Affairs of Poison True Crime's Deadliest Poisoners E-Book

Dylan Frost

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 250

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Poison is a fairly popular method of murder in true crime history because it doesn't require brute force or a weapon of any kind. You can simply slip it in a cake or a drink. Anything you want. A lot of poisoners think they stand a much better chance of getting away with murder but this is a misguided view. It might be more complex to capture a poisoner than a mad axeman but the police tend to catch up with poisoners in the end. In this book we'll take a look at some of the deadliest poisoners in true crime history. What follows is a grisly gallery of heartless rogues who you definitely wouldn't want making the tea.

Leseprobe

Affairs of Poison True Crime's Deadliest Poisoners  

Dylan Frost© Copyright 2023 Dylan Frost All Rights Reserved.

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ContentsChapter One - Cads & BoundersChapter Two - She Seemed Like Such a Nice Old LadyChapter Three - Poisoning GangsChapter Four - Black WidowsChapter Five - Medical Professional PoisonersChapter Six - The Best (Or Should That Be Worst?) Of the RestCHAPTER ONE - CADS & BOUNDERSRadford University's data suggested that only 7% of serial killers murdered their victims by means of poison. During the Middle Ages in Europe, poison became a popular method of assassination, particularly among the nobility and ruling class. The Italian Renaissance witnessed a surge in poison-related crimes, with several notorious figures using poison to secure power or eliminate political rivals. The Borgias, one of the most infamous Italian families, were strongly associated with poisonings, as they were suspected of poisoning numerous individuals to further their political interests.A lot of famous poisoners in true crime history are women and we'll certainly get around to a great deal of those notorious females later on in the book. For this opening chapter though we'll focus on some of the most famous male poisoners. Your average serial killer does not use poison. They prefer to get their hands dirty - so to speak. It clearly would not have satisfied a Ted Bundy or Richard Ramirez to kill someone with poison. Poison, as far as serial killing goes, is what you might describe as a more refined sort of MO. It is generally (though not always) done by the sort of criminal who prefers not to resort to brute force or weapons. These killers are no less heartless because the end result, whether by arsenic or the axe, is the same but they often tend to be more 'well to do' people in social terms than your bog standard murderous maniac. THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINEWRIGHT was born in 1794. He tends to be known as Wainewright the Poisoner in true crime articles. Wainewright was an unusual candidate to be a serial killer because he had a good education, was an officer in the army, and then became an artist. He was a painter and literary critic who hobnobbed with the rich and famous. There was only one problem though. Wainewright developed expensive tastes and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle but he could never earn enough money to fund this. Well, given the title of this book, you probably won't be surpised to learn that Thomas Griffiths Wainewright eventually resorted to murder as a means to get his hands on the money he desperately craved. In the end, Wainewright was racking up so many debts he had begun forging shares. In 1821 he married Eliza Frances Ward. Wainewright invited his uncle to come and stay with them but the relative died less than a year later - leaving his fortune to Thomas. It is believed that strychnine was used in this death. Wainewright then invited his wife's mother Mrs Abercromby to come and stay and she brought her two daughters. Mrs Abercromby soon passed away (by way of poison) and Wainewright had insured her daughter Helen for a considerable sum of money. Helen, despite being a healthy young woman, then died suddenly but Wainewright was to be frustrated because the insurance company refused to pay out. The legend goes that Mrs Abercromby had been bumped off by Wainewright in swift fashion when she began inquiring why an insurance policy had been taken out on her daughter. Wainewright spent five years trying to fight the insurance company for the money for Helen's death but he seemed to admit defeat in the end and, mindful of the fact that his financial activities were attracting unwelcome interest, he fled to France. In France he became close to a woman and then had life insurance taken out on her father. No prizes for guessing what happened next. Thomas Griffiths Wainewright returned to England £3,000 richer but was arrested for financial fraud as a result of fake signatures on stock shares. Wainewright was found guilty and sent to a penal colony in Australia. Oddly, it was financial fraud rather than murder that saw him in court. Wainewright had had a few spells behind bars during his five year stay in France and was found to have strychnine among his possessions. He was clearly a poisoner who would kill anyone so long as there was money in it for him. Thomas Griffiths Wainewright died in Tasmania in 1858. He was allowed to paint in Australia and had a certain amount of freedom. It was probably a lot better than being sent to an English