249: Faylene Grant & Peanuts!

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Faylene Grant’s death could have been many things. It could have been an accident. It could have been a suicide. It could have been cold-blooded murder. It could have been the result of emotional manipulation at the hands of her husband, Doug Grant. It was difficult to say for certain what led to the drowning death of 35-year-old Faylene Grant. But when her husband remarried just three weeks after Faylene died, it raised some eyebrows.

Then Kristin tells us a truly vomitrocious story. At its peak, the Peanut Corporation of America produced peanuts, peanut butter and peanut powder for major food conglomerates like Sara Lee, Kelloggs and General Mills. They supplied peanut butter to hospitals, nursing homes and schools. Over the years, their profits soared. But their factories were unsanitary. Their workers were badly paid. Worst of all, the people in charge didn’t care about whether the food that they sent all over the country was safe to consume.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
The episode of American Greed, “From Peanuts to Sick Millions”
“The rise and fall of a peanut empire,” by Lyndsey Layton and Nick Miroff for NBC News
“PCA prison terms put industry on notice about accountability,” by Kathy Holliman for foodqualityandsafety.com
“Praise for an unlikely whistleblower,” by Darin Detwiler for Food Safety News
“Michael Parnell’s attorney paints him as the ‘little guy’ in the PCA case,” by Dan Flynn for Food Safety News
“Unprecedented verdict: Peanut executive guilty in deadly salmonella outbreak,” by Moni Basu for CNN
“Former peanut executive sentenced to 28 years in prison,” by Brady Dennis for the Washington Post

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“A Divine Death” episode A Wedding and a Murder
“Fatal Visions” episode Dateline
“Mormon Widower Doug Grant Wasn’t Counting on a Murder Rap When He Followed His Late Wife’s Instruction to Marry His Ex-Lover” by Paul Rubin, Phoenix New Times
“Doug Grant Gets Five Years After Slain Wife’s Sister Pressed for His Conviction Based on a Dream” by Paul Rubin, Phoenix New Times
“Grant v. Grant” casetext.com
“Woman sues over mom's 2001 drowning” by Gary Grado, East Valley Tribune

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