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A former North Carolina paramedic charged with fatally poisoning his wife with eye drops was free on $1.5 million bond when he used eye drops to poison his daughter, authorities said.
Prosecutors alleged that Joshua Lee Hunsucker, 39, poisoned his then-10-year-old daughter last year with tetrahydrozoline — an ingredient used in over-the-counter eye drops and nasal sprays — as part of a larger scheme to frame the parents of his wife, Stacy Robinson Hunsucker, for her 2018 killing. Originally, Stacy Hunsucker’s cause of death had been listed as a heart attack, and it wasn’t until her mother, Suzanne Robinson, contacted the North Carolina Department of Insurance and accused him of insurance fraud that a criminal investigation was launched, prosecutors said.
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Suzanne and John Robinson would later claim in court documents that Joshua Hunsucker was inspired by another criminal case in which eye drops were used as poison as he sought to kill his wife to cash in her $250,000 life insurance policy. But that was only the beginning of a bizarre saga as laid out by prosecutors. Hunsucker would allegedly go on to set fire to a medical helicopter while it was midair, stage a kidnapping to prevent his in-laws from testifying against him, and abuse and neglect his daughters.
He is now in custody as he awaits trial on charges of murder, insurance fraud, intimidating a witness, obstruction of justice and arson. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment by HuffPost.
The Robinsons addressed their late daughter in a statement shared with a journalist shortly after Hunsucker’s arrest.
“Stacy, your mother and father promise you that we will not rest until justice is served. We will do everything in our power to support and care for your beautiful daughters. … We will love them as we loved, and still love you. We will never let your children forget what a truly amazing mother you were to them. Your spirit and your smile live on through them every day.”
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Stacy Hunsucker / Facebook
Stacy Robinson Hunsucker died in September 2018 at age 32. The former paralegal and preschool teacher had a heart condition that required a pacemaker, the Gaston Gazette reported, which was originally believed to be a factor in her death. The pacemaker was installed in 2015, according to WSOC-TV, which cited a GoFundMe campaign created to support the family in the wake of her death.
The couple had started dating in high school and were married eight years when she died, the Gaston Gazette reported.
Although Stacy Hunsucker was registered as an organ donor, Joshua Hunsucker said he did not want her to be “cut up” and refused to allow an autopsy to be performed, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by WBTV. He immediately had her body cremated and filed a claim for her $250,000 life insurance policy two days after her death, investigators said.
A criminal investigation was only launched after her mother contacted the North Carolina Department of Insurance and accused him of insurance fraud, prosecutors said.
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Though her organs were not preserved for donation, a blood sample was taken before her cremation and preserved because of her status as an organ donor, according to court documents. Investigators obtained the sample and sent it to a lab, which reported that it contained 30 to 40 times the therapeutic level of tetrahydrozoline according to an arrest warrant obtained by the Gaston Gazette.
When ingested, tetrahydrozoline can cause sleepiness, low blood pressure, a dangerously slow heart rate, heart rhythm abnormalities and difficulty breathing according to Poison Control.
Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Joshua Hunsucker poisoned his wife “over a period of time” by putting eye drops in her beverages. He even allegedly told two coworkers before her death that if he ever wanted to kill someone, he’d poison them with Visine or another brand of eye drops.
As the murder investigation was ongoing, Hunsucker, a flight paramedic, allegedly set a piece of medical equipment on fire inside a helicopter while it was in the air in November 2019. The pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at a car dealership, but no one was injured.
About a month later, in December 2019, Joshua Hunsucker was arrested and charged with his wife’s murder. Atrium Health fired him the same day, and he was later arrested again and charged with arson in connection to the helicopter fire.
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The hospital system said it was thankful there had been no patients on board the helicopter at the time.
“If what Mr. Hunsucker is charged with is true, it is unfathomable to us what may have possessed him to endanger himself and others in such a way,” Atrium’s statement said.
Stacy Hunsucker / Facebook
In June 2020, after Stacy Robinson Hunsucker’s cause of death was formally changed from heart attack to homicide, her parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit, the Gaston Gazette reported.
Stacy Hunsucker’s family claimed in the lawsuit that Joshua Hunsucker was inspired to poison their daughter with eye drops within days after learning about a similar case.
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On August 31, 2018, South Carolina nurse Lana Sue Clayton was accused of fatally poisoning her husband after toxicology reports found high levels of tetrahydrozoline in his body. Stacy Hunsucker died on Sept. 23, less than a month later. Clayton was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2020 after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, WCNC reported. According to investigators, she said she had only “wanted him to suffer” after she put Visine in his drink.
In addition to suing Hunsucker, Suzanne and John Robinson were also fighting for custody of their two granddaughters.
Following his first and second arrests, Joshua Hunsucker had been released on bond, The Charlotte Observer reported.
A judge granted full custody of the girls to Joshua Hunsucker’s sister as his case proceeded, and he had unsupervised visitation rights with them every other weekend, the Gaston Gazette reported. His court-mandated daily curfew was later extended so he could attend his daughter’s lacrosse games and other school activities, WSOC-TV reported in December 2021.
He also continued to see his wife’s parents. The Robinsons said that Hunsucker repeatedly harassed them, filming and taking pictures of them at his daughter’s lacrosse practices, making “vulgar gestures” at them in public, following them in his car and routinely driving by their home, according to court documents. His daughters were present during many of the incidents, prosecutors said.
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Then on Feb. 4, 2023, prosecutors alleged that Hunsucker staged his own kidnapping. According to court documents, he told authorities that John Robinson had attacked him while he was stopping to change a tire. Hunsucker claimed that he had been pistol-whipped, zip-tied and drugged.
Authorities said they found no evidence to support his claim.
Twenty days after the alleged staged kidnapping, his eldest daughter became gravely ill, prosecutors said, with symptoms including low blood pressure, a low heart rate, sleepiness and extreme exhaustion, constricted blood vessels and “transient alteration of awareness,” or a brief loss of normal awareness or behavior.
Hunsucker told medical professionals who were treating his daughter that it appeared she had been given Visine — not a “reasonable conclusion” given her symptoms at the time, prosecutors said.
The girl, now 11, was hospitalized in two different medical facilities after the alleged poisoning, authorities said in court documents, and has since recovered. In addition to tetrahydrozoline, tests showed that she also had a drug prescribed as an adult antidepressant in her system, according to the court documents.
Investigators responding to Hunsucker’s kidnapping report said they found an adult antidepressant pill in the back of his truck. It matched the drug found in his daughter’s system, prosecutors said.
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Hunsucker poisoned his daughter and staged the kidnapping as part of a larger attempt to implicate his in-laws in the death of his wife and “remove the Robinsons from the lives of his daughters,” prosecutors said.
In a hearing Friday, Hunsucker’s attorney requested that a public defender be appointed to represent Hunsucker on the new charges related to the allegedly staged kidnapping and his daughter’s poisoning. A motion by prosecutors to revoke his bond will be addressed in a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 7, WCNC Charlotte reported. Until then, he will remain in Gaston County Jail.
The Robinsons’ attorney stressed that keeping their daughter’s children safe was their primary concern right now.
“From the Robinsons’ perspective, safety is paramount for their family, their grandkids,” he told WCNC Charlotte. “They are thankful and appreciative of the district attorney and the continued effort to investigate and seek justice for Stacy.”
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