Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Woman Uses Eyedrops to Poison Lover, Steals Idea from "Wedding Crashers" Movie

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

A South Carolina wife charged with murder after poisoning her husband with eyedrops. She's not the only one. Nancy Grace investigations the disturbing new trend. On the panel today: Joseph Scott Morga...n  Forensics expert, and author of “Blood Beneath My Feet,”  NY Psychologist Caryn Stark, New York Attorney Jason Oshins and Crime Online Reporter Dave Mack. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Why did Lana Clayton allegedly poison her husband? It's the common over-the-counter medicine used to relieve red or irritated eyes. But this morning, investigators say they still have no clear motive as to why 52-year-old Lana Clayton allegedly used eye drops to kill her husband of four years. Well, she did admit during interviews with our detectives that she committed the crimes. Stephen Clayton was found dead in the foyer of this $800,000 South Carolina mansion he shared
Starting point is 00:00:42 with his wife in July. Police say they never suspected foul play was involved until toxicology results from his autopsy revealed high levels of tetrahydrosline, the chemical found in eye drops and nasal sprays in his bloodstream. If ingested orally, it can cause respiratory failure, seizures, and even coma. Death by eye drops. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. You are hearing our friend at GMA, Amy Robach. Did a South Carolina woman murder her husband by putting eyedrops in his drinking water? That's making me look at my
Starting point is 00:01:18 bottle of water that sits by the bed every night in a whole new light. With me, an all-star panel, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator. Joining us from New York, psychologist Karen Stark at karenstark.com. Renowned civil and criminal attorney in the tri-state area, Jason Oceans. Joining me right now, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Dave Mack.
Starting point is 00:01:48 Okay, let's get right down to it. Did this woman, Lana Clayton, very pretty lady, very pretty. Did she kill her husband? Not try to kill him, but murder him by eyedrop. Okay, hit me, Dave. What happened? According to what the police are saying, she actually confessed to them that she used the eyedrops to kill her husband. But it's kind of
Starting point is 00:02:13 interesting when you look back at this relationship. They were a very, very wealthy couple. None of their neighbors had any clue anything was going on. But there were a couple of incidents that took place. And on top of everything else, when Stephen Clayton's body was found, he was actually found at the bottom of the stairs, making it look like he had had an accidental fall. Well, Dave Mack, Dave Mack, hold on. I'm going to speak for Jason Ocean's defense attorney in just one moment. Jason, can't Dave Mack clearly see that this guy had vision problems? That's why he had the eye drops. That's why he fell down the stairs.
Starting point is 00:02:47 Jason, it's so clear to me. Right. His eyes were so red, he needed to clear them with gallons of Visine, if you will. Nan, it's a confusing name. Did you just call me Nan? Wait a minute. Wait, wait. Did you just call me Nan?
Starting point is 00:03:02 Because please don't do that. Do not. And the worst would be honey or sugar. Just don minute. Wait, wait. Did you just call me Nan? Because please don't do that. Do not. And the worst would be honey or sugar. Just don't. Okay? Please now. Continue.
Starting point is 00:03:18 It just shocks me that most of the time when these things occur, there's some inklings within the community somewhere that something was going wrong. This just seemed not just out of the clear blue, but well had. Well, hold on. I think you're right. I think you're right, Jason Oceans, renowned defense attorney in the tri-state area. You know, every time I say the tri-state area, Jackie, what is the cartoon?
Starting point is 00:03:38 Okay. Yeah. It's not Phibius. It's Phinus. It's Phinus and Ferb. Yeah. And Professor Dusseldorf. That's finis. It's finis and fur. Yeah. And Professor Dusseldorf. That's me.
