Michelle Y. Peters (Laclede County Sheriff’s Office)
A 47-year-old woman in Missouri is facing multiple felonies after she was allegedly caught on video spiking her husband’s Mountain Dew with Round Up weed killer because he was “not appreciative” of the 50th birthday party she threw for him. Michelle Y. Peters was taken into custody on Monday and charged with one count of first-degree domestic assault and one count of armed criminal action, authorities announced.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Peters’ husband on the morning of Monday, June 24, notified the Laclede County Sheriff’s Office that he believed his wife was poisoning him.
He told investigators he was the only person in the home who drank Mountain Dew, but said that around May 1, he noticed the beverage tasted “odd” and he became sick shortly after. He ignored the “weird” taste at first, but said that after a couple of weeks, he had a sore throat, diarrhea, vomiting, and was coughing up a “brown/yellow thick mucus.”
The husband said that when he drank Mountain Dew outside of his home, it tasted normal, but all of the two-liter bottles in the garage had the same strange taste. He then became suspicious that someone was putting something in those bottles and decided to check footage from a camera set up in the garage.
“(The husband) said the video showed Michelle (Peters) taking a two-liter bottle of Diet Mountain Dew out of the garage refrigerator and a bottle of Roundup weed killer into the house,” the affidavit states. “(He) said that Michelle (Peters) then returned the soda to the refrigerator and put the Roundup back on the shelf in the garage.”
Peters’ husband said he quickly became “afraid for his life,” so he gave a copy of the recording to someone whose name is redacted from the document, as well as the bottle of Mountain Dew Peters placed in the garage refrigerator “in case he died from being poisoned.”
“(The husband) said he changed his routine and would put new and untampered Mountain Dew bottles in the refrigerator. (He) said that every time he put a new bottle in the refrigerator, Michelle (Peters) would put Roundup in it,” the affidavit states. “(The husband) said the original bottle of Roundup was now nearly empty and he noticed that there was a new, unopened bottle of Roundup that recently showed up on the garage shelf.”
When Peters’ husband told her that he had been feeling sick, she allegedly told him that “he probably had COVID and to stay away from the grandkids.”
The husband on June 24 also allegedly caught Peters on film putting insecticide in his Mountain Dew bottle.
Asked about a possible motive for his wife wanting to poison him, Peters’ husband suggested she could be having an affair or might be after the payout from his $500,000 life insurance policy.
When questioned, Peters initially denied putting Roundup in her husband’s Mountain Dew, claiming she was actually mixing the beverage and insecticide together to create a “weed killer that she saw on Pinterest.” However, when confronted with the video evidence and bottles her husband had gathered, she allegedly confessed and said she “should have just divorced (her husband).”
“Michelle again admitted to putting the insecticide from the basement in the two-liter Mountain Dew bottle and placing it into the garage refrigerator during the evening of 6-23-2024. Michelle said she was mad at (her husband) because she had thrown him a 50th birthday party and he was not appreciative,” police said, per the affidavit.
Peters added that she was putting the Roundup in his Mountain Dew “to be mean.”
Glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Roundup, can cause multiple organ failure and death if ingested, according to the National Pesticide Information Center.
Peters is currently being held in the Laclede County Detention Center without bond and is scheduled to appear in court on July 2.
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