A doctor from Washington has been charged in the poisoning death of his wife, and new details about the shocking events that took place are coming to light. Tammy Harris, 55, had once been given so many painkillers by her husband, 59-year-old Dr. Jeffrey Harris, that she started hallucinating frogs climbing across the walls of her bedroom, according to the deceased woman's adult daughter from a previous marriage, Sarah Hopkins-Hubbard.
She shared this information during the second day of Jeffrey Harris' trial.
Five years after his wife of 11 years died, the doctor is standing trial for manslaughter in Manhattan Supreme Court. She died at the Lenox Hill Hospital in February 2018 during a visit to New York City, and her death was later ruled a homicide.
An autopsy found that Tammy fatally overdosed on selenium, which is dietary supplement. Prosecutors said she was fed the supplement by her husband, who also allegedly dosed her with many different drugs in attempt to alleviate some aches and pains that she started dealing with in 2017.
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Tammy Harris had been diagnosed with lupus by many doctors, but her husband refused to believe they were correct. Because he specialized in internal medicine, Jeffrey Harris took matters in his own hands and started treating her himself.
“Mom had been yellow and turning orange for about three weeks. The yellowing-orange color was just getting worse,” her daughter explained. Tammy Harris had lost a lot of weight as a result, dropping down to about 100 pounds.
Her gums also started turning black. But Jeffrey Harris still believed that his home treatments were the best for her. He made her a treatment of 20 cilantro pills a day, along with other drugs.
“I’m obviously concerned. He’s a doctor — and I’m living with them. And you come up to him like, ‘Why would you give her so much that she would hallucinate?’" the daughter said. "Like, knowing you’re a doctor and knowing how much to prescribe when it becomes dangerous. I just don’t understand.”
In 2018, Tammy and Jeffrey Harris traveled to New York in search of an alternative medicine practice for her treatment. The Salerno Center, which is the group they found, advised against administering her the dosage of selenium that was being given to her.
During the trip, Tammy Harris became unconscious at the hotel and her husband raced her to the hospital. Six days later, she died. In 2019, after the medical examiner’s office found that she had 10 times the recommended dosage of selenium in her system, her death was ruled a homicide and Jeffrey Harris was indicted on a count of manslaughter in the second degree in 2021.