prison. Trivia - while Wainewright was in prison awaiting his trial, Charles Dickens visited the prison and met Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. WILLIAM PALMER was born in Staffordshire in 1824. He tends to be known as The Rugeley Poisoner or The Prince of Poisoners in true crime articles. One of Palmer's early jobs was as an assistant in a Liverpool chemist but he was fired when he was caught stealing. He later set up an illegal abortion clinic before eventually training as real doctor in London. Palmer returned to Staffordshire to set up a practice. Despite his new medical qualifications, Palmer was not someone you'd want to be your doctor. He had a drink problem and racked up huge gambling debts. He also had a large number of children - many of them illegitimate. Palmer hit upon a way to keep his creditors at bay. It was a method that numerous murderers have deployed through the centuries. Palmer decided to start bumping off relatives to get the insurance money. Strychnine was his poison of choice. The first person he murdered was his mother in law. She was insured for a tidy sum. Four of Palmer's children then died in sudden and mysterious circumstances though at the time this didn't come under great scrutiny because - sadly - it was not uncommon for infants to die in that era. What should have been more suspicious was the death of Palmer's wife Ann. She was only 27 when she died and William Palmer had recently taken out insurance on her. The cause of death for Ann was cited as cholera. William Palmer then took out life insurance on his brother Walter and - sure enough - Walter soon kicked the bucket. However, the insurance company refused to pay up because they sensed there was something dodgy about William Palmer. William was in big trouble by now because his debts were crippling him and he was even being blackmailed by a former lover. In 1855, William Palmer went to watch some horse racing in Shrewsbury with a man named John Parsons Cook. Cook, like Palmer, was addicted to gambling. That day, Cook had a lot more success than Palmer at the races and won a number of sizeable bets. They visited a pub to celebrate but Cook fell ill. Naturally, William Palmer generously offered to go and collect the incapacitated Cook's winnings from the horse racing. No prizes for guessing why Cook had fallen ill. Not long after this, a fifth child of Palmer died and John Parsons Cook passed away. A maid who sampled some broth Palmer had made for Cook also fell ill. The stepfather of John Parsons Cook was rightly suspicious of all of this and ordered an autopsy to be carried out. It transpired that John Parsons Cook had been poisoned. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out who had poisoned him. It was difficult to establish any evidence in most of the deaths attributed to Palmer but the poisoning of Cook was more than sufficient to seal his fate - and that poisoning was proven beyond doubt. William Palmer was found guilty at the Old Bailey (the trial was not held in Staffordshire because local feeling was so hostile to Palmer it was felt he wouldn't get a fair trial there) and sentenced to death. William Palmer was hung at Stafford prison on the 14th of June 1856. Thirty thousand people turned up to watch him die. People in those days really did love a good old public execution! Trivia - Charles Dickens (him again!) called Palmer "the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey."EDWARD WILLIAM PRITCHARD was born in Hampshire in 1825. He became a doctor and was a surgeon on a Royal Navy ship. On his return to England he met his wife Mary Jane Taylor and eventually settled in Yorkshire for a time. Pritchard was a GP and also wrote books. Edward William Pritchard had a combover and a huge beard. He looked like a character in a Dickens novel. His life seemed pretty good from the outside but he was racking up debts and clearly a troubled man in private. In 1859, Pritchard moved to Scotland and ended up living in Glasgow. Four years later there was a strange and dramatic incident when a fire broke out at the house Pritchard was living in. One of the servants, a young woman named Elizabeth McGrain, died in the fire. The puzzling thing about the death was that Elizabeth did not apear to have made any attempt to escape from the fire - despite the fact that it would have been possible for her to do so. In 1885, Pritchard's mother in law Jane Taylor died while being treated by him. Edward William Pritchard had poisoned her. A month later Pritchard's wife died at the age of 38. She had also been poisoned. The local doctor refused to sign the death certificates because he deemed these two deaths in such close proximity to be highly suspicious (to say the least). Pritchard therefore wrote the certificates himself. The doctor who refused to write the death certificates then wrote to the procurator fiscal (public prosecutor) highlighting his suspicions about Pritchard. Pritchard, who was quite a vain and bombastic man, expressed outrage at having his good name besmirched by these rumours. He was soon put in his place though when his mother in law and wife were exhumed and found to have been killed by the poison antimony. A hearing in Edinburgh, which lasted less than a week, found Edward William Pritchard guilty. The servant girl dying in the fire now seemed mightily suspicious in hindsight. Do she not try to escape from the fire because she had been drugged or incapacitated? Pritchard is heavily suspected of being involved in this death too. On the 28th of July 1865, Edward William Pritchard was hung in the last public execution carried out in Scotland. 