MA-Roxanne Doucette, accused of trying to poison her husband, Paul Doucette, 73, to win over fake soap opera star, Townsend, December 2023

Withholding judgement on this one for now until the toxicology. She certainly is the victim of a scam, yet to be seen if she is a murderess.

While some reports imply those messages were in the same conversation, they may not be.

In some reports these messages seem far less incriminating.


According to police documents, a message from "Thorsten" on Dec. 1 stated: "You have to get rid of your husband honey. I need you so much," to which Roxanne Doucette replied she needed to do some thinking.

Later that day, at 2:34 p.m., police documents say Roxanne Doucette responded, "Making an amazing soup. Special potion. He will be hungry when he gets back. Just enough for him."


At 4:26 p.m., Roxanne Doucette says, "Hubby got back not feeling well. Maybe I can collect life insurance," according to police documents.



Right. So it’s open to question. That’s indeed why she hasn’t been charged.

As a poster had pointed out, it’s possible that she was only playing along about the soup and the life insurance to keep the connection with the “star” going. Women have been known to lie to impress a man. She had to have been in deep to send this person thousands of dollars (reports say from $4-8 thousand).

I certainly hope that this scammer is apprehended and prosecuted. For encouraging homicide among other things.

And as you highlight, the husband did arrive home feeling unwell.

A mild stroke or cardiac incident might make soup taste bitter.

Without solid forensic evidence, it would be difficult to prosecute.
 
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Just noticed this thread for romance schemes, there seems to be so many these days..
 
I want to know why their daughter was immediately suspicious and wanted to check the wife's phone. Strange things happen all the time and they're just coincidences, so im not saying I don't believe her when she says she didn't poison him, but something was probably going on in the background of all this otherwise why would the daughter be suspicious right away?
So, here’s my problem with jumping to the worst conclusion in this case. I don’t think that way about most other “suspicion of murder” cases, FWIW.

There could indeed be many other similar incidents perpetrated by this woman. But in this context, there might be no criminal intent, strange as it may seem.

My problem is, dementia can look like this. RD doesn’t sound especially like she has anything to hide, and she seems quite casual a out it all.

The “boyfriend-scam-artist-soap-opera-star” that she’s fixated on, and that no one in their right mind would go along with? Totally in the niche of “seniors are vulnerable to scam artists”, for a variety of reasons, including that their executive function may go off, and no one in their orbit has noticed yet.

Now, could a senior with dementia harbor intense hostility against a mate, that’s been there all the while, but concealed in some dark corner? Oh, yeah. I’ve seen it, and it’s scary as heck. This is not about the poor demented person. It’s their brain. But it’s also horrible to see how violent feelings, successfully buried in the mind for decades, can burst out, despite the long struggle to make them never show up. So terrible.

Those violent moments in someone with dementia may come and go… “other in incidents” in RD’S case are giving me the intermittent “I’ll kill you” dementia vibe.

At any rate, I’m going to stall judgment on “criminal intent” here until LE gets it figured put.
 
So, here’s my problem with jumping to the worst conclusion in this case. I don’t think that way about most other “suspicion of murder” cases, FWIW.

There could indeed be many other similar incidents perpetrated by this woman. But in this context, there might be no criminal intent, strange as it may seem.

My problem is, dementia can look like this. RD doesn’t sound especially like she has anything to hide, and she seems quite casual a out it all.

The “boyfriend-scam-artist-soap-opera-star” that she’s fixated on, and that no one in their right mind would go along with? Totally in the niche of “seniors are vulnerable to scam artists”, for a variety of reasons, including that their executive function may go off, and no one in their orbit has noticed yet.

Now, could a senior with dementia harbor intense hostility against a mate, that’s been there all the while, but concealed in some dark corner? Oh, yeah. I’ve seen it, and it’s scary as heck. This is not about the poor demented person. It’s their brain. But it’s also horrible to see how violent feelings, successfully buried in the mind for decades, can burst out, despite the long struggle to make them never show up. So terrible.

Those violent moments in someone with dementia may come and go… “other in incidents” in RD’S case are giving me the intermittent “I’ll kill you” dementia vibe.

At any rate, I’m going to stall judgment on “criminal intent” here until LE gets it figured put.
Thanks for that perspective.
 
So, here’s my problem with jumping to the worst conclusion in this case. I don’t think that way about most other “suspicion of murder” cases, FWIW.

There could indeed be many other similar incidents perpetrated by this woman. But in this context, there might be no criminal intent, strange as it may seem.

My problem is, dementia can look like this. RD doesn’t sound especially like she has anything to hide, and she seems quite casual a out it all.

The “boyfriend-scam-artist-soap-opera-star” that she’s fixated on, and that no one in their right mind would go along with? Totally in the niche of “seniors are vulnerable to scam artists”, for a variety of reasons, including that their executive function may go off, and no one in their orbit has noticed yet.

Now, could a senior with dementia harbor intense hostility against a mate, that’s been there all the while, but concealed in some dark corner? Oh, yeah. I’ve seen it, and it’s scary as heck. This is not about the poor demented person. It’s their brain. But it’s also horrible to see how violent feelings, successfully buried in the mind for decades, can burst out, despite the long struggle to make them never show up. So terrible.

