Chapter 8: Cyanide and the Death on the Nile

The murder in the chapter I read was the case of Cheryl Lewis. Her boyfriend at the time, Frederick Allan, killed her by using cyanide. Allan had been married and divorced twice before he met Cheryl. Allan and Cheryl decided to go on a holiday vacation in Egypt and on their last night, Allan poured her a gin and tonic, in which he added cyanide and within minutes she was in pain. In order to make it seem like Allan actually cared about Cheryl he ran to the receptionists’ desk in the hotel to get help. They got the doctor to come and once he realized that it was too late for him to help her, they called an ambulance and she was pronounced dead. Her skin had a little pigment of blue to it and Cheryl’s parents issued an autopsy to find out the exact cause of her death. The only symptom that Cheryl actually showed was an inflamed stomach by some corrosive agent. This was weird because she didn’t have the same inflammation in her mouth. This murder was very complicated because cyanide disappears from the body after death, making it hard to detect what her actual cause of death was. Because cyanide exists in cigarettes and Cheryl was a smoker, Allan could just blame the cyanide in her body from that.

Allan was so soul less that he actually changed Cheryl’s will in order to benefit himself and hopefully inherit everything she had, which is a lot considering she had a lot of money. In order to cover his butt he reported that Cheryl’s Mercedes had been stolen.  When the police found the car they found two gold rings and bracelets and also four pieces of sodium cyanide, which looked tampered with because obviously Allan used them. With the will, Allan would inherit 450 000. Cheryl’s new will (that Allan made) was dated 1993 and Allan made a huge mistake by spelling Cheryl’s middle name Leslie when it is actually spelt Lesley. When interviewed, Allan changed his story multiple times in order to make his story seem true. He said she had a heroin overdose and that she was an addict, then he said he was framed by agents employed in the arms trade, and then he said he was framed by Cheryl’s ex-husband.

Obviously Allan was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with a strong recommendation that he remained in prison for a long time.

Another incident in which cyanide was used for murder was a Tylenol case. There was no rhyme or reason to it and they don’t even know what the person’s name was, but he purchased several bottles of Tylenol and replaced its contents with cyanide and then replaced the bottles on the shelves of stores. Many deaths followed this action. The bottles were placed on the shelves at the Arlington Heights and there was a 12 year old, a 27 year old, and a 25 year old that died from taking the Tylenol. There were also several more deaths in the Chicago area, where a man named Michael Shaffer finally looked at the capsules and found that some of the pills contained potassium cyanide.

They had two suspects and the first one could not have been linked to the murders, but he was caught with firearms and was sent to jail, how unfortunate. The second suspect was arrested but for fraud, not the Tylenol case. Four months after this incident there was another murder, which resulted in a second recall. A woman named Stella had changed the capsules in an Excedrin bottle to kill her husband, and like the woman that she is, she did it for money. She had taken out three life insurances for a total of $71 000 and then another $100 000 if it was proven to be accidental. She was eventually found guilty and sentenced to 90 years in prison.

“Every month the chemical industry manufactures enough hydrogen cyanide to kill every person on the planet” (1). Cyanide is toxic because it binds to the iron atom present in the active site of an enzyme, which happens in the cell mitochondria. The enzyme is known as cytochrome oxidase and it catalyzes the final stage of the oxidation of glucose by oxygen, making it essential for life (1). It is also what is known as an irreversible enzyme inhibitor, meaning once it binds to an iron atom, it cannot be removed unless by a chemical attack. When this happens, depending on how much cyanide was taken in, the person can acquire a headache, nausea, and/or eye and skin irritation (2). Symptoms like these occur based on how much cyanide is taken in; 10 ppm is a normal amount, 150 ppm for 30 minutes can endanger someone’s life and then 300 ppm is almost always death. Cyanide is very dangerous because it is one of the fastest acting of all poisons.

Cyanides are natural chemicals and the most deadly of all the cyanides is Hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide can be deadly by just breathing it in. This type of cyanide could have been involved with the creation of life because in the 50s Miller and Urey performed an experiment to see how life actually started and in doing so, their results contained hydrogen cyanide, which later reacted and turned into more complex molecules. All cyanide ions form strong bonds with metals. This is because they form pi bonds and have negative charges.

