Wife Allegedly Tried to Kill Vet With Drugs He Used on Animals

The wife of a Wisconsin veterinarian tried to send him over the Rainbow Bridge with drugs that he used on animals, authorities say. Amanda Chapin, 50, has been charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide in connection with three alleged poisonings of 70-year-old Gary Chapin months after they were married in March 2022, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

According to a criminal complaint, Chapin is suspected of crushing up the animal drugs and putting them in her husband's morning coffee on three occasions in July and August. Blood tests showed that Gary Chapin was poisoned twice with an anti-seizure medication he gives dogs. The third poisoning, which left him in a coma for four days, additionally involved Phenobarbital, which he used to euthanize animals, according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges that Chapin forged the signature of one of her husband's children on a power of attorney document and then persuaded him to amend his house deed so it would go to her if she died. The first alleged poisoning happened less than three weeks after the deed was changed, authorities say. According to the complaint, Gary Chapin's son and two daughters told investigators they never trusted Amanda Chapin, who moved in with him a few weeks after they met online, WKOW reports. The complaint states that Gary Chapin told investigators the marriage was "fairly stormy from the beginning."

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Gary Chapin told investigators that he believes his wife left him comatose for several hours after the third alleged poisoning, the complaint states—and computer records show that she accessed his email account during that period, forwarding his emails to his children and his attorney to herself, the Journal reports. The complaint states that Chapin moved to a motel while her husband was in the hospital—and she violated a restraining order on Sept. 1, six days after he was released from the hospital, by emailing him a suicide note in which she denied poisoning him. She survived the suicide attempt after authorities called to the motel for a welfare check took her to a hospital. Court records show Gary Chapin filed for divorce the next day. (More attempted murder stories.)