 Police interviewed Farrar at 6 : 20 a.m , informing him immediately that the bodies of Tim and Kelly had been recovered . He told police about the deterioration of his marriage and health over the past six months . In August 1995 , Farrar had fallen ill with nausea , vomiting , and diarrhea . He initially assumed it was a residual effect of the traveler 's diarrhea many people on the Peru trip had contracted while there . Though he recovered from the initial bout of symptoms , he relapsed about a week later , and on August 18 Farrar was hospitalized with severe dehydration and high fever . In the hospital , he developed sepsis . Doctors identified Streptococcus viridans , which had probably leaked through damaged digestive tissue as a result of Farrar 's severe diarrhea , as the source of the sepsis ; however , they could not pinpoint the root cause of the gastrointestinal illness itself . Though Farrar 's illness was severe and possibly life @-@ threatening , he eventually recovered and was released from the hospital on August 25 . That night , however , shortly after eating a dinner that Green had served him , Farrar again suffered vomiting and diarrhea and had to be hospitalized . A third bout of symptoms struck on September 4 , days after he was released from the hospital for the second time . Basing their conclusions on the likelihood that his illness was related to the Peru trip , doctors narrowed down the possible causes for Farrar 's gastrointestinal issues to a handful , though none fitted his symptoms perfectly : typhoid fever , tropical sprue , or gluten @-@ sensitive enteropathy . Farrar had noticed that each time he returned home from the hospital , he became ill again almost immediately , and he speculated that it may have been due to the stress of his dissolving marriage or the change from a bland hospital diet to a normal home one . When Farrar 's girlfriend , Margaret Hacker , told him she suspected Green was poisoning him , he initially wrote off the idea as ridiculous . 
