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Restaurant’s new recipe cost Texas college student her life, parents say. Now they are on a mission to make changes.
NORTH TEXAS — Twenty-three-year-old Alison Pickering knew to watch out for peanuts.
It was a discovery her family made the day she came home from preschool with hives.
“She said, ‘well, a friend of mine shared with me a chocolate Jiff sandwich.’ And I was like, ‘Oh!'” recalls her mother, Joy Pickering, “and it became evident she had a peanut allergy.”
“She would feel it in her lips and in her throat and so we would take trips to the ER,” said her father, Grover Pickering.
Thankfully, those trips to the hospital were rare.
“She was always very very careful. She rarely ate cookies that were not mine,” said Joy Pickering.
Her parents said that caution was evident as she prepared for a first date just days before her graduation last year from Tarleton State University in Stephenville last year.
Alison, they said, chose a restaurant she’d been to before.
She ordered the mahi-mahi, a dish she’d eaten there before.
“She would repeatedly go to the same restaurants and order the same dishes, you know. And that was a common thing,” said her father.
What Alison and even the wait staff didn’t know, the Pickerings said, was that the recipe had changed. Peanut sauce had been added.
“She took a few bites, realized something was wrong,” said Grover Pickering. “She did her Epipen. The ambulance came. She actually walked to the ambulance talking to them, but somewhere along the way things went downhill.”
Alison never woke up.
“It’s tragic and it doesn’t need to happen to anyone else,” he said.
The Pickerings are now on a mission to raise awareness of the seriousness of food allergies.
“We would love to see more done to make wait staff and patrons aware,” said Joy Pickering.
The Texas Legislature last year passed the Sergio Lopez Food Allergy Awareness Act to improve training and communication among restaurant kitchen workers.
They’re calling for clear, consistent communication at restaurants and comprehensive training for all restaurant staff.
They’re hoping to see that expanded to all restaurant staff.
They’re also interested in working with the Texas Restaurant Association.
“To determine what guidelines could be put in place to help restaurants have better communication to their customers as far as ingredients, much like labels on grocery store items you buy,” said Grover Pickering.
It’s a message they’re certain will spare others from the loss they suffered.
“I know we’re going to save lives by doing this,” said Joy Pickering.
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A special agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been charged with sexually assaulting two women, according to police and court records. The agent, Eduardo Valdivia, was previously acquitted of attempted murder for shooting a man on a Metro subway train near Washington, D.C., four years ago. He was arrested in Maryland on Monday.
Valdivia has been suspended by the FBI, pending the conclusion of a police investigation in Montgomery County, Maryland, a bureau spokesperson said.
“The FBI takes allegations of criminal violations and misconduct very seriously. We are aware of the matter involving the recent arrest of an FBI employee and are fully cooperating with the Montgomery County Police Department. Because this is an ongoing investigation, the FBI cannot comment further,” the FBI said in a statement to CBS affiliate WUSA.
MarcusBonsib, LLC via AP
Valdivia previously was charged and acquitted in 2022 of attempted second-degree murder and other charges, including first-degree assault and reckless endangerment, in the off-duty shooting of another man while aboard a moving Metro train near Washington, D.C. The agent eventually turned himself in to local authorities at a county jail, and a judge soon after agreed to release him on personal recognizance, without objection from the prosecution.
A Maryland jury found Valdivia not guilty of the murder or related charges, after the agent claimed he acted in self-defense. Those charges stemmed from an apparent verbal confrontation with the other man on that Metro train. Police for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority said about a week after the shooting that the injured man was in stable condition.
Online court records show Valdivia now faces felony and misdemeanor charges, including two counts of second-degree rape. The dates of the alleged offenses are in May 2024 and September 2024.
Defense attorney Robert Bonsib, who represented Valdivia in the shooting case, confirmed that his client was arrested Monday on sexual assault charges.
“We don’t accept at first blush any of the allegations until all of the evidence is in,” Bonsib said.
A spokesperson for the Montgomery County Police Department identified Valdivia as the arrested FBI agent without commenting on his connection to the shooting.
Police detectives believe there may be additional victims, and they’re planning a news conference on Tuesday “to encourage them to come forward,” the department said in a statement. Police didn’t immediately release any other information about the charges.
Valdivia, 40, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was ordered held in custody after his initial court appearance on Monday, Bonsib said. Valdivia is scheduled to return to court Tuesday for a bond hearing before a judge, Bonsib said.
Bonsib has said Valdivia joined the FBI in 2011 and was promoted to supervisory special agent at the FBI headquarters in 2019. The attorney said Valdivia had been working as an FBI agent since his acquittal.
On Dec. 15, 2020, a confrontation between Valdivia and an unarmed passenger swiftly escalated from a testy exchange of words to a shooting on a train approaching the Medical Center station in Bethesda, Maryland.
Valdivia shot and wounded the man from a distance of roughly 2 to 3 feet after repeatedly telling the man to back up, county prosecutor Robert Hill said in court. The wounded man had part or all of his spleen, colon and pancreas removed during surgery after the shooting, Hill said.
Bonsib has said Valdivia acted in self-defense as the man approached him at the rear of a train car.
“The law does not require that you wait to be struck before you take action. Had this resulted in a hands-on fight and a struggle for Agent Valdivia’s gun, only God knows what could have happened,” Bonsib said after Valdivia was charged.
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