Starting point is 00:03:48 Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad you knew that. You know, Karen Stark, I want to talk about what he just said about red flags. This couple, hold on, Dave Mack, what did they do for a living? I know you said they were wealthy, which always makes me suspicious, but what did they do for a living? She worked for the VA as a nurse, but he actually,
Starting point is 00:04:08 his success came from founding physical therapy resources. They've got branches all across the country. So actually dealing with people that are recovering from injuries and things like that. Okay, you know, I have a one-track mind, Dave, Matt, because when you said she's a nurse, I heard nothing else. It was like, Nancy, she's a nurse, blah blah blah blah blah so karen stark if i see medical training and then this guy dies and police suspect she uh committed murder by eyedrop but back to what jason oceans defense attorney was saying karen stark let's see a red flag like um shooting him with a crossbow in his sleep uh they did have a little bit of a history that means something yeah yeah was it in the head the guy she shoot him wasn't his sleep. They did have a little bit of a history. You think that means something? Yeah. Yeah. Was it in the head? The guy, she shot him. Wasn't he asleep and she shot him with a
Starting point is 00:04:49 crossbow in his sleep, Karen Stark? Yes, she did, Nancy. She shot him in the head while he was sleeping and got away with it. Wait, was he in the bedroom? Okay. Jackie's saying yes. Cause I was thinking if he was outside in a hammock near her archery course, maybe. But how do you accidentally, Karen Stark, shoot somebody in their sleep in the head with a crossbow in the bedroom and say it was an accident? Karen, I mean... She was practicing the crossbow on the television. I don't know. Okay, Joe Scott Morgan, how do you survive a crossbow on the television. I don't know. Okay, Joe Scott Morgan, how do you survive a crossbow to the head? That's a mystery.
Starting point is 00:05:36 A lot of that, Nancy, is going to be dependent upon where the shot rested. If it went kind of obliquely on the side of the head, maybe just struck the temple, the side of the temple, it's a survivable injury. My question is, was the bolt, or that's what they refer to as the arrow in crossbows, was the bolt still lodged in his head? And how in the world did he go about extracting this thing? Did he have to undergo major surgery? That would be a great question to ask.
Starting point is 00:06:00 You know, Joe Scott, are you one of those people, like me, that when you see an article and they have an x-ray and you can still see like the the knife or the arrow or the whatever in the person you just look at it think how in the hay did that happen not you know whether they lived or not how did this happen i think back how in the world did that get and here we've got a crossbow to the head. As a matter of fact, listen to this. The woman accused of poisoning her husband with eye drops once shot him in the back of the head with a crossbow. Police have reopened an investigation into the bizarre incident at the home of millionaire Stephen Clayton and his 52-year-old wife Lana two years ago. Lana Clayton told police she was having trouble
Starting point is 00:06:45 loading a crossbow like this one. She says she took it into the bedroom where her husband was sleeping. Then she claimed it accidentally went off and this, called a bolt, struck him in the back of the head. Miraculously, he was not seriously hurt. The stock itself is gonna go into your shoulder. Crossbow expert, Manny Serka.
Starting point is 00:07:05 You see the S and the F? Uh-huh. Safety and fire. You would have to manually push it to the fire position and then this finger could come down to the trigger. Got it, so if you're walking around carrying this and you don't move this button, there's no way it could go off.
Starting point is 00:07:19 It could never go off. Absolutely never. According to documents obtained by Inside Edition, Stephen Clayton told detectives he did not believe she was trying to kill him. The incident was ruled an accident. Okay, you know, my children, Jason Oceans, you know my children very well since before they were born, because we would sit on the set at Court TV and talk and talk and talk about, should I get married?
Starting point is 00:07:43 Should I have children? Oh, I don't know how you did it. But this past week, they were at scout camp. And you know, of course, when I hear camp, not just scout camp, any camp, sleep away, I think murder and molestation. So I suddenly had to become a scout volunteer and forced my husband to become a scout volunteer. What killed him is being away from work for a week anyway we both go we camp out it rained in the tent all that's another story but my son who you know i'm very anti-gun had to learn to shoot a shotgun so he was at this range every day let me just point out that he ended up getting the dime award, which is you can shoot at 50 feet, five shots in the space of a dime, the coin. That's awesome.
