John Jefferson
Left to right: Marsha Allen (Obituary), Ashley Nicole Jones (Jackson County Sheriff’s Office), Harold Allen (Obituary).
It was the third substance that proved to be the charm in a fatal poisoning plot concocted by a mother-daughter duo in Indiana, recently released court documents allege.
And, police say, it was their fifth try overall.
Though Harold “Peanut” Allen, 52, was killed by a liquid that is thoroughly modern and chemical in composition, his eventual killers first tried more natural, time-tested, and ancient methods of ending his life, according to law enforcement in the Hoosier State.
On Dec. 20, 2022, Allen “passed away suddenly,” his obituary says.
His death, however, was anything but sudden. Instead, the man’s fatal poisoning came over several months that fall, according to charges recently filed by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.
The plan was allegedly cooked up and executed meticulously, if haltingly, by his since-deceased wife, Marsha Allen, 52, and her daughter, Ashley Jones, 30, who now faces a litany of charges, and outlined in several incriminating emails cited in court documents obtained by Indianapolis-based Fox affiliate WXIN.
She now stands accused of two counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, one count of consumer product tampering, and two counts of attempted murder.
On Sept. 14, 2022, Jones allegedly ordered pong pong seeds from eBay.
When planted, the seeds grow into a tree that is visually similar to similarly toxic oleander. When ingested by humans, pong pong seeds can cause any number of complications — often including death.
The seeds contain the poison cerberin — and the othalanga fruit containing those seeds was used for hundreds of years in the anti-sorcery social rite known as “tangena” on Madagascar, according to a widely-cited and influential Harvard research paper. In this version of a so-called “trial by ordeal,” an offending or accused person would eat the seeds — and if they died, they were deemed a sorcerer or some other kind of criminal. If they lived, they were found innocent.
Jones and Marsha Allen allegedly received the pong pong seeds in the mail in October 2022, ground them up in a coffee grinder, and then put them in a batch of brownies on Nov. 26, 2022.
“It should be noted that Marsha (Allen) sends (Jones) a photo message of what appears to be Harold (Allen) on November 26th. In the photo, there is a half-eaten brownie on a paper plate sitting on Harold’s stomach,” the court documents read. “Harold became sick after eating the brownie and ended up in the emergency room the next day.”
As Harold Allen slowly recuperated in and out of a hospital bed, the alleged murderesses then complained about the effectiveness of the historical Malagasy poison, police allege.
“I am irritated and can’t sleep peacefully,” Marsha Allen allegedly texted Jones on Nov. 28, 2022. “I need this to be over … I wish it would reach its climax and be done lol.”
To which the woman’s daughter allegedly replied: “Agreed.”
On Nov. 30, 2022, Harold Allen returned to the emergency room but doctors chalked up his symptoms to inflammation in his intestines.
Undaunted by the man’s recovery, the pair allegedly turned to a plant with an even more storied pedigree of bringing oblivion to those who ingest it. This time, Ashley Jones used Etsy to purchase hemlock — famously chosen by the philosopher Socrates to effectuate his death sentence for corrupting the youth of ancient Athens.
Technically, Marsha Allen and Jones allegedly purchased water hemlock — a version of the plant native to North America — while Socrates would have used the version native to Greece known as poison hemlock. Both versions of the plant are highly toxic and, if ingested, can cause death in exceedingly small amounts.
But Harold Allen did not die of hemlock poisoning.
On Dec. 8, 2022, the women received the second poison, law enforcement says. Then, three times over four days, they allegedly went to work — putting hemlock in a bowl of chili on Dec. 9, 2022; in a glass of soda on Dec. 10, 2022; and in a margarita on Dec. 12, 2022.
Rasputin-like, the victim simply refused to die.
On Dec. 13, 2022, Jones allegedly ordered ethylene glycol — the major ingredient in antifreeze; which is commonly known to have a sweet, sugary-tasting flavor and which is fatal in sufficient amounts.
Seven days later, Harold Allen was dead. Prosecutors allege Jones effectively tortured him with each failed attempt.
By Oct. 16, 2023, Marsha Allen would also be dead.
The month before that, the alleged widow-killer suffered a break-in and burglary at her home in Freetown — a tiny, census-designated place some 40 miles southeast of Bloomington.
Two men, Steven Andrew White, 29, and Nathaniel Kane Napier, 28, were arrested for the burglary. But White and Napier allegedly did not act alone — or even plan the crime. Rather, the pair “committed the burglary at the direction of and with the assistance of Marsha’s daughter Ashley Jones,” Jackson County Sheriff Rick Meyer said late last year.
The mother told police she suspected her daughter from the start because the burglars allegedly had the combination to a gun safe. Jones was allegedly the only other person who knew that code.
But White also had a story for police: he told an investigator that not only had Jones put him and his companion up to the burglary, she said her mother had previously poisoned Harold Allen to death.
Marsha Allen denied the allegations and turned her cellphone over to law enforcement — providing investigators with telltale evidence of the alleged conspiracy to kill her husband.
“On the cell phone, officers found text messages between Marsha and Ashley in which they discussed murdering Marsha’s husband, Harold Allen, by poisoning Harold in December of 2022,” Meyer said.
Jones, for her part, allegedly accepted some small measure of culpability — admittedly “ordering ethylene glycol off the Internet,” but insisting it was her mother “who had placed the ethylene glycol in Harold’s drink,” according to the sheriff’s office.
Weeks after the daughter was arrested in early October 2023, a search warrant was effectuated at the mother’s home. Later that same day, police believe Marsha Allen killed herself.
An ensuing investigation turned up additional details in which Jones allegedly appears to stake out a higher level of involvement.
In text messages, Jones allegedly expressed a financial motive:
Ahahah yeah she ain’t gonna be able to do s––– she wouldn’t even have succeeded with this last thing without me I planned it all.
She was gonna use insulin like 1983 oh it’s not traced
Yeah not usually and not years ago but 2022 yeah it is and he was diabetic like come on
So something else was hatched and we both know that b—- wasn’t the one planning ect she just f–––ing f–––ed it all up made it less lucrative wouldn’t even make it go get a will
She couldn’t get into a dead man’s phone without me to get all his retirements and savings he had hidden hell she got 4500 from his PayPal cc cause I showed her how to scam it as him before they find he’s gone she’s fake af
She didn’t gimme s––– out of that
The defendant is currently slated for a jury trial that begins on Jan. 7, 2025.
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