Episode 334: Worst Roommate Ever (S2,E1) – My BFF Tried to Kill Me

Rachel and Janie

Rachel Booth was the sixth of seven children and has always been close with her dad, Richard.  Rachel met her first husband when she was fairly young, and according to her dad, he was very opinionated and always wanted things done his way.  Richard said that it was a bad start and the marriage ended quickly.  After her divorce, Rachel moved back in with her parents in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

Then in 1995, when Rachel was 22-years-old, she met Janie Ridd, who was four years older than she was.  Rachel described Janie as being nice, sweet, shy, and introverted.  

Rachel was used to being constantly criticized by others, so when she found that Janie never judged her, she knew this was someone that would simply let Rachel be Rachel.  Rachel was ready to move out of her parents’ house and Janie was uncomfortable living on her own in her apartment after it had been broken into, so the solution seemed obvious to them.  Even though the two friends had only known each other a few months at this time, they decided to move in together. 

Rachel had never lived alone and said that she felt very safe when she first moved in with Janie.  According to Rachel, Janie was very good with finances and always handled their bills.  She said that Janie even managed Rachel’s finances to the point where she determined what she could and couldn’t purchase.  While Janie took care of the finances and helped Rachel learn how to do them herself, Rachel was the one who taught Janie social skills.  Rachel helped Janie make friends and have fun.  The two would go to bars together, dance, act silly and immature, and just have fun.  

Bette Johnson, Rachel’s sister, said in Worst Roommate Ever that she didn’t think that Janie had had a lot of friends growing up and so she attached herself to Rachel.  She said that Janie wanted to be like Rachel, dress like Rachel, and just be her friend.  Dr. Robin Ninefeldt, another friend of Rachel’s, who she met while she was still in medical school and Rachel was a paramedic, said that Rachel was always fun and gregarious, was always out and about, had friends, dated a lot, and had a good job.  She said that Janie was the yang to Rachel’s yin – she was quiet and reserved.  Robin noted that if they were out and someone wanted to speak with Rachel, or would ask her to dance, Janie would have an air of resentment about her.  She said that Janie was very possessive toward Rachel. 

Then in 1996, Rachel met a guy and she described him as “dreamy.”  I’m picturing the quintessential 90’s guy – Leo, Brad, JTT, you name it.  Anyway, Rachel said that she was head over heels for this guy, but Janie reacted in a weird way and had very aggressive opinions about this guy.  She said that something had changed with Janie and it was very, very dark, and she had never seen that side of her before.  When Rachel and her dreamy beau would be watching a movie together, Janie would sit at the bottom of the stairs screaming about how the movie was too loud.  When Rachel confronted her about this, Janie explained it away saying that she was just protective of her and that she thought the guy was a player and didn’t want Rachel to get hurt. 

Robin said that she thought it was maybe a case of unrequited love or jilting of someone who wanted to be in a romantic relationship with their best friend.  Rachel says that this began an era where everyone thought that Janie was in love with her.  Rachel is very adamant, though, that Janie was not in love with her.  Though, she said that this is when Janie started to get jealous if she made new friends.  Janie would incoherently scream at Rachel in front of new friends that she would make, and when Rachel asked her if maybe she just didn’t actually like Rachel, Janie denied it.  She said that Rachel was like her family and she just didn’t want to lose her. 

Rachel says that she can now look back and see that it was controlling behavior, but at the time, it worked.  She did slim down on her social activities because Janie had made her feel like she was being a bad friend. 

It appears like their friendship continued on this way for quite some time.  Now, we’re going to fast forward to January of 2010, 14 years later.  Rachel had been a paramedic for six years, but then she hurt her back.  It was a pretty bad injury, but she tried to go back to work.  Unfortunately, she kept hurting her back, and per her doctor, she couldn’t sit for long periods of time or lift anything heavy.  Because of this, she could no longer work as a paramedic.

Rachel says that before having to quit her job, Janie always managed their finances, but she did contribute financially.  Now that she was out of work, she was no longer able to do so and she felt guilty about it.  Rachel was always very big into fitness and staying active, having a social life, and her career, but all three of these things were taken away from her at once.  Then right after all of this happened, Rachel found out that she was pregnant.  She said that the biological father “opted out.”

Rachel and Janie had been friends for many years at this point, but this was the first time that Janie had complete control over Rachel.  She had no job, was pregnant, and had a back injury, and Rachel said that she needed Janie. 