Cyanide is formed by carbons and nitrogens being combined by a triple bond. This creates organic compounds known as nitriles. Its acidity is weak when dissolved in water. Cyanides are used in different products, such as cosmetics fire retardants, dyes, paints, different foods, plants, cigarettes, plastics and textiles (3). Adiponitrile is used to make nylon (polymer). About 15% of hydrogen cyanide is manufactured into sodium cyanide. Cyanide loses its toxicity when it forms a bond with a carbon atom in a larger molecule.

Cyanide is made by bacteria, fungi, algae, insects and plants (3). There are a couple different ways to treat cyanide exposure. Hydroxycobalamine is able to bind rapidly to the cyanide group, which is used in France a lot (1). 4-dimethylaminophenol acts more rapidly and has a lower residual toxicity. Kelocyanor uses cobalt to pick up the cyanide.

There are ways to protect yourself from cyanide even though it seems like ones it hits you its almost inevitable that you’re going to die. You can take off all your clothes and wash your entire body if you think you have been exposed and you can also leave a building immediately if you think there is cyanide in the air (3). It has also been said that sugar can protect a person from cyanide poisoning in order to form less toxic compounds.

 

1. Molecules of Murder book

2. http://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp

3. http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/cyanide.html

Chapter 7: Life & Death & CO: Carbon Monoxide and the Home-Made Gas Chamber

                Everyone knows what Carbon Monoxide is. They know it is the silent killer; there are no signs of it, mostly until it is too late. Everyone knows it comes out of cars or ovens or charcoal, but do people really know the effects and especially the long term effects of carbon monoxide exposure? In our “Molecules of Murder,” book, I read chapter seven, which had to do with Carbon Monoxide. There are many symptoms, detections and a whole lot of chemistry that comes with it. This murder mystery is about a man killing his five children.

               

Adair Garcia is the murderer behind this story. He and his six children had moved into a new house and one night he had just put his five children to bed. Garcia was very bitter because his wife had just left him and their family and would eventually divorce him. Garcia would have his children write his wife messages, so she would know they all still care about her. On that one night, Garcia had his children write their mom a message and then put them to sleep. Earlier in the day he had bought a bag of charcoal and matches. When they were in bed, Garcia closed all the windows and put blankets over the doors. He then lit the charcoal on a barbeque grill and put it in the passageway outside their bedroom. Then he went to bed and in the morning his five children had died from the carbon monoxide poisoning. The next morning, Garcia’s mother-in-law, Adriana, found the house full of smoke and could not find the children so she called the police. When the police arrived three of the children still breathing, but two of them died shortly after. Garcia and only one of his children survived and they were brought to the hospital immediately. Adriana called her daughter and she was astonished at the news. After being discharged from the hospital, Garcia was arrested and brought to trial in 2005. He had admitted that he did try to kill his children and himself as a way of getting back at his wife for leaving them. Garcia was found guilty on murder accounts and was spared the death penalty, but was sentenced to life in prison.

           Another Carbon Monoxide incident comes from the Jones family. Mr. Cranog Jones was having an affair and wanted to prove that his wife was having an affair as well. He wanted to kill his wife obviously, so on December 7, 1991 through the outside of his wife’s bedroom and fitted a plastic pipe through the hole, which led to his garage. The pipe was then attached to his wife’s exhaust from her car. That night, he went into his wife’s room and installed the box, and then he went to the garage to start the car in order to ensure a high amount of carbon monoxide would go through. Mr. Cranog made a huge mistake that night because he didn’t muff the hole, meaning it was very loud. The noise ended up waking up his wife, so she called the police. Realizing that his plan had failed, he dismantled everything so it wouldn’t look like he was trying to kill her before the police came. When he was questioned, he simply said that his wife was crazy. Later, he eventually admitted that he dumped the tubing and piping, but he didn’t do it because he was trying to kill his wife. The Jones’s eventually got a divorce and he was brought to court. He was found guilty and was sentenced to nine years in jail.

