November 3, 2025 • 26 mins
No one suspected that the woman he had trusted for decades was quietly planning his death.
This week on Pathology with Dr. Priya, a "Zone 7" series, Sheryl McCollum and Dr. Priya Banerjee discuss the case of Marcy Oglesby, who, over several months, secretly mixed over-the-counter eye drops into Young's food and drinks.
When his body was later discovered inside a storage unit, toxicology revealed lethal levels of tetrahydrozoline, the active ingredient in common eye drops.
Dr. Priya explains how this drug attacks the cardiovascular system, why it is almost undetectable without targeted testing, and what makes poisonings like this so difficult to identify until it's far too late.
Highlights
- (0:00) Welcome to Pathology with Dr. Priya: A Zone 7 series—Sheryl McCollum introduces the Marcy Oglesby case and the death of retired Police Chief Richard “Rick” Young
- (0:45) How Oglesby slowly poisoned her partner with tetrahydrozoline-laced food and drinks
- (2:15) Dr. Priya explains why eye-drop poisonings are rare and absent from most toxicology panels
- (6:00) Early symptoms: numbness, confusion, fluctuating blood pressure, and blue lips
- (8:00) Why doctors might miss the signs of tetrahydrozoline poisoning and attribute symptoms to age or heart disease
- (10:00) The estimated lethal dose and how even a small mouthful can cause heart-block death
- (13:45) Trust, dependency, and opportunity: the dynamics that let the poisoning continue undetected
- (20:30) What Rick Young likely endured in his final days: chest pain, dizziness, and slow suffocation
- (25:45) Closing reflections and Dr. Priya’s reminder that every case is a lesson
About the Hosts
Dr. Priya Banerjee is a board-certified forensic pathologist with extensive experience in death investigation, clinical forensics, and courtroom testimony. A graduate of Johns Hopkins, she served for over a decade as Rhode Island’s state medical examiner and now runs a private forensic pathology practice.
Her work includes military deaths, NSA cases, and high-profile investigations. Dr. Priya has also been featured as a forensic expert on platforms such as CrimeOnline and "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace."
She is a dedicated educator, animal lover, and proud mom.
Website: anchorforensicpathology.com
Twitter/X: @Autopsy_MD
Sheryl McCollum is an Emmy Award–winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnline, and the Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace."
She works as a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department and is the co-author of the textbook "Cold Case: Pathways to Justice."
Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute (CCIRI), a nationally recognized nonprofit that brings together universities, law enforcement, and experts to help solve unsolved homicides, missing persons cases, and kidnappings.
Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
Twitter/X: @149zone7
Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome with pathology with doctor Pria. Y'all tonight, we have
got an unusual case. It is a poisoning where Marcy Oglesby,
fifty three years old, poisoned her ex cop boyfriend with
eye drops.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now she has been.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Found guilty of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder,
and aggravated battery for the death of the retired police
chief Richard Rick Young. Now Oglesby poisoned Young with over
the counter eye drops, just regular eye drops that she
(00:52):
mixed into his food and his drinks starting in the
summer of twenty twenty one until his death in November
of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Rick Young was seventy one years old.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
She watched him suffer and I'm going to get doctor
pre in here because i want to hear how this
life long public servant was murdered in a horrific way.
And y'all, she drove right across the street and hid
his body in a storage unit. Then when they found
(01:30):
him and did the autopsy, of course toxicology comes back
with high levels of tetrahydro zoline. So his body was
found October of twenty twenty two. So doctor Pria, I'm
gonna need you to jump in here and help me
(01:50):
understand some things.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I should not laugh, but we're just gonna put it
out there that the best legal advice would be to
leave him or see a divorce attorney. Please don't take
this as any endorsement, right, We're talking about a very
atypical case, right, this is quite complex.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It is complex, and you know, we've all heard about
people putting eye drops in somebody's drink, and this to me,
you said something extraordinary off air before we started recording.
And what did you say about eye drops in general,
just over the counter eye drops that nobody's doing. What?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, so I want to back up, like this is
really unusual and in my professional career, I have not
had a case. So we'll get into it. But there
has to be sort of peripheral clues that you know,
sort of give this as a candidate option for toxicology.
But it's not like on our routine panel, even though
that is a very wide range of testing for autopsy
(02:58):
for post mortem analysis. But I mean, because this is
what we call in medicine a zebra. It's way out there, right,
Like that's why we're talking about it. It's not a
run of the milk case. Now, what you have to
remember is that the eye drops are they're run of
the mill eye drops. Like who hasn't used eye drops? Right,
like for allergies, itchy eyes. So the biggest thing is
(03:20):
that the compound in them and is tetrahydrozoline. Say that
five times fast, but that you know, this is what
you can get off at any drug store shelf. It's
not controlled, which means it's not prescribed. And this is
it has effects right locally, which means you apply it
(03:43):
to the eye. When it's used properly, it helps your eye,
but it really doesn't get into the body. Now the
issue is it's like I said, it's not controlled or
not monitored. Right, you don't have to show your ID
to get eye drops, unlike certain other over the counter
or more controlled subs and says that may be more
routinely abused. And so you could go to any drug
(04:07):
store and buy ten bottles and I don't think they would.