Starting point is 00:08:30 Okay. So, but the other side of that is I was so upset about him with a gun in his hands. I went there every day. It was like a mile walk. One day I walked 32,800 steps. I took a picture of it. Anyway, so my point is beside that is the archery range. How do you accidentally pull a crossbow and shoot somebody? I mean, the power, it's like a trigger pull.
Starting point is 00:08:58 I would tell juries how many pounds, how much pressure it took to pull a trigger. Yeah, the test poundage, right? You can go up to, you know, 80 pounds, which almost only a bear could pull with great strength. So some of them are much lighter to the finger. And I think anyone knows who's involved in anything that could be dangerous, whether it's a bow, archery, possession of weapons, shooting. You don't do it in the bedroom. You're always alone and private and safe and well-lit and not with anyone around at all. So it's just poor safety and poor practice. I don't even know what you're saying, poor safety.
Starting point is 00:09:40 I mean, Joe Scott, can you talk some sense into his head, please? Nancy, safety procedures dictate that you don't do that with other people around. You're not involved in testing or trying or doing anything. It's a poor safety protocol. Okay, Joe Scott, let's just break it down. She shot him in the head with a crossbow, and for some reason, which we're going to have to have a shrink explain, he convinced himself it was an accident. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. During our search of the home, we found several bottles of the eye drops.
Starting point is 00:10:27 Police say Clayton admitted to poisoning her husband's water with the drops over the course of three days before his death. Neighbors say Clayton, an active member of her local church, held her husband's funeral in their very own backyard last month before investigators determined his cause of death. This morning, Clayton remains behind bars without bond, facing murder and unlawful tampering of food charges. Her husband's family speaking out, telling ABC News they are shocked and mortified at the cause of Stephen's death. All of our family and friends knew how much he loved his wife, Lana, and how
Starting point is 00:11:01 devoted he was to her. Such a shocking story. And under South Carolina law, this case qualifies for the death penalty. But prosecutors say it is far too early to decide whether to seek that against Lana Clayton. Hearing our friend GMA's Amy Robach. Wow. Okay, back to you, Joe Scott Morgan. We are talking about women who poison. And we're starting with Lana Clayton. Lana Claytonton with a background in nursing. Her husband apparently the money man with many many branches of a health care facility. First she shoots him with a crossbow in the head while he's asleep in his bedroom. He didn't fall asleep in a lounge chair in the backyard or a hammock near her archery set.
Starting point is 00:11:51 She was practicing the crossbow in the bedroom. And for some reason, Karen Stark, New York psychologist joining us, you can find her at KarenStark.com. He convinced himself that that was an accident. How do you do that? That's called denial. That's denial, Nancy. That's somebody who really doesn't want to admit that this love that they have between them is actually dangerous and he could be dead. He's so attached to her that he's going to go along with some kind of story that includes she accidentally killed him in the bedroom. It doesn't make any sense. But people do it all the time. Karen, Karen, Karen. I know that you are a sophisticated cosmopolitan New Yorker, but I assume that you, like everybody else in the country, listens to country music. I'm sure you've heard the song Denial.
Starting point is 00:12:40 It ain't just a river in Egypt, because you may want to use that with some of your clients, your patients. How do you get yourself in such deep denial that you can reason away getting shot in the head with a crossbow in your bedroom, in your sleep? Well, there's a disconnect, Nancy, when there's something that you believe so strongly and then there's evidence to show you that it's not true. But your mind can't grasp that fact. And so our unconscious just says, oh, no, she's right. It was an accident because you can't make the two things connect. You have to believe that she's in love with you.
Starting point is 00:13:17 And that's unsure what happened to him. He could not accept the fact that she was trying to kill him. I know it sounds very strange, but it happens all the time. It does sound strange, and I think it does happen all the time. Joseph Scott Morgan, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, death investigator. Joe Scott, two things. Number one, unlike a gun where you can tell from gunshot powder residue whether it was shot within, say, three feet, 36 inches, or if they're stippling around the entry wound, you know if it's point blank. With a crossbow, you don't know if she was two inches from his head when she shot it.
