Woman Researched Deadly Mushrooms Before Husband’s Death — What Happened to Him?

When a man called 911 to report a dead body laying in a ditch by the side of the road near Noblesville, Indiana on Friday, April 24, 2020, police were stumped as to how he died. There were no signs of trauma to the body. No identification on the body. No abandoned vehicles. No neighbors had seen or heard anything. And all blood and toxicology reports didn’t show an obvious reason for his death.

It wasn’t until detectives decided to test the stomach contents of David Fouts — identified through his fingerprints — that they finally had a possible cause of death: He'd last eaten bits of poisonous mushrooms.

“There is so little known about mushrooms, and there was no case in the history of the world where they’d been intentionally used to kill someone — this type of mushroom,” said Hamilton County Sheriff’s Detective Greg Lockhart on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen.

But the fungus eventually led to the arrest of David Fouts’ wife, Katrina, and his father-in-law’s caretaker, Terry Hopkins.

“The weirdest thing about this case is the mushrooms,” Lockhart said. “The murder was almost perfect. But there’s certain things you can’t get away from. They overthought it. They did stupid stuff in the end.”

David and Katrina Fouts were newlyweds when he was found dead in April 2020, having married the previous year after three years of dating. It was the second marriage for both.

When detectives first spoke to Katrina Fouts on Saturday, April 25, a day after her husband’s body was discovered, she claimed David had been having an affair for months, and they’d been living in two separate homes they owned. She told detectives she hadn’t seen her husband since Tuesday, April 21.

When police ran a background check on David, they realized he’d been charged with domestic battery and invasion of privacy by Katrina just a few months prior, in September 2019.

“Katrina accused him of domestic battery,” Lockhart said. “He was arrested for that. David said it didn’t happen. That he had never touched her.”

Katrina Fouts. Photo: Oxygen

A judge had issued a no contact order between the two of them, and they had an upcoming court date where David’s lawyer told police he and David had planned to fight the charges, but they never got the chance.

Katrina’s web search and phone history heightened police suspicions about her involvement in David’s death.

“[It] revealed web searches for interesting things like ‘crimes of passion Indiana,’” said prosecutor Andre Miksha on Snapped. "’What it takes to get an arrest warrant for murder in Indiana.’ Very concerning and questionable things.”

And that wasn’t all.

“In her pictures we found a screenshot of the death cap mushroom,” Lockhart said. “Deadly ones, like the death cap, you eat it and you are dead … we strongly believe that these mushrooms played a huge part in likely killing David.”

Poisonous Mushrooms. Photo: Oxygen

The only problem: Police and prosecutors couldn’t prove the mushrooms killed David.

“Even if you’re dead, it will metabolize out of your body,” Lockhart said. “So, there will be no signs of this poison, this toxin, in your body within I think 72 hours … and David had been dead for a few days [when he was discovered].”

Phone records showed David and Katrina Fouts had contacted each other many times in the weeks leading up to his death, but beginning on the afternoon of April 22, they’d had no more contact.

A look at Katrina Fouts’ phone records revealed she also spoke frequently to a man named Terry Hopkins. The retired police officer was now a caretaker for Katrina’s father. Katrina described him as a father figure to her and a family friend, and admitted she’d been with him earlier in the week.

Police took a look at the cell phone locations for both Hopkins and Katrina for around the time David was believed to be killed. Both were in the same location on April 21, and both shut off their phones in the middle of the night early on April 22, before turning them back on around 11 a.m.

“It is our belief that Katrina and Terry shut off their cell phone devices so they couldn’t be located,” Lockhart said.

Searches of their homes revealed a walkie talkie in the glove box of Katrina’s vehicle, as well as in Hopkins’ pickup truck. A lift cart was left in the garage at the Fouts’ country home. A box at Hopkins’ home also contained a box cutter, duct tape, knives, tarps, rubber gloves, zip ties, and rope — and Hopkins was caught on security camera buying the items.

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“Things that you may want to get if you’re involved in a homicide,” Hamilton Co. Sheriff’s Detective Chris Yates emphasized on Snapped.

But that wasn’t the only evidence. The shirt that was with David when he died had blood on it, and DNA testing showed some of that blood belonged to Terry Hopkins. David’s DNA was also found on a rubber mat that was on top of the lift cart, while Katrina and Hopkins’ DNA was also found on the lift cart box.

“There is no smoking gun, if you will, in this case,” Yates said. “We have to take all these little pieces that are part of a puzzle and put them together. The picture is that Terry and Katrina were in cahoots to get rid of David.”

On September 17, 2020, Terry Hopkins and Katrina Fouts were arrested, and Hopkins eventually confessed to police that Katrina had plotted to kill her husband by feeding him poisonous mushrooms.

“Katrina walked in and said to the effect of, ‘Honey did you eat those mushrooms that I made for you?’” Lockhart said of Hopkins’ confession. “And David said, ‘Yes.’ Said he didn’t feel good. Was having trouble with breathing. At that point, Terry walked in and there was an altercation. Terry said he put his arm around David’s neck and kind of squeezed him. And David stopped moving.”

Terry Hopkins was in declining health by the time he confessed, and died before he could go on trial.

Katrina Fouts was found not guilty of murder by a jury in 2022, but was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and failure to report human remains. She was sentenced to 34 years in prison, and will be eligible for parole in 2046 at the age of 80.

Watch all-new episodes of Snapped on Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and the next day on Peacock.