Mother-daughter duo faces murder charges after poisoning man to death, court docs allege

A mother and daughter from Indiana are facing murder charges after they allegedly poisoned the mother's husband four times before his death in a reported plot to get his life savings.

Marsha Allen and her 30-year-old daughter, Ashley Jones, allegedly spiked 52-year-old Harold Allen's food and drink with different substances they purchased online, including an ingredient in antifreeze, a toxic plant from Etsy, and poisonous seeds from eBay.

Harold Allen was found dead in Freetown, Indiana in December 2022 after drinking a root beer float that was spiked with the lethal ethylene glycol.

On Friday, both the mother and daughter were charged with two counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, one count of consumer product tampering, and two counts of attempted murder, according to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department.

Less than a year ago, in October, Marsha Allen was found dead in her Freetown home of suspected suicide, Fox59 News reported.

At the time of Harold's death, no foul play was suspected.

But, nine-months later after the sudden death of Marsha Allen, more events began to unravel.

Marsha's daughter was arrested for burglary.

It was then tha she spilled the beans and told officials that her mother had put the toxic ethylene glycol in her step father's root beer float.

Once investigators sifted through documents, they discovered that there has been four additional attempts where the mother-daughter duo tried to poison Harold.

Late last month, investigators found two email accounts linked to Jones - 'topazmoonchild1793', and 'mouths-sloop.0o' - used in the 'hide my email' feature, incriminating her in the crime, as per the news outlet.

The emails exposed more damning evidence about the numerous attempts to poison Harold - including one incident in November 2022- after the pair spiked his chili and brownies that sent him to the emergency room.

During the investigation, detectives discovered after looking through emails that two months priors  September 2022, the pair had purchased pong pong seeds, a toxic seed that contain the C. odollam seeds -  from a seller on eBay - that are poisonous if ingested. 

Evidence revealed thy baked a batch of brownies containing the seeds - using a coffee grinder to mash them up in its tiniest form, and waited for Harold to react, court documents revealed.

In one of the chilling messages dated November 28, 2022, Marsha reportedly told her daughter:  'I am irritated and can’t sleep peacefully. I need this to be over… I wish it would reach its climax and be done lol,' as per Fox News 59.

Jones reportedly responded, 'Same.'

Feeling unwell Harold swent to the ER on November 28, andreturned to the hospital two days later. A doctor told him his intenstines were inflamed.

Seemingly frurstrated that Harold was still alive, the pair purchased a water hemlock plant on Etsy- reportedly  North American's most toxic plalnt - on December 1, 2022. 

According to reports, a small amount can be lethat.

Over the course of three days in 2022 - December 9, 10 and 12, 2022, the pair placed the poison plant leaves in Harold's chili, soda and a margarita. 

However, he survived. 

It was December 13, when the pair reportedly purchased ethylene glycol, the poison that would eventually kill him. 

Jeffrey Chalfant, Jackson County's prosecuting attorney, said they were requesting Jones get life sentence without parole.

Prosecutors claimed she allegedly killing Harold, and tortured him while he was alive, court documents revealed. 

A jury trial is scheduled for January 7, 2025, as per court documents.