Both of these stories are really sad, but both of the murderers would probably agree that carbon monoxide wasn’t exactly the best murder weapon to use. Not only did Garcia not kill himself, but Mr. Cranog didn’t kill his wife. Carbon monoxide kills more people than any other poison, but not because it’s a good murder weapon, but because most of the time it is an accident. I referred to it earlier as the silent killer because there is no warning that it is there and its effects are not normally recognized by its victims (1). Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless and poisonous gas (1). “It is produced by the incomplete burning of various fuels, including coal, wood, charcoal, oil, kerosene, propane, and natural gas” (2). It can be made from carbon or methane (CH4) and by reacting them with oxygen or steam. Blowing steam will cause carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, creating a new gas known as syngas (synthesis gas) (1).  This syngas can be converted into carbon fuels, such as methanol or carbonyl chloride. When methanol reacts with more carbon monoxide it creates acetic acid, which is used in paints, silicone resins, polyester fibre and certain plastics.

           Carbon Monoxide boils at -192 degrees Celsius and it is a polar molecule. In certain experiments nickel reacted with carbon monoxide actually turns the nickel into a gas. Tests on animals showed that nickel carbonyl was five time more deadly than carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide has a lot of different functions along with “unvented kerosene and gas space heaters; leaking chimneys and furnaces; back-drafting from furnaces, gas water heaters, wood stoves, and fireplaces; gas stoves; generators and other gasoline powered equipment; automobile exhaust from attached garages; and tobacco smoke” (2). It is also used to preserve the color of meat. It not only controls the overproduction of cells in the artery walls, but it can kill the rogue cells, while leaving the normal cells unaffected. This shows that there are positive features to carbon monoxide. It has the ability to lower blood pressure and dilate blood vessels (1). It has also been proven that carbon monoxide can counteract the effect of nicotine. It also gives protection against organ rejection. In 2006, Harvard medical school discovered that carbon monoxide was able to relieve pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which caused heart failure. Another function of carbon monoxide is to suppress endothelin, which reduced blood pressure.

Carbon monoxide comes from volcanoes and is oxidized to CO2 and is absorbed by the leaves of growing plants or by the water of the sea. Almost everything that burns produces some sort of carbon monoxide. Car exhausts are the largest human contribution, but it doesn’t have a lot of long term effects because it changes to CO2 pretty rapidly.

This gas forms a bond with haemoglobin in order to form carboxyhaemoglobin. Symptoms of carbon monoxide change depending on how much you are exposed to. Milder forms include headaches and flu-like symptoms, but the higher levels lead to dizziness and even higher levels lead to unconsciousness. Once the heart is no longer supplied with oxygen, death soon comes. It can also lead to mental confusion, loss of muscular coordination and/or vomiting (3). Concentrations between 35 and 200 ppm can cause a headache, 800 ppm is a throbbing headache with dizziness and nausea, 1500 ppm death is likely within 2 hours, at 3000 ppm death is within half an hour and at 6000 ppm feels faint within a minute and is dead within twenty minutes. You can measure the amount absorbed by analyzing the proportion of carboxyhaemoglobin in the red blood cells. Claude Bernard in the 1840s performed an experiment on dogs where he exposed them to carbon monoxide and then dissected them after. He noticed that their blood turned a bright scarlet color. Knowing this now it is easy to see the effects of carbon monoxide, not only on humans but on animals.

Accidental deaths come from badly ventilated gas fires, furnaces, heaters, wood-burning stoves, motor vehicle exhausts or camping stoves. In order to prevent carbon monoxide there are detectors available for rooms where there may be exposure, such as kitchens or garages. “By not cover the bottom of natural gas or propane ovens with aluminum foil you can prevent being exposed to carbon monoxide. Doing so blocks the combustion air flow through the appliance and can produce CO. And never leave a car running in an attached garage, even with the garage door open” (3).

               

In the 18 and 1900s there were many suicides caused by carbon monoxide exposure. For example, people would stick their heads in ovens. There have also been other stories about carbon monoxide killings that were accidents. For example, the Mason family had traveled from their home in London to their cottage in North Devon; little did they know a family of blackbirds had nested in the flue of the gas boiler, which blocked the ventilation system. All three of the Masons ended up dying that weekend. Today, cars are not as dangerous and as apt to carbon monoxide poisoning because today they only have gases below .25%, whereas before it was around 20%. Some famous people that have died from carbon monoxide poisoning include Sylvia Plath, Emile Zola and Sir Bernard Spilsbury.