They might look at you funny, but they're not going
to be like what are you doing with this? You
can just say I reddit gis every day and I
just go through them, right, And I mean then There's
also the fact that probably every drug store within a
certain area, you know, within the area, carries them, so
you could almost medicine shop if you will. You can
(04:29):
get a few from this store, if you from that,
and no one would even catch on, do you you know?
And because it was done over like months, you probably
did that if you think about it, right, she's not
going to stock up on bottles, but probably try a
little bit see how it goes. I mean, I have
no idea because I haven't seen the case file, but
I presume you try a little bit in his food
(04:51):
or drink to see if he even can taste it. Right,
I'm sure there's like an unofficial titration or you sort
of dose it, you know, give a little see what
goes on, give a little bit more. And now I
did a literature search related to this, and it's interesting
because it has been reported, not commonly so, but you know,
every decade or two there's some depths. Poison Control probably
(05:15):
gets more calls about this, but we're hoping that they're
not all lethal, right, they don't all end in death.
But when it's very planned like this, it's scary. Now,
he's an older gentleman, and I don't know. I assume
just based on his age, he probably has some heart
conditions potentially, like we you know, we all do. It's
(05:35):
very common in that age group. And so this medicine,
what it does is when you put in your eye,
I mean, it's almost undetectable in the blood. And then
but if you were to eat it, so by the
oral root like mouth to the stomach, that's when it's
really being absorbed and then accumulating in the blood and
(05:57):
has toxicity. So don't be scared to use them if
you use them in the right way at the right dose. Right,
But one of the papers I saw said, like if
you take even an ounce of this with like orally,
if you ingest it, you can have very significant effects.
Now what happens is like first you start feeling numbness, confusion,
(06:19):
You can get a little woozy, your lips can turn
blue just because you're not getting enough oxygen. There's a
lot of effects on the heart and the blood pressure.
So the blood pressure can be what we call laybile,
so up and down. And then so this drug, the
way it works is on receptors, so it binds to
(06:41):
certain signal pathways within the blood vessels. Okay, so that's
and these receptors are also in the heart, so that's
why it's affecting your blood pressure and your heart rate.
Things are are you know, going up and down again
that laybile blood pressure as we call it, so changing rapidly.
Your heart's going to be the signaling of your heart.
(07:03):
So the heart is electrical signaling that's going to be interrupted.
And some of the papers actually go into how even
with a small like a mouthful, a young girl took
a mouthful of this and basically it blocked the electrical
signals completely in her heart. So that's how I think
(07:24):
with suspected that it leads to death. Right, you can
get chess palpitations and then you really then basically lose
the signaling, the electrical signaling of your heart, which probably
the audience will know that you catch on like an
EKG an electric cardiogram, right, those little heartbeat. That's the
electrical signal that we're familiar with, and you know, that's
(07:46):
how we check it when you're alive. But obviously when
you're dead, we cannot get a rhythm stripped because it's
not present. Then we have to go to the autopsy,
which is really you know, a whole nother world.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well, i'll tell you what's kind of resonate with me.
He's seventy one and a lot of this stuff. You'd
be like, well, my hands are a little numb or
I'm a little confused. Is something else happening? I mean,
you would be thinking, do I need to be tested
for Alzheimer's or am I having memory problems?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, and I think also at seventy one, if he
had some cardiac issues, right like if his chest heard
or he was having some abnormal heartbeat, he would probably
think that's age related. I think it would be very
unlikely that this would be in any kind of differential
for a treating physician, even an er doc. You really
(08:36):
have to know. And I mean this is what gets
into the autopsy part, right with the CSI aspect too,
which is we need the scene investigation, Like I don't
even know how this came to light because he wasn't
found at the home. He was found elsewhere, right in
the storage unit. Yeah, so he's removed from the scene.
And then the other thing I don't know, because I
(08:58):
don't have I'm not pretty to that information, is that
I don't know what his underlying medical conditions weren't or
what potential medications he was on for that, right, So
we have to think about that. But when they certified
as death, I assume they certified it because of this
drug being found as the main toxic. You know, he's
(09:21):
not doing any illicit drugs if he's likely on medications,
but those are assuming being used as prescribed, right, so
they're not they're not particularly lethal. I don't know if
there's any drug drug interactions. But because there's no normal
blood levels for this medication for the eye drops, right,
you're not supposed to take it internally, and I think,
(09:43):
like the reference article said that almost they're almost imperceptible
amounts detected if you'd use it at the eye level.
The eye is just it's going to get into the
eye itself, but it doesn't get into the bloodstream. It's
it's almost negligible. And so obviously we don't have any
normal levels for this drug within the blood, if that
(10:05):
makes sense, because you're never supposed to take it that way.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Over the five months in his food and in his drink.
How much are we talking about, I mean, does it
take a ton of it or just a few drops.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It sounds like at least one of the cases that
had a volume estimated looks like it's ten to fifteen milliliters,
which is just I mean a take, like so one
ounce is about thirty milliliters, so half an ounce to
announce max. I mean. So the issue becomes like, what
is she mixing it in with? Right, So I don't
(10:41):
know what this taste like. I assume it might have
a bitter taste as usual medications do. But if she's
doing it in a I mean a cocktail or something,
I mean, I don't know. I'm just speculating completely right,
or very flavorful food. I mean, it could be split
tween meals as well. Right, it doesn't have to be
(11:04):
one sitting, if you will, right, it could be a
drink and then it could be a snack and then
an hour later, because some of the literature does say
that you can get extended effects like hours on end
with it, So it could build up in the body
and then cause that kind of heart trouble and likely
he probably had a weakened heart just because of his
age as well.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So when you're doing the autopsy, and this is before
the toxicology comes back. Are there signs of a poisoning?
