Investigators say recordings from two July dates captured bottle tampering after years of unexplained illness and repeated hospital care.

STEVENS POINT, Wis. — A kitchen camera installed by a Wisconsin man who suspected someone was making him sick became a key piece of evidence in a case accusing his ex-wife of repeatedly contaminating his drinks with eye drops, according to a criminal complaint and police accounts.

Jessica Meis, 37, of Plover faces an aggravated battery charge with a domestic violence modifier and two counts of placing foreign objects in edibles. Police arrested her July 21 after reviewing recordings from the Stevens Point home and later interviewing her. Prosecutors allege the suspected poisoning was not an isolated episode but part of a repeated pattern that coincided with serious health problems, including low blood pressure, a slow heart rate, dizziness, extreme fatigue and headaches. Meis has not been convicted of the allegations. At her July 27 court appearance, she requested time to obtain an attorney before being formally charged, according to local court reporting.

The investigation accelerated after the man placed a camera in his kitchen July 14. Four days later, police said, the camera recorded Meis handling a small container near a black water bottle. The complaint says she removed the container from a pocket, opened it and poured its contents into the bottle. Investigators also noted that she appeared to hold the objects below the top of the kitchen island while two children were nearby. The description in the complaint became significant because police were no longer working only from the man’s suspicions or medical history. They now had a recording that, in their view, documented deliberate tampering with an item he could later drink from.

Police also reviewed an earlier recording dated July 16. In that video, investigators said Meis took an eye-drop bottle from her purse and handled a bottle of Propel water from the refrigerator. Her body blocked part of the camera’s view, according to the complaint, but investigators said they suspected she was pouring eye-drop solution into the drink. That bottle did not remain solely in the man’s possession. Authorities said another person consumed from it before turning the bottle over to investigators. The circumstance widened police concern beyond the intended target described in the complaint because a household drink allegedly altered for one person could be picked up by someone else.

The camera footage followed a long period in which the man said he could not explain what was happening to his health. He told investigators that symptoms such as exhaustion, dizziness, headaches and unusually long periods of sleep dated to 2021. The most serious episodes described in the complaint came later. Meis and the man finalized their divorce in June 2025 but continued living in the same Stevens Point home for a period before she moved to Plover. Because the former couple shared custody of three children, investigators said Meis continued to have reason to visit the Stevens Point residence after moving out. That continuing access became part of the chronology police assembled.

The man reported multiple hospital visits as the symptoms worsened. The complaint says he was hospitalized four times between July and September 2025, and local reporting says he sought emergency care in Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids and Madison while also seeing specialists. He described recurring episodes of dangerously low blood pressure and a slow heart rate. According to the complaint, one cardiologist told him that his symptoms did not make sense. The man also told investigators that he had raised the possibility that he was being poisoned but had not received confirmation of that suspicion. The allegation remained uncertain until he began watching what happened around the drinks in his home.

One episode from July 2025 later took on new importance. The man told police he became sick after drinking from an energy drink he had left open in a refrigerator. At the time, he suspected Meis might have placed something in the can. His mother saved the container, and it was eventually provided to investigators after he contacted police in July 2026. The saved can was among several physical items authorities could compare with the man’s medical history, the later kitchen videos and statements obtained during the investigation. The complaint does not establish in the publicly reported material that laboratory testing had confirmed what, if anything, was inside every submitted container.

Police said the pattern continued into 2026. The man reported that Meis stayed at his home in January because the heat at her residence was not working. He said he experienced three separate episodes of illness during that period. His health problems intensified again beginning in May, according to the complaint, with low-blood-pressure episodes becoming more frequent through July. That sequence helped explain why he eventually installed the camera rather than treating each illness as another unexplained medical event. Investigators were able to place the new recordings against a history of symptoms that the man said repeatedly appeared when Meis had access to his residence or belongings.

After obtaining the recordings, police executed a search warrant at Meis’ home and interviewed her after advising her of her rights, according to the complaint. Investigators said she initially offered a different explanation for the liquid seen going into the drinks, telling them she had used saline solution or salt as a supposed way to help with the man’s blood pressure. Police said that account changed during the interview. Meis ultimately acknowledged putting Visine eye drops into drinks, according to the complaint. After first describing only a small number of incidents, investigators said, she told them she had done it “many times.” The complaint attributes those statements to Meis; they remain allegations presented by law enforcement in a pending criminal case.

Investigators said Meis described contaminating several kinds of beverages the man commonly consumed, including energy drinks, bottled flavored water and other drinks. She also allegedly told police she had tried putting Visine in his CPAP equipment but did not believe that attempt worked. Authorities said she gave investigators a reason for making him ill: She wanted him to become sick enough that he would allow her to care for him and would need her. Police also asked whether she had worried that the former couple’s children could consume the altered drinks. According to the complaint, she answered that the children did not drink those products. Police further wrote that she did not display remorse during the interview.

The reported medical symptoms are consistent with concerns surrounding ingestion of some redness-relief eye drops. Tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found in certain products, can cause serious toxicity when swallowed and may lead to sleepiness, low blood pressure and a dangerously slow heart rate, according to Poison Control. Authorities have referenced tetrahydrozoline in connection with the Wisconsin investigation. The toxicology information helps explain why investigators treated the alleged drink tampering as more than a prank, but the criminal case still requires prosecutors to prove the charged conduct and the required legal elements. Public reporting reviewed for this story does not establish a final toxicology finding linking every medical episode described by the man to a particular contaminated beverage.

The case is now moving through Portage County Circuit Court. Meis remained jailed on a $100,000 cash bond after her July arrest, according to local reporting. She appeared in court July 27 and asked to wait until she had an attorney before being formally charged. Her next reported court date is Aug. 31. Until the case is resolved through a plea or trial, the complaint, recordings and statements described by police represent the prosecution’s allegations rather than a finding of guilt.

Author note: Last updated August 28, 2026.