The Murder of Sandra Coulthard

On July 9, 1988, 30-year-old High Point, North Carolina resident Sandra Coulthard passed away at Duke University Medical Center. She’d been sick for about six months with vomiting, diarrhea, vomiting, and numbness of her feet and fingers. Doctors had diagnosed her with Guillain-Barre syndrome and had been treating her for it, but her symptoms never improved.

Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that causes a person’s immune system to attack their nervous system. It often begins suddenly and as symptoms increase, can cause weakness and paralysis. While there is no cure for Guillain-Barre, treatments such as plasma exchange and intravenous immunoglobulin therapy can be administered for relief of symptoms.

Sandy, a married mother with two small children, first went to High Point Regional Hospital in early June of 1988 before being transferred to Duke University Medical Center. Sandy was a member of the High Point Junior League and Emerywood Baptist Church. She and her husband Robert Franklin Coulthard, Jr. had both met at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and had been married since 1982.

When the results of Sandy’s autopsy came back from the state medical examiner’s office, they showed she had died from arsenic poisoning. Dr. John Butts, the chief state medical examiner, said, “It was our feeling that she had had more than one dose of arsenic.”

Investigators arranged to have Sandy’s body exhumed after the autopsy results were released so they could remove hair samples. On September 19, 1988, police arrested her husband, 31-year-old Robert Coulthard, and charged him with first-degree murder. Robert was then a vice-president at Crestwood Furniture Company. Guilford District Attorney said that Sandy had received at least one dose of arsenic after she had been admitted to Duke in June of 1988.

After the news of Robert’s arrest was released, neighbors of the couple said they couldn’t believe he’d been involved in his wife’s death. They thought Robert and Sandy were both nice and seemed happy. Within two months of his arrest, the community learned that Robert was indeed guilty of the crime he’d been charged with—he admitted it himself when he pleaded guilty in late November of 1988. Guilford District Attorney Jim Kimel said Sandy Coulthard’s autopsy showed she had 142 times the normal concentration of arsenic found in humans.

Tests conducted on her hair samples showed she had received at least five separate doses, beginning in December 1987. She had likely been given the first dose in fast-food hamburger purchased by Robert. This also meant she had poisoned with arsenic while she was carrying the couple’s second child, a son who was only a year old when she passed away. Their daughter was three at the time.

District Attorney Kimel said records showed Robert Coulthard ordered arsenic from a New Jersey chemical company on September 26, 1986. This was five days after he returned from a trip with a woman he was having an affair with. The arsenic was shipped to Robert’s workplace at the time, Hickory Furniture Company in High Point. He used a personal check to pay for the poison. But a co-worker noticed the box displaying a skull and crossbones, and jokingly asked if he planned to kill his wife, to which he replied, “No, we have a rat problem.”

After Sandy became ill in April of 1988, Robert applied for an increase in life insurance benefits for his wife. The request was denied because Sandy was being treated for what doctor’s thought was Guillain-Barre syndrome. When she passed away, the couple had $351,000 in life insurance policies naming Robert and the two children as the beneficiaries.

Assistant District Attorney Richard Lyle said he believed Robert’s motive for murder was that he wanted out of his marriage to Sandy so he could proceed with his other romantic relationship.

The judge in the case ruled that the prosecutors had insufficient evidence of aggravating factors for a jury to consider the death penalty for Robert Coulthard. Those aggravating factors involve a person murdering for financial gain and carrying out a murder that was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel. Doctors at Duke University Medical Center said Sandy Coulthard didn’t suffer before her death because she was on medication most of the time she was ill. I’m sure Sandy would probably disagree that she wasn’t suffering from the poisoning. Instead, Robert Coulthard received a sentence of life in prison, where he still sits today.

A professor and researcher from Davidson College named Cynthia Lewis discussed the murder of Sandy Coulthard in a journal article she wrote for the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture titled “Monstrous Arrogance: Husbands Who Choose Murder over Divorce.” She interviewed Mark McNeill, who was a detective on the case when Sandy was murdered. He shared that immediately after Sandy’s death, Robert went to a pay phone in the hospital to call his mistress. He called Robert “an organized psychopath.” Investigators believed Robert had his children listed as the beneficiaries of the couple’s life insurance policies so he couldn’t be accused of profiting off her murder.

They thought he wasn’t just seeking an escape from his wife, but possibly from his whole family. He had become addicted to gambling and enjoyed living a high-roller lifestyle with other women. Investigators theorized he either was going to use the life insurance money as a trust fund for his children, where someone else like Sandy’s parents could raise them, or he could use that money to fund the unencumbered lifestyle he was seeking. His children did indeed go to live with their maternal grandparents after he was sentenced for the murder.

After Sandy’s death, her family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against High Point Regional Hospital and Duke University Medical Center, claiming physicians failed to act upon blood test results that showed Sandy had high levels of arsenic in her system before she died. They eventually reached an undisclosed settlement with High Point Regional Hospital and two doctors named in the suit, and filed for a voluntary dismissal of the case against Duke University and Private Diagnostic Clinic of Durham and High Point Internal Medicine Associates. 

Sandra Coulthard’s story appeared as part of Episode 138 of the Missing in the Carolinas Podcast, Murdered by Poison-The Deaths of Sandy Coulthard, Eric Miller, and Stacy Hunsucker.