Starting point is 00:13:55 That's my first question. And the second question is, what does ODing, overdosing on eye drops do to your body? How does it? I think I know the answer in layperson's terms. If it shrinks red vessels in your eyes, it must shrink the veins to your heart. Just guessing. You tell me. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:16 First off to the crossbow, you're right on the money. Hey, you're right on target, Nancy. There is no way. It's what we refer to as an indeterminate distance. You can't because, as you stated, there's nothing coming out of a muzzle. Now, to the eye drops, think about it in two terms. There's two things. There's what's referred to as a vasodilator, which means that opens the vessels up, and there is a vasoconstrictor. In the case of tetrahydrolizine, which is found in all manner of eyedrops and even some sprays that are used in the nostrils, it is a vasoconstrictor. And so what happens is,
Starting point is 00:14:56 is it tightens down the vessels and it can lead to hypertension, severe hypertension, very, very quickly. This is a highly lethal, lethal substance, and it doesn't take very much. It just takes a very small amount, and it can literally send the individual in worst case scenario into a coma. Some people out there even have attempted to use this drug in order to initiate date rape. That means it gets the person into an unconscious state, they fall into a coma, and they can take advantage of the individual. Wow. I'm also, like, completely intrigued with the fact that she held the funeral in the backyard.
Starting point is 00:15:37 Jason Oceans, I thought that was against the law. I'm not sure what state this was in, Nancy. You'd have to refresh me on that. South Carolina. South Carolina. Wait, Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, did she hold the funeral in the backyard, or did she want to hold the funeral in the backyard? Because I am totally burying David in the backyard.
Starting point is 00:15:56 What? She did bury him in the backyard. The funeral was held in the backyard, and in North Carolina and South Carolina, I don't know how many other states, both of those allow for that. There are certain things, certain accommodations have to be made, but not as uncommon as you would think. Okay. I'm just drinking that in. I'm trying to absorb that. Yeah. Nancy, just thinking about it, wanting to exhume the body for anything. I mean, just thinking the restrictions to my backyard or access or anything else that could, you know, alter the state of the of the body.
Starting point is 00:16:30 I did not know you could just bury a body. Nancy, I remember as a little girl, I hear you, Joe Scott, way out in the country. We would drive by a house getting back and forth to somewhere and a guy had buried made a cemetery in his yard because his wife died he was completely well we think he was completely in love and he had built kind of a monument to her with a wrought iron fence around her grave and he would go out there and sit with her every day kind of like Forrest Gump okay and even as a little girl I would like shrink away in the back seat of the car when we drove by because something was just wrong with it uh okay so joe scott morgan she shoots him with
Starting point is 00:17:13 a crossbow he lives she allegedly poisons him with eye drops he dies and then she just digs the hole and sticks him in the backyard can nobody nobody see that pattern right there? Is it just me that something's very wrong? Well, you know, again, you know what Jason was saying, you want to maintain control. And I think that this goes to this. This might be an issue that Karen could address. But I got to tell you, as far as burying somebody, there's family plots all over the place. And this is reality. The only thing you need is actually a burial permit,
Starting point is 00:17:45 and this is another curious thing. If I remember correctly, I'm thinking that bodies do not have to be embalmed. You can literally place the body directly into the crypt after it's been dug. The only consideration are things like what are referred to as water tables. You don't want to pollute the water table by burying a body back there. So other than that, hey, it's free and clear. Take a listen to our friend at Inside Edition, Megan Alexander. The couple lived in an enclave of million-dollar homes on Lake Wiley, South Carolina.
Starting point is 00:18:16 The funeral was held in the backyard before toxicology reports showed he had been poisoned. Frank Keefe and Ken Sanford were at the funeral. She seemed stoic, I guess is a word. There was no evidence that she was grieving. Well, that's part of the mystery of all of this. He always appeared to be happy, go lucky, grateful for his success, grateful to be alive, grateful to be in the community,
Starting point is 00:18:44 and that's all the more reason it's so stunning to us, I think. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. She revealed that she used the liquid, which is normally like eye drops, put it in his food, and she did that without his knowledge. We don't have a clear-cut reason why she committed the crime that she did. We are talking about women who poison, and we're starting with Lana Clayton. Lana Clayton with a background in nursing. Her husband, apparently the money man with many, many branches of a health care facility.
