Adolf Czojor (pronounced CHOY-or) lived in Bear, DE, in the United States. Born around 1935, he grew up in war-time Germany and his life was a series of tragedies. His home was bombed. His brother became a prisoner of war. His father disappeared and presumably died fighting on the Russian front; his mother was placed in a concentration camp. With no one left to care for him, Adolf spent his childhood in an orphanage in Poland. As a young man he was reunited with his surviving family. In 1957, he migrated to the U.S. with his mother, his stepfather, and his wife.

Adolf’s marriage to his first wife Elsa lasted 24 years and resulted in a son and two daughters. After an amicable divorce, he remarried another divorcee, Madeline Joan Thomas Reese, in 1983. His marriage to Joan bequeathed him with three stepdaughters and two stepsons, as she had been previously married to a man named Joe Reese.

Life was going great for Adolf in 1996. Adolf had worked as a sausage maker for over 30 years, but told his employer Springer & Thomas that he would be retiring in July. According to Adolf’s family, he loved to cook and clean, and waited on his wife hand and foot. His wife Joan even told the local newspaper, “No man has ever treated me so good.” In his free time he enjoyed bowling and betting on the ponies at Delaware Park Race Track and Casino, although friends say he never met a winning horse.

Friday, April 26, 1996, was his 13th wedding anniversary, and it turned out to be an unlucky one. He and his wife Joan were celebrating that evening, but when he invited her to come to the track with him, she decided to stay home. There are few details about his night at Delaware Park; one witness, a waitress, had noticed him sleeping in the simulcast lounge area when she left work after midnight. Not long afterwards, a person brushed past Adolf, accidentally knocking him out of his chair. As he was unresponsive, paramedics were called. Around 1 AM he was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. Around 2:30 AM Joan was summoned to the hospital, where she was told her husband had died.

The medical examiner conducted an autopsy and concluded Adolf had died of a heart attack. Given his age, the finding was unsurprising. Some consolation could be found knowing Adolf died doing something he loved.

But then the Assistant State Medical Examiner, Adrienne Sekular-Perlman, received a mysterious phone call: “Are you sure Adolf died of a heart attack?” Curious, the ME decided to order toxicology tests.

The Widow Czojor

After she found out her husband was dead, Joan returned home. She rang her neighbors, Helen and Fred Marini, at 5:30 AM. They rushed over to console their grieving friend, not anticipating how odd and disturbing the morning’s events would be.

First, Joan shook a silver vial in front of Helen’s face. Joan claimed the pills had been found in her husband’s pocket at the hospital, and she didn’t know what they were as Adolf had never mentioned being on medication or going to the doctor. According to Fred Marini, “She was more exhilarated or excited than grief-stricken.”

At some point, Joan had reached out to her ex-husband, Joe Reese, and he had arrived at the house. The couple watched as he retrieved Adolf’s burgundy Members Only jacket and tried it on, commenting that it was a little snug, but that it would be all right.

Perhaps most suspicious was Joan’s industriousness that morning. Within three hours she had enlisted Helen to go over the insurance policies with her “to see how much he was worth.” After determining that Joan was the beneficiary of at least $65,000, Joan had Helen call Adolf’s employer to request the payout.

That morning, in the immediate wake of Adolf’s death, was just the beginning of the odd behavior of Joan and the Reese family following Adolf’s death. Joan’s ex-husband Joe, who had been living with their daughter Terrie Reese, moved into the home Joan and Adolf had shared a mere two weeks later. Joan denied anything was amiss, claiming she was charging Joe rent.

A Poisonous Twist

Seven weeks after Adolf’s death, the ME received the toxicology results. The mysterious phone caller had been correct: Adolf did not die of a mere heart attack. He had been poisoned with cyanide.

The results were surprising for a number of reasons. According to an April 1997 article, at the time of the case there had been no known cyanide poisonings in the state of Delaware since a woman had been caught after spiking her husband’s asparagus soup.

Given two months had already passed, detectives were left with little to work with: no crime scene, no surveillance footage (it was taped over every two weeks), and limited recollections from employees at the track. And, no silver vial of pills. Joan said she lost it.

With this revelation, Joan began to tell everyone that Adolf’s death was a suicide. Adolf’s family vehemently disagreed. At least two of Adolf’s children stopped speaking to their stepmother. According to his son Peter, “His death was like a bomb. When we found out it was murder, it was like a nuclear type.”

The Investigation

Given that cyanide is not as easy to obtain as many poisons, police tried to track down a lead. Soon they found that Terrie Reese, Joan and Joe’s daughter, worked as a material control operator at a chemical company and had access to cyanide.

In October 1996, the police were ready to push the investigation forward. They brought Joan and Terrie Reese in for questioning. Both insisted on their innocence. Joan even told a local television station that she would be happy to take a polygraph to prove her innocence.

Within days of being questioned, Terrie Reese had a nervous breakdown. She did not return to work for two months. Joan blamed Terrie being “humiliated” by the police investigation. The police pressed on, however.

Although police will not comment on any polygraphs or their results, according to Joan, she and her daughter agreed to take polygraphs on February 21. Interestingly, although Terrie had returned to work after her breakdown, she had another relapse in early February and was hospitalized.

Joan said she agreed to take the test because Delaware State Police Detective John Evans told her he would leave them alone if they passed.

They didn’t. Joan told reporters her test was inconclusive and that her daughter had failed on a question: “Did you take chemicals from DuPont?”

Conclusion

At this time, no one has been charged with the murder of Adolf Czojor. Adolf’s death is listed as a cold case homicide by the Delaware State Police. There is a post on their homepage, but it has Adolf’s name spelled differently (Adolph) and says he was poisoned with arsenic rather than cyanide.

As Joan’s ex-husband Joe Reese predicted on the one-year anniversary of Adolf’s death: “I just really believe this is going to end up as an unsolved case.”

Questions

Without the mysterious caller, it seems Adolf’s death would never have been revealed as a homicide. Who do you think the caller was?

Obviously the deck is somewhat stacked given a lack of info on this case, but to what extent do you think Joan, Terrie, and/or Joe were involved in Adolf’s murder?

If you were the cold case investigator, what angles would you be pursuing now, 23 years later? (I’ll note a crude search seems to indicate that Joan, 87, is still living in Bear, DE, and that Joe died in 2005).

References

I found very little on this case, and because of that my writeup is heavily based on an excellent article, “Mystery shrouds poisoning death” by Terri Sanginiti in the Wilmington, Delware, newspaper, The News Journal. (April 27, 1997)

Delaware State Police cold case homicide listing:

https://dsp.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/118/2019/06/Czojor-Adolph.pdf

Adolf Czojor, 61, sausage maker. May 24, 1996, obituary in Newark Post (p. 26).

Mrs. Thees Heidelberg. August 5, 1971, obituary in The Morning News (p. 26).