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“The Man Who Loved Christmas”: Dateline NBC Reports on Harold Allen Homicide September 18 2026

Ryan Gill

NBC’s Dateline returns Friday, September 18, 2026, with “The Man Who Loved Christmas,” a two-hour report examining the death of Harold “Peanut” Allen, an Indiana man whose death five days before Christmas in 2022 appeared to have a medical explanation. Blayne Alexander reports on the case at 10 p.m. ET/PT, tracing how a death attributed to cardiac problems became a murder investigation months later.

The investigation uncovered a poisoning plot involving Allen’s wife, Marsha Allen, and her daughter, Ashley Jones. Detectives found thousands of messages, records of toxic substances ordered online and evidence of repeated attempts to poison Harold before ethylene glycol was placed in a root beer float. The case might never have surfaced without a burglary at Marsha’s home nine months after Harold died. The man arrested in that case told police that Harold had been murdered and directed detectives toward the evidence that could prove it.

Harold “Peanut” Allen Was the Man Who Loved Christmas

Harold Allen lived in Freetown, Indiana, in Jackson County. Family members knew him as “Peanut,” a nickname he had carried since infancy. He enjoyed music and taught himself to play instruments including guitar, mandolin and harmonica. He also enjoyed bluegrass music, hunting, fishing and travel. His enthusiasm for Christmas became the personal detail chosen to define Dateline’s episode about his death.

Harold’s identity became overshadowed by the circumstances of his death once the criminal investigation began. The case would come to involve online poison purchases, thousands of text messages, a burglary, deleted communications, an unexpected informant and the death of one suspected conspirator before prosecutors could charge her. The title “The Man Who Loved Christmas” returns attention to Harold himself, whose December 2022 death came during the season family members associated with him.

Harold Allen and Marsha Buxton Reconnect

Harold and Marsha Buxton knew each other before their marriage and reconnected after attending their 30th high-school reunion. They married in July 2021, beginning what appeared to be a new stage in both of their lives. Harold became part of Marsha’s family, which included her adult daughter, Ashley Jones.

The marriage lasted less than two years. Investigators would come to believe that money played a major role in the plan to kill Harold. According to investigators interviewed by CBS News, Harold had a $120,000 life-insurance policy through his job and owned property including firearms and guitars. Jackson County Prosecutor Lynsey Fleetwood said money was considered a significant motive in the case.

Harold Begins Suffering From Unexplained Illnesses

Harold’s health began declining during the months before his death. He experienced medical problems that sent him for treatment, but there was no reason at the time for doctors or family members to view his symptoms as evidence of an attack. His deterioration appeared to have a medical cause rather than a criminal one.

Investigators would reach a different conclusion after obtaining the communications between Marsha and Ashley. Those records indicated, according to authorities, that Harold’s periods of illness coincided with repeated attempts to expose him to toxic substances. What had looked like unexplained health problems became important evidence in reconstructing a prolonged effort to kill him.

Investigators Say the Poisoning Attempts Began Months Before Harold Died

The investigation did not reveal a single impulsive poisoning. Detectives said Marsha and Ashley had tried to poison Harold more than once using different substances. Their communications provided investigators with a chronology that stretched across the months before his death.

Police found evidence of online purchases involving unusual toxic substances. Among them were pong-pong seeds, which contain a potent cardiac toxin. Authorities said Ashley ordered the seeds online. Investigators believed the women experimented with several methods after earlier efforts failed to kill Harold.

Poisoned Brownies Become Part of the Alleged Plan

As Thanksgiving 2022 approached, investigators said the poisoning campaign involved brownies. Authorities believed toxic material from pong-pong seeds was incorporated into food Harold consumed. The attempt did not kill him.

The significance of these earlier attempts emerged only after police gained access to Marsha and Ashley’s messages. Viewed without the communications, Harold’s illnesses could appear to be unrelated medical episodes. Read alongside discussions of poison purchases and his physical condition, investigators believed the episodes documented attempts on his life.

The Women Turn to Other Toxic Substances

Investigators said other poisons were considered or obtained as the alleged plot continued. Reporting on the case has identified substances including water hemlock as part of the poisoning attempts. Authorities alleged that some poisons were placed in food or drinks without Harold knowing what he was consuming.

The pattern became important to the criminal case because it provided evidence of planning. Prosecutors were not dealing only with a fatal drink served in December. They had evidence they said demonstrated repeated efforts, purchases and communications leading toward the final poisoning.

Ashley Jones Orders Ethylene Glycol

By December, investigators said Ashley ordered ethylene glycol. The chemical is associated with antifreeze and is dangerous when ingested. According to police, the order reached Marsha’s home on December 19, 2022.

