Husband Accused Of Using Visine Eye Dropper To Kill Wife

Police in Gaston County, North Carolina, believe a man used eye drops to murder his wife. According to investigators, Joshua Lee Hunsucker, 35, gave his wife a large dose of Visine eye dropper, which can cause heart failure, to collect a sizable life insurance payment.

Stacy Robinson Hunsucker, 32, a mother of two daughters, died in September 2018. Her life insurance policy was valued at $250,000.

Joshua Hunsucker, who previously worked as a paramedic, was charged Friday with first-degree murder in a preliminary hearing. His bond was set at $1.5 million.

According to Jordan Green, an attorney for the Department of Insurance, investigators were able to make the discovery by testing vials of Stacy Hunsucker’s blood that were being held by a company involved in organ donations. A medical examiner found that her blood had “high levels of tetrahydrozoline, which is one of the active ingredients in certain eye drop medicine that you would use to clear your eyes.” The Shelby Star reports that the levels found in her system were 30-40 times greater than the level needed for the drug to take effect.

Joshua Hunsucker notably did not allow for an autopsy to take place before his wife was cremated. All other suspects and the possibility of suicide had been ruled out.

“We’re told by our toxicologist and our cardiologist that medicine has a dramatic effect on your heart and would cause heart stoppage and heart failure in a fairly short amount of time, which is consistent with what happened here,” Green said in court Friday.

Police on Thursday interviewed Joshua Hunsucker about using eye drops as a murder weapon.

“Without saying too much, quite a bit of our information we got from him during his interview,” Green said. “I don’t know that he would characterize it as a confession but it certainly approached that level.”