Once her son, Ryder, was born, Rachel said that she didn’t have anything that she enjoyed other than Ryder.  She says, “Ryder is magic.  He’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”  Rachel explains that Ryder has autism and is conversationally non-verbal.  She was told that he likely wouldn’t speak at all.  Rachel loves music and after hearing that Ryder may never speak, she sang everything to him.  She said that because of neuroplasticity, or the nervous system’s ability to change its activity in response to intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions, or connections, she wanted to try a different pathway for speech.  This worked and Ryder’s first words were songs. 

Because she was a single mom, when Ryder was born Rachel got a large life insurance policy that stated that whoever had control of Ryder if something happened to her, would get the police for his care.  She listed Janie as the guardian for Ryder in her will.  She said that she trusted Janie 100% and she paid for it later. 

After giving birth to Ryder, Rachel suffered a herniated disc from the delivery.  She was in a lot of pain, but she thought that it would get better, so she let it go and continued on with her life.  Eventually, though, she had to go in and get an MRI and her doctor told her that she had to have surgery to avoid permanent disability. 

By January of 2015, Rachel and Janie had been friends for 20 years so after her surgery that month, Rachel trusted Janie to help with her day-to-day.  When Rachel first got home from the surgery, she was in a lot of pain and required pain medication, and she was mostly just laying in bed.  Janie saw that Rachel really couldn’t do much so she started to take care of Ryder.  Robin, Rachel’s friend, said that Rachel was really grateful for Janie’s help because she couldn’t pick him up or really do the basic things to take care of him at that time.  Rachel’s sister, Bette, lived about five hours away so she said that the family was very happy that Rachel had someone to help her with Ryder.  She said that they were glad that Janie was as dedicated to Ryder as she was. 

We learn that Janie was working for a training center that focused on helping Indigenous people having opportunities in life and she had a pretty flexible schedule.  Rachel was on medical disability at this point, so Janie got them enrolled in a program that paid her to help with Ryder.  According to Rachel, Janie started to do very well financially and this had become a significant part of her income. 

Eventually, Janie’s main focus was taking care of Ryder.  However, there were events that Rachel was able to attend at Ryder’s school, and it was kind of a shock to her to be there with Janie.  Janie knew parents that Rachel didn’t, she knew the principal, and Rachel said that it was like Janie was the mayor of the school.  Janie had begun letting people believe that she was Ryder’s parent.  Rachel said, “It’s not true.  She’s not his mother, she’s not a parent of his.”

After this started happening, Janie wanted to bring Ryder with her to work, and Rachel and Janie started fighting over who would have him.  Rachel stood up to Janie around this time and told her that Ryder was her child, and the final answer was that he would stay with Rachel.  Janie didn’t like it, but she really didn’t have a choice. 

Rachel had to undergo seven back surgeries between 2015 and 2018, and around that time, she started to constantly fall down.  She hurt her back again and had to have a surgery to fix the herniations in her neck and because she was trying to be responsible, she asked Janie to administer her medication for her and keep a log so that she never duplicated her doses by accident. 

Then on June 20th, 2018, which was a Saturday, Janie took Ryder with her to her office.  Rachel went out to check the mail and saw a letter addressed to her.  It was from the court informing her that Ryder had been assigned a guardian ad litem for a custody case.  Janie was apparently worried about Ryder’s safety with Rachel.  

After receiving this, Rachel called Janie to ask her about this and when Janie answered the phone, she was perky and cheerful.  When Rachel confronted her and asked if she was suing her for custody of Ryder, she quietly said yes and hung up on Rachel.  

Rachel then called 911 and said that her best friend and roommate had her child and wouldn’t return him.  The police called Janie and then called Rachel back.  They told her that she hadn’t been served yet, but Janie had filed a protective order against her.  The officer told her that because it was Janie’s house, she would have to leave, but Janie was to keep her son.  She said that it was the worst day of her life and probably always will be the worst day of her life. 

Rachel left the home that she and her son had shared with Janie for years and stayed in a hotel that her dad helped her get.  Child Protective Services came out and met with Janie first.  Janie told them that Rachel was a drug addict and was addicted to her pain medication and because of this, she had to step in and take care of Ryder.  When CPS spoke with Rachel, she said that they realized within three minutes that Janie had been lying to them.  She hadn’t mentioned anything about Rachel’s surgeries so they didn’t realize she was in need of the medication.  Rachel got Ryder back ten days later. 