Are there things you're looking at?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Sure? Absolutely, So I just wanted to clarify he's an
adult male too, So God forbid a child gets a
hold of this, then we're having like it takes a
lot less okay. So in children it could be like
half a teaspoon to like one to two teaspoons, like
very little, okay. In an adult it's going to be
more than that. But remember just a few tablespoons could
(11:57):
be it. Now, what's happening is this is going to
tighten his blood vessels. That's how it works, put strain
on the heart. But it can also you know, affect
the heart. But all of this we're not going to
see the electrical activity at autopsy, right the gentleman's already passed.
(12:18):
So what we really need to do this is a
very important sort of what I like to say, like
holistic approach. Okay, So the scene would be very very important,
meaning like they would get a search warrant for her house,
and I mean obviously him being found in a storage
unit raises the red flag if he's deceased at home.
(12:43):
I wonder if this would even come to light, do
you follow that if he she's deceased in bed, but
the fact that he was found in such untoward circumstances
that is obviously like a red flag right there, which
should then lead to further investigations. So in some ways,
her like the way she disposed of the body is
(13:07):
was her downfall in a way. And then what we
really need to do is look at the scene, like,
are there's you know, I've had let's say, drug abuse
cases where there's needles on the scene or huffing cases
where there's multiple cans in the trash can, right, So
the scene is very important to lead us to what
candidate drugs may be. And so if there's an excess
(13:30):
number which I would think more than one, maybe two
bottles of eye drops, right, or eye drop containers, maybe
they're used, especially if they're in the trash or she
stored them somewhere or has them in the medicine cabinet,
then you know, that becomes really important. And then I
don't know what, if anything, they were able to get
(13:51):
from her. Now she's only fifty, so there's a considerable
age difference between them two, so I don't know how
able bodied he was compared to her, right, is she
caring for him? Is she giving him his medication?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Well, they had been together for thirty years.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Right, but now he's older too, right, so I don't
know if he's more dependent on her. Maybe that kind
of history also means that he trusts her in a
very you know, very trusting fashion. And then whatever she's
feeding him or giving him, right, Like, he's not even questioning.
(14:30):
And seventy one could be young, but let's not forget
there could be some dementia. I don't it was not mentioned,
but you know, I don't know how sharp he was mentally,
like how easy it was to poison him as well? Like,
you know, this is a very we think about the
elderly as a susceptible population, right, the extremes of age,
so we think about kids and elderly. So I want
(14:51):
to just put that out there too. If he trusts her,
she's probably doing a lot for him. He's retired, right,
he's not actively working anymore, and so probably more dependent
on her than he was in the past too, right
when he was fully working in the police force, so
all of that has to come into play. And then
(15:13):
he was police in the town that they were living in.
How awkward is that because his staff members, right, he's
former chief, are now investigating his death, and they probably
know her from his prior career because they were together
so long. So it makes her a very interesting like
police dynamic too. Write how much can they press her
without crossing the line, or maybe she trusts them and
(15:36):
maybe that makes her volunteer the information. I don't really
know that whole. I think Scott Duffy would be the
one to ask about this, right, but he talked about
the different interrogation techniques, which I think would be very
useful here. And all of that then comes back to
me at autopsy when we do a post mortem panel,
collecting blood and urine and eye fluid, all this for testing.
(15:58):
But there may be three three hundred things that we're
testing for, but those are more common drugs if you will,
and medications. Okay, so this is not even a common
blood medication, right, so like that we should find post mortem,
even in therapeutic levels. And so what they did they
did targeted testing, which means someone they had a clue
(16:19):
that this was an issue, I presume based on investigation
because it's not going to leave any kind of trace.
So some ingestions at autopsy. Let me back up, like
any kind of overdose can lead to fluid in the lungs.
I don't know if the heart would show any subtle
changes with being stressed from the blood pressure changes and
(16:41):
the heart rate changes. But the biggest thing is I
would almost be able to discount that because of his age, right,
probably underlying heart disease, although again that speculation in this
case without having the report, then I would be like, Okay,
he has fluid in his lungs. That's nonspecific, you know,
I don't think there would be anything at autopsy that
(17:01):
would be leading to this. Okay, I've had people in
just lie you know, cleaners corrosive materials that I mean
that literally turns their stomach black or erodes a hole
in it, right, But this is not that kind of material.
This is a very small volume. So even when we
look at the stomach contents, if he has food in it,
it's not like this is going to be gritty or
(17:25):
pills that would stand out when I look at the
stomach content. So really it would just be the toxicology
that's really the key. And again then what the targeted
testing is you have to say okay, I'm looking for tetrahydrozoline,
and then send out the blood and you're in for that, okay.
And that's what's called targeted testing, meaning I want you
(17:45):
to prioritize this detection even though it's an unusual compound,
because I have X, Y Z, you know, clues about it.
So really, this is where it's a combined approach. It
can't just be autopsy and isolation. Right. I always say,
we don't practice in a black box because this could
be any kind of drug overdose. Do you understand it? Really?
(18:08):
Or it doesn't even have to be a drug overdose.
