Two weeks ago, AR and I were dispatched to a suspicious event at a very nice apartment complex. The type of complex that has fountains and multiple pools and cabanas and the monthly rent is more than most house notes. Lindsey, the person who called, met us outside of the leasing office. She did not want us to come to her apartment and she did not want her roommates to know that she had called the police.
Lindsey stated that she was a student at the local university. She was also a member of a sorority. About a month ago, she moved into this apartment complex with two of her sorority sisters. Lindsey has a dog as does her roommate S. The other roommate, C, hates dogs. So, three roommates, two dogs, and one roommate that hates dogs. Lately there had been quite a few arguments between the roommates. C is always complaining about the dogs. C knew before moving in that her two roommates were bringing dogs. According to Lindsey, the arguments were beginning to escalate and Lindsey was becoming worried for her and her dog's safety.
The three roommates all share the same kitchen and refrigerator. They all buy separate groceries and everyone knows whose stuff is whose. For breakfast, Lindsey poured herself a glass of her pineapple orange apple juice. She immediately noticed a strong chemical odor coming from the juice. She had poured the juice into a clear glass and she held up the glass to a light. She noticed white particulates in the juice. She said that it looked like Oxy Clean. She thought that the juice might be out of date and checked the bottle, but it was well before the use date. So, Lindsey took out her other bottle of juice and poured a glass of passion fruit. The passion fruit juice had the same chemical odor and the same white particulates.
At this point, Lindsay thinks that C has tried to poison her. She has heard C make comments in the past about messing with someone's food or shampoo because they made her mad. So, what does Lindsey do? She starts to pour out the juice and calls her mom. When she tells her mom that she is pouring out the juice, her mom yells at her to stop pouring out the juice. There is about a shot glass worth of juice left in each bottle when we arrive.
I asked Lindsey what she wanted us to do. I was trying to find out how far Lindsey wanted to go. Did she want to go through with the process of filing criminal charges against her sorority sister? She was not sure, so she called her mother. After a long conversation with lots of questions for us, this is what they, Lindsey and her mother, wanted. They wanted us to make a report, they wanted us to take samples of the juice, and they wanted to keep some of the juice and the bottle so that they could have the juice tested themselves at an independent lab. Why did they want independent testing? Because they did not want to go through with pursuing criminal charges until it was determined that the juice was actually tainted. Ok, I understand that. Why did they want to wait? Because they did not want to ruin the friendship with sorority sister C. That is where they lost me.
In my mind, the friendship was already toast. If I was sure enough to call the police and make a report, I would already be making plans to move out and would have nothing to do with that roommate.
While AR was talking to Lindsey and getting the information for the report, I made some phone calls to determine what we needed to do with the juice. I talked to three different investigators, the property room, and the crime scene unit. After hearing the story, every single person asked me if Lindsey had been diagnosed with a mental illness. We get lots of calls where people think that someone is out to get them and usually these people are mentally unstable. That is the first thing that I thought. But, after talking to Lindsey and her mother for quite some time, I decided that Lindsey seemed mentally competent. Unfortunately for Lindsey, she moved in with a complete nut job.
We ended up taking the juice bottles and taking multiple samples of the juice. We then tagged the samples into our property room. They will not be tested until an investigator decides that there is sufficient reason to have them tested after interviewing everyone involved. We then took the bottles back to Lindsey for her to have tested. Hopefully for her sake, her lab results come back quickly.
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