So, at this time, Rachel’s mom had passed away and her dad had moved across the country to South Carolina.  Because of this, Rachel and Ryder had nowhere to go, so she decided to move into a family shelter.  Rachel speaks highly of the shelter that they stayed in, however, she said it was a challenging place for Ryder to be.  He was struggling and he regressed in his progress and he simply wasn’t happy.  

Rachel and Ryder had spent six weeks at the shelter when out of the blue, Janie called her.  She asked if she could see Ryder and he had been asking to go home every day.  Rachel thought that maybe Ryder missed Janie so she agreed to meet her at a park.  Janie apologized for what she had done and told Rachel that she was in a dark place and again had thought that Rachel was going to leave her.  In this moment, Rachel felt like Janie was back to the person she used to know and that she didn’t seem dark anymore.  She said that Ryder had been happy to see Janie and Janie said that everything was going to be okay and asked Rachel to come back.  So, she did. 

Rachel knew that she needed another surgery and she didn’t have anyone else to help with Ryder, so she needed Janie.  She said that when they moved back home, Ryder improved immediately, and Janie was taking really good care of him.  Rachel waited as long as she could before having surgery so that she could ensure that things were stable before she couldn’t take care of herself. 

Rachel’s sister was concerned when she made the decision to move back in with Janie.  She wondered what else she could be capable of after being so cruel to her, but ultimately, she decided to stay out of it because it wasn’t her call to make. 

In April of 2019, Rachel had another back surgery and she said that everything went fairly routine.  Janie offered to help her with her care as well as Ryder’s.  Any incisions that Rachel had that she couldn’t see or reach herself, Janie would take care of.  She would clean them, apply ointment, and then rebandage them.  

A few weeks after the surgery, Rachel began having pain in one of the incisions on her back.  There were a couple of times when Janie would rub it and Rachel questioned her on why she was doing it in that way.  Janie would respond with things that didn’t really make sense, but Rachel didn’t think that it was nefarious or malicious.  However, it got to a point where it was hurting her pretty badly, so she asked Janie to take a look.  Janie told her all was well and she wouldn’t need a doctor. 

But then, Rachel began having issues breathing and decided it was time to go in.  When the doctor removed her bandage, she said she could feel him step back and feel his shock.  He told her that she had a massive infection and described it like blue cheese coming out of her wound.  He told her he had to call an ambulance because she needed to get to the emergency room right away. 

The incision needed to be reopened and it was discovered that she had MRSA.  MRSA is a very serious staph infection that is generally contracted in a hospital.  The initial assumption was that was exactly what had happened here and Rachel was prescribed vancomycin.  Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic that works by killing bacteria that causes infections.  Unfortunately for Rachel, the medication started attacking her white blood cells and she became very ill.  Rachel told Worst Roommate Ever that she could feel life draining out of her and she knew she was going to die. 

Luckily, though, she began to get better and called her best friend to let her know that she was probably going to live.  While Rachel was recovering, she and Janie would watch true crime shows together, because like all of us, they loved true crime.  Rachel recalls an episode they watched together where a nurse killed her husband with succinylcholine.  This is a depolarizing muscle relaxer that is used adjunctly to anesthesia as well as for skeletal muscle relaxation during intubation, mechanical ventilation, and surgical procedures, according to drunkbank.com.  According to a quick Goog search, it looks like this is the murder of Steve Hricko by his wife Kimberly.  If anyone is interested, throw that in the request form!  Because I am now interested. 

Anyway, while watching this, Rachel made a comment to Janie that it was stupid of this nurse to use that particular drug because it would show up in an autopsy.  Janie asked what she had meant and Rachel said that she should have used something like insulin because it occurs naturally in the body and because it would have been a suspicious death, an autopsy would be performed.  Rachel said that it was a normal conversation that never really stuck out to her.  But now, she can see that she was planning her own murder.  WHAT THE FUUUUUCK. 

On June 9th, 2019, Janie helped Rachel to bed and gave her her medication – as she had many times before.  However, this time, Rachel woke up in the hospital and was told that her blood sugar had dropped to 13.  Rachel was not diabetic and hadn’t had any diabetic issues, so this was a shock to everyone – including herself.  