Starting point is 00:19:42 First, she shoots him with a crossbow in the head while he's asleep in his bedroom. He didn't fall asleep in a lounge chair in the backyard or a hammock near her archery set. Mm-mm. She was practicing the crossbow in the bedroom. And Nancy, before we go much further, I got to point to something. You know, motive hasn't been discussed really.
Starting point is 00:20:00 And I know you say that, you know, prosecutors don't have to prove motive but everybody wants to know what what a motive is here because you've got somebody who seemingly is happily married very very well off living in a beautiful home with a rich husband and the neighbor said that you know they didn't see anything wrong she let a bible study every week but check this out we know that she's accused of killing him with eyedrops. We know that a couple of years ago, she got out of an attempted murder charge because they claimed it was an accident when she somehow shot her husband while he was asleep in bed in the back of the head with a crossbow, something that after we examined the type of crossbow she had was an impossibility. It doesn't accidentally fire.
Starting point is 00:20:44 So even though the police said, hey, do you think your wife is trying to kill you? And he goes, no, man, it's an accident. She loves me. I love her. And by the way, everybody we talked to, he was in love with her. We're talking about when a man loves a woman here, you know, Percy Sledge. And, you know, when a man loves a woman, she can do no wrong. Well, this woman did some serious wrong trying to kill him with a crossbow, then killing him with the eye drops. But back up a little bit, and you find out that in a previous marriage, there was a problem. And on social media, on Facebook in particular, she actually posted a defense of that husband back years ago. Oh, he's not a drunk. He's not violent. And she gets out of that marriage and finds a guy who's self-made
Starting point is 00:21:26 millionaire. They've got this beautiful, huge house. So big. In fact, the yard's so manicured that she could bury him in the backyard. Now this nurse at the VA becomes the wealthy widower of a multimillionaire. So my question is to Jason Ocean's New York attorney, if she confesses to police that she poisoned her husband, what can Lana Clayton expect when she goes to trial? I don't know if this is the death penalty type of case, but. Why? Why? case. Why? Why, why, why? It's a long-planned, premeditated, and practiced crime. I understand.
Starting point is 00:22:13 I don't. It's a gut feel sometimes on where it's going to go better. It just might as well. Wait just a minute. Did you just say you're going to decide if somebody gets the death penalty based on a quote gut feel you know what i'm going to go to a different guest dave mack is she are they seeking that you did it you said nan again i said again yeah now i'm sorry busted now now now you're a recidivist sometimes in a in a i am it's up but
Starting point is 00:22:44 sometimes in a certain profile case obviously we're sometimes in a in a i am it's but sometimes in a certain profile case obviously we're doing in a quick nutshell but uh it's sometimes it's just best not to and just uh and just go ahead and you know uh you know try it on uh you know murder one versus death penalty well hold on dave mack has a state announcer seeking the death penalty they haven't announced that they're seeking the death penalty but she is being held without bail because it is a death penalty type case. Take a listen to our friend at Inside Edition. She was a grieving widow who claimed her wealthy husband suffered a fatal fall at home. But police say church-going Lana Clayton poisoned him with, of all things,
Starting point is 00:23:21 eye drops available over the counter at every pharmacy in America. Court documents say the 52-year-old mother of two confessed to administering the poison to him in his water over a three-day period. Millionaire businessman Stephen Clayton lived with his wife in a South Carolina mansion that is a replica of George Washington's Mount Vernon plantation. His wife's alleged poisoning scheme was straight out of the 2005 movie, Wedding Crashers. Give me the eye drops. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:23:52 Owen Wilson puts eye drops into Bradley Cooper's drink, sending him running to the bathroom. Funny stuff, but in actuality, the chemical in eye drops works great on the eyes, but if swallowed in significant amounts, it attacks the nervous system and can be deadly. Chills, sweats, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. I felt awful. Ginger Watson knows what it's like to be poisoned by eye drops.
