Missouri Woman in Visine Assault Files for Divorce

Staff Writer Feb 10, 2009

Tonia L. Peterson is being accused with attempting to kill or harm her husband with Visine.  The accused is said to have put drops of Visine eye solution into her husband's tea, hoping to kill him.  While the drops did not kill her husband, they did cause some stomach upset for him and began a strange and twisted court case.

This Fair Grove, Illinois woman was charged on January 8, 2009 with first-degree assault and posted a $100,000 bail soon after.  However, as a precaution, her husband Cecil Peterson filed a temporary protection order against her coming near him.

The following week, Tonia filed for divorce from her husband in Illinois court.

This puzzling case has many legal experts wondering whether there is a solid case on either side of the couple.  Since the husband was not actually harmed by the Visine incident, does he have a case that she intentionally tried to harm him?  And on her side of the case, there has been some speculation that she may have talked to her co-workers about the murder attempt, but can this be proven or is it hearsay?

There is also speculation that Tonia may have allegedly been planning to try to kill her husband in a second attempt, though it has not been released as how she might have achieved this goal, and if it was planned to have included Visine again.

The filing for divorce further complicates the case as it seems there may be more to the marriage than originally released.  If Tonia can prove that something else was happening within her marriage, it might alter the course of her first-degree cause.  After all, she may also have been acting in self-defense or in response to emotional or physical abuse.

Peterson's motion to file for divorce also calls into question why her husband didn't try to file for this earlier.  After all, being potentially the victim of murder seems to be an appropriate cause for divorce.

The police, on their end, seem to have a case for probable cause for the attempted murder.  Visine has been linked to causing serious medical effects as well as a coma when large quantities are ingested.  It was not clear how much Cecil ingested when Tonia made the first attempt on his life, or whether the amount of the Visine would come into play in the actual court case.