she wanted him dead. “Jan declared very coldly and calmly, ‘I want you to die,’ and a few minutes later . . . ‘I feel that a lot,’ ” he wrote.

The notes in the handwritten diary for January, 1988, were often cryptic and in Overton’s own brand of shorthand. Though incomplete, prosecutors say they show more evidence of an unhappy marriage.

“Jan says our relationship is heading for the (bricks or rocks),” Overton wrote. “If something doesn’t happen fairly soon (statement is incomplete) . . . She says I show no warmth to anyone, including little children. She says that in this caring for her in sickness, what I really showed was panic about the possible loss of a quote, mother, unquote.”

Evans, in his summation to the grand jury, underscored the distinction between what Overton told sheriff’s investigators and other contradictory evidence.

“When you compare the (Overton-sheriff’s investigators) interview with the facts of the case,” Evans said, “Mr. Overton has tied himself in a terrible, terrible knot.”

The contradictions include versions about what happened the morning of Jan Overton’s death. Richard Overton told investigators that his wife “might have gone out” before he arose that morning and that he had been sleeping when he heard the commotion related to her collapse outside on the driveway.

Evans countered: “(That) doesn’t square with the testimony” of Eric Overton, the couple’s son, then 17. The young man testified that both his mother and father were up and dressed before she collapsed.

Evans indicated to the grand jury that this inconsistency of memory could be significant because if Richard Overton were not out of bed before Jan had her morning breakfast, it would have reduced his opportunity to poison her.

Later, in a lengthy interview with Sheriff’s Deputy Timothy Carney of the homicide unit, Richard Overton denied any wrongdoing. A tape of that lengthy query was played for the grand jury.

During the interview that seesawed between friendly questioning and aggressive interrogation, Overton said he loved his wife and unequivocally denied killing her. Except for one affair, he said, their marital relationship was normal in almost every way.

“Oh, there was an episode years ago when I caught her cheating on me,” Evans quoted Overton as saying. “We got over that. We grew--we grew past that. We became better . . . we had a normal life.”

Overton also said he was not familiar with cyanide, did not have access to it and did not know anyone who had cyanide, according to the grand jury transcripts.

The transcripts show, however, that Overton was a friend of Melvin L. Hubbard of Capistrano Beach, a miner who was his partner in a gold mine in Sonora, Mexico. Hubbard testified that Overton had access to his house and that he stored cyanide in a lab on his property. It was used, Hubbard said, to separate gold from ore.

Hubbard also recalled that he might have had a conversation with Overton about cyanide. But, he told the grand jury, he never noticed that any cyanide was missing from his lab.

The powerful chemical figured, too, in the testimony of Sandra Locke, a family friend who said that Richard and Jan Overton had kept cyanide in an upstairs refrigerator. Locke, a high-school classmate of one of Richard Overton’s daughters from a previous marriage, said the cyanide was described to her during an October, 1980, conversation with the couple.

Locke testified that Jan Overton told her that the cyanide was to be used in case of a nuclear attack or an incurable illness.

She recalled: “I asked her, you know, what it looked like. And she said that it was in a powder form, in a jar on a second shelf with the food. . . .

“And I said, ‘Why do you need something like that?’ And she goes: ‘Well, you don’t understand. If there’s a nuclear explosion . . . I do not want to be suffering. I don’t want my family to suffer. . . . (If) I have an illness like cancer, and there’s no doctor that can cure me, and I’m laying in my bed, and I am weak, I expect my husband to be sitting by me. . . . I would expect him to give me a cup of cyanide.’ ”

Locke added that Jan Overton turned to her husband and said: “ ‘You would do that for me, wouldn’t you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, dear.’ “ ‘Sandy, that’s not murder. That’s an act of love,’ ” Locke quoted Jan Overton as saying. “ ‘I’m not saying that if I’m sick . . . I’m going to have him give it to me. I’m going to make sure that . . . nothing else can be done for me.’ ”

In another apparent contradiction, Richard Overton denied to sheriff’s investigators that he ever confessed to poisoning his first wife, Dorothy Boyer.

Evans, noting Overton’s reluctance to admit to the poisoning, asked the grand jury during his summation: “Wouldn’t you remember confessing to an active-duty police detective about something as serious as poisoning your wife?”

Retired Sheriff’s Deputy Cliff Miller testified that Overton admitted in 1973 that he had put Drano and prescription medicine into Boyer’s milk and coffee following their divorce in 1969. At the time, Miller was investigating Boyer’s complaint that someone was tampering with her food.

Overton’s confession, Miller said, came after they had caught him trying to put something in one of Boyer’s coffee cans in a kitchen cabinet. Miller recalled that Overton steadfastly denied any impropriety until investigators told him that they had found his fingerprints on the coffee can.

Overton was never prosecuted, Miller said, because Boyer did not want to cause her ex-husband any problems and wanted to be left alone. “Mr. Overton did admit that he had psychological problems, and arrangements had been made for him to seek psychological help,” Miller testified.

This story was written by Times staff writers Matt Lait and Dan Weikel, based on reporting by David Willman, Lait and Weikel.

Who’s Who in Overton Case

The following is a list of key witnesses who testified before the Orange County Grand Jury, which indicted Richard K. Overton on Oct. 1 on a charge of killing his wife, Janet, with a dose of cyanide.

* Dorothy Boyer, Richard Overton’s first wife. She testifies that he poisoned her food and drink shortly after their divorce in 1969.

* Deputy Timothy Carney, a sheriff’s homicide investigator assigned to the Overton case. He testifies about the seizure of notebooks and computer disks from the Overton home and his interviews with Richard Overton.

* Dr. Joseph Halka, the Orange County forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Janet Overton. He testifies that she died because she ingested a lethal amount of cyanide the final morning of her life.

* Melvin L. Hubbard, a gold miner who had a limited partnership with Richard Overton in a gold mine in Sonora, Mexico. He testifies that he kept sodium cyanide in a chemical lab at his home to separate gold from ore and that Richard Overton had access to his home.

* Sandra Locke, a friend of the Overton family. She testifies about a discussion in the Overton household one day in 1980, during which Janet and Richard talked about death by cyanide.

* Clifford Miller, a retired sheriff’s deputy who investigated a complaint by Dorothy Boyer. He testifies that Overton admitted poisoning Boyer in 1973.

* Eric Overton, the son of Richard and Janet Overton. He testifies that his father canceled a first call to paramedics after his mother collapsed in the driveway of their Dana Point home.