80,000 people turned up to see how go to the gallows. In those days there was nothing people liked more than a good execution. The trial seemed to suggest that Pritchard had been having an affair with 15-year-old servant Mary MacLeod. It appears then that the motive for murder was to get his wife and mother in law out of the way so he could replace them with Mary. Pritchard did reap a decent financial boost from the death of his mother in law so money was most likely a factor too. The evidence proposed that Pritchard's wife had discovered he was carrying on with the servant girl and this is what made Pritchard resort to murder. Despite all of this, Pritchard even tried to pin the murders on Mary at one point - although he later retracted this. Pritchard put up a determined performance at his hearing but the exhumations made his case hopeless. At one point he even got his two children to come in and say what a great father he was in the faint hope that this might sway things back in his favour! In the end, after he was found guilty, Pritchard made a full confession. Edward William Pritchard became known as The Human Crocodile in Scotland at the time because of the fake crocodile tears he shed at his hearing for the wife he had so heartlessly murdered. THOMAS NEILL CREAM was born in Glasgow in 1850. Cream tends to be known as The Lambeth Poisoner in true crime lore. Though born in Scotland, Cream was raised in Canada where he became a doctor. Cream then studied in Scotland and London for a time and then returned to North America. In 1876, Cream married a woman named Flora Brooks but she died a year later. The cause of death was cited as consumption but Cream is believed to have murdered her. In 1879, a woman named Kate Gardener was found dead near Cream's office. She had been poisoned by chloroform and was pregnant. It just so happened that when he was medical student, Cream did a thesis on chloroform. It was something he knew a lot about. When he became a suspect in this death, Cream fled from Canada to the United States. He opened a medical practice in Chicago and performed ilegal abortions on local prostitutes. At least two of these prostitutes died as a consequence of Cream. In 1881, a woman named Alice Montgomery was found dead near Cream's office. She had been poisoned. Though the case was never solved at the time it seems too much of a coincidence that she died so close to where Cream worked. A few months later a man named Daniel Stott died. The connecting factor in these deaths was strychnine poisoning. Cream had been treating Stott for epilepsy. Thomas Neill Cream seemed to have a grisly scam running where he would procure some medicine from a chemist, kill a patient, and then try and blackmail the chemist by saying he'd been supplied with dodgy medicine. Cream had conspired to kill Daniel Stott with Stott's wife Julia. Julia was having an affair with Cream and had asked him to kill her husband. He was happy to oblige. In the end though this wicked duo were arrested and Julia agreed to testify against Thomas Neill Cream. Cream was given life in prison but released in 1891. The general theory is that Cream's brother bribed the authorities to get him an early release. After his release, Cream went to London and set up residence in Lambeth. Cream wasted no time in killing again. He poisoned a teenage prostitute and then tried to exort money from the coroner by writing to say he knew who the killer was. Cream killed another prostitute for similar bribery motivations (in this case Cream accused a doctor named William Broadbent of the killing and tried to get money from Broadbent in return for silence). In April 1892, Cream poisoned two more prostitutes by lacing Guiness with strychnine. Thomas Neill Cream was clearly an intelligent and crafty man but it turned out he wasn't nearly as intelligent and crafty as he had assumed. The police had noticed that the blackmail letters mentioned the murder of a prostitute named Matilda Clover. This was odd because the death was put down to natural causes. Cream also made the mistake of giving an American friend a tour of sites in Lambeth where all these strange local deaths had abounded. The friend (who was obviously suspicious of Cream) told Scotland Yard of this and it was clearly of great interest to them. The police began to observe and follow Cream and they soon saw that he frequently visited and consorted with local prostitutes. Cream was arrested and put on trial in October 1892. He was sentenced to death and hung at Newgate Prison. According to folklore, before he was hung, Cream confessed that he was Jack the Ripper. This is very disputed though and probably not true. Cream only arrived in London after the last Ripper murders and was actually in prison during some of the Ripper's activities. Those who think Cream is a Ripper suspect argue that he could have been secretly released thanks to his brother's bribes and authority. The obvious counter argument to the theory that Cream was the Ripper is that he poisoned his victims. He had a very different MO to the more hands-on and bloodthirsty Ripper. The main motivation for Cream's murders was money. There was considerable evidence