A lot of the findings are nonspecific, Like I said,
the pulmonary a demon which is fluid in the lungs
with a thunk it right, unless there's a clue.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Well, you know some poisons, you know, turn the skin
a different color, affect the heart, affect the eyes. So
with this really, without the toxicology, you wouldn't know it.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, So this medicine is there to shrink blood vessels.
That's why it takes the redness out of the eyes, right,
That's why people are using these eye drops. There's no normal.
This is not a normal medication to have within the
body with that though, I mean, he's seventy one. His
heart stops. It is what it I mean, you know,
(18:55):
in some ways it is what it is that that
could be an appropriate cause of death, cardiac cause, just
because of his age, correct, like even without any medication
toxicity and then and so you know, you sort of
have to look at the horses versus the zebras, Right,
what happens when you're older, Okay, you get cardiac disease
(19:16):
and that's why the heart stops. I mean, that is
the number one cause of death in the country. Even
in medical examiners, right, we see natural deaths are still
the the things we see frequent, most frequently, but they
appear unexplained. Okay, So this is a seventy one year
old gentleman who passed away. The weird presenting part of
(19:37):
it was that he's found in the storage unit. And
I don't know how like is that their storage unit
or that he was working at. Could she have played
that off like, oh, he was doing something in the
storage unit and died. But I think it was for
a few days that he wasn't found, right, or there
was a delay, So I mean, why wouldn't you have
reported him missing type thing, especially the advanced age, and
(19:58):
then you have to think, okay, what's going on? And
she had I mean, there's a significant age difference, and
she looked rather angry in her mugshot, so there had
to be some sort of backstory as to why she,
after thirty years or twenty years whatever they were together,
targeted him.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, she's reporting that he died or they let me
be clear, they're reporting he died in November of twenty
twenty one, but he wasn't found till October seventh, twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Oh, so he was gone. Yeah, so that's that's the
red flag.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So let me ask you, if you're called to testify
and they want you to tell them what would have
been going on with him?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
What are some of the common effects, side effects.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Causes, Because I know the prosecution said he suffered, but
can you explain what would have been happening, what he
would have been going through.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Part of it is like probably feeling nauseated, you know,
having some trouble breathing some you know, maybe he even
threw up once or twice. But that's very nonspecific. So
who's going to think, oh, my loving girlfriend is trying
to poison me. Right, So it's only once this gets
(21:17):
to a higher concentration, and I I don't know if
it was just I doubt if it was just one event,
but maybe it could be. Right, it sounds like it
was cumulative, like she started adding it and adding it
and adding it. So he could have chest pain, he
could have a headache, he could have you know, difficulty breathing.
(21:43):
So all of these are very non specific. So what's
gonna think? Okay, he is being poisoned, But again that's
where he's becoming uncomfortable. As we get higher doses, that
that's when he's going to have significant like effects like
(22:04):
the blood pressure changes, the stress on the heart, et cetera.
So I just found an interesting sort of quantification. So
a typical bottle contains fifteen to thirty milliliters of solution,
So like an ounce right half an ounce to an
ounce and then putting two drops in both eyes six
times a day would be one millileter, So you get
(22:28):
that's why you get like a month out of it?
Does that make sense? If you use it six times
a day, you get like what like a few weeks
to a month out of the bottle. So I mean
if it only takes a mouthful, she could easily squeeze
like one or two bottles and cause significant harm to him.
If she adds it to his water multiple times a day,
(22:48):
food multiple times a day, and over even a few days,
like two to three days, she could really get that level.
That's very that's toxic to him. So what starts happening
is he gets sleepy, he gets slower breathing, slower heart rate,
and then he goes coma like he dies comatose. So
(23:08):
you can have a seizure or have cardiac arrhythmias like
I was saying, like the electrical signals are being blocked,
which is called heart block. That's been reported in the
literature from this toxicity. Now remember this, we're just reporting
cases that have that we know of, and luckily this
(23:29):
is not prolific, you know, it's just been isolated cases.
So we're just drawing from the toxicities that people have
reported or now we've seen at autopsy, like the drug levels,
there's no established normal drug level. Nothing is normal. So
when we say, okay, this is the number we have
(23:50):
in him, this is the number we have in her.
I mean that's just luckily scattered numbers. There's not like
a case series or no one studied it in humans
because it is so poisonous. If there's no safe way
of doing that, well.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You know. Again, the frightening thing for me is a
lot of these symptoms could easily be explained ignored. I mean,
I have a neighbor she's seventy six, and she was
real disoriented not too long ago, and it was because
she was dehydrated.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well, if you've got somebody nauseated.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And confused, I mean you might just write it off
like honey, go lay down, let me make you some
you know, gatorade and some souper.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
There's some gatorade with some mindreads in it.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah. I don't keep drinking the gatorade, right.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
But you think about it. Something like a gatorade or
a soda that has flavor would help mask the additive,
Like you know, pure water maybe harder, but sometimes I
drink electrolyte water, gatorade, you know, when I'm exercising. Whatever
add flavor, even lemon water, right or lemonade. Those kinds
of flavors would probably mask a small amount of drug additive.
(25:00):
So it's so toxic that a small amount will.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Do you in, and especially if you're getting it three
or four times a day with everything she makes you.
You know, even if she's lying to him, Let's say
she even said, oh, maybe you have COVID. If he
said something tasted weird, she may have a ready answer.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
And I think she did respond that he died of COVID, right,
that was her theory or that was her eyes.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
But I'm saying she could have been lying to him.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Oh totally, your taste is changing because you have COVID.
