A Georgia woman, Torrii Federick, 45, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after being found guilty of murdering her husband by poisoning him with antifreeze. Federick was arrested in November 2022, over a year after the death of her husband, Phil Federick, 40, who passed away on September 5, 2021.
Investigations by the police revealed that Phil Federick’s death was caused by ethylene glycol poisoning, a chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid. Reports from the courtroom, as covered by the Thomasville Times-Enterprise, indicated that during an early interview with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, one of the couple’s children mentioned that Torrii Federick had prepared a special cocktail for her husband.
The couple’s children, Phil’Nesia Federick and Phil Federick Jr., were teenagers at the time of their father’s death. Both testified in defense of their mother during the trial. However, their initial interviews with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation suggested that they may have had doubts about their mother’s innocence.
Phil’Nesia Federick, now 20, reportedly contradicted her own statements to the police and GBI agents about her father’s health in the days leading up to his illness. She also reportedly told District Attorney Brad Shealy that she did not recall contacting the GBI a year after her father’s death to provide additional details.
Phil Federick Jr. also retracted his statement about a cocktail his mother had prepared for his father, which was served in a sports bottle. He had previously told a GBI agent that he saw his mother give his father the drink in the bottle on the night he fell ill. However, on the stand, Phil Federick Jr. reportedly became uneasy and told Shealy that he had only told the GBI what they wanted to hear.
Torrii Federick’s defense attorney, Karla Walker, argued that Phil Federick had taken the antifreeze voluntarily as a means to end his own life. She claimed that he was “isolated and wearing a mask” on the Sunday he fell ill.
When Phil Federick was hospitalized, the police suspected ethylene glycol poisoning and alerted the authorities. He died a week after being admitted to the hospital. The Thomas County Sheriff’s Office announced that their two-year investigation concluded that it was Torrii Federick who had given her husband the fatal drink containing ethylene glycol. On March 27, a jury concurred, convicting Torrii Federick of malice murder and sentencing her to life in prison with the possibility of parole.