Man Charged with Poisoning 10-Year-Old Daughter After Allegedly Using Same Substance to Kill Wife, DA Reports

A nurse in North Carolina is now being charged with killing his young daughter along with the murder of his wife with eye drops.

Records seen by PEOPLE from the Gaston County Sheriff’s Office show that 39-year-old Joshua Lee Hunsucker was arrested on August 6 by Gaston County Police and given a $1.5 million bond.

Those papers from August 5 that PEOPLE got from the court show that Hunsucker is being charged with four felonies for intimidating witnesses and four misdemeanors for block justice.

Special Prosecutor R. Jordan Green and District Attorney Travis G. Page filed a request to revoke Hunsucker’s bond on August 6. They said the suspect had “engaged in a pattern of harassment” toward John and Susie Robinson, who are witnesses in their daughter Stacy’s case and used to be his in-laws.

It also says that he poisoned his 10-year-old daughter with the same eye drops that he is said to have given his late wife Stacy before she died on September 23, 2018, at the age of 32.

Around February 24, 2023, Hunsucker is said to have put “the same substance that killed his wife, tetrahydrozoline, into a beverage bottle which was consumed by (his daughter).” It also says that a sample of the girl’s urine reportedly showed that she had the chemical in her body.

The move says that Hunsucker’s sick daughter was treated at both Caromont Hospital and Levine’s Children’s Hospital.

According to the motion, Hunsucker poisoned his daughter again to try to link Mr. and Mrs. Robinson to the death of his wife and keep the Robinsons out of the lives of his girls. The motion also says that Hunsucker and his late wife had a 9-year-old child together.

Before being taken to the hospital, the suspect’s daughter had “symptoms including but not limited to low blood pressure, low heart rate, extreme exhaustion and sleepiness, and constricted blood vessels,” the motion says.

It also says that a different drug, one that isn’t meant for kids, was found in his daughter. The same drug was also found in Hunsucker’s car after he was accused of staging his own kidnapping and attack in Mount Holly on or around February 4, 2023.

“He said that he was hit in the head with a pistol several times while stopping to change a flat tire.” It says in the motion that Hunsucker’s alleged claims were summed up: “His hands were then zip-tied and he was injected with an unknown substance.”

It is said that Hunsucker said John Robinson “attacked him.” The Mount Holly Police Department looked into the claim but “found no evidence to support this claim.” They also said that Hunsucker came up with the plan “to shift responsibility from the Defendant to the Robinsons for his wife’s death.”

The Aug. 6 motion says that Hunsucker sent packages to the Robinsons demanding that they drop the case, made rude gestures at them in public places, videotaped and photographed them, and other things. He was previously booked into Gaston County jail on a charge of first-degree murder. He was freed on bond on December 24, 2019, and has not been in jail since. The bond for him was $1.5 million.

“The state thinks that the defendant’s dangerous behavior will continue to get worse,” the motion from August 6 says. “The state has great concern for the safety of [Hunsucker’s children] and Mr. and Mrs. Robinson.”

Indictments were made in January 2020 and were seen by PEOPLE. They show that Hunsucker, who used to work as a paramedic for Atrium Health’s MedCenter Air, was also charged with insurance fraud and getting property by false pretenses worth more than $100,000 after his wife died. It was said in the paper that Hunsucker cremated his late wife’s body before applying for her $250,000 life insurance policy.

A blood sample was saved, though, because she was an organ donor, and it was sent to a lab to be tested. Tetrahydrozoline was said to have been found in her blood here.

The document says, “The allegation is he put amounts of this substance in her drinks over a period of time,” which is what killed his late wife.

Additionally, Hunsucker was free on bond after being charged with setting personal property on fire “for an incident that occurred on Nov. 26, 2019 in Mecklenburg County,” the motion from August 6 says. It is said that the defendant set fire to a medical chopper while he was on the job as a paramedic. Because of this, the pilot had to make an emergency stop near Independence Blvd.

“This action could have resulted in serious injury or death to any number of civilians in the vicinity,” the motion points out. On September 7, 2021, Hunsucker was charged with that crime by a grand jury in Mecklenburg County. The paper says that the case is still open.

David Teddy, Hunsucker’s lawyer, didn’t answer right away when PEOPLE called him on August 8 to ask about the new charges against the suspect. It’s not clear if he has pleaded guilty to any of the new charges against him.