It tastes bitter, not because you are, not because I'm
poisoning you, because you know it's COVID the thick of things, right,
And I mean this was years ago, when I mean
COVID is still around, we can't ignore it. But that
was definitely when the elderly were very, very susceptible, right
in any passing of getting the infection.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Excuse me, well, doctor, I'll tell you. I always learn
so much. And I was fascinated because I thought, well,
when she gets to autopsy and was this person up,
She'll look right at the heart or the liver or
the kidneys or something and be able to tell.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So now we know.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Well, ma'am, I.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Appreciate you, and you know you're just such a natural teacher.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
But we do.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
We learn something every week, so I just appreciate you
so much.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, just good. It's not a face that I knew about.
I tell people, people always ask me, do you follow
these pieces? I only follow them or look them up
when I'm asked about them. So I ask others in
the audience to keep bringing them because you know, it
makes me a better pathologist. And if something starts tasting weird,
maybe I'll blame David.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Y'all pay attention now. I mean, after thirty years, seriously,
that's what's going to.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Be the end.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
That's just anyway, sad and pitiful, but thank you, thank
you doctor, and I will talk to you soon.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yes, good night,
Welcome with pathology with doctor Pria. Y'all tonight, we have
got an unusual case. It is a poisoning where Marcy Oglesby,
fifty three years old, poisoned her ex cop boyfriend with
eye drops.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now she has been.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Found guilty of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder,
and aggravated battery for the death of the retired police
chief Richard Rick Young. Now Oglesby poisoned Young with over
the counter eye drops, just regular eye drops that she
(00:52):
mixed into his food and his drinks starting in the
summer of twenty twenty one until his death in November
of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Rick Young was seventy one years old.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
She watched him suffer and I'm going to get doctor
pre in here because i want to hear how this
life long public servant was murdered in a horrific way.
And y'all, she drove right across the street and hid
his body in a storage unit. Then when they found
(01:30):
him and did the autopsy, of course toxicology comes back
with high levels of tetrahydro zoline. So his body was
found October of twenty twenty two. So doctor Pria, I'm
gonna need you to jump in here and help me
(01:50):
understand some things.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I should not laugh, but we're just gonna put it
out there that the best legal advice would be to
leave him or see a divorce attorney. Please don't take
this as any endorsement, right, We're talking about a very
atypical case, right, this is quite complex.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It is complex, and you know, we've all heard about
people putting eye drops in somebody's drink, and this to me,
you said something extraordinary off air before we started recording.
And what did you say about eye drops in general,
just over the counter eye drops that nobody's doing. What?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, so I want to back up, like this is
really unusual and in my professional career, I have not
had a case. So we'll get into it. But there
has to be sort of peripheral clues that you know,
sort of give this as a candidate option for toxicology.
But it's not like on our routine panel, even though
that is a very wide range of testing for autopsy
(02:58):
for post mortem analysis. But I mean, because this is
what we call in medicine a zebra. It's way out there, right,
Like that's why we're talking about it. It's not a
run of the milk case. Now, what you have to
remember is that the eye drops are they're run of
the mill eye drops. Like who hasn't used eye drops? Right,
like for allergies, itchy eyes. So the biggest thing is
(03:20):
that the compound in them and is tetrahydrozoline. Say that
five times fast, but that you know, this is what
you can get off at any drug store shelf. It's
not controlled, which means it's not prescribed. And this is
it has effects right locally, which means you apply it
(03:43):
to the eye. When it's used properly, it helps your eye,
but it really doesn't get into the body. Now the
issue is it's like I said, it's not controlled or
not monitored. Right, you don't have to show your ID
to get eye drops, unlike certain other over the counter
or more controlled subs and says that may be more
routinely abused. And so you could go to any drug
(04:07):
store and buy ten bottles and I don't think they would.
They might look at you funny, but they're not going
to be like what are you doing with this? You
can just say I reddit gis every day and I
just go through them, right, And I mean then There's
also the fact that probably every drug store within a
certain area, you know, within the area, carries them, so
you could almost medicine shop if you will. You can
(04:29):
get a few from this store, if you from that,
and no one would even catch on, do you you know?
And because it was done over like months, you probably
did that if you think about it, right, she's not
going to stock up on bottles, but probably try a
little bit see how it goes. I mean, I have
no idea because I haven't seen the case file, but
I presume you try a little bit in his food
(04:51):
or drink to see if he even can taste it. Right,
I'm sure there's like an unofficial titration or you sort
of dose it, you know, give a little see what
goes on, give a little bit more. And now I
did a literature search related to this, and it's interesting
because it has been reported, not commonly so, but you know,
every decade or two there's some depths. Poison Control probably
(05:15):
gets more calls about this, but we're hoping that they're
not all lethal, right, they don't all end in death.
But when it's very planned like this, it's scary. Now,
he's an older gentleman, and I don't know. I assume
just based on his age, he probably has some heart
conditions potentially, like we you know, we all do. It's
(05:35):
very common in that age group. And so this medicine,
what it does is when you put in your eye,
I mean, it's almost undetectable in the blood. And then
but if you were to eat it, so by the
oral root like mouth to the stomach, that's when it's
really being absorbed and then accumulating in the blood and
(05:57):
has toxicity. So don't be scared to use them if
you use them in the right way at the right dose. Right,
But one of the papers I saw said, like if
you take even an ounce of this with like orally,
if you ingest it, you can have very significant effects.
