A Hoganville pharmacist now faces charges in a case where a Cedartown man allegedly tried to poison his wife with thousands of pills, according to court and jail records.

Phil Lathan Waldrop, 64, of 211 Taliaferro Drive, Hoganville, and the chief pharmacist and owner of Hoganville Pharmacy was booked into the Polk County Jail Aug. 7 on charges of conspiracy to violate Georgia’s drug laws, according to jail records.

He bonded out approximately 30 minutes later on a $10,100 property bond.

Waldrop was charged as a result of being indicted with Cedartown resident Robert Loy Tweed by the Polk County Grand Jury during its July 2012 term.

Tweed, 76, of 775 Huntington Road, Cedartown, and Waldrop were indicted on charges of two counts of cruelty to a person 65 years and older and multiple charges of conspiracy to violate Georgia’s drug law.

The indicted charges are felonies, documents state.

Tweed was arrested in August 2009 on 57 counts of unauthorized distribution of a controlled substance, 32 counts of obtaining or attempting to obtain dangerous drugs by fraudulent means and cruelty to a person 65 years old or older.

He has been out on bond since Aug. 26, 2009, according to jail records.

Tweed was arrested after the Polk County Police Department (PCPD) investigated a complaint from Rosalind Pettay, the daughter of Tweed’s wife, Lydia.

According to police reports, Tweed called Pettay in May 2009 and told her to travel from her North Carolina home to Cedartown to collect her mother’s things because Lydia Tweed was dying.

Pettay became suspicious once she saw her mother and spoke with a woman who attended to her mother’s daily needs.

The woman told Pettay she was concerned about the amount and types of medications Tweed was giving his wife.

The rest of Lydia Tweed’s children were called and a conversation with her doctor raised more suspicions because her doctor said she should be in fair health with very limited medications and no pain medications, police reports state.

Pettay began checking around the couple’s home and found several boxes with various types of medications in large quantities, all mailed from Hoganville Pharmacy, reports said. She managed to take a couple of bottles, according to reports.

Pettay called police and EMS when she saw Tweed wake up her mother around 1 a.m. May 17, 2009, to give her more medicine, reports state.

The bottles Pettay had taken were turned over to police as evidence.

Lydia Tweed was taken to Redmond Regional Medical Center in Rome.

Court records indicate she had opiate and benzodiazepine poisoning. She also suffered from malnutrition, which resulted in the second cruelty charge.

Court documents do not indicate a motive for Tweed to allegedly harm his wife, but a docudrama on the case indicates Lydia Tweed had inherited around $400,000 after her first husband died.

Documents indicate the Tweeds were married December 7, 1997 and Tweed, who was from Hoganville, had a relationship with Waldrop that “dates back many years.”

Court documents alleged there were 89 suspicious pharmacy transactions between Tweed and Waldrop, amounting to more than 5,200 pills between May 2007 and May 2009.

Medications included more than 10 different medicines and included Lorcet, Lorazpam, Clonazapam, Prednisone, and Alluterol, documents state.

Tweed was first indicted in the July 2010 grand jury term on eight charges including four controlled substance charges, two obtaining or attempting to obtain dangerous drugs by fraudulent means charges and two charges of cruelty to a person 65 years old or older.

However, that case was not prosecuted and was closed March 31, 2011.

Lydia Tweed filed a civil suit against Tweed, Waldrop and Hoganville Pharmacy claiming their actions resulted in a permanent disability now requiring ongoing medical care for the rest of her life.

She was seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages decided by a jury

The suit was settled September 8, 2011, for an undisclosed sum.

Lydia Tweed filed for divorce July 2009. The uncontested divorce was granted June 26, 2012.

She now goes by Lydia Bailey Whitlow and lives in an assisted care facility in North Carolina.