Paramedic accused of killing wife by poisoning her with Visine

A North Carolina paramedic allegedly murdered his wife by poisoning her with Visine.

Joshua Lee Hunsucker, 35, on Thursday was charged with first-degree murder in the September 2018 death of his wife of eight years, 32-year-old Stacy Robinson Hunsucker, the Gaston Gazette reported.

“We have probable cause he poisoned Mrs. Hunsucker with Visine, which caused her death,” North Carolina state attorney Jordan Green said in Gaston County court on Friday.

Hunsucker allegedly gave his high school sweetheart a fatal dose of tetrahydrozoline, a decongestant commonly found in eye drops that can cause the heart to stop when ingested.

Special agents with the North Carolina Department of Insurance began their investigation after Stacey’s mother, Suzie Robinson, alerted them of possible insurance fraud by her former son-in-law.

Hunsucker pocketed a $250,000 life insurance payout upon his wife’s death.

Robinson believed Hunsucker wanted to kill her daughter over a relationship with another woman he started during their marriage, according to court documents reported by the local newspaper.

His co-workers testified that he seemed “unaffected” by his wife’s sudden death. They were also shocked that he had another girlfriend less than six months later.

Hunsucker also allegedly gave differing accounts of what he was doing when his wife stopped breathing, turned blue and collapsed on the sofa in their home last year.

First, he told investigators he had his back to her and found her dead on the sofa and then later changed his story, telling friends he discovered her upon entering the room, according to the court documents.

He didn’t allow an autopsy to be performed on his wife’s body. But because she had been an organ donor, a blood sample was preserved after her death and tested by investigators.

Results showed high levels tetrahydrozoline — about 30 to 40 times the therapeutic level — which would have had a “dramatic effect on her heart, which would cause heart stoppage in a short amount of time,” Green said.

Stacy had suffered heart problems in the past and received a pacemaker in February 2015.

She’d also experienced complications when delivering the couple’s first child, a girl, in February 2013 and during the birth of their second daughter in October 2014, according to a GoFundMe page created by a family friend to help them raise money in 2015.

A month after delivering their second daughter, Stacy was admitted to the hospital with a low heart rate and low blood pressure and went into cardiac arrest.

The GoFundMe for the couple raised $10,405 of its $20,000 goal.

Hunsucker’s attorney, David Teddy, said the allegations would be “strenuously opposed.” He pleaded for bail to be set at $50,000 so his client could be with his two young daughters. The judge refused the request.

Bail was set at $1.5 million. Hunsucker’s next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 9.

In 2018, a 52-year-old South Carolina woman was charged with murdering her husband by putting eye drops in his drinking water.

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