Authorities say a 69-year-old man described several earlier episodes of sudden impairment before a hospital test prompted a criminal investigation.
POLK COUNTY, Fla. — What first reached detectives as one unexplained medical emergency has developed into a wider investigation of several suspicious encounters and the possibility of other victims, after a 69-year-old man accused a woman he met online of secretly drugging him. Samantha Adams, 39, of Orlando, is charged with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses stemming from the investigation.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has said detectives are concerned the Aug. 17 hospitalization that brought the case to law enforcement’s attention may not have been an isolated event. The man told investigators that he had previously become unusually groggy, lost his balance or passed out after consuming small amounts of alcohol while with Adams. The sheriff’s office said he suspected she had poisoned him at least three other times at her Orlando residence. Law&Crime, citing the arrest affidavit, reported that investigators also spoke with another man who described similar experiences. Authorities have not publicly announced charges involving that second person.
The investigation therefore centers on two questions that are related but not identical: what happened to the Haines City man on Aug. 17, and whether his experience forms part of a broader pattern. The first incident has a medical finding behind it. Hospital staff determined that the man had suffered a benzodiazepine overdose, according to the sheriff’s office. He told detectives he did not take medication containing benzodiazepines. The earlier episodes, by contrast, are supported in the public record mainly by the man’s recollections. No toxicology results from those occasions have been released.
The man met Adams through a dating app and knew her as “Nala,” authorities said. Judd said the relationship continued for roughly two to three months and involved paid sex. As it progressed, the man spent money on Adams and eventually purchased a vehicle for her, according to investigators. By Aug. 17, the relationship had become strained over that vehicle. Accounts citing court records say the man told Adams he wanted it returned because he could no longer afford it. The sheriff’s office said the two argued about the vehicle before returning to the man’s Haines City home.
Once there, the man told detectives, Adams went into the kitchen with her purse and returned with alcoholic drinks. He drank the whiskey she brought him. Investigators said the encounter became intimate before Adams stopped and demanded $1,000 to continue. The man refused. Adams then left, according to his account. Later that evening, he lost consciousness and was taken to a hospital, where clinicians found the benzodiazepine overdose that would become the strongest publicly disclosed medical evidence in the case.
The man reported the episode to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 20. As detectives questioned him, he began describing other encounters that appeared different when viewed in light of the hospital result. At Adams’ residence, he said he once drank a small amount and became so unsteady that he fell. During another visit, he said he passed out inside his vehicle after leaving. In an Aug. 15 incident, two days before the hospitalization, he said he became groggy after departing Adams’ home and backed into another vehicle. Judd later said that collision involved an Osceola County sheriff’s deputy’s vehicle.
Those reports do not by themselves prove that Adams administered a drug on every occasion. Investigators have not disclosed blood tests, recovered drinks or other laboratory evidence tied to the earlier episodes. The sheriff’s office has instead described them as suspicious incidents that detectives are examining alongside the confirmed Aug. 17 overdose. That difference is important as authorities publicly discuss the possibility of a pattern while the criminal case still has to establish what happened and who was responsible under courtroom standards.
Another part of the investigation involves the security system at the Haines City home. Detectives learned that someone had tampered with the equipment, the sheriff’s office said. The man told investigators he had seen Adams in the area where the system was located. Authorities have not publicly specified whether the alleged tampering disabled cameras, erased recordings or affected another component. Adams was nevertheless charged with tampering with evidence in addition to the attempted murder allegation.
Detectives arrested Adams on Aug. 27 after arranging for her to meet the man at the Posner Park shopping center in Davenport. Deputies said they boxed in her vehicle when she arrived and took her into custody. The search that followed added a separate set of alleged drug offenses to the case. Authorities said Adams possessed a prescription bottle belonging to someone else that contained 19 hydrocodone-acetaminophen pills, as well as 2.5 oxycodone pills, nine sertraline pills, part of an Adderall pill and part of an alprazolam pill.
Alprazolam, widely known by the brand name Xanax, belongs to the benzodiazepine class of drugs. The sheriff’s office has accused Adams of putting a benzodiazepine into the man’s drink, but the publicly released information does not establish that the partial alprazolam pill recovered during the arrest was the specific substance involved in the Aug. 17 overdose. Nor have authorities publicly disclosed a forensic test connecting the seized medication directly to the contents of the man’s drink. Adams faces separate possession charges involving alprazolam, oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Her other announced charges include possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a new legend drug without a prescription, resisting without violence and offering to commit prostitution. Judd has framed the case as a financially motivated attempt to exploit the victim and has repeatedly referred to Adams as a “black widow.” He said investigators believed she was willing to go to extreme lengths for money. That label is the sheriff’s characterization, not a legal finding, and the state must still prove the criminal allegations against Adams.
Investigators’ public appeal for information is one reason the case has attracted attention beyond the Aug. 17 encounter. Judd said other people who dealt with Adams could have had similar experiences, and the sheriff’s office has continued to describe the possibility of additional victims as an open question. No public material reviewed for this report establishes how many other people detectives have interviewed, whether additional medical records have been obtained or whether prosecutors expect to file more charges. The reference to other victims therefore remains part of an active investigation rather than a confirmed count.
The circumstances surrounding the first man’s repeated episodes illustrate why the Aug. 17 medical test changed the direction of the case. Before that night, he had several occasions on which he felt unexpectedly impaired after drinking, but investigators have not said that he had proof of an outside drug in his system. The hospital finding gave authorities a documented overdose involving a class of medication the man said he did not use. Detectives then had a reason to revisit the earlier falls, loss of consciousness and driving incident as potentially connected events rather than unrelated reactions to alcohol.
The investigation also spans more than one Central Florida jurisdiction. The alleged Aug. 17 poisoning occurred at the man’s Haines City home in Polk County. The earlier encounters he described took place at Adams’ residence in Orange County, while Judd said the vehicle collision occurred in Osceola County. The sheriff also said the pair had met on multiple occasions in different locations. Publicly released information does not establish whether agencies outside Polk County have opened separate criminal cases related to those encounters.
Adams was booked into the Polk County Jail following her arrest. Reports immediately after the arrest said she was held without bond and had a court appearance scheduled for Sept. 29. That date is now past, and the public sources reviewed for this article did not establish a later disposition of the attempted murder case. For now, the central prosecution remains tied to the Haines City overdose, while detectives’ broader concern — whether the man’s previous episodes or other people’s experiences reveal additional offenses — remains unresolved. Adams is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.