GARDNER, Kan. — A Gardner man says that his wife woke up in the middle of the night to take a pill to try and feel better. But what she took wound up making her feel even worse, and now police are investigating a potential drug-tampering case.
Ron Erhard says that his wife, Rebecca, took what she thought were two cold medicine capsules around 3:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. But after they made her feel worse, they took a closer look at the package of medication he had bought at Walmart.
“I have no doubt they were tampered with,” said Erhard.
Erhard says that instead of blue pills in each pocket of packaging, it looked a lot like what may be dog food. He claims that the switch was done very well.
“There were no cuts on the back of the package,” said Erhard. “I noticed that there’s actually cuts on the front of the package and you can actually peel the plastic back up and that’s how they were slid into the package.”
Erhard then called an ambulance and Gardner Police, who say that they are looking at Walmart surveillance video to see if someone placed the package on the shelf, or how the unknown substance may have ended up in the packaging.
Police say that at this point, they have no idea who made the switch or why.
The FBI is not yet involved in the case, but retired FBI agent Jeff Lanza told FOX 4 that regardless of how it happened or what replaced the actual cold medicine, drug tampering is a federal offense.
“Drug tampering is a very serious crime, and every since the 1980s when some people died from drug tampering incidents the FBI has made it a priority,” said Lanza. “So even if its not a poisonous case of drug tampering it should certainly still be looked at as soon as possible.”
Lanza says that cases like this are rare because of improvements in drug packaging since the 1980’s. Police in Gardner are urging the public not to panic, and Walmart says that it is cooperating with the police investigation.