A San Pedro man is facing charges of grievous harm for injuring his hair braider with a slice of cake. It has the trappings of a bizarre story but it is serious because the victim is 26-year-old mother of 3 Marsha Patnett who strongly believes she was drugged with the slice of carrot cake. But is the case of doping credible, or did she just dream it? She today told Keith Swift her story and we'll let you decide.
Marsha Patnett,
"I started to feel sleepy and I told my boy my eyes feel heavy and everything. I told him I don't feel like myself and I went to lie down. After I went to lie down, my hands started to feel heavy and told him I didn't feel good and so I am going to take a bathe to see if I would feel a little better. But I didn't feel any better and my whole body started to feel heavy and everything. I started to feel my body shake and he held me and told me to stop. I guess he thought I was pretending but I told him I can't help it and from then he got frightened and called my neighbor. My neighbor came and she gave me some sugar and water for me to drink. I felt my mouth get heavy and I couldn't open it to drink the sugar and water. From then I don't remember anything else. All I remember is after when I got up I was in the hospital and I my mom told me I was shaking like I had seizures or something like that and I was talking stammer."
Marsha Patnett says last Monday it is as if she went to the edge of death and back - all after eating a piece of a carrot cake - just like this one. Patnett says the slice of carrot cake was given to her by Ivor Bartley whose hair she has been braiding for nearly a year. But last Monday, she says the slice of cake Bartley gave to her as a token of their friendship- made her sick.
Marsha Patnett
"As I done eat the cake, that's when I started feeling that kind of way so I know it was the cake. And I have a young man a piece too and he told me that the next day he felt drowsy but he didn't feel the way I did. I don't if maybe it was because my system couldn't handle it or what."
Keith Swift,
And did the cake taste any different? Did it look anyway?
Marsha Patnett,
"The cake didn't taste anyway. It tasted just like ordinary carrot cake, how a cake would taste. It didn't taste any way so I didn't expect anything. And I don't know why he would do me that because me and him are friends. When he comes here we talk and if he has any problems I try to give all the advice I can give him. And it is not like he comes here and I lead him on or we talk no courting talk or anything. We are just as friends you know. So I don't know what is the problem."
And in this case, Patnett says the problem and her mistake was in trusting Bartley.
Marsha Patnett,
"All I could say is don't trust anybody. That is all because I had him like a friend and I never thought he had that kind of intention towards me although he says he didn't do it. But I don't know to think if he did or what. All I could say is just don't take anything from anybody because you don't who to trust out here."
Words to live by from a woman who is happy she is still living after having her cake and eating it, almost killed her.
Police forensic specialists have yet to determine if Patnett was actually drugged. Police spokesman G. Michael Reid says Bartley was charged with grievous harm because a doctor classified her injuries as such. Bartley was arraigned in court yesterday and released on bail.
