A 42-year-old Santa Clarita man is accused of poisoning his roommates’ food with bug spray after they caught him in the act on camera and turned the video over to authorities, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
After temporarily barricading himself in his apartment on Tuesday, Timothy Bradbury was taken into custody on suspicion of willful poisoning of food, drink, medicine,or water with intent to cause injury, the department said in a news release.
Davidson Hopper and his wife, Billy Yates, who shared the Cedar Ridge Court residence with Bradbury, said their trouble began almost immediately after moving in.
They’d return home and their clothes would be cut up. Then, they started to have a bad reaction to food.
“The biggest symptoms we had were stomach problems. It’s like eating really spicy food and you get intense burning,” Hopper said. Yates was hospitalized multiple times and underwent CAT scans and MRIs, her husband said.
Hopper himself recently sought emergency care. “I went to the hospital the other day thinking I was having a heart attack,” he said.
The landlord installed cameras at the property in late 2025 after the couple voiced their suspicions.
When they saw what was on the video, they were shocked. A man in a hoodie and mask, who authorities said was Bradbury, walks into a kitchen with an aerosol can, allegedly a poison for bugs, and sprays everything in sight.
“He was a random roommate and we never had a conversation with him once,” Hopper told The Times in an interview.
The only reason the couple didn’t move out sooner, the couple said, was because of the financial strain of the alleged poisoning.
“We constantly had to replace our clothes and food because they were damaged,” Hopper said. “Paying all of the medical bills strained our finances as well.”
On Tuesday, deputies responded to the Cedar Ridge Court residence after learning Bradbury was at the property. When deputies attempted to make contact with him, Bradbury retreated inside and refused to exit, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
To coax Bradbury out, authorities brought a licensed mental health clinician to the scene after speaking with his family, the department said.
After about two hours, Bradbury exited voluntarily and was detained without use of force.
Deputies then executed a search warrant on the residence and recovered physical evidence related to the poisoning allegations, according to the news release.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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