Starting point is 00:24:22 When she was a manager at Pizza Hut in 2011, a disgruntled co-worker spiked her soda with eye drops. She was hospitalized, but fortunately survived. If I had an underlying medical condition or I had gotten a little more of the drug, I could have been seriously injured or died. Now, a product seen in so many medicine cabinets has allegedly been used by a wife to get rid of her husband. The dead man's family members said they are shocked and mortified by the cause of Stephen's death. All our family and friends know how much he loved his wife and how devoted he was to her. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. A North Carolina woman is accused of trying to make her fiance sick by putting eye drops in his drink.
Starting point is 00:25:28 If this sounds familiar to you, you've probably seen it in the movie Wedding Crashers. And that is where the woman told police she got the idea. Jamie Cruz facing felony charges this morning because eye drops can actually put someone in a coma or even kill them. He locked himself and their baby in a bedroom and then called police. She told officers she was trying to make him sick so that she could move out with her daughter. A North Carolina woman allegedly admits she tried to poison her fiancé with eyedrops, claiming she got the idea from a movie. Her name, Jamie Lynn Cruz.
Starting point is 00:26:04 She's been arrested after her fiance calls 911 when he spots her putting eye drops into his soda. Wow. Okay, straight to Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What happened? You know exactly what you heard. This woman, Jamie Cruz, was caught red red-handed the boyfriend suspected as much he saw her trying to put the eye drops in his drink once he saw that he grabbed their child and locked himself in the bedroom called the police and that's how all of this began she told them though that she watched the movie wedding crashers and thought this was a good idea because she just wanted to get away with her daughter. Obviously, they have a child together, and there was a real problem with this relationship that the fiance suspected
Starting point is 00:26:49 she might do something like this. Okay, here's the thing. Under the law, Jason Oceans, let's just say I point a gun at Jackie Howard, and then, oops, it goes off, and I kill her. And I say, well, you know what? I was just trying to scare her. That doesn't matter, because the law presumes you intend the natural consequence of your act. In other words, as I would tell a jury, if you take a piece of fine china, the kind you can kind of see through, and you throw it to a cement floor, the law presumes you intend to break it, the natural consequence of your act. So if I hold a gun to Jackie's face and pull the trigger to scare her, the law presumes I mean to kill her.
Starting point is 00:27:39 In this case, she gave her fiancé a sufficient try to eye drops to get him sick. Well, you know, the consequences of an intentional or an unintentional act. Right. So, you know, in this jurisdiction here in New York, you know, that certainly be up for a charge in your example of criminally negligent homicide. You know, what's what's intent? Or up to manslaughter? I mean, it depends how you look in the facts, you know, collectively. Well, he lived. I would still say it's aggravated assault. I would agree with you. If not attempted murder. I think you're right on the charge and see if it drops further. But I think it's certainly eligible for a top charge. The unintended consequences of a bad act, right?
Starting point is 00:28:33 You can't drive down the street at 90 miles an hour thinking, well, it's dessert at 3 in the morning. It just so happens people are coming home from work, and you mow them down. That's a good example. To you, Karen Stark, New York psychologist joining us. You can find her at karenstark.com. What can you tell us about the mindset of someone who uses poison as their weapon? Well, I think that anyone who's trying to kill another person, Nancy,
Starting point is 00:29:00 is a psychopath no matter what they're trying to use. Someone who's trying to use poison, though, is very smart because most of the time, at least in the past, you couldn't be able to tell that they had used poison. These days, the tests are so ministered, they're so refined that you actually can tell something like eye drops. But if you think about it, it's somebody who doesn't care about killing another person, but is very wise because who would think of eye drops as a way to kill another person?
