By SNEJANA FARBEROV
A 19-year-old Wyoming woman accused of poisoning her stepmother with eye drops has pleaded no contest to an aggravated assault charge. Alexis Jennings, of Natrona County, entered the plea Thursday in state district court. Prosecutors allege Jennings put about 20 bottles of Visine in her stepmother's tea and coffee over four months. The stepmother was hospitalized twice with various ailments. Investigators have said Jennings wanted her stepmother dead because the teen told the woman she had molested a young girl, and the stepmother revealed the secret to Jennings' then-boyfriend.
Jennings was arrested last November after her stepmother saw a Web search history related to Visine poisonings on a computer at the house and became suspicious, The Casper Star Tribune reported. The girl later told police that she got the idea to use the eye drops as poison from an unrelated news story.
The woman, whose name is not been released, suffered from numerous different symptoms that had sent her to the hospital on two separate occasions, but doctors were struggling to diagnose her illness. According to investigators, the victim had ingested about 20 bottles of the eye drops after drinking Visine-laced tea and coffee from July through November 2012.
Officials told K2Radio the girl varied her dosage of the eye drops poured into her stepmother’s beverages from as little as one-sixth of a bottle to as much as a quarter of a bottle. On November 16, the victim was hospitalized with decreased body temperature, stomach aches, swings in blood pressure, blurred vision, tremors and bleeding.
Less than a mother later, the stepmother required medical help for similar symptoms. Jennings later told investigators that the woman had ingested about five bottles worth of Visine that day. Jennings reportedly admitted to the crime when she was interviewed by deputies, telling them she wanted her stepmother 'gone.' The defendant initially pleaded not guilty to the charge, but had a change of heart this week. In exchange, prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of up to four years in the Wyoming Women's Center.
The teen could have faced 10 years in prison if she were to go to trial and found guilty. Jennings s is being held on $25,000 bond and will be sentenced at a later date. In the past two years, there have been three separate criminal cases involving Visine.