The timing would become crucial. Investigators later confronted Marsha with the fact that ethylene glycol had arrived at the house on December 19 and Harold died on December 20. Police said the messages and purchase records connected the chemical to the final attempt on Harold’s life.

A Root Beer Float Becomes the Murder Weapon

According to investigators, Marsha prepared Harold a root beer float on December 19, 2022. It contained ethylene glycol.

The method helped conceal what was happening. Harold was not confronted with a container marked as a toxic chemical and did not know, according to the prosecution’s case, that he was ingesting poison. He was served a familiar dessert in his own home. Investigators later concluded that the ethylene glycol in the float caused the fatal poisoning.

Harold became sick and died the following day, December 20. At that point, authorities had no evidence of the communications and poison purchases that would emerge months later. There was no apparent violent attack, no weapon beside his body and no reason for responding authorities to treat the Allen home as a murder scene.

The absence of obvious trauma helped the crime remain concealed. Harold had suffered health problems before his death, and the medical evidence appeared to provide an explanation. His death was attributed to cardiac conditions.

Harold’s Death Is Treated as a Medical Event

The original autopsy cited cardiac problems. Because Harold’s death did not appear suspicious, the coroner did not conduct toxicology screening for every possible poison. No homicide investigation followed.

That distinction mattered. Ethylene glycol poisoning can produce severe internal effects without the obvious external evidence associated with a shooting or stabbing. Unless investigators have reason to suspect toxic exposure, they may have no reason to request tests for a particular substance.

For months, Harold remained a man believed to have died from natural causes. Marsha was his widow. Ashley was his stepdaughter. Police were not investigating either woman in connection with his death.

Then someone broke into Marsha’s house.

A September 2023 Burglary Changes the Case

On September 19, 2023, Marsha’s home was burglarized. Security footage captured two men entering the house and opening a safe. Items including guns and jewelry were taken.

Police identified and arrested suspects. One was Steven White, who was close to Ashley Jones. Investigators initially wanted information about a burglary. What White told them redirected their attention to a death from nine months earlier.

White admitted involvement in the burglary and provided information that helped police recover stolen property. He also claimed Ashley had arranged the break-in, giving him access information for Marsha’s home. Police found another burglary suspect wearing jewelry that had belonged to Harold, strengthening White’s credibility concerning the burglary.

Then White made a much more serious allegation.

Steven White Tells Police Harold Was Murdered

White told investigators that Marsha had murdered Harold.

He provided a specific method: poison had been placed in a root beer float. White also implicated Ashley and told investigators that communications between mother and daughter would contain evidence concerning Harold’s death.

The accusation presented police with a difficult problem. White was a burglary suspect facing his own criminal exposure. His claim could not be accepted as proof of murder. Investigators needed evidence independent of his story.

White had, however, supplied details police could test. His information about the burglary had led them to stolen property. His description of the alleged murder gave detectives a path toward electronic evidence.

Police began examining Harold’s death again.

Detectives Discover Thousands of Messages

Investigators obtained communications between Marsha and Ashley. What they found transformed the case.

Police examined close to 7,000 text messages exchanged during the three months before Harold died. According to investigators, the messages documented poison purchases, Harold’s health, unsuccessful attempts to kill him and discussions between mother and daughter as the plan progressed.

The messages provided what Harold’s original death investigation lacked: context. Medical episodes that had appeared unexplained could now be examined against discussions between Marsha and Ashley. Online purchases could be matched with messages and dates. Harold’s final illness could be compared with the delivery of ethylene glycol.

White had given detectives the allegation.

The electronic record gave them evidence they could investigate.

Marsha Agrees to Let Police Examine Her Phone

Police interviewed Marsha as their investigation developed. She denied killing Harold.

During one interview, detectives asked whether she would consent to a download of her phone. She agreed. While a detective left the interview room to obtain paperwork, surveillance footage showed Marsha deleting material from the device.

Deleting the messages did not eliminate them. Investigators recovered communications from the phone.

The recovered material became central to the case. Detectives now had thousands of messages they believed documented a sustained poisoning plot. What had begun with the word of an arrested burglar was developing into a case supported by electronic communications, online orders and medical evidence.

Harold’s Preserved Blood Gives Investigators Another Chance

One problem remained: Harold had been dead for months, and the original autopsy had not been conducted as part of a poisoning investigation.

Investigators received an important break. A sample of Harold’s blood had been preserved. Because the sample was still available, authorities could have it subjected to testing that had not been considered necessary when he died.

Detectives told Marsha during questioning that the blood would be tested for substances including ethylene glycol. The preserved sample offered investigators the opportunity to seek toxicological evidence even though Harold had been buried and the original determination had pointed toward cardiac disease.

