On this day, Aug. 28, in 1965, the 32-year-old wife of Dr. Carl Coppolino was found dead in Longboat Key, Fla., two years after the doctor’s mistress’s husband died under suspicious circumstances.
Sarasota County sheriff’s deputies soon got a tip that there was something odd about the deaths. The tipster was Marge Farber, the doctor’s widowed mistress.
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Farber, recently dumped by Coppolino for a wealthy, younger divorcee, told a weird story of being hypnotized by Coppolino while he smothered her husband, a retired Army colonel.
Coppolino was charged with both murders. Boston lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who won murder acquittals for Dr. Sam Sheppard a year earlier, successfully defended Coppolino on charges in the husband’s murder and seemed a sure bet to win the second case.
But the prosecutors put together a methodical case, showing how Coppolino, an anesthesiologist, injected his wife with a deadly dose of succinylcholine chloride to collect the life insurance.
The jury found Coppolino guilty. He served 12 years before his parole.
– Scott McCabe
