Burglary exposes woman’s plot to poison stepdad at mom’s request: police

A 29-year-old Indiana woman is behind bars for allegedly killing her stepfather with antifreeze in a convoluted scheme devised with her mother and uncovered by law enforcement during a burglary investigation. 

Ashley Nicole Jones was arrested Wednesday and is locked up in the Jackson County Jail without bail on charges of murder, attempted murder, burglary and conspiracy, according to public records reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The man’s death in December 2022 didn’t initially trigger a police investigation. According to his obituary, 52-year-old Harold “Peanut” Allen “passed away suddenly” in Freetown, Indiana.

But officials opened an investigation into his death Sept. 19 after his wife — Jones’ mother — Marsha Allen called police to report a burglary at her home. 

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“Officers investigated the burglary, and determined that two men, Steven White and Nathaniel Kane Napier, committed the burglary at the direction of and with the assistance of Marsha’s daughter Ashley Jones,” Jackson County Sheriff Rick Meyer wrote in a press release. 

White, 29, and Napier, 29, were both charged with burglary of a dwelling, conspiracy to commit burglary of a dwelling and theft with a firearm. 

Jewelry and guns were stolen during the break-in, according to an affidavit of probable cause reviewed by Fox News Digital. Marsha Allen reportedly told police she suspected her daughter’s involvement immediately because she was the only other person who knew the combination to the woman’s gun safe.

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When White was interviewed, he reportedly told police Marsha Allen had “murdered her husband by poisoning him somehow.”

Police then seized Allen’s cellphone, according to the department release, and found “text messages between Marsha and Ashley in which they discussed murdering Marsha’s husband, Harold Allen, by poisoning [him].”

On Tuesday, Meyers wrote, Jones confessed to “ordering ethylene glycol off the internet,” but insisted that her mother “had placed the ethylene glycol in Harold’s drink.”

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says ethylene glycol is an industrial compound found in antifreeze, brake fluids, solvents, paints, plastics, some cosmetics and some inks. 

“Ethylene glycol breaks down into toxic compounds in the body,” according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. “Ethylene glycol and its toxic byproducts first affect the central nervous system (CNS), then the heart and finally the kidneys. Ingesting enough can cause death. Ethylene glycol is odorless.”

Although police served a search warrant at her home and seized several electronic devices, they did not immediately arrest Marsha Allen. 

On Tuesday, the same day Jones was booked, relatives reached out to police and requested a welfare check for Allen, saying that they could not reach her. Police “found Marsha deceased with no signs of violence” at her home off North State Road 135, Meyers wrote in the department release. 

The woman’s cause of death was not released. Fox News Digital could not reach Jackson County Coroner Paul Foster for comment before publication. 

A toxicology report takes “anywhere from two to six weeks, depending on the case load at the lab,” Deputy County Coroner Roger Wheeler said.