Lover Plots Murder By Spiked Coffee

A Jan. 8 preliminary hearing is scheduled for a man accused of plotting to poison his purported lover’s husband.

Dan Wheeler III, 37, allegedly plotted to poison Jerry Holton on Saturday by having nicotine distilled from boiled cigarettes put into Holton’s coffee.

He appeared in Jerome County Magistrate Thomas Borresen on Tuesday and was returned to jail in lieu of $200,000 bond on charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and attempting to administer poison with intent to kill.

Prosecutors contend Wheeler was having an affair with Janyce Holton and believed she was carrying his child. Jerome County Sheriff’s Detective Dan Chatterton alleged in an affidavit that Wheeler boiled cigarettes to produce a vial of pure nicotine, then gave the vial to another man to deliver to Mrs. Holton with instructions to place a few drops in her husband’s coffee.

But Janyce Holton and her 12-year-old daughter instead reported the alleged plot to police. Chatterton said the Holtons’ daughter claimed she had overheard a conversation about the plan, and that Janyce Holton told detectives she and Wheeler had joked about killing her husband but had never been serious.

Wheeler told investigators he and Janyce Holton had lived together while she and her husband were separated, and that he had invested money in the couple’s property in rural Jerome County.

The Holtons later reconciled, and Wheeler told investigators that Jerry Holton told his wife to abort the baby she was carrying.