A homicide unit is reportedly investigating the death of a man who allegedly drank fish tank cleaner last month along with his wife in an attempt to protect themselves from the coronavirus.
“The Mesa City Police Department’s homicide division is investigating the death of Gary Lenius, the Arizona man whose wife served him soda mixed with fish tank cleaner in what she claimed was a bid to fend off the coronavirus,” The Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman reported. “A detective handling the case confirmed the investigation to the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday after requesting a recording of the Free Beacon’s interviews with Lenius’s wife, Wanda.”
Gary Lenius, 68, died late last month after he and his wife, Wanda, 61, supposedly consumed fish tank cleaner because it contained chloroquine phosphate—a substance that they said they had heard President Donald Trump tout as a treatment for the coronavirus.
The news comes after Goodman had published a series of reports at the Free Beacon about the couple.
Goodman interviewed friends of Lenius who described him as an intelligent, level-headed engineer who was not prone to impulsive and reckless behavior, like drinking fish tank cleaner.
One of his close friends told Goodman: “What bothers me about this is that Gary was a very intelligent man, a retired [mechanical] engineer who designed systems for John Deere in Waterloo, Iowa, and I really can’t see the scenario where Gary would say, ‘Yes, please, I would love to drink some of that Koi fish tank cleaner’. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
The friend continued, “I would like people to know that Gary was not the fool that some of the media stories and comments are depicting him to be. I really don’t think Gary knew what he was taking.”
Another friend described the marriage as troubled, saying that “Wanda would constantly berate Gary in public.”
“Everyone was embarrassed for him, but he outwardly did not seem to care much,” the friend added. “In our opinion, their marriage was seen outwardly to be as one-sided as a marriage possibly could be: Gary worshiped Wanda.”
The Free Beacon added:
Seven months after their wedding, the Waterloo Police Department responded to a domestic incident at their home. The couple had gotten into an argument “concerning counseling and a possible divorce” during which Wanda allegedly hit her husband in the chest and swung a mounted birdhouse at him, according to a court affidavit from the responding officer, William Sauerbrei.
The state attorney’s office charged Wanda Lenius with misdemeanor domestic abuse assault. But the couple reconciled and Gary Lenius testified in support of his wife at the trial, saying he was not hurt or put in fear of injury. The judge found Wanda not guilty.
In the verdict, Judge Nathan Callahan wrote that the “911 tape certainly contains sufficient evidence to establish probable cause for [Wanda Lenius’s] arrest, and the observations of the officers were consistent with a finding of probable cause for arrest of the Defendant.” But due to Gary Lenius’s trial testimony, the judge said he was unable to find “proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant either placed her husband in fear, injured him, or that she had the intent to do so.”
A separate report from Goodman highlighted how Wanda, who immediately attacked the president over the incident, was a Democrat donor who did not like Trump.
This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.