What happens when your best friend tries to slowly kill you? In episode one of season 2 of Netflix’s Worst Roommate Ever, a woman named Rachel recounts how her best friend Janie Lynn Ridd turned roommate slowly poisoned her.
“She found joy in tormenting me,” Rachel said in the series. “I don’t think I was human to her.” The two met in 1995 and became quick friends. Janie Lynn helped raise Rachel’s son while they were living together, but Rachel became slowly sick. Authorities investigated Janie Lynn after she contacted a vendor on the dark web for Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA), a bacteria known to increase infections, in 2019.
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Janie Lynn’s plan to poison her roommate was foiled when she was taken into custody by the FBI in a sting operation where they placed fake Petri dishes in a package. Janie Lynn was later arrested for admitting that she did try to purchase the bacteria. According to the indictment, she told authorities that her roommate had authored a will that would give Ridd custody of her son in the event of her death.
Where Is Janie Lynn Ridd now?
Ridd served just over two years before being granted parole and released, in January 2022. According to a LinkedIn profile appearing to belong to her, Ridd still lives in Utah and works in an education center.
After she was caught, Ridd was charged with, and convicted of, aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, attempted aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, and attempted acquisition of a weapon of mass destruction. In 2020, she pleaded guilty to attempted intentional abuse of a disabled or elder adult and attempted possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
“I really have a hard time believing that the person I’ve known for 25 years, my best friend and roommate, could do what she did,” Rachel said in the series. “But it was diabolical, it was evil. It was plotted and planned so perfectly.”
