A pregnant woman from Texas had sipped on the beverage that her boyfriend had provided for her. It was sour and strange to taste, with its odd fizziness. Later that day, she got severe cramping, followed by heavy bleeding. When she finally delivered at the hospital in The Woodlands, it was a dead baby girl. She was called Presley May.
Back then, about halfway through February 2026, she was nearly fourteen weeks pregnant. Authorities claim her partner, Jon Rueben Gabriel Demeter, who turned twenty-five that year, mixed powdered abortion medication into her sports drink. She had no idea what he’d done. The incident took place somewhere in Montgomery County. What he put in the liquid dissolved quietly, hidden by flavor and fizz.
She said she meant to raise the child, officers reported. Though Demeter kept pressing for an abortion going so far as to offer money for a procedure elsewhere – she held her ground. Instead of giving in, she stood firm each time the topic came up again.
A tweet from X.
A man claims he got mifepristone online, crushed the tablets, mixed them into a drink such as Liquid I.V. He kept pushing her to finish every drop. Later, she mentioned to police that the taste was off.
Back in May, news came from Montgomery County when DA Mike Holley joined Sheriff Wesley Doolittle to confirm a grand jury had acted. Facing serious legal trouble, Demeter now deals with two major charges classified as first-degree felonies one tied to carrying out an abortion, the other linked to harm done to a child. Each one carries up to 5 years to life in prison if he’s convicted.
Demeter, who worked as a delivery driver from the Spring/The Woodlands area, was arrested at the end of February. At first he was charged with aggravated assault. He admitted buying the pills but claimed he gave them away to someone else and didn’t give any to his girlfriend. He’s out on a $300,000 bond and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The family has been devastated. Courtroom photos showed relatives visibly emotional while grieving the loss of little Presley May. The fetus was developed enough to have fully formed fingers and toes.
This is a real case, though headlines have understandably made it sound more final than it legally is right now. Demeter hasn’t been convicted of anything yet.
What makes this situation especially rare is that Texas is using its strict post-Roe abortion laws to charge a private citizen for allegedly causing an abortion without the woman’s consent. The state bans nearly all abortions except in very specific medical situations done by doctors.
The case has people talking a lot about consent, bodily autonomy, and what happens when someone ends a pregnancy against the mother’s wishes. There have been a couple of similar cases in Texas before, but this one is getting a lot of attention.
As the case heads toward trial this summer, it’s forcing some tough conversations about personal responsibility when a pregnancy is ended without the woman’s agreement. Montgomery County officials say they’re taking it very seriously.
