News

Same poison linked to four alleged victims in murder, attempted murder case

By Amy McCraw, Published: January 21, 2026

The man a Hendersonville woman is accused of murdering in 2007 died from the same chemical investigators say was used to poison her two daughters and another man late last year, according to an amended death certificate.

Henderson County sheriff’s deputies on Friday charged Gudrun Linda Jean Casper-Leinenkugel with first-degree murder in the death of Michael Schmidt, who died in October 2007.
Sheriff’s detectives also charged Casper-Leinenkugel with the murder last month of Leela Jean Livis, 32, and the attempted murder of Livis’s half-sister, Maija Lacey, and Richard Evan Pegg. Casper-Leinenkugel is the mother of both Livis and Lacey.
She is also charged with three counts of causing the “ingestion (of) a beverage which contained a poisonous chemical.”
Warrants for Casper-Leinenkugel’s arrest identified the poisonous chemical as acetonitrile.
A death certificated filed in Henderson County’s courthouse shortly after Schmidt’s death in 2007 showed his cause of death as “pending autopsy.”
But a supplemental report to the original death certificate filed in May 2008 listed the immediate cause of Schmidt’s death as “acute acetonitrile toxicity (probably huffing).” It also listed his manner of death as accidental.
A common industrial organic solvent, acetonitrile when ingested “is slowly converted to cyanide, resulting in delayed toxicity,” the National Institutes of Health said in a report on the “deliberate self-poisoning by a 39-year-old woman” that resulted in cyanide poisoning 11 hours later. (Doctors saved the woman’s life by administering concentrated doses of sodium nitrite and thiosulphate.)
Schmidt transferred his property at 15 Schmidt Terrace to Casper-Leinenkugel in 2006, Henderson County land records show.
An investigation into his death began on Oct. 29, 2007, after he died earlier in the day at Casper-Leinenkugel’s home at 15 Schmidt Terrace, according to an incident report from Henderson County’s Sheriff’s Office.
Livis, Lacey and Pegg fell ill after consuming wine during a Thanksgiving gathering at Casper-Leinenkugel’s home on Schmidt Terrace, authorities and family members said.
Hours after the meal, she received a text from her daughter, Leela, saying that she and Pegg were vomiting and feeling unwell. Maija also had gotten sick after the meal, Assistant District Attorney Robert Reeves said during Casper-Leinenkugel’s first court appearance on Tuesday.
Detectives later learned that the three victims drank from the same bottle of wine during the gathering.
Their investigation also determined that Casper-Leinenkugel had asked Google “what to do if I accidentally ingest acetonitrile?” after learning of the illnesses of the people who attended the meal. She also asked the internet “Does wine turn into cyanide?” Reeves said. Arrest warrants accuse the defendant of lacing the victims’ beverages with acetonitrile, and that chemical was found during a search of her home, the prosecutor said.
Blood tests revealed that five times the legal dose of the substance was later found in the blood of Livis. Tests also confirmed the other victims had ingested the chemical, Reeves said.
Livis died on Dec. 1 in her home in Cullowhee a day after attending the gathering at Casper-Leinenkugel’s home. The cause of her death is listed as pending, according to a death certificate for Livis filed in Jackson County.
Henderson County began investigating her death on Dec. 30, according to a in incident report from the sheriff’s department.
Casper-Leinenkugel is being held in Henderson County’s jail under no bond.