An Arizona mother pleaded guilty to poisoning her US Air Force husband after he caught her pouring bleach into his coffee pot on cameras he hid throughout their home .
Melody Felicano Johnson pleaded guilty to two counts of poisoning food or drink for pouring the deadly chemical into the coffee machine before Roby Johnson had his morning cup of coffee on July 11 and 18, 13 News reported.
Melody pleaded guilty to the lesser crimes and the attempted murder charge she initially faced was dismissed in return, according to the local news station.
The poisonings occurred while the couple was going through a divorce but still living together at the airman’s duty station in Germany and Arizona.
Roby noticed his coffee starting to taste strange while they were stationed in Germany in March and suspected his wife, the mother of his children, had tried to poison him.
“He stated that she knew he would prepare her coffee maker so that it would be ready in the evening, so that in the morning she would just have to turn it on to make her coffee,” court documents show. “At that point he stopped drinking coffee but continued to pretend to drink.”
Once back in Arizona, Roby installed hidden cameras in their home in an attempt to catch his estranged wife in the act.
On July 16, Melody was filmed pouring liquid from a large bottle of bleach into a smaller container in the family’s laundry room.
Moments later, she was filmed by another hidden camera entering the kitchen and pouring the contents of the smaller container into the water basin of the coffee maker.
Roby also filmed himself testing the water in the coffee maker in a bid to gather more evidence to give to police.
“You can smell it from here. You can feel it,” he announced in a clip.
“Look at this,” he said, taking the color-changing positive test out of the coffee maker. “Totally changed. »
In complete disbelief, Roby repeatedly said, “Wow” and pointed to the bubbles inside the coffee maker’s water reservoir before ending the video.
He shared the videos with the Tucson Police Department, who arrested Melody on July 18.
The airman believes his wife was trying to kill him to collect his life insurance benefits, according to court documents.
Melody was considered a flight risk since she has family and assets in the Philippines and has remained in custody since her arrest.
She will be sentenced on May 10. She faces up to two years in prison but could be released for time served because the minimum sentence is four months, according to 13 News.
New York Post
