The Shocking True Story of a Utah Woman Who Poisoned Her Best Friend After Taking Out Life Insurance

Janie Lynn Ridd and her roommate Rachel had been best friends for 25 years.

The two women were inseparable, even moving in together after meeting in 1995 and co-parenting Rachel’s son, who is autistic and does not speak fluently.

But after Rachel fell seriously ill several times without explanation, forcing her to give up her job as an ambulance driver, she discovered that her best friend had tried to poison her with a strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

“I really can’t believe that someone I’ve known for 25 years, my best friend and roommate, could do what she did,” said Rachel, identified only by her first name.

“But it was evil, it was evil. It was planned and planned to perfection.”

The story of the two women was documented in the first episode of season 2 of “Worst Roommate Ever” on Netflix.

In the episode titled “My Best Friend Tried to Kill Me,” Rachel describes meeting Janie in 1995, when she was 22 and Janie was 26.

Rachel had just gotten a divorce and moved back in with her parents when she started dating Janie. During this time, Janie was living in an apartment that had been burglarized and said she didn’t want to live alone.

The two women’s circumstances seemed to match perfectly, so they decided to move in together.

At first, Rachel said she felt “very safe” living with her friend and roommate. However, things started to go wrong when Rachel started making new friends and dating men, and Janie began displaying controlling and jealous behavior.

Janie’s behavior began to worsen several years later, in 2010, Rachel said, when she suffered a herniated disc and was no longer able to work. She discovered she was pregnant around the same time, which she said strengthened Janie’s hold over her.

“For the first time in our friendship, Janie had complete control over me because I didn’t have a job, I was pregnant, I had a back injury and I was in so much pain that I needed her,” Rachel said in the docuseries.

Rachel gave birth to her son, Ryder, in 2010. Around the same time, Rachel decided to take out life insurance on herself and her roommate, with the women serving as each other’s beneficiaries.

Janie was also named as Ryder’s legal guardian in Rachel’s will. According to her friends, Janie became a second mother to help care for Ryder. When Rachel suffered another herniated disc in 2015 and doctors told her she would need surgery to prevent her from becoming permanently disabled, Janie took Ryder under her wing, enrolling herself and the child in a program that allowed her to pay for Ryder’s care, which became “a significant portion” of Rachel’s income.

But Rachel told a different story. She said Janie’s alleged obsession with Ryder led her to abuse her role as mother and caretaker to her son.

She claimed that Janie had led people at Ryder’s school to believe that she was his mother. This led to fights between the two best friends, and on June 20, 2018, Rachel received a letter announcing that Janie was suing her for custody of Ryder. Rachel called authorities, who informed her that Janie had filed a protective order. Ryder was returned to Rachel’s custody ten days later after a Child Protective Services investigation.

After the custody incident, the women moved in together. But it didn’t end there.

While Rachel recovered from her neck surgery, Janie helped take care of her, including tending to her post-operative incisions.

Rachel described how Janie would rub her neck, which would eventually cause more pain.

A “suspected MRSA infection” was later discovered at the wound, according to an indictment obtained by Today.com. MRSA is a type of staph bacteria that can be resistant to several antibiotics, and Rachel ended up in the hospital.

Rachel then had two more mysterious health issues. The first occurred in June 2019, when Rachel said she had two separate episodes of dangerously low blood sugar that required her to be hospitalized, despite not being diabetic and not taking insulin. Rachel recalled a conversation she and Janie had while they were watching a true crime documentary, in which Janie told her that the best way to kill someone and get away with it would be to inject the victim with insulin.

Rachel underwent further surgery in October 2019 and “inexplicably developed three golf ball-sized infections on the wound.” One of the infections was tested and determined to contain E. coli, a type of bacteria.

At the time, Rachel’s surgeon told investigators that the E. coli infection “was not the result of surgery and had to be injected.”

Meanwhile, the FBI was investigating someone trying to purchase a deadly bacteria known as Vancomycin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (VRSA) on the Dark Web, a lead that ultimately led them directly to Janie.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, VRSA is an antibiotic-resistant strain of staph bacteria that can cause infections ranging from skin conditions to serious wound infections, and can lead to death.

From October to December 2019, Janie communicated with the dark web vendor and told them she was a biology teacher who needed VRSA cultures for a school science experiment, the indictment says.

When the seller said VRSA could be obtained from more legitimate sources for scientific research, Janie offered to pay for overnight shipping to receive the cultures faster, the indictment added, and paid $300 worth of bacteria in Bitcoin.

According to the Netflix documentary, she also used the dark web to purchase sedatives such as ketamine, Xanax and insulin pens.

Janie was eventually arrested when investigators intercepted Janie’s virus order and replaced it with a fake package. They then conducted surveillance on the UPS store where she had ordered the substance.

On the second day of surveillance, they saw an individual matching Janie’s description enter the store and retrieve the package. After tracking her to Salt Lake, they apprehended her at her workplace and questioned her about her plans regarding the bacteria.

Although she initially denied any malicious intent, instead claiming the package contained coffee beans, she eventually admitted to purchasing an “organic” one on the dark web to make beer.

She later told investigators that she had ordered a form of staph for experimental use. During her interview with the FBI, Janie told agents that it had never occurred to her to use the biological agent on Rachel.

“No, and I wouldn’t even know how to do that,” Janie said, according to a recording of the interview that aired during the show. “No, she’s my best friend and whether we fight or not, she’s been my best friend for 25 years and I love her like a sister.”

Authorities later found a used insulin pen with Rachel’s DNA on the outside of the pen at Janie’s home, as well as a copy of her advance directives that had gone missing from the safe.

Janie was arrested and charged with three felonies: aggravated intentional abuse of a disabled or elderly adult, attempted intentional abuse of a disabled or elderly adult and attempted possession of a weapon of mass destruction, according to court documents.

Janie pleaded guilty to attempted intentional abuse of a disabled or elderly adult and attempted possession of a weapon of mass destruction on August 25, 2020. She was sentenced to one to twenty years in prison.

Rachel now suspects Janie started out taking Xanax before moving on to stronger drugs like ketamine. She also believes she was injected with E.Coli bacteria, she said in the Netflix series.

“She took pleasure in tormenting me,” Rachel said. “I don’t think I was human in her eyes.”

Janie, now 55, was granted parole and released in January 2022 after serving 25 months in prison, according to the documentary. She could not be reached for comment. The independent.

In an undated recording of a phone call from the Salt Lake County Jail that aired during the show, Janie is heard saying, “I know what’s going to happen. I’m going to get out of here eventually. I’m going to find a way to get him away from her. He’s got to come back to me now.”