A Georgia woman who poisoned her husband with anti-freeze will spend the rest of her life in prison, after claiming in court that he voluntarily took the mixture to ease his suffering.
Torii Fedrick, 45, was convicted of murder in the 2021 poisoning death of her husband, Phil Fedrick, 40. The investigation into Phil's death lasted more than a year, and police and prosecutors contend she concocted an anti-freeze-laced cocktail to murder her husband, the Thomasville-Times Enterprise reported.
In September 2021, on a Monday morning, Phil Fredick was found unconscious and unclothed, facedown in a bathtub.
"Mr. Fedrick was taken to Archbold Memorial Hospital, where the emergency room staff suspected poisoning. Approximately one week later, Mr. Fedrick died. The hospital's staff's quick assessments and requesting of proper testing later confirmed the poisoning was crucial in the case being discovered," the Thomas County Sheriff's office stated.
The medical investigation confirmed that Fredrick had been poisoned with ethylene glycol, a substance commonly found in anti-freeze and brake fluid, police said.
The defense, in their closing arguments during trial, had said that Phil Sr. had consumed ethylene glycol on his own because he was a sick man. However, prosecutors contend that the circumstances of the death and how Phil Sr. was found did not support that theory, according to the Thomasville-Times Enterprise.
Jurors heard from the couple's children, who were at home when Phil Fredrick was found. In taking the stand, the children's testimony differed from previous statements that had been made to investigators, the newspaper reported.
Their son Phil Jr., who was 14 at the time, told police that he had seen his mother provide a cocktail in a water sports bottle, which Phil Sr. drank while watching a sporting event. On the stand, he said this wasn't true, and that he had told the investigator what he thought the investigator wanted to hear, the newspaper reported.