Starting point is 00:29:41 To Joe Scott Morgan, a forensics expert, Joe Scott, when I was working on my last Hallmark movie, I had a scene where someone died, a female hospital administrator, prescription for murder, by the way, died of digitalis overdose. And you know, digitalis comes from the foxglove plant. Okay. So at first, something like that may not show up as Karen Stark was describing in your standard toxicology tests. So that indicates very, very smart perpetrator because they know how to use a certain type of substance that won't show up in a toxicology test. Yes, you're right, Nancy. It's what I would refer to as an exotic poison because when we do what's called a standard toxicology panel at autopsy, it's, you know, all the usual suspects are there as far as like opiates, cocaine,
Starting point is 00:30:46 benzodiazepines, all those things that you would normally think that are associated with death potentially. It's not like she went out and shot a bolus of heroin into a drink or something that he was ingesting to try to off him that way, because that would be found. With this tetrahydrolyzine poisoning, this is something that's exotic. So we might not see it on the initial reports, but what would take place is that through the gross findings, that means the things that we can see with our unaided eye at autopsy and under the microscope, that'll put us down a different path, for instance, in a fatal case where we would have to go back and retest again. What would the physical symptoms be of?
Starting point is 00:31:31 I'm going to try it. Tetrahydrozoline poisoning. Wow. First try too. Wow. I'm just so happy with myself. Go ahead. Good job, Nancy. Thank you. I knew you were going to chime in, Jace. I've been waiting to say that. Okay, go ahead, Joe Scott. What would they see if you had tetrahydrozoline poisoning? What would the body manifest? Well, some of the things that you're going to see are going to be irritated membranes, say, for instance, and also in the soft lining of cardiac tissue, you're going to see problems in the lungs. It's going to lead to a congestive failure. So if somebody, say, for instance, has no, they don't have any kind of predisposition to some kind of outstanding medical problem
Starting point is 00:32:24 and you begin to see these manifestations, hopefully a smart pathologist will look at this and say, hmm, something else is up here. And so it's going to give you the impetus to dig further. Got another question. You say, Karen Stark, that she would have been a psychopath. What do you mean by that? That's a technical phrase in your line of business, but not everybody knows what it really means. A psychopath is somebody who is not like anybody else, I hope, that you know. It's someone who has no feelings whatsoever, and there's no guilty conscience. And they actually enjoy the idea that they can get away with killing another person. They take pleasure in being able to do that. And in this case, just, okay, I'm not happy here. So
Starting point is 00:33:14 I think I'll use some poison and I'll get this person to die. A psychopath is capable of doing that. They don't even need a motivation. They're just out to kill. I got another question. Do you believe there's any way, Joe Scott, that we are looking at a trend? Yeah, the possibility certainly exists. And I think that this has happened in the past with other agents where people will see an opportunity and take it. Let's keep in mind, this case happened in North Carolina, Nancy,
Starting point is 00:33:49 and this was not too far away from the previous case that we're referring to that was out of York, South Carolina. I think that there's an awareness on that end. We had talked about the wedding crashers. I think that this has brought to light. And so, yeah, the potential certainly exists I think that what you're going to see is there will be an impetus that will come about as a result of probably trying to restrict access to things as seemingly innocuous as I dropped particularly if these cases
Starting point is 00:34:19 continued to track in this way Side effects include abnormal drowsiness, sedation, as Joe Scott was telling us, low or high blood pressure, difficulty breathing, decreased heart rate, even a coma. Tetrahydrosaline made up of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen. It's also found in nasal decongestant sprays most example high profile example is visine it constricts your blood vessels and because of that that's how it stops your nose from running and clears up your your eyes now i've been doing some very very um deep deep legal investigation and I have learned that there is a scene in Wedding Crashers where one of the main character put puts eye drops in a rival's drink now that scene
Starting point is 00:35:18 is alleged to have inspired a trend students in milwaukee nearly killed a classmate doing it in june 2006 a wisconsin woman jailed for 90 days for poisoning her roommate with a visine 2011 she got the idea from the movie a california man charged with domestic violence from poisoning. He spiked his girlfriend's drink as a prank after an argument. If you Google Visine prank, you get nearly 20,000 results. Okay. Poison by eyedrops. It is a trend. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.
Starting point is 00:36:13 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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