Man gets 5 years in prison for trying to kill ex-girlfriend’s baby by drugging her

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Tuesday, May 03, 2022

A man who attempted to kill his pregnant girlfriend's baby by slipping abortion-inducing drugs into her bottled water was sentenced to five years in prison for first-degree intentional homicide.

Marathon County Circuit Judge LaMont Jacobson of Wisconsin sentenced 36-year-old Jeffrey Smith last Friday to five years in prison for the crime. Smith's sentence was reduced by 689 days for time served, according to the Wausau Daily Herald. The judge also sentenced him to 15 years of supervision after he's released from prison. 

In October 2017, a woman who remained unnamed during the legal proceedings informed Smith that she was pregnant with his child. Smith gave her an ultimatum to either abort the baby or put it up for adoption.

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According to court documents, Smith was adamant that she abort the baby, and, in January 2018, he visited the woman in an effort to slip a drug into her drink that he expected would cause her to have a miscarriage.

The woman reported that, after leaving Smith to go to the bathroom, she returned to see that her bottled water had an odd residue in it, prompting her to call authorities. Neither she nor her unborn baby were harmed.

Authorities analyzed the substance and found that it was a prescription drug meant to induce an abortion, Wausau Police Department Detective Captain Matthew Barnes said in a 2018 interview with News Channel 7.

"Through research at the police department, we know that this drug can be obtained through prescription, through monitored administration of a doctor, or there are also websites on the internet that are selling that drug," said Barnes at the time.

In a separate incident, 45-year-old Manishkumar Patel of Wisconsin was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2018 after he tried to get his then-girlfriend to drink a smoothie laced with mifespristone, also called RU-486.

Patel explained during his sentencing that he had put the abortion-inducing drug in his girlfriend's drink because they had another child with serious medical issues.

"I was convinced my unborn child would suffer the same fate," said Patel, as quoted by the Appleton Post-Crescent at the time. "This did not excuse what I did."