SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A North Carolina man has been charged with murder after killing his wife during what he claims was a dream. Audio from a 911 call the man made has been released:
A Raleigh, North Carolina, man accused of killing his wife told a 911 dispatcher that he took too much cold medicine and woke up to find her "dead on the floor."
Early Friday morning, Matthew Phelps, 28, called 911 and told the dispatcher, "I had a dream and then I turned on the lights and she's dead on the floor." "I have blood all over me and there's a bloody knife on the bed," Phelps said. "I think I did it." "I can't believe this," he said.
The Raleigh Police Department released the audio from the 911 call but redacted some information and altered the caller's voice.
Phelps told 911, "I took more medicine than I should have." He said he "took Coricidin Cough & Cold," explaining, "a lot of times I can't sleep at night." The dispatcher asked if the victim was awake, and Phelps responded, "She's not breathing. Oh my God."
Coricidin Cough & Cold is made by Bayer. It contains an antihistamine, chlorpheniramine maleate, and a cough suppressant, dextromethorphan hydrobromide. Dextromethorphan (DXM) is used recreationally for its dissociative effects.
Bayer, the makers of Coricidin, said in a statement, "Bayer extends our deepest sympathies to this family." "Patient safety is our top priority, and we continually monitor adverse events regarding all of our products," Bayer said, adding, "There is no evidence to suggest that Coricidin is associated with violent behavior."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:31PM (15 children)
In order for this guy's story to be true, he has to, completely unawares, go somewhere to get a knife (e.g. the kitchen), murder his wife, and roll her onto the floor from the bed (or possibly the other order), all because of an over-the-counter drug whose normal effect is to put this guy into a deep sleep. This seems about as believable as everything Hans Reiser said about the disappearance of his wife.
So what I'd do if I were investigating this is completely ignore his story, and start with:
- Could somebody else have been there? It's entirely possible somebody else entered the home and killed his wife while he was completely zonked out, and the effect of the cough syrup was to put him into a deep enough sleep he didn't wake up.
- Have there been domestic problems in this household before? If so, then I'm really not going to believe this guy is innocent.
- Has the victim ever shown signs of suicidal tendencies?
- Has the husband ever shown signs of homicidal tendencies?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:58PM (8 children)
I wonder about two things. How long was the woman dead, before he called? Several hours? Just an hour? Minutes? In spite of all the pseudoscience admitted to court, I think that have the time of death thing worked out. Second - did they guy seem to be well rested, or was he fatigued from being up all night?
And, oh yeah - blood test. Did he really have this stuff in his system?
Seems a pretty fishy story, but it should be checked out as best as possible.
THEN we hang him.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @03:02PM (7 children)
Hang yourself, I'm sure you have a few cousins and old friends with some experience :P
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 05 2017, @03:26PM (6 children)
Nope. You might check your own family tree for clansmen. Many, if not most, were Democrats. Those members of my family who have bothered to register to vote generally follow my lead, and register "independent". The rest are republicans. But, thanks for your concern!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @03:45PM
Yeah!
And Hitler!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 05 2017, @04:03PM (1 child)
What the haemorrhaging fuck does any of this have to do with politics or the Klan, Runaway? You're getting increasingly deranged as time goes by. Make like an ABit Socket 754 mobo and quit posting for a while, will you?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 05 2017, @11:00PM
None of it has anything to do with the article. I responded to a little douche sniping at me. Try to keep up.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @04:03PM
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @04:18PM (1 child)
Ok we'll call them conservatives instead of democrats... or were your relatives progressive radical republican liberals?
I always use this meme as a red flag when dealing with people because either their logic is flawed or they're happy with lying to you or themselves.
So which are you? Delusional or a compulsive liar?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @10:56PM
Red flag? So you're a Chicom?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kalas on Tuesday September 05 2017, @04:24PM
Regarding the side effect of somnolence, that's only in dose within or not too far above the recommended range on the box. Dextromethorphan (DXM) is the main active ingredient in OTC cough medicines and at psychedelic doses actually gains a stimulant effect, despite the user still feeling heavily sedated at the same time. From personal experience (both using and trip-sitting) I'd describe it as a sort of tense "electric" energy you can feel through your entire body. Uncomfortable at times but plenty tolerable given the euphoria. I don't think I can well put into words that mix of sedation and stimulation but it is absolutely believable that the guy would be awake, if not altogether aware or functional at the time of the call.
All that said, in my countless experiences with various psychedelics I have not once felt the need to murder someone, much less act on any violent impulse. I don't know about other mental illnesses but I know marijuana for example can trigger the early onset of latent schizophrenia. Not much of a stretch to think other psychedelics could do the same.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)
You should go find some first-hand info on how this drug acts (psychotropically) above the therapeutic dose levels it has been approved for. It's gonna take quite a few pills to munch to get to the threshold level required, but just because you have never done it does not make it far-fetched.