The investigation was closing in on the circumstances of his death.

Marsha Allen Dies Before She Can Face Charges

On October 16, 2023, investigators executed a search warrant at Marsha’s home and questioned her about Harold’s death.

She denied killing him. Detectives confronted her with evidence concerning the ethylene glycol order, its arrival before Harold’s death and the allegation that the poison had been administered through a root beer float. She was not arrested when the interview ended.

Marsha returned home.

Hours later, she died by suicide.

Her death meant prosecutors would never bring her before a jury. No court would determine her guilt, and she was never convicted of killing Harold. Any account of the case must preserve that distinction: investigators concluded that Marsha participated in the poisoning and administered the fatal drink, but she died before those allegations could be tested at trial.

Ashley Jones Becomes the Focus of the Criminal Case

Ashley remained alive and could be prosecuted.

Authorities alleged that she had done far more than know about her mother’s intentions. Investigators said Ashley participated in planning the poisoning, obtained toxic substances and communicated with Marsha throughout the attempts on Harold’s life.

Ashley had also become entangled in the burglary investigation. White told police that she had arranged the break-in at her mother’s house, and she faced criminal scrutiny while detectives examined the evidence surrounding Harold’s death.

The case against Ashley grew from the messages, purchase records and evidence of repeated poisoning attempts. Prosecutors did not need to establish that Ashley had been the person who physically handed Harold the fatal root beer float to allege that she participated in the plan to kill him.

Investigators Report a Jailhouse “Kill List”

The case took another turn while Ashley was awaiting trial.

Investigators said Ashley gave a cellmate a handwritten “kill list” containing names of people with knowledge of Harold’s death. Steven White, whose statements had triggered the homicide investigation, was said to be the first person on it.

Authorities believed the document concerned witnesses Ashley wanted eliminated. Prosecutor Lynsey Fleetwood told CBS News that handwriting analysis produced a result considered favorable to the conclusion that Ashley wrote it. Ashley was not charged with additional crimes based on the list.

The alleged list therefore did not become a separate conviction. It became another element in the broader account of the investigation while prosecutors prepared to resolve the charges arising from Harold’s death.

Ashley Jones Faces Charges in Harold’s Death

Ashley was charged in connection with Harold’s killing and remained jailed as the prosecution moved toward trial.

A trial would have forced prosecutors to establish the admissibility and meaning of the evidence before a jury. The thousands of messages would have been examined in detail. The defense could have challenged what Ashley intended, whether the messages proved an agreement to kill Harold and which acts could be attributed to her rather than Marsha.

That trial never took place.

In August 2025, Ashley accepted a plea agreement. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder in connection with the poisoning scheme.

The guilty plea changed the legal posture of the case. Ashley was no longer awaiting a jury’s determination. By entering the pleas, she accepted criminal responsibility for the offenses covered by the agreement.

Sentencing followed.

Ashley Jones Receives a 50-Year Prison Sentence

In September 2025, Ashley Jones was sentenced to 50 years in prison. The sentence was the maximum permitted under her plea agreement, according to reporting on the case.

The outcome came almost three years after Harold died. During that period, his case had moved through several versions of what authorities believed had happened: a medical death caused by cardiac problems, an allegation delivered by a burglary suspect, a reopened investigation centered on poisoning and, at last, a criminal case supported by Ashley’s guilty pleas.

Marsha never faced a trial because of her death in October 2023. Ashley’s plea meant there was also no full murder trial presenting the prosecution’s evidence before jurors.

The principal criminal proceeding ended through the plea agreement and 50-year sentence.

Steven White Is Sentenced for the Burglary That Exposed the Case

Steven White’s role remained separate from the poisoning prosecution.

He had participated in the burglary that opened the path to the homicide investigation. He admitted his role and supplied police with information about the stolen property, Ashley’s alleged involvement and, most important, Harold’s death.

White received a sentence of three and a half years for his role in the burglary.

His criminal conduct did not make his claims about Harold automatically reliable. Investigators had to corroborate what he told them. That process is what makes the burglary such an important part of the case.

White did not solve Harold’s murder by making an accusation. He gave detectives information they could test.

The messages, purchase records and other evidence then provided the foundation for the homicide investigation.

The Case Raises Questions About Another Death

The investigation also drew attention to the earlier death of Ashley’s husband, Tyrson “Ty” Jones.

Authorities examined that death after the allegations concerning Harold emerged. Public reporting has raised questions about whether investigators suspected a possible connection to Ashley, but the Harold Allen case did not produce a conviction establishing that Ashley killed her former husband.

