Innocuous Eye Drops May Be Perfect Secret Weapon For Wanna-Be Murderers, But Who to Kill First During Holidays?

Hopefully, you haven’t ever seriously considered murdering anyone…but if you did, apparently, there’s a deadly over-the-counter medication that could help you carry that dastardly deed out – and it just might be in your medicine cabinet right now.

It’s Visine, that innocuous-looking little tube of eye drops. Reportedly, more than one person has recently been found to have used the drops in order to poison their enemy.

Lana Sue Clayton of Clover, South Carolina, admitted to putting Visine in her husband’s drink, which eventually killed him – though to her credit, she said, “I just did it to make him uncomfortable. I never thought it would kill him.”

As it turns out, it doesn’t take much. Only 1 milliliter of the active ingredient in the eye drops, tetrahydrozoline, can kill a child if it passes through the intestines rather than the eyes. The typical container of eye drops contains 15 – 30 milliliters, more than enough to get the job done with an adult. But police generally don’t check for this particular chemical when investigating homicides, so people like Clayton almost got away with murder. (In her husband’s case, a private lab discovered the poison.)

Paramedic Joshua Lee Hunsucker murdered his wife with a similar M.O., and almost got off scot-free, though he left a huge red flag in the form of life insurances policies totaling $250,000. But it wasn’t until the blood of his late wife – who was an organ donor – was tested for toxins that he got caught.

In sum, yes, eye drops can be fatal if swallowed, but if you think they’re a discreet murder weapon, think again. You’d probably get caught if you used them for nefarious purposes. And if you happen to spy a container of Visine in your girlfriend’s medicine cabinet? Maybe do yourself a favor and get rid of it…just in case you piss her off…

Cover Photo: Adam Gault (Getty Images)

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