North Carolina woman tried to spike fiance's soda with eye drops, police say

A woman in North Carolina looked to the movies for inspiration as she tried to poison her fiance with eye drops, authorities said.

Jaymee Lynn Cruz, of Salisbury, about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte, was arrested on Saturday after her fiance noticed her putting eye drops in his soda, according to the Rowan County Sheriff's Office.

Cruz told deputies she got the idea to spike his drink from watching the movie "Wedding Crashers." There's a scene in the 2005 film where John, the character played by Owen Wilson, puts eye drops in the drink of his rival, Sack Lodge, played by Bradley Cooper. The "prank" makes him violently ill, though the intention was not death.

She told deputies she only planned to make her fiance sick, as well.

Upon seeing his fiancee spike his drink, he took the couple's child and hid in the bathroom and called 911, according to authorities.

The couple was arguing over the custody of their child, and she wanted to move out of the home with her daughter, deputies said.

She has been charged with distributing noxious or deleterious food, a class H felony in North Carolina, and punishable by up to 25 months in jail.

The eye-drop method of poisoning has been used before.

Lana Clayton, a woman in South Carolina, admitted to killing her husband by putting eye drops in his drinks over the course of several days in July 2018, according to the York County Sheriff's Office. She was charged with murder and granted a public defender in October, despite previously owning a million-dollar estate, and is still awaiting trial, according to the Rock Hill, South Carolina, Herald.

Tetrahydrozoline, the chemical found in eye drops, constricts blood vessels and can cause difficulty breathing, slowed heartbeat and the possibility of slipping into a coma if consumed in larger-than-directed quantities.