In his opening address to the jury Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Scott Hurley laid out some bizarre and shocking evidence he plans to present over the next 10 days in the case of Mark Rumboldt.
Rumboldt, 58, is charged with attempting to murder his wife, as well as administering to her a noxious thing – prescription medication – between Jan. 22 and 23, 2016.
Rumboldt’s wife was working late the evening of Jan. 22, Hurley said. She came home around 7 p.m., and she and Rumboldt changed their minds about going to the cabin for the night, opting to make pizza instead. After Rumboldt gave her a glass of wine, the pair discussed a trip they wanted to take to The Wilds in Salmonier, and the woman booked it.
Hurley said Rumboldt suggested his wife take a bath, and he made her a sangria to take with her. While she was in the bathtub, Rumboldt came into the bathroom a number of times, Hurley said. The last time he entered, he was in distress.
“Get a paramedic here right away,” the woman was heard on a 911 recording played for the court. “My husband seems to have taken some Ativan and was drinking, I don’t know.”
Paramedics arrived at the west-end St. John’s home, but no one answered the door, so they contacted the RNC for assistance. After some knocking, a police officer told the court, he saw through the glass in the front door a woman crawling down an upstairs hallway. She managed to make her way down a set of stairs and to the front door, unlocking the deadbolt. She was intoxicated, the officer said, unable to stand on her own. She fell backwards onto a bench and knocked over a vase. When the officers asked her where her husband was, she pointed upstairs but said nothing.
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Upstairs, officers testified, they located Rumboldt in the bathroom. He, too, appeared intoxicated, unable to stand without help and slurring his speech. The officers escorted the couple individually to the living room, where they were assessed by paramedics.
“Mr. Rumboldt told police and paramedics he had been unhappy and had attempted to leave,” an RNC officer who was at the scene testified Tuesday. “He said that (the woman) was sad and unhappy as well, and had taken 10 Ativan and 10 sleeping pills. That number increased to 30 pills overall as he kept talking. His story kept going back and forth. He said he had ruined things.”
At another point, the officer said, Rumboldt had asked about his wife. He said he loved her and asked, “Did I do something wrong?” the constable said.
For her part, the woman was practically catatonic, police officers and a paramedic told the court. When they asked her name, it took her multiple tries to get it out. When she went to adjust her glasses, it took her about 20 seconds to lift her hand to her nose.
“I asked her, ‘Are you suicidal? Did you take pills?’ She blatantly ignored me,” another RNC officer testified. “She kind of turned and looked over at Mr. Rumboldt.”
"I’ve been a police officer for 11 years, and this is one of the strangest calls I’ve ever been on."
A second ambulance was called to the scene, and the police officers each told the court they had helped escort Rumboldt and his wife individually into one. A search of the house had turned up multiple pills bottles – one for the woman, several for Rumboldt – and the constables put them in bags and gave them to paramedics in the respective ambulances.
There was nothing in the house, no empty liquor bottles or drug paraphernalia, to account for the couple’s level of intoxication, police officers told the court Tuesday, and they found that unusual.
“I’ve been a police officer for 11 years, and this is one of the strangest calls I’ve ever been on,” one constable testified.
Hurley told the jury Rumboldt and his wife were put in separate treatment rooms at the hospital, and at the end of the day, Rumboldt was discharged, but his wife was not.
Being her next of kin, he was permitted to stay with her, and sat at her bedside while the nursing staff kept watch on her condition, the prosecutor said.
Hurley said a nurse, who has yet to testify, went to check on the woman and saw the curtain around her bed had been pulled across for privacy. She poked her head in and saw Rumboldt holding a facecloth over his wife’s mouth. When the cloth was removed, the nurse noticed a white residue on the woman’s lips and what appeared to be semi-dissolved medication in her mouth. There was a loose pill on the floor and another on the bed, along with a bottle of Ativan prescribed to Rumboldt, Hurley said. Under the woman’s blanket was the bag of pill bottles that police had put in the ambulance with her husband.
“At that point, (medical staff) had concerns and called police,” Hurley said. “(The woman) was discharged later that morning. Doctors ran more tests, and her blood tested positive for benzodiazepines and other medications she said she hadn’t taken. She was asked many times if she had taken medication, and she said no.”
The woman had higher levels of benzodiazepines in her blood than would be expected of someone who was taking the drugs as prescribed, Hurley said.
“It’s the belief of the Crown that (the woman) was given medication in drinks at her home, made for her by Mr. Rumboldt, and then again at hospital,” he told the jury. “At the end of this case, the Crown will ask you to find the accused guilty as alleged.”
Rumboldt’s lawyer, Jeff Brace, opted not to give an opening address to the jury, but focused on details inside the house when cross-examining the police officers and paramedics. The bathtub was full, but there was no water on the floor, the witnesses replied, and both Rumboldt and his wife were fully clothed. They were both intoxicated, witnesses confirmed.
Rumboldt’s trial will continue Wednesday in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John’s.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
