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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, 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.