too though that he enjoyed killing people and became addicted to the sense of power this gave him. It doesn't seem unlikely at all that Cream killed more people than we know of - especially as he seemed to target street prostitutes.GEORGE CHAPMAN was born Seweryn Antonowicz Klosowski in Poland in 1865. He later changed his name to George Chapman when he moved to England. He took the name after meeting a woman named Annie Chapman (not the Ripper victim - this was a different Annie Chapman). As a young man in Poland, Chapman had some surgical training but he couldn't qualify as a doctor in England and became a hairdresser instead. In October 1889 he married Lucy Baderski and had a shop off Whitechapel High Street. Chapman moved to America for a time but then moved back to England and took up with a woman named Isabella Spink to run a public house. It seems that Chapman would have endless mistresses and pretend they were his wives (it obviously wasn't respectable in those days to live with someone you were not married to). Isabella Spink died at the end of 1897 after falling ill. The symptoms of her illness were severe stomach pains. After Spink's death, Chapman took up with a barmaid named Bessie Taylor but she died at the start of 1901 after developing identical symptoms to those of the late Isabella Spink. Chapman wasted no time in wooing another barmaid - this time the unfortunate Maud Marsh. Maud died at the start of 1902 after suddenly falling ill with - you guessed it - severe stomach pains. Maud Marsh's mother was highly suspicious of her daughter's sudden death and kicked up such a fuss that the doctor had to order an examination of the body should take place. This post-mortem revealed antimony poisoning. The bodies of the two previous victims were dug up and also found to have been poisoned. George Chapman was put on trial at the Old Bailey and swiftly found guilty of a triple murder. The trial established that Chapman had purchased poison in the past from a chemist and had got £500 from the death of  Isabella Spink. The weird thing was though that Chapman didn't reap any financial windfall for the deaths of his other victims. It therefore remains a slight puzzle establishing motive - although Chapman was clearly a serial fraudster in his life. He once burnt down a pub for the insurance. It is sometimes said that another barmaid he was in a relationship with, one Elizabeth Taylor, was another victim because she also died while she was with Chapman. However, there was no sign of poisoning in Taylor's death and it genuinely appeared to be of natural causes (or an intestinal obstruction in this case). Chapman was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on April the 7th 1902. That's not quite the end of the story though because George Chapman is an enduring Jack the Ripper suspect. It is said that, in response to media speculation at the time of Chapman's arrest, that Inspector Abberline considered Chapman to be a very plausible Ripper suspect. The main reasons for this are that Chapman had some surgical training and was familiar with Whitechapel. It was also the case that the Ripper murders ceased when Chapman went to live in the United States for a time. The police investigated Chapman as a Ripper suspect after his death and learned from his original wife Lucy that he used to go out a lot late at night. Chapman was also revealed to have been a violent man who once tried to strangle Lucy and kept a knife under his bed. While all the speculation concerning Chapman and Jack the Ripper is interesting and at times quite convincing the one big flaw in the theory that he was the Ripper comes with the disparity in the method of murders. The Ripper killed his victims in gruesome fashion and then mutilated the bodies. Chapman on the other hand was a poisoner and never mutilated any of his victims. Why would Jack the Ripper resort to poison? And if Chapman was Jack the Ripper why was he killing barmaids (and attracting suspicion) when he could just as easily go out and kill a prostitute? Another reason why some are not convinced by the theory that Chapman was Jack the Ripper is that they don't believe there is any evidence that the Ripper had any medical training. They would argue that Chapman, who trained as a surgeon in Poland, would have shown much more skill than the Ripper did in cutting up the victims. WALTER HORSEFORD was a Cambridgeshire farmer who was hung for poisoning Annie Holmes in 1887. Horsford was 26 at the time. Annie was his cousin but also his lover. She was a widow with children. It is believed that Horseford poisoned her with strychnine after she told him she was pregnant. Walter Horseford, like many killers, was a dodgy character from a young age. He was a grocer as a very young man but lost his position for theft and embezzlement. He landed on his feet as a farmer though and was good at this profession. Horseford was rumbled quite soon for the murder of Annie Holmes. The police found a large quantity of strychnine in his possession. He had sent the poison to Annie pretending it was medicine. His instructions were to take it with a little water - and this is exactly what Annie did. Horseford promised Annie the medicine was harmless but he knew full well it would kill her. Horseford was executed at Cambridge prison in June 1897 for Annie's murder. However, this is not the end of the story. There seems to be considerable