That distinction matters because Harold’s case produced guilty pleas and a prison sentence. Questions surrounding other deaths or alleged conduct should not be treated as proven simply because investigators examined them.

The established criminal outcome in the case featured by Dateline is Ashley’s conviction through her guilty pleas for conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder in the plot against Harold.

Why Harold’s Murder Went Undetected

The method used against Harold helps explain how the crime escaped detection.

Poison can create symptoms that overlap with illness. If there is no reason to suspect deliberate exposure, medical professionals may focus on disease rather than a hidden toxic substance. Harold already had serious symptoms, and his original autopsy identified cardiac conditions.

There was also no conventional crime scene. Nothing about a root beer float would identify it as a murder weapon once the drink was gone.

The evidence existed elsewhere: in digital conversations, online orders and a biological sample that had been retained after Harold’s death.

The case required investigators to reconstruct events backward. They first received the allegation, then found the messages, identified the poisons and matched the communications against Harold’s declining health and death.

The Text Messages Became a Record of the Plot

The volume of electronic evidence distinguished the Allen investigation.

Investigators did not recover a handful of isolated messages. They reviewed thousands of communications between Marsha and Ashley. Prosecutor Lynsey Fleetwood described the volume as “thousands upon thousands” of messages.

Those communications allowed detectives to build a timeline. They could compare discussions with poison purchases, deliveries, Harold’s symptoms and his eventual death.

They also provided evidence after Marsha could no longer be questioned or prosecuted. Her death prevented a trial against her, but it did not erase the communications she had exchanged with Ashley.

Digital evidence became one of the principal ways investigators reconstructed what they believed had occurred inside the Allen home.

A Burglary Solved a Murder Police Did Not Know Had Happened

The defining investigative feature of Harold Allen’s case is that police were not trying to solve his death when they discovered evidence that he had been killed.

They were investigating stolen property.

A burglar facing arrest told them that a man believed to have died from medical problems had been poisoned. He described the root beer float and told police where to look for evidence. Investigators then found information that supported core parts of his account.

Without the September 2023 burglary, the messages might never have received police scrutiny. Without White’s disclosure, investigators might never have known that Harold’s death required another look.

That does not mean the burglar’s accusation alone established murder. The case became viable because detectives treated the allegation as a lead rather than a conclusion and sought evidence capable of corroborating it.

The Final Outcome of the Harold Allen Case

Harold Allen died on December 20, 2022, after investigators say his wife served him a root beer float containing ethylene glycol the previous day. His death was initially attributed to cardiac problems and was not investigated as a homicide.

Nine months later, the burglary of Marsha Allen’s home led Steven White to tell police that Harold had been poisoned. Investigators recovered thousands of communications between Marsha and Ashley, examined poison purchases and reopened the circumstances of Harold’s death.

Marsha died by suicide in October 2023 before prosecutors could put the allegations against her before a court. She was never convicted of Harold’s murder.

Ashley Jones remained subject to prosecution. In August 2025, she pleaded guilty to attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The following month, she received a 50-year prison sentence.

The legal ending therefore differs from a conventional murder trial. No jury returned a murder verdict after hearing the complete case against both women. One alleged participant died before prosecution, while the other resolved her case through guilty pleas.

The outcome still established criminal responsibility for the poisoning plot and transformed Harold’s official story from a presumed medical death into the account of a man targeted through a sustained effort to kill him.

Dateline Revisits “The Man Who Loved Christmas”

Dateline’s “The Man Who Loved Christmas” brings together the people who reconstructed the case, including Jackson County investigators, prosecutor Lynsey Fleetwood and members of Harold Allen’s family. Blayne Alexander reports on the chain of evidence that turned a burglary investigation into an inquiry into a hidden killing.

At the center of the episode is the contrast between Harold’s death as it appeared in December 2022 and what investigators uncovered in 2023. A man believed to have died from serious health problems had been the subject of a poisoning plot documented across thousands of messages. A dessert served at home became the alleged means of murder. A burglar became the person who pointed police toward the secret. One suspected conspirator died before she could face prosecution, and the other received 50 years in prison.

The title also restores Harold to the center of a story dominated by the circumstances of his death. To his family, he was Harold “Peanut” Allen, a musician, outdoorsman, husband and grandfather remembered for his love of Christmas. His death five days before Christmas became a mystery only after police learned there had been a mystery to solve.

NBC’s Dateline: “The Man Who Loved Christmas” airs Friday, September 18, 2026, at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Blayne Alexander reports on Harold Allen’s death, the burglary that exposed the poisoning plot, the evidence against Marsha Allen and Ashley Jones, and the criminal case that ended with Jones receiving a 50-year prison sentence.

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