Matthew Phelps claims he killed his wife Lauren after taking a cold medication containing chlorpheniramine, a sedating antihistamine that can rarely cause parasomnia. A doctor and defense attorney debate whether the drug could have put him in a dissociative state where he acted without awareness, though prosecutors would need to investigate motive and his sleep history.
All right, well, a North Carolina newlywed charged with murder after he wakes up covered in his wife's blood. Listen to this.
I had a dream, and then I turn on the lights and she's dead on the floor. I'm— I have blood all over me, and there's a bloody knife on the bed, and I think I did it.
So that voice is 28-year-old Matthew Phelps. You can see him right there telling police he may have stabbed claims that he stabbed his wife Lauren to death after taking too much cold medicine. But can that defense hold up in court? We're gonna debate this now. Internist and board-certified cardiologist Dr. Tiffany Di Pietro and criminal defense attorney Yoshua Gunasekara. Thank you so much for being here, ladies. Everyone on the show, the producers, we've been talking about this for the last couple of days. I wanna start with you, Tiffany, on the medical side of this because we know the impacts of some strong medication, Ambien for one. We know that can just make you totally insane. But when it comes to cold medicine, can it make you that delirious?
Believe it or not, yes. It's extraordinarily rare, but it can happen. So what hap— this is very similar to Benadryl. It's called chlorpheniramine, and it's very similar to Benadryl. So it can make you very sleepy. It can put you to sleep. But what happens is it doesn't relax your muscles enough. So you could still be having a dream and have a sleep disorder called a parasomnia, where you're clinically asleep, but your body is still able to get up, walk around, and potentially act out dreams that you're having.
Where you wake up, you're showing this, this story. I mean, you wake up as a husband and your wife is dead, all bloody, next to you with a knife next to her. I mean, you just imagine if this is true what he is dealing with emotionally on this. But you say there is precedent, that there have been cases in the past where people have walked free from murdering someone that they loved.
Yes, this is all about what this man was thinking at the time of the murder. Now, if he didn't know what he was doing, he could very very well have a strong defense. There's two parts of a crime. It's the act of the crime of stabbing her, but it's also the mental state. And if he didn't know what he was doing, he could get away scot-free.
What if he's just a killer though? What if he's just a bad man and he said, you know what, I have seen that other people have been able to walk away from this, Yoshia, so I'm going to use this same defense and hopefully I'll get a better sentence, or maybe I'll walk away?
I think the prosecution and the police are going to do everything they can to prevent that from happening. I think they're going— there is going to be an extensive investigation, including potentially recreating the crime scene and perhaps finding a motive. Why would he want to do this? Was there marital strife? Was there trouble? And that can really help them build their case against him.
Tiffany Di Pietro, this I think makes everyone listening to the story this morning— makes them nervous of like, what if this were to happen to me? What if I were to take cold medicine, I were sick, or I just wanted a good night's sleep, and you wake up and you're— and you kill someone that you love? I mean, how should we be thinking about this and making sure that we are never put in this situation?
Yeah, I think, you know, it's a very slippery slope and we have to be very careful. You know, if this guy does get off and if it is proven that he really had no idea what he was doing, I mean, these medications are over-the-counter medications and they are extraordinarily safe for the vast majority of the population. So I don't really think most people should worry about this happening to them. And I think a good question for the— his attorneys and the police also is if he had an underlying sleep disorder. Has he sleepwalked before? Did he used to talk in his sleep? Because if he did, then he probably had an underlying disorder anyway, which could have, uh, made the, the effects of the medication worse.
Either way, this is just a horrible, horrible story. Tiffany Di Pietro, thank you so much for helping us better understand. This is going to be a long road ahead, I'm sure. Good to see you both.
