Paging Media: Police Now Investigating the Death of the Man From Fish Tank Cleaner

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FILE – In this April, 12, 2017 file photo, broken pipes adorn the fish tank at the Speakeasy Vape Lounge, one of the United States’ only legal pot clubs in Colorado Springs, Colo. Industry advocates say Gov. John Hickenlooper’s June 4, 2018, veto of a bill allowing tasting rooms inside marijuana retailers will ensure that clubs like Speakeasy continue to operate without state regulation. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert, File)
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Let’s hand it to the Washington Free Beacon.

They’ve done some nice journalism on the case of fish tank cleaner death of Gary Lenius after the mainstream media and his wife quickly tried to blame the death on President Donald Trump’s mention of anti-malarial drugs as a potential treatment for the Wuhan coronavirus.

Of course, that claim failed, to begin with, since Trump didn’t recommend that anyone take fish tank cleaner; all he did was talk about the potential of drugs that can only be given by prescription by a doctor. But most media went all-in on it, without questioning the wife’s story.

But as the Free Beacon looked into the story, they discovered there were things that didn’t seem to add up starting with the fact that the wife, Wanda Lenius, was a Democratic donor who had given thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates over the past two years and whose most recent donations went to a pro-science resistance PAC who has used the Lenius case now to attack Trump. Then the Free Beacon also discovered that she had a past history of being charged with domestic abuse of the husband, Gary Lenius, after allegedly hitting him with a birdhouse although the charge was dismissed because he said he hadn’t been hurt. Some of Lenius’ friends also said they didn’t believe he would have taken the fish tank cleaner, that he was a level-headed intelligent engineer. They also said she had a prior history of anger, such as destroying the husband’s model airplane collection when he came home late.

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From Free Beacon:

“What bothers me about this is that Gary was a very intelligent man, a retired [mechanical] engineer who designed systems for John Deere in Waterloo, Iowa, and I really can’t see the scenario where Gary would say, ‘Yes, please, I would love to drink some of that Koi fish tank cleaner,'” one of his close friends told the Free Beacon. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Now the Mesa City Police Department is investigating the death of Gary Lenius.

A detective handling the case confirmed the investigation to the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday after requesting a recording of the Free Beacon’s interviews with Lenius’s wife, Wanda. [….]

Detective Teresa Van Galder, the homicide detective handling the case for the Mesa City Police Department, confirmed that the investigation is ongoing but declined to provide additional details.

“As this is an active investigation, I cannot go into any details at this time regarding the case,” Van Galder said. The Free Beacon provided a recording of its interview last month with Wanda Lenius.

During the Free Beacon’s interview with Wanda Lenius, she told them that her husband had been planning on going to a clinic to have his leg looked at from a dirt bike injury that he got after they had agreed to isolate. She said that’s when she thought about the fish tank cleaner. Lenius’ friends said she regularly prepared a vitamin cocktail for Gary.

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Asked if she and Gary Lenius had a conversation about taking the chloroquine at that time, she told the Free Beacon: “No. I mean, it was really kind of a spur of the moment thing,” adding that the couple ingested “one teaspoon and some soda” each, at least four times the lethal limit.

So will the mainstream media do their job and finally report this?

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