Brian Stewart on February 6,

Brian Stewart

On February 6, 1992, at St. Joseph's Hospital West, in Lake St. Louis, Missouri, Brian Stewart injected his 11-month-old son with HIV-contaminated blood. The boy was in the hospital being treated for asthma and pneumonia. The boy's mother left the room, and reentered to find her son crying and inconsolable after Stewart had entered the room. The boy was diagnosed with AIDS in 1996. While there was a significant gap in time between the infection and the diagnosis, there were not intervening factors that would have resulted in the child becoming HIV positive. Moreover, Stewart had repeatedly made threats to harm people using contaminated blood when he was angry. The theoretical motive for the crime was that Stewart wanted to avoid having to pay child support for his son.

Stewart was convicted of first-degree assault in December 1998. The assault charge was an intentional choice by the county prosecutor because first-degree assault carried a greater penalty than attempted murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, with the sentencing judge expressing significant disgust for his crime. However, Stewart became eligible for parole in 2011. If his son dies as a result of the HIV infection, Stewart can be tried for murder, as murder is not an included offense in the first-degree assault conviction and a second trial would not violate his right to be free from double-jeopardy. Stewart, through his attorney, continues to maintain his innocence. He suggests that the boy's mother made an allegation which was accepted, without sufficient questioning, by police officials, but that Stewart did not inject his child. However, the facts that he had threatened to inject people with infected blood and that the child would not otherwise have been exposed to HIV certainly indicate that the charges are believable, even if they are horrific.

Richard Minns

Barbara Piotrowski was a California athlete and pre-med student when she met and fell in love with Texas millionaire Richard Minns. Richard "Dick" Minns was a wealthy businessman who owned a prominent health club in Houston, Texas. Married to his wife of 25 years and the father of four children, Minns nonetheless pursued Piotrowski, who was 24 years his junior. The two became involved in a serious romantic relationship. Piotrowski maintains that she believed Minns' statements that he was in an open marriage, and the fact that she repeatedly appeared in public with him certainly seemed to verify his assertions that his wife knew of their affair. However, at some time, Piotrowski became dissatisfied with the affair. She broke up with Minns, who did not take the break-up well. He allegedly hired a series of individuals to harass her, including tapping her phones and following her. When intimidation did not prove sufficient to bring Piotrowski back into his arms, Minns allegedly hired a hit-man to try to kill her. Piotrowski was shot four times, which resulted in her paralysis.