The alleged victim sought repeated medical care before a home camera shifted attention from a medical mystery to suspected drink tampering.
STEVENS POINT, Wis. — Long before police arrested his ex-wife, a Wisconsin man had been trying to understand a series of illnesses that left him exhausted, dizzy and at times suffering from dangerously low blood pressure and a slow heart rate, according to a criminal complaint.
The medical history now sits at the center of a criminal case against Jessica Meis, 37, of Plover, who is accused of repeatedly putting eye drops into her former husband’s drinks. Police say she eventually admitted during an interview that she had done so “many times” because she wanted him sick enough to depend on her for care. Meis faces aggravated battery with a domestic violence modifier and two counts of placing foreign objects in edibles. She is presumed innocent unless proved guilty. The case has not yet produced a public finding that every illness the man experienced was caused by eye drops, making the distinction between his reported medical history and prosecutors’ specific allegations important.
The man told Stevens Point police that symptoms began as far back as 2021. He described exhaustion, dizziness, headaches and sleeping for unusually long periods. At that stage, according to the publicly reported complaint, there was no established explanation connecting those problems to criminal conduct. His health issues later became more severe around the period when he and Meis ended their marriage. The couple finalized their divorce in June 2025. They continued to live in the same home for a time, then Meis moved to Plover. Because they shared custody of three children, she continued visiting the man’s Stevens Point residence, leaving a situation in which their marital relationship had ended but regular access to the household had not.
Between July and September 2025, the man was hospitalized multiple times. Local reporting based on the complaint says he sought emergency treatment in Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids and Madison and consulted specialists as doctors tried to determine why his symptoms kept returning. Episodes included very low blood pressure and a slow heart rate. The man told investigators that a cardiologist recently said the symptoms did not make sense. He also said he raised his own concern that he might have been poisoned but that the idea was dismissed. The complaint does not suggest that medical personnel at the time had evidence proving intentional poisoning, and the later criminal investigation does not turn those earlier suspicions into retroactive medical findings.
A beverage from that period nevertheless became part of the police inquiry a year later. The man recalled becoming ill in July 2025 after drinking from an open energy-drink can that had been left in a refrigerator. He suspected Meis might have tampered with it. His mother kept the can rather than throwing it away. When the man finally reported his concerns to police in July 2026, the saved container was submitted to investigators. Its importance was not that it independently solved the case, but that it offered officers a possible physical link to an earlier episode the man had remembered long before he installed any recording equipment.
The symptoms continued after the households separated. In January 2026, the man said Meis stayed at his residence because the heat was not working at her home. He reported suffering three episodes while she was there. He said his health problems became active again in May and that low-blood-pressure episodes increased in frequency into July. By then, the pattern had lasted long enough that he began to suspect the cause was something in his environment rather than a medical condition doctors had failed to identify. On July 14, he placed a camera in his kitchen. That decision changed the nature of the evidence available to police when he contacted them days later.
Investigators said footage from July 16 showed Meis taking an eye-drop bottle from her purse and then handling a Propel water bottle taken from the refrigerator. Police could not see every movement because her body blocked part of the camera’s view, according to the complaint, but they suspected she emptied eye-drop solution into the water. The bottle was later consumed from by another person and turned over as evidence. That detail became important because it demonstrated the potential for an allegedly altered household drink to reach someone other than the person police say was intended to become ill.
A second recording from July 18 appeared clearer to investigators. Police said Meis could be seen taking a small container from her pocket, opening it near the kitchen island and emptying its contents into a black water bottle. According to the complaint, she kept the items below the height of the island while two children were nearby. She then returned the water bottle and put the smaller container back into her pocket. The images gave detectives a basis to investigate the man’s poisoning suspicion directly rather than relying only on his description of unexplained symptoms. Police later executed a search warrant at Meis’ Plover home and arrested her July 21.
During an interview after officers advised her of her rights, Meis initially said the substance involved was saline or salt and suggested it was meant to help the man’s blood pressure, police said. Investigators said her account then changed. According to the complaint, she admitted using Visine eye drops in several types of drinks he consumed. Police said she first described doing it only a couple of times before later saying it happened “many times.” She also allegedly acknowledged an attempt involving the man’s CPAP equipment but said she did not believe that attempt worked. The complaint does not report a proven connection between the CPAP allegation and a specific documented medical episode.
Police said Meis then described her purpose in terms of dependence rather than financial gain or an attempt to kill him. According to investigators, she said she wanted to make her former husband sick so that he would allow her to care for him and would need her. That statement is a police account of an interview and will be subject to the normal court process if prosecutors rely on it. Authorities also questioned Meis about the possibility that the couple’s children could accidentally consume one of the drinks. She responded that they did not drink those products, according to the complaint. Police wrote that she showed no remorse during the questioning.
The symptoms reported in the case have a recognized toxicological basis when certain anti-redness eye drops are swallowed. Poison Control says tetrahydrozoline, an active ingredient used in some eye-drop products, can cause serious poisoning when ingested, including drowsiness, low blood pressure and a dangerously slow heart rate. That information offers investigators a potential medical explanation for symptoms described in the complaint, but it does not by itself prove what caused each of the man’s past illnesses. Toxicology evidence, physical items, recordings and witness statements are distinct forms of proof, and the prosecution will have to establish how they fit together if the case proceeds.
Meis appeared in Portage County Circuit Court on July 27. Local reporting says she asked to delay formal charging until she had an attorney and remained in the Portage County Jail on a $100,000 cash bond. Her next reported court appearance is Aug. 31, when she is expected to be formally charged. The proceeding will move the criminal case forward, but the allegations concerning the cause and scope of the man’s illnesses have not been decided by a judge or jury.
Author note: Last updated August 28, 2026.