Drug manufacturers (and to a lesser extent legislators/regulatory bodies) are well aware of recreational DXM use. Apparently, it's especially common among kids because the stuff is so easy to get yet quite potent. So how to get around classifying yet another profitable pharmaceutical drug as a banned street drug? The solution seems to be selling combination products. Add in some pain relief/anti-inflammatory drugs like Paracetamol or Ibuprofen in just the right dosage that getting to recreational levels of DXM now will also get you to lethal levels of the other drug. Death by liver failure doesn't sound pretty, but who cares if it's just some school kids who were on their way of becoming heroin-injecting junkies anyway, right?
Additionally, just quick fact-checking of my own knowledge about the stuff revealed that 1-10% of the population have a genetic predisposition to experience the pychotropic effects even at therapeutic doses, i.e. hallucinations and psychotic episodes. Totally safe because sold OTC.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 05 2017, @08:27PM
Drug manufacturers (and to a lesser extent legislators/regulatory bodies) are well aware of recreational DXM use. Apparently, it's especially common among kids because the stuff is so easy to get yet quite potent.
Hell, mc chris wrote a song about it! [azlyrics.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @06:05PM
it's a disassociative drug. It works differently, but that's the same category as PCP. The short version of the PCP story is they stopped using it as a human anaesthetic because people often woke up insane, if they woke up at all. You would probably have similar problems with DXM as an anaesthetic. People use both drugs recreationally.
As to whether the guy is guilty, we can't tell from the available information. His story is plausible, but only just. Forensics, the dosage and even an expert witness (hopefully not from Bayer) will be needed to decide the case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @06:48PM
You seem to have just assumed that the guy must have made effort to kill his wife. It is quite possible (and actually more probably) that the wife himself got into an argument while he was in inebriated state or that she bought the knife "to defend herself" which women are normally taught to do against everyone specially against their spouse.
You also need to take into account that the company is claiming that the drug has no relation to 'violent behavior'. It does NOT say it can put into a delirious state. If you thought you were being attacked by a lion would you swing the knife in your hand? Does that mean you are a born criminal with inherent violent tendencies and vicious mind? One must never discount situation on the path to blame a person.
In my mind a good lawyer will have no trouble drawing sufficient doubt on the 'he-killed-her-then-staged-it' scenario. In reality of course all that doesn't matter as he will definitely go to jail for being a husband who killed his wife.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @01:42AM
The medication in question happens to be a dissociative anaesthetic, similar in effect to ketamine and PCP (angeldust). Just because at normal doses it happens to merely suppress coughs via a similar method to how opiates do the same task doesn't mean it doesn't have some pretty drastic effects when large doses are taken. And 1 in 10 people are particularly strongly affected by it (I knew a guy who would be tripping from half a normal cough dose), though that doesn't seem to be a likely scenario in this case considering the guy reports using it regularly to go to sleep. There are a variety of prescription medications (SSRI's and MAOI's are the first to mind) that can potentiate the effects quite a bit in a relatively chaotic manner, and to boot, Coricidin has another active ingredient which can at high doses produce deliriant effects, and also interacts with the dextromethorphan both physiologically as well as psychologically.
I'm not saying trust his story out of hand, but I wouldn't be quite so incredulous without having quite a bit more information either. Dextromethorphan isn't over the counter because it's particularly safe; it's over the counter because it's the only thing particularly effective to suppress coughs that doesn't result in physiological dependency that has been extensively tested thus far. In fact, it's one of very few (might be alone actually) chemicals that has been given a specific exemption from the Analog Act, by which most research chemicals are banned despite not being specifically scheduled, because it otherwise certainly would fall under that law's scope. There's talk of replacing it with theobromine (found in chocolate) at some point, but that's still in the relatively early days of testing, and getting anyone to pony up the money to test it isn't particularly easy as it's not exactly something that can be patented.
Between the memory issues known to occur at high doses combined with the dreaminess of the experience, I'd really not be so quick to discount the possibility that this really is something this guy had no intention of actually carrying out and perhaps didn't even realize was happening as it did. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he's full of shit of course, but it's hard to say exactly where I'd imagine the truth is without a bit more information. Beyond that, it's extremely hard to tell where a court will come down on this matter, as on the one hand, it'd be a decent case for a temporary insanity plea, but on the other hand, there is precedent for the effects of drugs not being a particularly good defense, particularly in the trials involving members of Charles' Manson's "Family."
Basically, this sounds like quite the complex case for a court to hear, and I'd be frankly quite surprised if something or other doesn't get mishandled somewhere along the way. This guy may have a few years of appeals ahead of him.