His death did not stand out initially among other deaths of seriously ill patients, but investigators later determined he was given water laced with cyanide. The cyanide was dissolved in a cup and administered to him to drink, and his death was classified as an intentional poisoning.

Buehlmann’s killing occurred during a concentrated cluster of suspicious deaths at Drake Memorial. That cluster drew scrutiny after a March 1987 autopsy on another patient, John Powell, revealed an unusually large amount of cyanide and led investigators to focus on hospital orderly Donald Harvey. Harvey was arrested in April 1987, and his subsequent confessions and guilty pleas in Cincinnati included Buehlmann’s murder; prosecutors described Buehlmann as a Drake patient who died after drinking cyanide-laced water.

Did anyone who knew Albert Buehlmann or worked at Drake Memorial at the time recall unusual activity or patients declining rapidly in late 1986?