A 69-year-old Florida man thought he knew the woman he had been seeing as “Nala.” By late August, he was in a hospital after suffering what doctors identified as a benzodiazepine overdose.
Polk County detectives say “Nala” was actually 39-year-old Samantha Adams of Orlando. They arrested Adams on Aug. 27 and charged her with attempted second-degree murder after investigators accused her of slipping a benzodiazepine into the man’s whiskey.
The case already had enough twists to get Sheriff Grady Judd’s attention: a dating app, a car the man had purchased for Adams, a $1,000 demand during an intimate encounter, a mysteriously disabled home security system and several earlier occasions when the man said a small amount of alcohol left him unusually impaired.
Then Judd went public with another concern. As WFLA reported, the sheriff is now calling Adams a “black widow” and warning that detectives believe there could be other men who encountered her under similar circumstances.
Then Came The Whiskey
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation began Aug. 20, three days after the Haines City man was hospitalized.
According to investigators, the man had met Adams through a dating app and knew her only as Nala. He told detectives the two had been together at his home when they argued about a vehicle he had purchased for her.
The man said Adams then went into his kitchen carrying her purse.
She returned with two glasses of whiskey.
He drank from one of them.
Investigators said the encounter then became intimate, until Adams allegedly stopped and told the man he would have to pay her $1,000 to continue. He refused, and Adams left.
Later that evening, the man passed out and was taken to the hospital. Medical staff determined he had suffered a benzodiazepine overdose, according to the sheriff’s office.
The man told investigators he did not take benzodiazepines.
Detectives ultimately accused Adams of intentionally putting the drug in his drink.
It Apparently Wasn’t The First Time
The Aug. 17 hospitalization also caused the man to reconsider some strange things that had happened during earlier visits with Adams.
He told detectives there had been at least three other suspicious episodes that month after drinking small amounts of alcohol at her Orlando home.
On one occasion, he said he became unsteady and fell after having a drink. Another time, he said he made it to his vehicle but passed out there.
Then there was Aug. 15.
The man told investigators he left Adams’ home feeling groggy and backed into another vehicle. Judd later said the vehicle belonged to an Osceola County sheriff’s deputy.
The man maintained that he had consumed only a small amount of alcohol during each of those episodes.
Back at his own home, detectives found another oddity. Someone had tampered with his security system, and the man told investigators he had seen Adams around the part of the house where the equipment was located.
Adams was consequently charged with tampering with evidence in addition to attempted murder.
Detectives Set Up A Meeting
Investigators eventually determined that the woman the victim knew as Nala was Samantha Adams.
Rather than simply waiting to find her, detectives arranged another meeting.
Adams agreed to meet the man at the Posner Park shopping center in Davenport on Aug. 27. When she arrived, detectives boxed in her vehicle and took her into custody, according to PCSO.
What deputies say they found with her did not exactly make the benzodiazepine question go away.
Inside a prescription bottle issued to somebody else, investigators reported finding 19 hydrocodone/acetaminophen pills, 2.5 oxycodone hydrochloride pills, nine sertraline pills, part of an Adderall pill and part of an alprazolam pill.
Alprazolam is the benzodiazepine commonly sold under the brand name Xanax.
Adams was charged with possession of oxycodone, hydrocodone and alprazolam, along with possession of drug paraphernalia, possessing a new legend drug without a prescription and resisting without violence.
She also faces a charge of offering to commit prostitution.
The Sheriff Wants To Hear From Other Men
Judd’s public warning came several days after Adams’ arrest.
“It is possible that there could be more people out there who have been victimized by Samantha Adams,” the sheriff said.
He said investigators believe money was her motivation and urged anyone who may have had a similar encounter with Adams to contact his office.
That concern is still an investigative theory, not evidence that additional victims exist. But deputies already have one man describing several episodes over the course of a single month, not just the Aug. 17 incident that ultimately sent him to the hospital.
And this time, investigators say the man survived to tell them about all of them.
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