Suspected poisoned wine not tested
Police were not successful in getting warrant to obtain drink
Though police suspect the wine Mark Rumboldt’s wife drank at home one night in January 2016 may have been poisoned, they were unable to have it tested, since a judge declined to give them a warrant.
The RNC had attempted to obtain a warrant to search the couple’s west-end St. John’s home as part of their investigation into what they deemed was an attempt by Rumboldt to murder his wife by giving her prescription medication without her knowledge, RNC Sgt. Justin Soo testified in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Tuesday morning.
The woman had called 911 to request an ambulance the evening of Jan. 22, 2016, saying her husband had been drinking and had taken Ativan. Paramedics arrived - and called for help from the RNC after finding themselves unable to get an answer at the door - and found the couple intoxicated. Rumboldt was reportedly unsteady on his feet, slurring his words and needed help to stand, while his wife appeared to be in worse shape, described by police as almost catatonic and unable to speak.
Rumboldt reportedly told police he and his wife had been arguing about their relationship, talking about divorcing, and she took Ativan and sleeping pills.
At the hospital, Rumboldt was first to recover, and was discharged later that night. He asked if he could sit by his wife’s bedside, hospital staff testified, and repeatedly expressed concerns about her breathing. At one point, a nurse noticed the privacy curtain had been pulled closed around the woman’s bed and she went to the bedside, and saw Rumboldt holding a
facecloth to his wife’s mouth. She fetched a doctor and two other nurses, and they noticed a residue on the woman’s lips and in her mouth, along with what seemed to be pieces of a pill. On the bed was an Ativan bottle prescribed to Rumboldt and underneath the blankets was a bag containing more of his medication — a bag that had reportedly been brought to hospital with him and given back to him when he was discharged.
Hospital staff called police, who arrived and took statements before dropping Rumboldt home around 4 a.m. The woman was discharged later in the morning and went home with another family member.
She told police she and her husband had been having a quiet night in with some drinks and homemade pizza. He had poured her a glass of wine and later a sangria, which she took in the bathtub with her. He had
come into the bathroom a number of times, she said, the last time hardly able to stand. She said he collapsed on the floor and she jumped up from the tub, saying she was going to call 911. That’s the last thing she remembered.
Soo said that around 7 a.m., RNC officers returned to the Rumboldt residence to secure it as a crime scene while waiting to get a warrant, and asked Rumboldt to leave.
The warrant wasn’t granted, however, with a provincial court judge ruling the scene was contaminated, since Rumboldt had been alone in the house for three hours. That means no forensic testing could be completed on the glass of wine and the remainder of the sangria in the home.
Toxicology experts with the RCMP’S national forensic lab in Ottawa did test blood samples taken from the couple in hospital, as well as a urine sample taken from the woman after the incident at her bedside, the substance removed from her mouth and the pill found on her bed.
Testifying as a Crown witness at Rumboldt’s attempted murder trial in St. John’s Tuesday, forensic toxicology expert Christopher Keddy said samples of blood taken from Rumboldt around 10 p.m. the night he and his wife arrived at the hospital showed his blood alcohol level at almost twice the legal driving limit; a relatively high concentration of zolpidem, a sleeping pill; and a small amount of Ativan.
A sample of blood taken from Rumboldt’s wife at the same time turned up a small amount of alcohol and high concentrations of zolpidem and Ativan.
“I would expect this combination of drugs to produce quite an extreme level of sedation in an individual,” Keddy told the court, referring to the woman’s test results and acknowledging different people may react differently to the medications.
“But given both these drugs are intended to sedate, combined at these levels, it would cause extreme sedation in most individuals.”
Keddy said he’d also expect a person to be susceptible to amnesia, because the drugs can interfere with the brain’s ability to form memory. The loss of memory would typically begin when the person began feeling the effects of the drug, he explained.
Keddy said testing on the substance taken from the woman’s mouth contained a high amount of Ativan, along with low levels of zolpidem and codeine. Because there was no codeine found in the woman’s blood or urine, Keddy said, he didn’t believe she had ingested it, and suggested a trace of the drug may have been present on the nurse’s glove or the wooden tongue depressor used to retrieve the substance.
The pill found on the woman’s bed was Ativan, Keddy said.
Under cross-examination, Keddy acknowledged the concentration of drugs found in the couple’s blood was high but not unheard of for a person taking a high dose of the medications as prescribed, and could have been affected by the alcohol.
“If taken with alcohol, sometimes a person can reach higher levels. Somehow the alcohol assists with the absorption,” he explained, which would increase the chance for adverse effects.
Soo, under cross-examination, said police were unable to determine where the codeine came from.
The investigator also told the court that officers had placed Rumboldt under surveillance and had told his wife they suspected he had tried to kill her.
“You hadn’t talked to him, hadn’t seen the bloodwork, it’s early in the investigation, but you contact (the woman) and tell her Mark tried to kill her?” asked defence lawyer Jeff Brace.
Based on information gleaned from paramedics, responding police officers, hospital staff and the woman herself, investigators believed it was an attempted homocide, Soo said.
“We wanted to make her aware of the allegations for safety reasons,” he explained. “It was not a conclusion.”
“It’s tunnel vision at its finest,” Brace countered.
After a week of testimony, prosecutor Scott Hurley has now rested his case against Rumboldt. It will be defence lawyer Jeff Brace’s turn to call evidence when the trial resumes Wednesday.