No Charges Filed Against Student
The 17-year-old Fowlerville student accused of poisoning his math teacher’s coffee with visine, will not be facing criminal charges. The decision was made following an investigation conducted by the Fowlerville police department and the Livingston County prosecutor’s office.
Mary Aldecoa, the victim of the teacher poisoning, believes that she was poisoned with Visine eye drops. These were put into her coffee over a period of 5 days. She suffered “horrible symptoms”, including stomach pains and headaches that were severe enough to keep her from school.
According to superintendent Wayne Roedel, the high school principal, Bradford Lusk, learned in “casual conversation” with a group of students during lunchtime, that a male student had put Visine in a teacher’s drink. The name of the guilty student was mentioned in the same conversation, and the resulting investigation was concluded that same day.
While Roedel has said that he has no idea at all of what the student’s motivation may have been, Aldecoa has put forward the suggestion that the student got the idea from a movie in which a character experiences severe diarrhea after someone puts eye drops in his drink.
The High School student, whose name hasn’t been released, has been suspended for one full school year. He allegedly admitted to putting the drops of Visine eye solution into Aldecoa’s coffee.
Prosecutor William Vailliencourt announced that there is “insufficient legally admissible evidence to support the issuance of any criminal charges” against the accused student. “While the Fowlerville Community Schools was able to take disciplinary action, the administrative standards governing decisions by schools to impose discipline are different from the stricter constitutional and legal standards that apply to criminal cases.”
According to the information provided by Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Visine, it states both on the website and on the product packaging that if any amount of the product is swallowed, a person should “get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.”
Aldecoa has said that she wants the student who is allegedly responsible for the poisoning to know how serious the consequences of his actions could have been for both of them. Aldecoa could have lost her life, and as a result, the student’s life would also have been irreparably destroyed.