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In April 1965, Archerd—calling himself James Lynn Arden—took Bride No. 7 (marriages Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 6 ended in divorce or annulment). His new wife was Mary Brinker Post, 59, a widow with grown children, a successful author of short stories and novels for the women's market (Annie Jordan, Prescription for Marriage), and a public relations woman. Mary was admitted in a coma to Pomona Valley Community Hospital last November and died next day of hypoglycemia—shortage of blood sugar. Her death was one coincidence too many, and the Los Angeles County sheriff's department finally put eight detectives on the trail of Archerd, who had been convicted of peddling narcotics in the early '50s. More than 25 years ago, it turned out, he had worked as an orderly in the insulin-shock ward of a state mental hospital.
* If Archerd is convicted, he will be only the second known insulin murderer. The first, English Male Nurse Kenneth Barlow, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1957 for the murder of his wife by insulin injection. A natural hormone, insulin helps to control the body's use of sugar for energy. Injected into diabetics, it lowers an abnormally high bloodsugar level. Too great a dosage, however, can bring the sugar content down to the danger point, bringing on convulsions, coma-and death.