A teenage girl in England, who took a fatal dose of insulin in December, may have been taking it to lose weight, The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.
Charlie Dunne, 19, injected herself with an insulin pen that belonged to her diabetic boyfriend, Terence Rhoden, while he was at a hospital. He found her collapsed in their home in Atherton, Greater Manchester when he came back five hours later on December 17.
Dunne was taken to the hospital, but died six days later after suffering brain damage due to the overdose. The girl's family claimed that Rhoden, 28, confessed to injecting his girlfriend with insulin after hearing it helped spur weight loss.
After an investigation, officers found no evidence that Rhoden was directly involved in his girlfriend's death.
Dunne was a hairdresser-in-training and a former college performing arts student. She was a "bubbly" girl who regularly attended a local Methodist church and was known for charity fundraising.
She claimed she had a miscarriage and was unable to conceive, even though there wasn't any medical evidence to support her claims. She suffered from mood swings and also tried to overdose on pills in a previous relationship. Dunne was out playing darts with friends for her local pub team the night before she died. During the match, she suffered a panic attack and went home angry, threatening to take pills.
Rhoden helped put Dunne to sleep and left at 7 a.m. the next morning to attend a hospital appointment. She was alive when he went to kiss her goodbye on the head. But when he tried to call and text her to wake her up for her college classes, he didn't receive a response.
When Rhoden arrived home around noon, he found Dunne on the living room floor unconscious and he realized she must have taken his insulin.
"I saw my insulin pen on the couch down the cushion, kind of sticking out. It was a brand new one because the other was in my pocket. The box was in the bin. When I found the insulin pen it was empty," Rhoden told The Daily Mail.
Dr. Emma Wheatley said that when someone who is not diabetic takes insulin, blood glucose levels drop rapidly, which caused Dunne to suffer brain damage.
