A purple-haired DoorDash driver in southern Indiana was arrested after being caught on doorbell video allegedly spraying her food delivery with pepper spray.
The act was discovered after the late-night delivery from Arby’s left a customer choking and vomiting after taking a bite, authorities said.
Arrested Friday and booked into the McCracken County Jail in nearby Kentucky was Kourtney Stevenson on charges of battery and product tampering, according to the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana that conducted the investigation.
The arrest followed a week-long investigation after Evansville residents Mark Cardin and his wife ordered food on December 7. Within minutes of eating, Cardin said something was clearly wrong.
“I noticed my wife had started eating and she started choking and gasping, and after she had a couple of bites of her food, she actually threw up,’ Cardin told Live5 News.
Cardin said he examined the delivery bag and noticed what appeared to be residue on it.
“I had a look at the bag and saw that there was some kind of spray or something,’ he said. ‘The bag had been tampered with.”
Cardin then examined the home’s doorbell camera, which he said revealed the delivery driver placed the bag on the doorstep, took a photo of the order and then sprayed the bag with a small canister on her keychain before leaving.
Sheriff’s detectives subpoenaed DoorDash records, which identified the suspect, who was found living in Kentucky near Paducah, some 60 miles away.
According to a sheriff’s statement:
She was contacted and agreed to an in person interview. During the initial phone call she told detectives that she had been in Evansville visiting her father and was working for DoorDash during her stay. She told detectives that she used pepper spray, not on the food, but to spray a spider she said she saw while making the delivery. She explained that she is terrified of spiders.
However, detectives didn’t buy her explanation. Police said the overnight low was 35 degrees and “at that temperature, outdoor spiders in Indiana are not active and would not be capable of crawling exposed surfaces.”
The sheriff’s department coordinated with Kentucky authorities to arrest Stevenson, where she is being held pending extradition to Indiana.
Stevenson has been charged with two counts of battery resulting in moderate injury and two counts of consumer product tampering, both felonies.
DoorDash refunded the order and revoked Stevenson’s access to the platform, the Daily Mail reported, telling the news out it had “zero tolerance” for conduct that affects customers safety.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
