by 
Janie Lynn Ridd | Salt Lake County Jail
Janie Lynn Ridd ‘snapped,’ defense attorney says
SALT LAKE CITY — Her doctors were puzzled over a series of strange infections she developed as she healed from back surgery, but a Salt Lake City woman says she didn’t link the medical issues to her longtime roommate until the FBI showed up at her door last year.
“They had to show me evidence before I would fully believe that she had done it,” Rachel, who asked her last name be withheld, said in an interview.
Her former roommate, Janie Lynn Ridd, was sentenced this week to at least one and up to 20 years in the Utah State Prison.
Ridd, 51, pleaded guilty in June to buying bacteria that causes staph infections on the darknet to use on Rachel.
Police said their relationship started out strong, with Rachel taking out a $500,000 life insurance policy and naming Ridd, who helped care for her, as the beneficiary. But it soured about three years ago, decades after they first began living together.
Police said Ridd would knock Rachel out with sedatives so she could inject harmful doses of insulin or even E. coli. into Rachel’s system.
Rachel believes Ridd started with Xanax, but would eventually use more powerful medications like ketamine to render her unconscious. While she slept, Rachel said her roommate would then inject the chemicals.
Federal investigators intercepted a shipment of Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, also known as VRSA, that Ridd had purchased off the dark web, court documents say. The bacteria can cause serious skin infections, pneumonia or even death, especially in an immunocompromised person like Rachel.
But the darknet vendor was actually an undercover FBI agent working in another state.
Prosecutors said Ridd claimed to be a biology teacher at a college preparatory school and needed the cultures for a science experiment, but they believe the bacteria was meant for Rachel.
“She watched me suffer, and she doubled down and did it worse. Instead of one injection of E. coli where I’d scream and writhe in pain, she did three when that didn’t kill me,” Rachel said after the sentencing.
Rachel said Ridd was her only friend for a long time, and even took care of her son and helped her get better after a series of surgeries on her spine.
But three years ago, they began fighting constantly. Ridd appeared resentful when others would ask if they were a romantic couple and Rachel said “no,” Rachel said. Even so, Ridd remained adamant Rachel take her medications for her back problems, even if Rachel didn’t feel she needed them.
But the injections nearly cost Rachel her life, prosecutors in the Utah Attorney General’s Office wrote in a sentencing memorandum. The insulin caused her blood sugar level to plummet to a deadly low, baffling her doctors: She doesn’t have diabetes.
Salt Lake City FBI office
Rachel, left, and Janie Ridd
Rachel is now on the road to recovery and …read more
Source:: Deseret News – Utah News
