A Missouri woman accused of spiking her husband’s Mountain Dew with Roundup weed killer and insecticide repeatedly to be “mean” to him has been charged with multiple felonies, authorities said.
Michelle Y. Peters, 47, of Lebanon, is accused of secretly putting Roundup in the 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew her husband stored in a garage refrigerator during May and June. On Sunday, she also allegedly laced the beverage with insecticide, according to the Laclede County Sheriff’s Office and a redacted probable cause statement of facts filed this week by the sheriff’s office.
Peters was arrested Monday and is formally charged by county prosecutors with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, both charges are felonies, court documents said.
She was being held on no bond Friday afternoon at the Laclede County Detention Center, a representative of the jail said.
It was not immediately clear if Peters had an attorney.
On the day of her arrest, Peters told authorities, “She was mad … because she had thrown him a 50th birthday party and he was not appreciative,” according to the probable cause statement. “Michelle said she believed the chemical in the basement was Roundup when she put it in the Mountain Dew bottle and did so to be ‘mean.’”
Peters initially told the detective she was not putting Roundup in the bottles of soda, but was mixing Mountain Dew in the Roundup to use as weed killer, an idea she she saw on Pinterest, according to the probable cause statement.
But she later admitted to putting insecticide in a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew that she placed in the garage refrigerator, the probable cause statement said.
The sheriff’s office said it has video evidence of Peters tampering with the Mountain Dew bottles.
“The victim began suspecting the soda was being tampered with after feeling ill,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “The victim provided video surveillance to the sheriff’s office.”
Peters’ husband, whose name was redacted in the probable cause statement, told the sheriff’s office detective that he drank Mountain Dew on May 1 and noticed it had an odd taste but continued to drink it. After a couple of weeks, he began feeling sick and experienced symptoms that included a sore throat, coughing up brown and yellow mucus, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, court records said.
Roundup contains Glyphosate and, if consumed, can cause “increased saliva burns, and pain in the mouth and throat, along with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea,” according to the probable cause statement, which cited WebMD. Consuming the chemical has caused death, court records said.
Peters’ husband also told the detective that on June 11 or 12, he drank a small bottle of Mountain Dew and it tasted normal, but when he drank the Mountain Dew from his home refrigerator, it tasted different.
Peters' husband reviewed video footage from his garage on June 12, which showed his wife taking a 2-liter Diet Mountain Dew out the refrigerator and a bottle of Roundup into the house, the probable cause statement said. Michelle Peters then returned the soda to the refrigerator and put the Roundup back onto the shelf in the garage, according to the probable cause statement.
When Peters' husband told his wife that he was sick, court records said, she said he may have Covid.
Peters’ husband told the detective he was unsure if his wife was having an affair or was “trying to collect his $500,000 life insurance policy," according to the probable cause statement.
Peters’ husband said he did not suspect infidelity, the probable cause statement said, but his wife has been reducing the amount of money she had been placing in their joint account from their business account.
Detectives added Michelle Peters said she and her husband were having relationship issues.