Those violent moments in someone with dementia may come and go… “other in incidents” in RD’S case are giving me the intermittent “I’ll kill you” dementia vibe.

At any rate, I’m going to stall judgment on “criminal intent” here until LE gets it figured put.
Will law enforcement and the courts take the dementia aspect into account? (Excellent analysis, thanks for sharing).
 
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Will law enforcement and the courts take the dementia aspect into account? (Excellent analysis, thanks for sharing).
So, here’s another case which is a combination of wicked, eyeroll, terrifying, “you have got to be joking”, and OMG. Even Agatha Christie couldn’t have dreamed up this one. Consider when someone’s decision making goes awry and acting out turns murderous in senior years:


IIRC Betty Miller (banal-sounding name, OMG, no need to be suspicious…) is now FREE! She prolly made up some of the details. The Doucette case reminds me of the casual and droll story-line Miller came up with. Hints of Roald Dahl.

I admit to being semi-entertained by the whole thing, and IMO both these articles together give the flavor. VTDigger is the major Vermont state media source (so, MSM; it’s not in the least bit tabloid).


 
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So, here’s another case which is a combination of wicked, eyeroll, terrifying, “you have got to be joking”, and OMG. Even Agatha Christie couldn’t have dreamed up this one. Consider when someone’s decision making goes awry and acting out turns murderous in senior years:


IIRC Betty Miller (banal-sounding name, OMG, no need to be suspicious…) ended up in a mental ward long term.
OMG! Perfect and chilling example of your thesis!
 
I am not sure what outcome I am hoping for here. A) She did poison her husband or B) she was just going along with the fantasy and didn't poison her husband. Either way their life together is over and her relationship with her daughter, whatever it was, is destroyed. AND, how embarrassing to have this aired on inside edition. I could never leave the house again if it were me.

I am curious why her daughter became suspicious and checked her phone. If my 73 father went into the hospital with those symptoms I might suspect heart attack, stroke, food poisoning, flu, covid... about 100 different things before I would suspect my mother poisoned him and I should check her phone.
 
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I am not sure what outcome I am hoping for here. A) She did poison her husband or B) she was just going along with the fantasy and didn't poison her husband. Either way their life together is over and her relationship with her daughter, whatever it was, is destroyed. AND, how embarrassing to have this aired on inside edition. I could never leave the house again if it were me.

I am curious why her daughter became suspicious and checked her phone. If my 73 father went into the hospital with those symptoms I might suspect heart attack, stroke, food poisoning, flu, covid... about 100 different things before I would suspect my mother poisoned him and I should check her phone.
Right, how could you face anyone after that?

I believe it was said that the daughter checked her mother’s phone because she’d already gotten wind that her mother had sent thousands to someone on the internet, and she suspected a scam.

So she was doing this simply because the Dad’s hospitalization gave her the opportunity, and she had no initial suspicions concerning his illness.

She subsequently stumbled upon the texts from said scammer regarding poisoning soup and life insurance, etc.
 
Right. So it’s open to question. That’s indeed why she hasn’t been charged.

As a poster had pointed out, it’s possible that she was only playing along about the soup and the life insurance to keep the connection with the “star” going. Women have been known to lie to impress a man. She had to have been in deep to send this person thousands of dollars (reports say from $4-8 thousand).

I certainly hope that this scammer is apprehended and prosecuted. For encouraging homicide among other things.

And as you highlight, the husband did arrive home feeling unwell.

A mild stroke or cardiac incident might make soup taste bitter.

Without solid forensic evidence, it would be difficult to prosecute.
He didn't necessarily arrive home feeling unwell - her text doesn't use punctuation, but here's how I read it:

She makes him a "special soup" with "just enough for him" after the scammer encourages her to leave her husband. In other words, she's not eating that soup.

He comes home. (she serves him the soup) He doesn't feel well. She says "maybe I can collect life insurance" - she's not going to say that unless she knows he could die.

JMO MOO etc.
 
He didn't necessarily arrive home feeling unwell - her text doesn't use punctuation, but here's how I read it:

She makes him a "special soup" with "just enough for him" after the scammer encourages her to leave her husband. In other words, she's not eating that soup.

He comes home. (she serves him the soup) He doesn't feel well. She says "maybe I can collect life insurance" - she's not going to say that unless she knows he could die.

JMO MOO etc.
True, and that is why she’s under investigation by the DA’s office and this has become a headline news story.

However, without evidence that she actually did do this, she can still say, and it may be true, that she was only saying these things to keep the interest of the “star”.
 
Would the hospital necessarily have checked for antifreeze, those toxic eye drops, or something else along those lines?

I'm going to argue that if she did put something in his soup, you can't just blame dementia/legal insanity, because she fought with the officers when she realized they were going to access the evidence. That could show she knew it was wrong, etc. JMO.

When scammers take money from lonely/gullible people, it's a true scam and terrible crime, but if the victim then goes along with harming someone, the guilt crosses to them.

Of course she should be given a full neurological and psychological exam.
 
These doorstep interviews are not doing her any favors. What she needs to do is get herself an attorney and to stop speaking with the news media.
I had thought the same thing: Her repeated statements and rambling attempts to explain herself to national media would be strictly forbidden by an attorney.

I wonder why her daughter doesn’t at least point that out to her mother.
 

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