College Student Allegedly Caught Poisoning Roommates' Food

ByELARA MOSQUERA ABCNews logo
Tuesday, May 5, 2015

A University of South Carolina student is facing felony charges and possible jail time after allegedly being caught on camera spitting and pouring chemicals into her two roommates' food in early February, police said.

Police say Hayley King, 22, can be seen in the video taken by her roommates Feb. 4 spitting into multiple containers of food and pouring Windex into the food in the apartment they shared off campus, according to a Columbia Police Department incident report.

King's two roommates informed authorities they had set up secret cameras in their shared apartment because they were afraid of what King might do following a string of multiple altercations, which are not detailed in the police report. The two roommates had tried to get King to move out because of the previous altercations, but she refused, the incident report states.

Police said they viewed the recordings and watched King opening the refrigerator, picking up several containers one by one, and spitting into them. She also poured glass cleaner into one of them, the report stated.

One of the roommates told police she consumed food from one of the containers she believed to have been tainted with spit and Windex. King's roommates have not responded to requests for comment.

After seeing the footage that police say was taken by King's roommates, an investigator from the Columbia Police Department contacted King and asked her to report to the police department for questioning, where she allegedly confessed to the incident, the police report states.

The Columbia Police Department, which has not responded to a request for comment, arrested King on Feb. 9. She has been charged with unlawful, malicious tampering with human drug product or food, which is a Class C felony carrying a term of up to 20 years in prison, if convicted. She was released a day after her arrest on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond.

King has not responded to requests for comment, and ABC News has been unable to determine whether she has a lawyer. Her next court date is scheduled for June, according to South Carolina Circuit Court's Fifth Circuit.

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