Now what happens is like first you start feeling numbness, confusion,
(06:19):
You can get a little woozy, your lips can turn
blue just because you're not getting enough oxygen. There's a
lot of effects on the heart and the blood pressure.
So the blood pressure can be what we call laybile,
so up and down. And then so this drug, the
way it works is on receptors, so it binds to
(06:41):
certain signal pathways within the blood vessels. Okay, so that's
and these receptors are also in the heart, so that's
why it's affecting your blood pressure and your heart rate.
Things are are you know, going up and down again
that laybile blood pressure as we call it, so changing rapidly.
Your heart's going to be the signaling of your heart.
(07:03):
So the heart is electrical signaling that's going to be interrupted.
And some of the papers actually go into how even
with a small like a mouthful, a young girl took
a mouthful of this and basically it blocked the electrical
signals completely in her heart. So that's how I think
(07:24):
with suspected that it leads to death. Right, you can
get chess palpitations and then you really then basically lose
the signaling, the electrical signaling of your heart, which probably
the audience will know that you catch on like an
EKG an electric cardiogram, right, those little heartbeat. That's the
electrical signal that we're familiar with, and you know, that's
(07:46):
how we check it when you're alive. But obviously when
you're dead, we cannot get a rhythm stripped because it's
not present. Then we have to go to the autopsy,
which is really you know, a whole nother world.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well, i'll tell you what's kind of resonate with me.
He's seventy one and a lot of this stuff. You'd
be like, well, my hands are a little numb or
I'm a little confused. Is something else happening? I mean,
you would be thinking, do I need to be tested
for Alzheimer's or am I having memory problems?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, and I think also at seventy one, if he
had some cardiac issues, right like if his chest heard
or he was having some abnormal heartbeat, he would probably
think that's age related. I think it would be very
unlikely that this would be in any kind of differential
for a treating physician, even an er doc. You really
(08:36):
have to know. And I mean this is what gets
into the autopsy part, right with the CSI aspect too,
which is we need the scene investigation, Like I don't
even know how this came to light because he wasn't
found at the home. He was found elsewhere, right in
the storage unit. Yeah, so he's removed from the scene.
And then the other thing I don't know, because I
(08:58):
don't have I'm not pretty to that information, is that
I don't know what his underlying medical conditions weren't or
what potential medications he was on for that, right, So
we have to think about that. But when they certified
as death, I assume they certified it because of this
drug being found as the main toxic. You know, he's
(09:21):
not doing any illicit drugs if he's likely on medications,
but those are assuming being used as prescribed, right, so
they're not they're not particularly lethal. I don't know if
there's any drug drug interactions. But because there's no normal
blood levels for this medication for the eye drops, right,
you're not supposed to take it internally, and I think,
(09:43):
like the reference article said that almost they're almost imperceptible
amounts detected if you'd use it at the eye level.
The eye is just it's going to get into the
eye itself, but it doesn't get into the bloodstream. It's
it's almost negligible. And so obviously we don't have any
normal levels for this drug within the blood, if that
(10:05):
makes sense, because you're never supposed to take it that way.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Over the five months in his food and in his drink.
How much are we talking about, I mean, does it
take a ton of it or just a few drops.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It sounds like at least one of the cases that
had a volume estimated looks like it's ten to fifteen milliliters,
which is just I mean a take, like so one
ounce is about thirty milliliters, so half an ounce to
announce max. I mean. So the issue becomes like, what
is she mixing it in with? Right, So I don't
(10:41):
know what this taste like. I assume it might have
a bitter taste as usual medications do. But if she's
doing it in a I mean a cocktail or something,
I mean, I don't know. I'm just speculating completely right,
or very flavorful food. I mean, it could be split
tween meals as well. Right, it doesn't have to be
(11:04):
one sitting, if you will, right, it could be a
drink and then it could be a snack and then
an hour later, because some of the literature does say
that you can get extended effects like hours on end
with it, So it could build up in the body
and then cause that kind of heart trouble and likely
he probably had a weakened heart just because of his
age as well.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So when you're doing the autopsy, and this is before
the toxicology comes back. Are there signs of a poisoning?
Are there things you're looking at?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Sure? Absolutely, So I just wanted to clarify he's an
adult male too, So God forbid a child gets a
hold of this, then we're having like it takes a
lot less okay. So in children it could be like
half a teaspoon to like one to two teaspoons, like
very little, okay. In an adult it's going to be
more than that. But remember just a few tablespoons could
(11:57):
be it. Now, what's happening is this is going to
tighten his blood vessels. That's how it works, put strain
on the heart. But it can also you know, affect
the heart. But all of this we're not going to
see the electrical activity at autopsy, right the gentleman's already passed.
(12:18):
So what we really need to do this is a
very important sort of what I like to say, like
holistic approach. Okay, So the scene would be very very important,
meaning like they would get a search warrant for her house,
and I mean obviously him being found in a storage
unit raises the red flag if he's deceased at home.
