Wife poisons husband’s wine with antifreeze in act of twisted ‘payback’
Kristen Hogan, 33, told cops she wasn’t intending to kill her estranged husband, as the pair fought for custody of their child, and is now facing two counts of attempted murder
A wife stands accused of trying to kill her estranged husband by spiking his wine and iced tea with antifreeze. Kristen Hogan, 33, has been locked in an ongoing and bitter child custody battle with her ex-partner, who remains unnamed.
Things came to a head on August 10, when the victim sipped a small amount of wine from his fridge in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in the US.
But instead of a relaxing evening ahead, he was repeatedly sick during the night and woke up “slurring his words, staggering, and vomiting,” according to a police affidavit. The next day, his quick-thinking mum rushed him to hospital after finding him in a shocking state.
Doctors at first feared a stroke, but alarm bells rang when they spotted signs of ethylene glycol poisoning – a deadly chemical used in antifreeze – and he was rushed to ICU and placed on dialysis for renal failure.
He told police he that believed Hogan had spiked his wine just days earlier on August 7 – the day she failed to show up to a court hearing they were both meant to attend.
While he was in court, he got an alert that his ex-wife’s phone has connected to his home’s WiFi and uploaded data. He claimed that this proved she had been inside his property, reports the New York Post.
The victim told cops that Hogan had “full, unrestricted access to the home,” and she was “the last person other than himself to be in the residence prior to him drinking the already opened wine.”
Initially, Hogan denied she had done anything wrong doing – but detectives seized the wine bottle and sent it to the Connecticut Forensic Lab, where it tested positive for ethylene glycol.
Police then uncovered damning searches on Hogan’s phone, which including “potassium cyanide,” “monoethylene glycol,” and even “how much of these substances would kill you.”
When grilled, Hogan told cops she “was confused about the chemicals and then stated she recognised the word cyanide from the television show ‘Psych.’”
She admitted to buying a bottle of monoethylene glycol in July but bizarrely insisted “she was using that specific chemical to clean the carpet at her mother’s house.”
Hogan eventually confessed to the carry out the disturbing poisoning and is now facing two counts of attempted murder. The defendant claimed that she never intended to kill him but only wanted to get revenge on the mental abuse he had made her suffer.
She said during a police interview: “I never wanted to kill him but just wanted to make him sick as payback for being mentally abusive.”
The mum also told detectives she “did not know how much ethylene glycol she put into his drink, but stated it was not much but she just poured it in.”
The wine, she added, was “mostly full” and “red” in colour and “she described bringing the bottle of ethylene glycol and dumped an unknown amount into the wine bottle,” the affidavit stated.
It wasn’t just the wine and she also admitted tampering with iced tea. When the cops warned her their child might’ve been exposed too, she “adamantly denied” the possibility.
But it turned out that their the child was hospitalised in September with similar symptoms to his dad. Hogan stated it was only the wine and the iced tea, and “nobody else knew she was tampering with [the victim’s] drinks,” cops said.
The victim’s believes her twisted motive was “the fact that Hogan would become the full owner of the residence and would gain full-time custody of their child.” Hogan is now behind bars on a $1million bond as the case continues.
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