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Not long after the painful death of a second store man, the factory held a meeting to reassure workers that the materials they were working with were not the cause of the ‘bug’, but during this meeting one worker acted strangely.
Asking questions that displayed a detailed knowledge of poisons and heavy metals was new store man Graham Young. He seemed to know more about it than the company doctor, and suspicions were aroused.
When police subsequently ran a check on Young they discovered that he had a criminal record, as a poisoner, and that he had spent his adolescence in Broadmoor, the top security psychiatric hospital.
Incredulous bosses at the factory were told that at fourteen years of age Young had been found guilty at the Old Bailey of poisoning his father, sister and school friend. Now he was charged with the murder of his two workmates.
Groundbreaking forensic work managed to identify thallium in the cremated ashes of one of the men; a first in the world of forensic toxicology.
This episode features an interview with one of his colleagues, Diana Smart, who nearly became Young’s last victim. She speaks of the dreadful symptoms caused by the poisoning, and recalls how in court, when Young’s diary was read out, it said he was saving a last exit dose of thallium for Diana.
Nicotine: An addictive killer
The next case shows how something that many people are familiar with, nicotine, can be used to deadly effect.
In 1851 Belgian society was stunned when the Count and Countess Bocarme were charged with the murder of the Countess’s brother Gustave. The couple had been accused of murder by their servants who had witnessed a horrific night in their grand Chateau Bitremont. Gustave, who had spent the day with the couple and their young children was found dead in the dining room, his face terribly contorted and burnt a ghastly black.
Muffled cries had been heard in the chateau after dinner, and the Countess had rushed around the chateau shutting all the doors. The Count and Countess then called upon their servants to wash the dead man all over with vinegar and help to scrub the floorboards in the room where he had died. They were told that he’d had a stroke, but they suspected foul play. They voiced their suspicions and the police were called for.
It was clear to them that Gustave had been poisoned, but with what?
Unluckily for the Bocarmes, a Belgian scientist, Jean Stas, was at the forefront of research into detecting alkaloids in human remains. With pioneering experiments on Gustave’s organs he discovered that he had been murdered by nicotine; a corrosive extract of pure nicotine that had been poured down his throat.
