Stacy Robinson Hunsucker’s husband told several different versions of events in recounting how he found his wife dying.
He told his mother-in-law that he was on his computer at the kitchen table when he happened to turn around and see his wife slouching on the couch, ABC News reported.
What the trained paramedic didn’t say was that he killed his wife, the mother of his now 5- and 6-year old daughters, and that he did it with eye drops, prosecutors said.
Hunsucker was arrested Thursday evening — over a year after his wife’s death — for his suspected role in her demise.
An interrogation of Hunsucker led investigators to believe that he is responsible for poisoning and killing his wife with a chemical decongestant, tetrahydrozoline, that is common in brand names like Visine, North Carolina Insurance Department attorney Jordan Green said.
“We’re told by our toxicologists and our cardiologists that medicine has a dramatic effect on your heart and would cause heart stoppage or heart failure in a fairly short amount of time, which is consistent with what happened here,” Green told a judge on Friday.
Hunsucker was charged with first-degree murder Friday. Hunsucker’s lawyer, David Teddy, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
It was the speed at which he moved on after her death that made Stacy’s mom, Suzie Robinson, suspicious. Robinson made an allegation of insurance fraud against Hunsucker with the North Carolina Department of Insurance, the Shelby Star reported. Hunsucker received $250,000 in life insurance payments from two policies after his wife’s death, according to the Star.
Prosecutors say Hunsucker showed no signs of grief after Stacy’s death and entered a new relationship less than six months later, according to the Star’s examination of the criminal complaint. Robinson believed her son-in-law was having an affair before Stacy died, the outlet reports.
Stacy had baffling heart conditions for years before her death, according to a GoFundMe page created in January 2015 that raised nearly $10,500 for medical bills resulting from hospital stays due to her low heart rate.
When ingested orally, tetrahydrozoline attacks the nervous system and can cause drowsiness, a slow heartbeat or even coma, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Hunsucker rejected an autopsy for his wife, who was an organ donor, because he didn’t want her “to be cut up,” according to ABC News. He had her body cremated shortly after her death.
The cremation wasn’t a roadblock for investigators searching for answers. When they realized Stacy was an organ donor for a private company, they collected a preserved blood sample and sent it to labs for testing, Green told the judge on Friday.
The results of those tests showed very high levels of tetrahydrozoline, Green said.
“We have probable cause that [Hunsucker] is the one who poisoned Mrs. Hunsucker with Visine or a similar product and caused her death,” he said. “Quite a bit of our information we got from him during his interview.”
Hunsucker is being held on $1.5 million bond, according to Gaston County sheriff’s records.
If he is convicted, he faces up to life in prison or the death penalty.
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