Houston mother poisoned during pregnancy by husband fights for laws to protect women

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]How many times is this happening and you can't prove it? You know, um I think miscarriages are often not investigated or looked into.

[00:00:11]>> Last week, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office tacked on additional charges for John Ruben Demeter.

[00:00:17]Investigators say he slipped abortion pills into a drink he gave his girlfriend and successfully ended her pregnancy. It's a nightmare that Katherine Presley Herring knows all too well. Her now ex-husband, Mason Herring, a Houston attorney, pleaded guilty in 2024 to doing the same thing to her.

[00:00:34]>> It breaks my heart. I'm so sorry for that mom um that lost her baby, Presley Mae.

[00:00:40]Um and I hope true justice is served in this case.

[00:00:45]Um and that she'll regain strength each day. Uh >> While the mother-to-be in Montgomery County lost her baby, Presley Herring's baby, Josephine, survived. She calls her daughter a miracle considering her husband spiked her drink seven times.

[00:01:00]She says she only drank one of them and it made her so ill that she ended up in the hospital.

[00:01:05]After just the first time, she said she caught on that he was poisoning her and collected the subsequent drinks as evidence that she turned over to police.

[00:01:14]Mason Herring originally walked away with a plea agreement from the Harris County District Attorney's Office to serve 180 days in jail and serve 10 years of probation.

[00:01:24]About a year after taking the guilty plea, records show he violated the protective order they had in place and is now serving an 8-year prison sentence.

[00:01:33]>> I didn't feel like the state of Texas was making a stand to protect women and children in horrible domestic violence scenarios. And >> The lack of protection is why Presley Herring has become an outspoken advocate lobbying the FDA for stricter safeguards on abortion drugs. The Katherine and Josephine Herring Act, passed in Louisiana in 2024, making abortion medication a controlled substance, and criminalizing forced or deceptive abortions. Arkansas passed similar laws.

[00:02:04]Presley Herring says she has hopes that Texas will do the same.

[00:02:08]>> You know, it's a trend that's going to continue to increase as as the safeguards are um completely void. I mean, there's just nothing there, and sadly, um you know, cases where um the sentencing is light, or it's dismissed, or it's not seen as violent um as other cases, I think that that just emboldens abusers to keep trying.