(12:43):
I wonder if this would even come to light, do
you follow that if he she's deceased in bed, but
the fact that he was found in such untoward circumstances
that is obviously like a red flag right there, which
should then lead to further investigations. So in some ways,
her like the way she disposed of the body is
(13:07):
was her downfall in a way. And then what we
really need to do is look at the scene, like,
are there's you know, I've had let's say, drug abuse
cases where there's needles on the scene or huffing cases
where there's multiple cans in the trash can, right, So
the scene is very important to lead us to what
candidate drugs may be. And so if there's an excess
(13:30):
number which I would think more than one, maybe two
bottles of eye drops, right, or eye drop containers, maybe
they're used, especially if they're in the trash or she
stored them somewhere or has them in the medicine cabinet,
then you know, that becomes really important. And then I
don't know what, if anything, they were able to get
(13:51):
from her. Now she's only fifty, so there's a considerable
age difference between them two, so I don't know how
able bodied he was compared to her, right, is she
caring for him? Is she giving him his medication?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Well, they had been together for thirty years.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Right, but now he's older too, right, so I don't
know if he's more dependent on her. Maybe that kind
of history also means that he trusts her in a
very you know, very trusting fashion. And then whatever she's
feeding him or giving him, right, Like, he's not even questioning.
(14:30):
And seventy one could be young, but let's not forget
there could be some dementia. I don't it was not mentioned,
but you know, I don't know how sharp he was mentally,
like how easy it was to poison him as well? Like,
you know, this is a very we think about the
elderly as a susceptible population, right, the extremes of age,
so we think about kids and elderly. So I want
(14:51):
to just put that out there too. If he trusts her,
she's probably doing a lot for him. He's retired, right,
he's not actively working anymore, and so probably more dependent
on her than he was in the past too, right
when he was fully working in the police force, so
all of that has to come into play. And then
(15:13):
he was police in the town that they were living in.
How awkward is that because his staff members, right, he's
former chief, are now investigating his death, and they probably
know her from his prior career because they were together
so long. So it makes her a very interesting like
police dynamic too. Write how much can they press her
without crossing the line, or maybe she trusts them and
(15:36):
maybe that makes her volunteer the information. I don't really
know that whole. I think Scott Duffy would be the
one to ask about this, right, but he talked about
the different interrogation techniques, which I think would be very
useful here. And all of that then comes back to
me at autopsy when we do a post mortem panel,
collecting blood and urine and eye fluid, all this for testing.
(15:58):
But there may be three three hundred things that we're
testing for, but those are more common drugs if you will,
and medications. Okay, so this is not even a common
blood medication, right, so like that we should find post mortem,
even in therapeutic levels. And so what they did they
did targeted testing, which means someone they had a clue
(16:19):
that this was an issue, I presume based on investigation
because it's not going to leave any kind of trace.
So some ingestions at autopsy. Let me back up, like
any kind of overdose can lead to fluid in the lungs.
I don't know if the heart would show any subtle
changes with being stressed from the blood pressure changes and
(16:41):
the heart rate changes. But the biggest thing is I
would almost be able to discount that because of his age, right,
probably underlying heart disease, although again that speculation in this
case without having the report, then I would be like, Okay,
he has fluid in his lungs. That's nonspecific, you know,
I don't think there would be anything at autopsy that
(17:01):
would be leading to this. Okay, I've had people in
just lie you know, cleaners corrosive materials that I mean
that literally turns their stomach black or erodes a hole
in it, right, But this is not that kind of material.
This is a very small volume. So even when we
look at the stomach contents, if he has food in it,
it's not like this is going to be gritty or
(17:25):
pills that would stand out when I look at the
stomach content. So really it would just be the toxicology
that's really the key. And again then what the targeted
testing is you have to say okay, I'm looking for tetrahydrozoline,
and then send out the blood and you're in for that, okay.
And that's what's called targeted testing, meaning I want you
(17:45):
to prioritize this detection even though it's an unusual compound,
because I have X, Y Z, you know, clues about it.
So really, this is where it's a combined approach. It
can't just be autopsy and isolation. Right. I always say,
we don't practice in a black box because this could
be any kind of drug overdose. Do you understand it? Really?
(18:08):
Or it doesn't even have to be a drug overdose.
A lot of the findings are nonspecific, Like I said,
the pulmonary a demon which is fluid in the lungs
with a thunk it right, unless there's a clue.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Well, you know some poisons, you know, turn the skin
a different color, affect the heart, affect the eyes. So
with this really, without the toxicology, you wouldn't know it.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, So this medicine is there to shrink blood vessels.
That's why it takes the redness out of the eyes, right,
That's why people are using these eye drops. There's no normal.
