Answer extracted from the Dateline NBC podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What chemical in eye drops poisoned a North Carolina teacher?
A blood test revealed that preschool teacher Stacey Hunsucker died from poisoning by tetrahydrosoline, a decongestant chemical found in common eye drops—at a concentration 30 to 40 times higher than the therapeutic dose. The discovery became the linchpin in a bizarre murder case against her husband, paramedic Joshua Hunsucker.
Tetrahydrosoline is a safe decongestant when used as directed in eye drops to reduce redness. However, when ingested orally in massive quantities, it becomes a deadly poison. As detailed in the episode investigating Stacey Hunsucker's death, the chemical toxicity triggered severe physiological collapse.
Tetrahydrosoline: A sympathomimetic amine used as a nasal and ophthalmic decongestant in over-the-counter eye drops and nasal sprays. In therapeutic doses, it constricts blood vessels to reduce inflammation. In high oral doses, it causes severe hypertension, bradycardia, sedation, and potentially fatal cardiac complications.
The probable cause affidavit filed against Joshua Hunsucker documented the toxicology findings in stark clinical detail. Stacey, a 32-year-old mother of two daughters, died suddenly in September 2018, initially raising questions that seemed to have no obvious answers. When the blood work came back positive for tetrahydrosoline at such an extraordinarily elevated level, investigators had their chemical smoking gun.
"It can cause vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, seizing, and even cardiac arrest."
Marissa Meyer — Dateline Producer, Dateline NBC. Meyer investigates complex criminal cases with forensic precision. She brought detailed reporting on the Joshua Hunsucker case, uncovering the circumstances surrounding Stacey Hunsucker's death and the subsequent charges against her paramedic husband, who had access to medications and knowledge of how substances affect the human body.
The findings raised an immediate question: how did an eye drop chemical end up in lethal concentration in a woman's bloodstream? Investigators explored whether Hunsucker, who had direct knowledge of medications from his paramedic background, had deliberately poisoned his wife—a theory that gained weight when it emerged he stood to receive $200,000 from two life insurance policies after her death.
Hunsucker was not arrested until late 2019, over a year after Stacey's death. As the Dateline investigation reveals, the delay in charges reflected the unusual nature of the case—poisoning by a household product is rare enough to require careful forensic and investigative work before prosecutors felt confident moving forward.
The case has since spiraled into even stranger territory, with additional charges related to alleged arson on a medical helicopter in 2019 and accusations that Hunsucker faked his own kidnapping in 2023. The trial was scheduled to begin in January 2027, more than eight years after his wife's death, making this one of the longest-running and most complex criminal investigations in North Carolina's recent history.
For more on how a seemingly ordinary household product became the instrument of an alleged murder, and the investigation that connected it to a paramedic with motive and means, listen to the full Dateline NBC episode.
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