Jane Stanford, sole funder of Stanford University, died of strychnine in 1905 and the university president said it was natural causes

Leland and Jane Stanford founded the university in 1885 in memory of their only child. After Leland died in 1893 the estate was tied up in tax and legal disputes, and trustees advised closing the university until they were resolved. Jane Stanford funded and ran it almost alone. In January 1905 in San Francisco she drank bottled water later found to contain a lethal dose of strychnine. She sailed for Honolulu on 15 February. On 28 February at the Moana Hotel her secretary of 20 years, Bertha Berner, prepared bicarbonate of soda for her. She drank it, said she had been poisoned again, and died. Chemists found strychnine in the bicarbonate and in her tissues. After three days of testimony a coroner's jury found she died of strychnine "introduced into a bottle of bicarbonate of soda with felonious intent by some person or persons to this jury unknown." University president David Starr Jordan went to Hawaii, hired a local doctor to dispute the finding, and announced natural causes. No one was charged. In 1905 she had directed the trustees to sell her jewels after her death be sold to endow library purchases; the fund began at $500,000 and is worth about $20 million^†. Historian Robert Cutler's 2003 book revived the poisoning finding^†.