Wife poisoned husband’s soda after he was ‘not appreciative’ of birthday party she threw him: cops
A Missouri esthetician was allegedly caught putting weed killer in her husband’s soda because he was “not appreciative” of the 50th birthday she threw him, police said.
Michelle Y. Peters, 47, of Lebanon, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, according to the court documents viewed by The Post.
During her interview with authorities, Peters supposedly said she wanted to be “‘mean’” to her husband because he did not appreciate the 50th birthday party she threw him.
Peters’ husband — whose name was redacted from the documents — told the Laclede County Sheriff’s Office earlier that day that he believed his wife was poisoning him, the probable cause affidavit stated.
Beginning around May 1, he allegedly noticed that the Diet Mountain Dew from the two-liter bottle he kept in the couple’s garage refrigerator “tasted weird,” police said.
He initially ignored the strange taste and kept drinking the soda. A couple weeks later, he started suffering from a sore throat, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, the husband claimed.
He was also coughing up thick, brown-yellow mucus, the police report stated.
The husband became suspicious and looked back at security camera footage from inside the garage dated June 12.
The footage allegedly showed Peters taking the Diet Mountain Dew from the fridge and a bottle of Roundup weed killer into the house. A few moments later, Peters returned and put both items back in their original spots.
Peters’ husband told police he tried to change his routine and put new, untampered bottles in the refrigerator, only for Michelle to supposedly keep mixing the soda with weed killer.
The original bottle of Roundup was also almost empty — and the new bottle was ready to go in its place, the husband claimed.
When Peters’ husband told her he was feeling sick, she allegedly told him he “probably had COVID” and to “stay away from the grandkids,” the warrant read.
Peters’ husband said he was not sure if his wife was having an affair, or if she was looking to collect on his $500,000 life insurance policy. He also noted that she had “drastically reduced” the money she had been transferring to their personal account from a business account.
Increasingly anxious, Peters’ husband said he added a garage camera in the area where other chemicals were kept. He watched the footage live on Sunday evening, when he told police he saw his wife with the soda near a bottle of insecticide.
At the time, Peters’ husband believed that the current bottle of Mountain Dew was empty.
The next day, the husband brought the video footage to the Laclede County Sheriff’s Office, where he reported that he was afraid for his life.
He also told police that he was still suffering from a sore throat — two weeks after he stopped drinking any of the Mountain Dew due to the contents of the security video.
Detectives took two bottles of Roundup, a two-liter soda, and a bottle of insecticide from the couple’s home.
Officers subsequently brought Peters in for questioning, when she initially claimed that she was mixing Mountain Dew with Roundup to create a weed killer that she “saw on Pinterest,” the probable cause statement explained.
When the officers confronted Peters with the video evidence, she said that she “should have just divorced” her husband, who she claimed was “selfish.”
Shortly after she was formally arrested, Peters told authorities that she was upset her husband did not appreciate the party she threw him.
Peters pleaded not guilty to both charges. She is being held without bond, and will appear at her next hearing on July 2.
Prior to her arrest, Peters worked as an esthetician at Bodyworks Unlimited in Lebanon, according to her social media and public records.
In the months leading up to the alleged poisoning, Peters’ Facebook was flooded with images of her family, including her kids and grandkids, as well as reposts from a local church page.
In mid-March, Peters reposted a graphic that encouraged couples to consider what they could do differently “to have unity in all of (their) relationships.”