This is not a normal medication to have within the
body with that though, I mean, he's seventy one. His
heart stops. It is what it I mean, you know,
(18:55):
in some ways it is what it is that that
could be an appropriate cause of death, cardiac cause, just
because of his age, correct, like even without any medication
toxicity and then and so you know, you sort of
have to look at the horses versus the zebras, Right,
what happens when you're older, Okay, you get cardiac disease
(19:16):
and that's why the heart stops. I mean, that is
the number one cause of death in the country. Even
in medical examiners, right, we see natural deaths are still
the the things we see frequent, most frequently, but they
appear unexplained. Okay, So this is a seventy one year
old gentleman who passed away. The weird presenting part of
(19:37):
it was that he's found in the storage unit. And
I don't know how like is that their storage unit
or that he was working at. Could she have played
that off like, oh, he was doing something in the
storage unit and died. But I think it was for
a few days that he wasn't found, right, or there
was a delay, So I mean, why wouldn't you have
reported him missing type thing, especially the advanced age, and
(19:58):
then you have to think, okay, what's going on? And
she had I mean, there's a significant age difference, and
she looked rather angry in her mugshot, so there had
to be some sort of backstory as to why she,
after thirty years or twenty years whatever they were together,
targeted him.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, she's reporting that he died or they let me
be clear, they're reporting he died in November of twenty
twenty one, but he wasn't found till October seventh, twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Oh, so he was gone. Yeah, so that's that's the
red flag.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So let me ask you, if you're called to testify
and they want you to tell them what would have
been going on with him?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
What are some of the common effects, side effects.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Causes, Because I know the prosecution said he suffered, but
can you explain what would have been happening, what he
would have been going through.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Part of it is like probably feeling nauseated, you know,
having some trouble breathing some you know, maybe he even
threw up once or twice. But that's very nonspecific. So
who's going to think, oh, my loving girlfriend is trying
to poison me. Right, So it's only once this gets
(21:17):
to a higher concentration, and I I don't know if
it was just I doubt if it was just one event,
but maybe it could be. Right, it sounds like it
was cumulative, like she started adding it and adding it
and adding it. So he could have chest pain, he
could have a headache, he could have you know, difficulty breathing.
(21:43):
So all of these are very non specific. So what's
gonna think? Okay, he is being poisoned, But again that's
where he's becoming uncomfortable. As we get higher doses, that
that's when he's going to have significant like effects like
(22:04):
the blood pressure changes, the stress on the heart, et cetera.
So I just found an interesting sort of quantification. So
a typical bottle contains fifteen to thirty milliliters of solution,
So like an ounce right half an ounce to an
ounce and then putting two drops in both eyes six
times a day would be one millileter, So you get
(22:28):
that's why you get like a month out of it?
Does that make sense? If you use it six times
a day, you get like what like a few weeks
to a month out of the bottle. So I mean
if it only takes a mouthful, she could easily squeeze
like one or two bottles and cause significant harm to him.
If she adds it to his water multiple times a day,
(22:48):
food multiple times a day, and over even a few days,
like two to three days, she could really get that level.
That's very that's toxic to him. So what starts happening
is he gets sleepy, he gets slower breathing, slower heart rate,
and then he goes coma like he dies comatose. So
(23:08):
you can have a seizure or have cardiac arrhythmias like
I was saying, like the electrical signals are being blocked,
which is called heart block. That's been reported in the
literature from this toxicity. Now remember this, we're just reporting
cases that have that we know of, and luckily this
(23:29):
is not prolific, you know, it's just been isolated cases.
So we're just drawing from the toxicities that people have
reported or now we've seen at autopsy, like the drug levels,
there's no established normal drug level. Nothing is normal. So
when we say, okay, this is the number we have
(23:50):
in him, this is the number we have in her.
I mean that's just luckily scattered numbers. There's not like
a case series or no one studied it in humans
because it is so poisonous. If there's no safe way
of doing that, well.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You know. Again, the frightening thing for me is a
lot of these symptoms could easily be explained ignored. I mean,
I have a neighbor she's seventy six, and she was
real disoriented not too long ago, and it was because
she was dehydrated.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well, if you've got somebody nauseated.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And confused, I mean you might just write it off
like honey, go lay down, let me make you some
you know, gatorade and some souper.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
There's some gatorade with some mindreads in it.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah. I don't keep drinking the gatorade, right.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
But you think about it. Something like a gatorade or
a soda that has flavor would help mask the additive,
Like you know, pure water maybe harder, but sometimes I
drink electrolyte water, gatorade, you know, when I'm exercising. Whatever
add flavor, even lemon water, right or lemonade. Those kinds
of flavors would probably mask a small amount of drug additive.
(25:00):
So it's so toxic that a small amount will.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Do you in, and especially if you're getting it three
or four times a day with everything she makes you.
You know, even if she's lying to him, Let's say
she even said, oh, maybe you have COVID. If he
said something tasted weird, she may have a ready answer.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
And I think she did respond that he died of COVID, right,
that was her theory or that was her eyes.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
But I'm saying she could have been lying to him.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Oh totally, your taste is changing because you have COVID.
It tastes bitter, not because you are, not because I'm
poisoning you, because you know it's COVID the thick of things, right,
And I mean this was years ago, when I mean
COVID is still around, we can't ignore it. But that
was definitely when the elderly were very, very susceptible, right
in any passing of getting the infection.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Excuse me, well, doctor, I'll tell you. I always learn
so much. And I was fascinated because I thought, well,
when she gets to autopsy and was this person up,
She'll look right at the heart or the liver or
the kidneys or something and be able to tell.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So now we know.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Well, ma'am, I.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Appreciate you, and you know you're just such a natural teacher.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
But we do.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
We learn something every week, so I just appreciate you
so much.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, just good. It's not a face that I knew about.
I tell people, people always ask me, do you follow
these pieces? I only follow them or look them up
when I'm asked about them. So I ask others in
the audience to keep bringing them because you know, it
makes me a better pathologist. And if something starts tasting weird,
maybe I'll blame David.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Y'all pay attention now. I mean, after thirty years, seriously,
that's what's going to.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Be the end.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
That's just anyway, sad and pitiful, but thank you, thank
you doctor, and I will talk to you soon.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yes, good night,
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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