Man spikes wife’s rum with meth after she told him she wanted a divorce, NC cops say
A North Carolina woman was drinking rum at her home last week and noticed it tasted bitter.
She kept drinking it and didn’t think anything of it until she couldn’t sleep for the next day and a half, according to Lt. Jerry Brewer with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office. So she went to the hospital, where she tested positive for meth, Brewer said.
She told police what happened and that she had been meeting with a lawyer about divorcing her husband, Brewer said, and the Sheriff’s Office began investigating.
She informed deputies that she told her husband about wanting a divorce the same night as the incident, the Wilmington StarNews reported.
When deputies went to confront her husband, 47-year-old Michael Joseph Kirkum, at his house on Saturday, he came out on the porch “waving a gun,” Brewer said.
He then dropped the gun and started running, Brewer said.
He was arrested and charged with secret assault, assault on a female, two counts of child abuse and resisting police, according to New Hanover County jail records.
The rum has been sent for testing to confirm it contained meth, Brewer said.
Once the test results are back, additional charges are possible, he said.
This story was originally published August 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM with the headline "Man spikes wife’s rum with meth after she told him she wanted a divorce, NC cops say."