Janie called Bette to let her know that her sister was in the hospital and might not make it.  When Bette learned about Rachel’s levels, she began questioning Janie, even asking her about insulin.  Bette is a nurse and explained that a normal blood sugar level ranges from 80 to 110.  According to Bette, Janie didn’t seem the least bit concerned for Rachel or her wellbeing while they sat in the waiting room.  This is when Bette really started to suspect that something was going on with Janie.  When Bette spoke with Rachel about it, though, Rachel told her that it was just grief and her way of dealing with the situation.  

Rachel was in the hospital for 48 hours and in that time, her blood sugar returned to normal and everything seemed fine.  It was determined that it may have just been a fluke and she was sent home on a Sunday.  By the following Tuesday, though, she woke up in the hospital again, with the exact same symptoms.  The same thing had happened again and this time she was in the hospital for eight days.  The doctor called several different endocrinologists to try to determine a cause, but there weren’t really any answers. 

In September of 2019, it happened again.  The same thing.  By this time, Rachel’s friends were questioning if she was doing this to herself, but she swore that she wasn’t.  Rachel had even made a Facebook post stating that she was afraid she was going to die.

Then on December 12, 2019, this case really turned into a wild ride.  Steve Cadiz, an FBI Special Agent got a call at the Salt Lake City office.  Steve is the coordinator for the Weapons of Mass Destruction program.  The WMD program of the FBI covers chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons of mass destruction.  Yeah, you heard that right, and it is a wild thought that this unit takes part in this case. 

Anywho, Steve gets a call on December 12th and was asked to conduct an investigation on a person attempting to purchase VRSA on the dark web.  VRSA is a bacterial staph infection that is worse than MRSA and is very resistant to commonly used antibiotics.  The lead prosecutor on this case, Michael Gadd, explained that the FBI hosts a Joint Terrorism Task Force in Salt Lake City and he was told that they had received a tip from an undercover FBI agent who was working on the dark web.  The undercover agent had received an order for VRSA. 

According to Steve, in Utah, the criminal statutes specifically say that biological agents that are entering its borders through the mail are considered weapons of mass destruction.  Michael says that biological weapons are a whole different animal because they can grow, multiply, and propagate.  

As the investigation was underway, Steve and his colleagues learned that the person attempting to purchase the VRSA was Janie Lynn Ridd.  According to an article written by Monica Mercuri in Forbes, Janie had been communicating with the vendor, or undercover agent, from October of 2019 to December of 2019.  She claimed that she was a biology teacher and needed VRSA cultures for a school experiment. 

The questions that needed to be asked and answered right away were: How will this person use the VRSA?  Is it on a person?  Just a single person?  Is it a group of people?  Will it be cultured and grown then introduced to a community?  Both Steve and Michael expressed the danger and concern of this becoming widespread. 

Now that investigators knew that it was Janie who was attempting to purchase the VRSA, they needed to do some digging into who she is and what her past looks like.  Jen, a sergeant with the State Bureau of Investigation, who also works for the Joint Terrorism Task Force, learned about the custody dispute between Janie and Rachel.  She also learned that Janie was Rachel’s main caregiver.  With this information, investigators started to work the theory that maybe Janie wanted to hurt Rachel in order to get custody of her son. 

While this investigation is going on, unbeknownst to both Janie and Rachel, Rachel decided in December  of 2019, that she was going to remove Janie as the beneficiary of her will.  She said that Janie was seeming darker to her, she was detached, and she was leaving Ryder in potentially dangerous situations.  She asked her father if he would be willing to take care of Ryder if something happened to her and he, of course, said that he would. 

Rachel let Janie know about her decision and a short time after, she also let Janie know that it was time that she and Ryder moved out.  She said that it wasn’t necessarily forever, but she knew that she and Janie needed some space.  Janie requested that they stay through December 25th. 

In December, Janie officially purchased the VRSA from the dark web and according to that same article in Forbes, she paid the vendor $300 via Bitcoin.  On December 15th, investigators made plans to deliver fake VRSA to the post office box that Janie gave as her shipping address.  They sent a receipt with tracking information to her and had an investigative team parked outside of the UPS store watching for Janie.  

On the second day of their surveillance, they saw a woman matching Janie Ridd’s description arrive at the store.  She went inside, received the package that they put the fake VRSA in, then immediately walked to her vehicle.  They followed her to her workplace in Salt Lake City Valley and when they arrived at her office, they asked if they could speak with her. 

