Marcy Oglesby, a former Maquon woman charged with poisoning her longtime boyfriend with eye drops and other medication, has been found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and aggravated battery with a toxic substance.
Judge Andrew Doyle entered the verdict just after 1 p.m. Thursday, following a bench trial that saw the Knox County State's Attorney's Office call 26 witnesses and Oglesby's public defenders call two.
Testimony revealed that Oglesby, now 53, began poisoning her longtime boyfriend Richard "Rick" Young in the summer of 2021 by putting eye drops in his coffee and crushing up medication to put in his food. She then scooted his dead body across the street to a Maquon storage unit in a large cardboard box.
Young's partially mummified remains were found in the storage unit on Oct. 7, 2022, following a report of a foul odor. An autopsy later revealed he died of tetrahydrozoline intoxication.
Tetrahydrozoline is the active ingredient in over-the-counter eye drops. It is safe for ocular use but toxic when ingested.
"In a lot of ways, this is a tale of olden times," Knox County State's Attorney Ashley Worby said in her closing argument. "A financially motivated murder with a love triangle."
In that closing argument, Worby laid out a detailed story backed by wide-ranging evidence presented during the trial to prove Oglesby's guilt and show her motive, asserting that Oglesby concocted a scheme to get access to Young's bank accounts by telling him they were going to buy real estate and move to a farm.
Meanwhile, Oglesby had been in a years-long online relationship with a Nigerian man named Sunny.
Once Oglesby had access to Young's bank accounts in the summer of 2021, she drained them, Worby said.
Oglesby also resented Young for not paying his fair share of the bills, according to evidence submitted at the trial.
And that was the backdrop for Young's murder.
"Things are compounding and compounding. She's not going to be able to pay back this money. She's taken over 60 grand from him," Worby said, calling Oglesby calculated and detail-oriented, but also impulsive and short-sighted.
'Drip, drip'
The state called Karen Doubet to the stand on the first day of the trial.
Doubet, 79, owns the home across the street from the Maquon storage unit where Young died. Doubet, Oglesby, and Young all lived in the home, which was described during the trial as "filthy" and a "hoarder situation."
In exchange for her testimony against Oglesby, murder charges against Doubet were dropped.
Doubet testified that Oglesby started asking her to buy eye drops in the summer of 2021. In July of that year, she walked out of the bathroom in the home and saw Oglesby putting a couple eye drops in Young's coffee.
"Rick was the only one in the house who drank coffee," Doubet said.
In his closing argument, public defender David Hansen said that testimony was the only direct link to Oglesby poisoning Young, and that Doubet didn't initially say that to investigators.
"She only told her final story after being arrested, spending three days in jail, and taking the plea deal," Hansen said. "Before that she gave conflicting and contradictory accounts."
The defense also compared putting eye drops in coffee to putting drops of whiskey in a glass of water.
"You don't get drunk from that and you don't get poisoned from a 'drip drip' in your coffee," Hansen said.
Worby argued Oglesby only started out with a "drip drip" into Young's coffee, not knowing how much it would take to kill him.
Then Young contracted COVID-19 in early August of 2021 and lost his sense of taste.
"That's when the light bulb goes off," Worby said. "Things are really coming to a head financially at this point. She's in way over her head."
Drug interactions
On the final day of the trial, the defense called Dr. Craig Chatteron, a forensic toxicologist who cast doubt on Young's toxicology report and a forensic pathologist's interpretation of it to determine cause of death.
The issue is that Young's had been dead for a year and his body was badly decomposed, so no blood samples could be taken, even though that's what's preferred for toxicology.
So the toxicology screening and confirmation tests were done on a piece of decomposed skeletal muscle tissue, and there are no established reporting limits for tetrahydrozoline in muscle tissue.
Chatterton said with muscle tissue, the only significant finding would be whether the drug was detected or not detected.
"The quantity in my opinion is irrelevant and contextually insignificant because it cannot be related back to an injectable dose," Chatterton said.
On cross examination, Worby got Chatterton to say he was a paid witness, not a medical doctor, and that his analysis did not include potential interaction of tetrahydrozoline with any of the drugs Young was being given, including the antidepressant citalopram, which was found at four times the normal range.
Worby said that's where Oglesby "messed up." Because Rick Young wasn't taking antidepressants and he hadn't seen a doctor since 2016.
"There is no evidence related to Rick having any mental health issues," Worby said.
The state believes Young died on Nov. 1, 2021, after months of poisoning.
Selfies shown during the trial show Young growing gaunt and with bruising on his face from falls.
By the time Young is dead and his body is left to rot in a cardboard box, his bank account has just a few hundred dollars left, Worby said.
"She took everything from Richard Young, and she took it by the end of October of 2021," Worby said.
Justice for Rick
Young was the former police chief of Maquon, a village of around 220 people in southern Knox County.
The people of Maquon and Young's friends have wanted justice for him for years now, as the case was delayed for official identification of the remains, murder charges being dropped and reinstated, and an appeal.
A group of them came to the trial each day, some taking notes, and some talking to reporters.
Following the verdict, they thanked and embraced Worby, who first worked on this case as an assistant state's attorney before being elected state's attorney last year.
Worby told TSPR what she felt after the verdict was "relief."
"Relief that there's finally justice for Rick Young," she said, noting she spent hours and hours over the course of years to get to a guilty verdict. "Hours of sleep lost and time away from my family as well to make sure that Richard could rest in peace and that there could be justice for him."
Worby explained that due to the appellate ruling regarding murder charges being added in 2023 as the investigation advanced, there could not be a guilty verdict on a concealment of homicide charge that was added at the same time.
Oglesby was originally only charged with concealment of a death after being arrested in 2022.
Worby said she has net determined what sentence the state will ask for.
"There will be a lot of thought and consideration put into that," Worby said.
Following the verdict, Oglesby was remanded to the custody of the Knox County Sheriff's Office.
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