evidence that Horseford killed at least three other people. His former fiancée Fanny James died in 1890. Just like Annie Holmes, Fanny died soon after telling Walter Horseford she was pregnant. Those around Fanny said that her sudden demise was consistent with someone who had been poisoned. The official cause of death, believe it or not, was put down to Fanny eating a large supper! I'm no medical expert but I've never heard of anyone dropping dead because they ate a big dinner! Another suspicious case involving Horseford was a relative of Fanny James who died suddenly after drinking some beer Horseford had supplied for him. The victim was a farm worker who had just spent the day threshing wheat. It seems more than a coincidence that this healthy man expired after drinking something given to him by Horseford. What the motive was in this death remains unclear but Horseford clearly wanted this chap out of the way. A fourth murder commonly attributed to Horserford is that of an unknown woman from Peterborough who he was having an affair with. This young woman is said to have died after receiving a parcel from Horseford. That would match the MO of this killer and be fairly identical to the death of Annie Holmes. Walter Horseford was a very cold and cunning man. Who knows how many people he might really have murdered? ROBERT GEORGE CLEMENTS was born in Belfast in 1880. You might say that he was sort of like the male version of one of those female Black Widow killers. Clements was a doctor and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was married four times and all of his wives died in rather suspicious circumstances. The fact that his wives tended to be rich with inherited wealth merely added to the strong suspicion that Clements was marrying wealthy women and bumping them off to get his hands on the money. Edith Annie Mercier, the first wife of Clements, died of what was called sleeping sickness. Edith was the daughter of a wealthy mill owner and was only 40 when she died. Mary McCreary, the second wife of Clements, died suddenly at the age of 25 in 1925. The cause of death was cited as endocarditis. Mary was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. One would imagine that, as a doctor himself, Clements was able to conjure convincing medical theories of his own when his wives died and so managed to deflect undue suspicion. In 1939, Clements lost a third wife when Sarah Kathleen Burke died. Her death was also ascribed to endocarditis. The body was cremated in rapid fashion - which was obviously rather suspicious. The last wife of Robert George Clements was Amy Victoria Barnett. Amy was the daughter of a wealthy man named Reginald W. G. Barnett - who was one of Clements' patients. Amy died in 1947, officially as a result of myeloid leukemia. The death of wife number four led to Robert George Clements coming under a lot of suspicion. To have one wife die in that era was nothing unusual but four seemed a trifle out of the ordinary. Not only had all four of his wives died but Robert George Clements had written the death certificates himself. You could say that he was almost too obvious in his crimes. He was bound to attract suspicion sooner or later. Three of his wives were very wealthy when he married them but by the time of their deaths Robert George Clements had managed to fritter away most of their fortunes. One can see how a fairly convincing criminal case against Clements could be constructed. He appeared to marry wealthy women and then - when he sensed the money was running out - he bumped them off and looked for a new wife. The hasty cremation was also very suspicious. The police decided in the end there was more than enough evidence to suggest that Clements had murdered his wives but when they went to speak to him he had already committed suicide with morphine. Robert George Clements had clearly realised the game was up and decided to end it all before he was dragged into a police cell and court. An autopsy was then conducted on Amy Victoria Barnett and the conclusion was that she'd been poisoned with morphine - thus seeming to confirm that Robert George Clements really had been killing his wives. There was a sad coda to this case because the doctor who had performed the first autopsy on Amy committed suicide in shame after the second autopsy confirmed he had not deduced that Amy had died of morphine poisoning. As for the late Robert George Clements, well, the evidence that he was serial murderer of wives was now sadly established. Clements had simply decided to skip the trial and likely execution and do away with himself. RONALD CLARK O'BRYAN was born in Houston in 1944. O'Bryan sometimes worked as an optician and was also a deacon at the local church. A fine pillar of the community you might say. Well, if you did say that you would be completely wrong I'm afraid. In reality, O'Bryan was often unemployed and seemed to have difficulty holding down a job. He had racked up considerable debts which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. O'Bryan was an unhappy man crippled by these debts. His mental health was eroding fast. He decided he had to take drastic action to resolve this problem. As a solution to his financial woes, O'Bryan came up with a plan which was so heartless and evil it defied comprehension. On Halloween night in 1974, O'Bryan took his two kids out trick or treating. He had taken six Pixy Stix (a sweet