Steve initially asked her if she had picked up a package at the UPS store that day and he really wanted to see if she would tell him the truth.  She said that she did, but that “he” was sending her coffee beans.  He stopped her, told her that he didn’t believe her, and gave her another opportunity to tell him the truth.  She lied again.  This time she said that she ordered a biological that you make beer with.  Again, he tells her that he doesn’t believe her and asks her what kind of biological she ordered.  This time she said that it was some kind of staph. 

Janie finally admitted that she was attempting to buy the bacteria to do some research for her friend, Rachel.  With this, investigators had enough probable cause to arrest Janie Ridd for the attempt to possess a weapon of mass destruction.  Before they officially arrested her, she stated, “I wasn’t meaning to do anything that would be terroristic.”  When they asked her if she was planning on using it on Rachel, she denied it and said that Rachel was her best friend and that she loved her like a sister.  She was then arrested. 

On December 18th, Rachel was at home, it was a regular Tuesday, when a knock came at the door.  There were three official looking people at her door.  She learned that it was the FBI and they had a search warrant for the house.  They began asking her some questions that she thought were odd.  They asked her where she usually had her packages delivered to, if Janie did science experiments, if she makes beer, things like that.  Rachel was really confused.  There is audio of this conversation and you can hear Rachel vehemently defend Janie saying that she would never intentionally do something illegal.  

While the search continued, Rachel could tell that the agents were trying to avoid telling her why they were there and what was going on.  They finally told her that Janie was in jail, but they were trying to be delicate with the information considering they had to tell her that her best friend and roommate was attempting to kill her.  

They eventually told her that Janie had attempted to purchase VRSA and that it was a bacteria worse than MRSA.  They told her that Janie had purchased it the week before, but Rachel just couldn’t believe them.  There was no way that Janie was trying to kill.  But then, they told her that this wasn’t the first time Janie had bought something off of the dark web.  Rachel asked them then if Janie had purchased insulin.  The investigators looked at each other and then at Rachel and that’s when it hit her. 

Rachel explained to the investigators about the incidents where her glucose levels had dropped.  While Rachel told them everything that had happened, Steve began thinking of all of the things that Janie had purchased – sedatives like ketamine, Xanax, and insulin injector pens.  Hmm, VERY suspicious.  Then during the search of the home, they found, drum roll please, an expended insulin injector pen.  That pen had Rachel’s DNA inside and it had been used on Rachel.  

It was pretty clear to the investigators that Janie would use ketamine to incapacitate Rachel so that she wouldn’t feel the injections of insulin or MRSA.  After reading through Rachel’s medical records, Steve believed that Janie had tried to kill Rachel FIVE TIMES over the course of a year. 

Michael considers what would have happened if Janie could have carried out her plans.  He says that Rachel would have died in the hospital and it would have been considered an attended death, and no autopsy would be required.  There would have been no investigation and Janie would have gotten custody of Ryder and a half million dollar insurance pay out.

Janie Ridd was arrested in December of 2019, as stated, and had three charges filed against her.  First was aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, second was attempted aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, and lastly, attempted acquisition of a biological weapon.  

In August of 2020, Janie was convicted on all of her charges.  According to Worst Roommate Ever, she was convicted on all three, but I’ve read in a couple of different places that she pleaded guilty to the attempted possession of a weapon of mass destruction and the attempted intentional abuse of a disabled or elder adult charges, but the third charge of aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult charge was dismissed as a part of her plea deal.  

Michael, the lead prosecutor, stated that Janie was sentenced to one to twenty years in prison, but I have read one to fifteen.  However, it really doesn’t matter, because she was released after only serving 25 months.

Rachel said that when she saw Janie in court, she didn’t seem familiar to her anymore.  She said she seemed broken and Rachel wonders if she missed something.  She wonders if she was a better friend, maybe she could have helped her.  Rachel and Ryder are doing well since Janie’s arrest.  Rachel’s unexplained illnesses have stopped.  Rachel said, “She didn’t ruin my life.  She ruined hers.  And that’s sad.  That’s very sad.” 

Since Worst Roommate Ever aired, Michael Gadd has said on a podcast that he didn’t prosecute as attempted murder because there wasn’t enough proof that Janie wanted to kill Rachel.  He said he “struggled with that decision.”

As the episode of Worst Roommate Ever ends, we hear a recorded call from jail where Janie says, “I know what’s gonna happen.  I’m gonna end up out of here.  I’m gonna find a way to get him away from her.  He needs to come back to me now.”

As stated, Janie only served 25 months in prison.  She was released in January of 2022 and granted parole.  Her current whereabouts are unknown.