A wife has been arrested for allegedly trying to poison her husband for months after he caught her spiking his coffee “with bleach” on camera.
Melody Feliciano Johnson was charged with first-degree attempted murder, attempt to commit aggravated assault as well as poisoning food or drink when her plot was foiled.
Court documents show Feliciano Johnson’s husband, Roby Johnson, started to suspect something was wrong in March, when he noticed his coffee tasted foul.
Johnson, who is serving in the US Air Force and was stationed in Germany when he first became suspicious, said the couple were still living together with their child while going through a divorce.
Within days of noticing the weird taste of his coffee, the soldier used pool testing strips on the coffee pot and found it showed “high levels of chlorine.”
Johnson then set up a camera to uncover who was tampering with his drinks only to find Melody pouring an unknown substance into the pot.
He told detectives he continued to pretend to drink the coffee until he was redeployed to the US so he could file a report with the police.
Once stationed at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, he once again set up multiple cameras disguised as fire alarms to collect further evidence against his wife.
The police report said the video ended up “showing Melody take bleach, pour it into a container and then walk over and pour it into the coffee maker.”
Johnson told the police he “believes she was trying to kill him to collect death benefits.”
But physicians noted the household bleach the woman allegedly used would not have caused much damage to her husband in the small quantities she used.
Medical toxicologist Dan Quan said the type of bleach normally found in everyday homes has a concentration of about five percent, which is significantly less than pool acids.
But he noted Johnson could still have experienced significant discomfort after consuming bleach.
Dr Quan told Arizona News: “It would take a lot of bleach to poison somebody. Household bleach is not even quite that strong.
“Burning sensation to their throat, or they may even get some chest discomfort or some stomach discomfort.”
Feliciano Johnson pleaded not guilty during her arraignment last Friday and she was assigned a public defender.
The woman is being held at the Pima County Jail where she will remain until her next scheduled court appearance on September 6.
The judge set a £195,963 ($250,000) bond after prosecutors expressed concerns she could be a flight risk as she recently bought a home in the Philippines.
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