and sour colored powdered candy usually packaged in a wrapper that resembles a drinking straw) and laced them with potassium cyanide. Ronald Clark O'Bryan gave one of these poisoned candies to his eight year-son Timothy because he wanted the insurance money from his son's death. This was beyond evil. What sort of person would give their child poisoned food? Timothy went into convulsions and died. That wasn't even the half of it. O'Bryan also gave poisoned candy to his young daughter and several other children but - mercifully - none of them ate the candy. One child tried to eat the candy but couldn't get the wrapper off and gave up. The wrapper saved that boy's life. Ronald Clark O'Bryan was not a suspect at first but the police soon began to zero in on him. It transpired that he had only taken his children to a couple of nearby streets trick or treating. They hadn't gone far at all. That was deemed suspicious. O'Bryan's plan was obviously to make it seem as if Timothy had got the poisoned candy from one of the houses they knocked on. The police wanted to know which house had handed out the poisoned Pixy Stix to the kids but the house O'Bryan named belonged to an air traffic controller who wasn't even at home on Halloween night. Upon further investigation the police found out that O'Bryan was heavily in debt and had recently taken out life insurance policies on his two children. They also found out he had recently been seen in a chemical store in Houston. The police believe that O'Bryan's plan was to kill his two children for the insurance but also poison other random kids in the area (by handing out the Pixy Stix) to make it look like someone had randomly handed out poisoned candy. This ruse obviously didn't work. The jury didn't take very long to find O'Bryan guilty - despite his weak attempts to pretend he was innocent. It transpired during the trial that O'Brien had researched cyanide before Halloween and during his son's funeral had talked about going on a nice holiday with the insurance money. He was a truly despicable man. Ronald Clark O'Bryan was sentenced to death by electric chair. This happened in 1984. For his last meal on death row he had steak and fries followed by Boston cream pie. A group outside the prison yelled 'Trick or Treat!' and threw candy at anti-capital punishment protestors as this dreadful man was executed. Ronald Clark O'Bryan is inevitably known as the Candyman in true crime. After his conviction his wife got married to someone else. The only happy note to this dreadful case is that the daughter Elizabeth survived because she never got around to eating the Pixy Stix on that tragic Halloween night. GRAHAM YOUNG was born in Neasden in Middlesex on the 7th of September 1947. As a youth he became obsessed with poisons and chemicals and decided to conduct some experiments of his own. The unwitting guinea pigs in these experiments were his own family! Young's usual method was to lace drinks like tea with thallium and antimony. Thallium can affect your nervous system, lung, heart, liver, and kidney if large amounts are eaten or drunk for short periods of time. Temporary hair loss, vomiting, and diarrhoea can also occur and death may result after exposure to large amounts of thallium for short periods. Young, now about 14 years-old, began poisoning his stepmother, father, and sister in 1961. He managed to obtain potentially dangerous chemicals from a chemist by pretending to be older than he actually was. Soon, everyone around Graham Young seemed to be suffering from dreadful stomach pains - even including some pupils at his school. The family began to have suspicions about Graham Young but they couldn't find any firm evidence and he naturally denied everything (Young actually blamed his sister). When his mother died it was put down to a medical complaint. Graham (of course) took the chance to slip some poison into food at his mother's funeral. By now, suspicions about Graham Young and his activities were spreading beyond the family. One of his teachers (who found poisonous chemicals in Young's desk) suspected he was up to something dangerous. The police became involved and Young was found to have thallium and antimony in his possession. He confessed to secretly administering poison to his family and a school friend. Young was sent to Broadmoor Hospital - where he was the youngest inmate for many years. He was charged with killing his stepmother. Graham Young spent nine years at Broadmoor. It is alleged that he may even have killed someone at Broadmoor by extracting poison from laurel bush leaves in the gardens. When he was released from Broadmoor in 1971, Young soon went back to his old ways. He somehow managed to purchase antimony potassium tartrate and thalium from a chemist. While attending a storekeeping course in Slough, Young poisoned a man named Trevor Sparkes more than once. Sparkes did not die but he was violently ill from his ordeal. Graham Young then secured a job at John Hadland Laboratories in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. Broadmoor provided him with a reference but - amazingly - did not inform John Hadland Laboratories that Young was a convicted poisoner! One of Young's duties at the lab was to push the tea trolley around. Talk about a recipe for disaster! You can probably guess what happened next. Very soon a mysterious 'bug' at the lab had everyone coming down with dreadful stomach pains.