A woman from Monroe, Wisconsin, who allegedly poisoned her husband several times by putting animal euthanasia drugs in his coffee, was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
Police charged 50-year-old Amanda Chapin on December 28. They accused the woman of poisoning her husband, Gary Chapin, 70, three times in July and August by adding barbiturates to his morning coffee.
On August 21, Gary Chapin called the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Office, saying he was having trouble breathing. EMS took him to the hospital, where he remained in a coma for several days. Doctors found barbiturates in his blood, even though he had not been prescribed any.
A criminal complaint shows that the two got married in March 2022. A few weeks after the wedding, Amanda Chapin got power of attorney over all of Chapin’s medical decisions. She also demanded that her husband add her to the deed of his house, saying that if he died, his kids would leave her homeless.
Two days after Chapin went into a coma, his son filed a restraining order against Amanda and requested that her medical power of attorney over Chapin be revoked.
The complaint states that the woman tried to poison his father twice.
The man’s son said the couple met online, and the relationship moved quickly. She moved in with Chapin after a few weeks of dating and the two only dated for 8 to 12 months before they wed in secret.
The complaint states that Chapin’s children did not trust their father’s wife and thought she seemed suspicious. Their suspicion got worse when they asked her what had happened to their father, and she couldn’t give them a straight answer and talked in circles.
An investigator spoke to Chapin in August, and he said that their marriage had been rocky from the start. Chapin said that in late July, he told one of his daughters he wanted to divorce his wife because she was violent, adding that he had read his wife’s journal and that in April 2022, she had written that she would open a yoga place in Hawaii as soon as she was financially stable.
According to the complaint, Chapin believed that his wife had poisoned him three times. The first time was on July 18, 2022. On the morning of July 18, Mrs. Chapin brought him his coffee as usual, but after drinking the coffee, he was unsteady on his feet and felt as if he was drowning. The hospital did not find the cause of the symptoms.
The second time was on August 2, similar to the last time he was drinking coffee that his wife had brought him, and when he stood up, he had the same feeling.
The third time was on August 21. He remembered drinking coffee brought to him by his wife at around 9 am, and the next time he woke up, he was in the hospital.
She used a euthanasia drug he uses on dogs in his practice. She knew the drugs and what they do because he had used them to put down her dog a few weeks earlier.
After the alleged poisoning attempts, Mrs. Chapin tried to commit suicide in September and sent her husband a note saying she did not poison him. Police officers took her to the hospital, and she survived the suicide attempt.
Amanda Chapin was given a $10,000 cash bond and ordered to stay away from her husband. Her next court appearance is on January 12.
