Salad good for you? Only if you want to avoid divorce court
Advice for the lovelorn: Lettuce alone.
Foxglove is pretty poison.
Lisa Leigh Allen of Highlands Ranch decided that she had had enough of being married and decided to skip divorce court by simply poisoning her husband, Jonathan Allen, a police officer in Jefferson County. And so she served him a special dinner salad that contained a potentially lethal dose of foxglove.
Foxglove has the chemical makeup of digitalis, which is used in heart medications; iingested incorrectly, it can be deadly -- like French kissing a Colfax hooker after a bender at that dive bar on the Hill.
After eating the bitter salad, Jonathan Allen became ill with severe stomach cramps; Lisa, being the good wife she was, said the pain was "probably stress from your job." Ya, stress from being a K-9 police officer.
After some dogged investigation, it was determined that Jonathan had ingested poison, and the case moved to court, where the facts were tossed around like a Caesar salad. Jonathan said that his wife had physically attacked him. Lisa said that her husband was abusive and had threatened to kill her numerous times; she claimed she'd used the foxglove just to get him into the hospital and out of the house.
But according to the prosecutor on the case, Bryan Garrett: "This was a premeditated crime; she had to research exactly what kind of plants could poison Mr. Allen."
On May 14, Lisa Allen finally pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of felony assault and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison -- where, with any luck, she will not be assigned to kitchen duty.
For his part, Jonathan has said he forgives his wife -- because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Even so, we'll bet he never steps foot in a salad bar ever again.
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