Sentence:  And there <WSD>was</WSD> the case of Tom Hepker , a machinist , who was referred by a friend to a health machine quack who treated him with a so-called diagnostic machine for what Doctor Fraud said was a system full of arsenic and strychnine . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  happen, occur, take place; this was during the visit to my parents' house"