 

1. Molecules of Murder Book

2.  http://www.epa.gov/iaq/co.html
3. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/466.html

Chapter 5: Adrenaline and the Near-Perfect Murders of Kristen Gilbert

                Some murders are easier to commit than others. Some look more like accidents, whereas some are just so blatantly obvious. There are many different types of murderers as well. The ones that are sneaky, the ones that don’t care if they get caught and then there are the ones that commit so many murders that it’s a part of their life. In this chapter of Molecules of Murder, we learn about a woman name Kristen Gilbert. Just by looking at her you would assume that she has the perfect life; a husband, two sons and a great job as a nurse. But behind all of that is a really messed up woman who is having an affair and eventually turns into a murderer.

                Kristen Gilbert committed supposedly fifty, maybe more crimes. There was something different about Kristen’s crimes than other murderer’s crimes; hers were all committed on state-owned/federal territory. This meant that she could potentially be executed for her wrong-doings if caught, or found guilty. Along with being a nurse came the availability of many drugs. Ever heard of the saying “Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing? Well, that’s exactly what Kristen did. She used adrenaline to kill people. Adrenaline is a natural chemical that is produced by the human body. It is also quickly disposed of, which means that it is easy to disguise adrenaline as a bodily malfunction, rather than an attempted murder. When Kristen couldn’t use adrenaline, she often used potassium chloride or insulin because both are also present in the body.

                No one really knows why Kristen was a murderer. There are three main reasons that could potentially be the reasons as to why she would want to kill her patients. One was that she wanted to dispose of her terminally ill patients who were being annoying. The second reason was she liked to create emergencies. The last reason would be because she wanted to spend more time with her lover. By getting rid of her patients that would make more time for her to leave work early and spend time with her secret lover. Although none of these reasons had anything to do with psychological problems, she has had incidents where she has gone crazy.

Kristen married her husband Robert and they eventually had two sons. Later on in her life Kristen met a man named Glenn who she had a secret affair with. Eventually she left her family to be with Glenn. One day when Glenn and Kristen were arguing, Kristen jumped at Glenn with a sharp knife and Glenn had never seen this side of Kristen before. So, it was proven that Kristen did have a side to her that no one really knew about. Throughout Kristen’s career of being a nurse, she would make secret plans to meet up with Glenn and sleep with him. Sometimes she would make plans earlier than when her shift actually ended…but why?

During Kristen Gilbert’s time at the hospital, she acquired the name ‘Angel of Death’ because she was involved in so many fatalities. In 1991 it was brought to the hospitals attention that there was 31 incidents in Kristen’s first two years at the hospital, in which 22 of them were discovered by Kristen, which is far more than any other nurse had discovered. As coincidental as it might be, there were 90 deaths between the years of 1994 and 1995, in which more than half of them (50) occurred during the shifts that Kristen was working. Another coincidence that occurred during her time at the hospital with that she activated the emergency alarm a total of 72 times, whereas all the other nurses put together was only 70. Ward C (the unit Kristen worked in) had encountered a total of 11 fires and Kristen had recovered 8 of them. She even stopped one of them herself and received an award for it…weird right?

                The first murder that Kristen committed was to a man named Jagodowski. He was 66, had high blood pressure, diabetes and was recovering from a leg amputation. Because his wife could no longer take care of him, she called the hospital when he needed to be admitted. At the hospital he was given an examination and not too long after, Kristen came in the room with a syringe in her hand and later, other nurses heard him yelling and crying that Kristen was killing him. The nurses did not know he even needed an injection, so it was very strange to them as to why Kristen felt he needed one.  After the nurses left the patient’s room he went into a sudden cardiac arrest, thankfully the nurses and doctors restarted his heart and he was transferred to intensive care, where he died just before midnight. Because it takes a few minutes for epinephrine to reach the heart, Kristen had enough time to flee the area in order to ensure no one would suspect her as the cause of his death. About three years after Jagodowski’s death, his remains were searched and it was found that he had very high levels of epinephrine. The epinephrine takes a couple minutes to reach the heart, which then causes a massive increase in activity. This explains why the patient screamed when he was injected with the chemical.

                The second murder the Kristen Gilbert committed was to a man named Henry Hudon. Henry was admitted to the hospital many times due to a fight that he was involved in, in 1986. During the fight he endured a strike to the face with a bottle, in which he was knocked out, smashed his front teeth, and had a detached retina of his right eye. After this fight he was in a coma for about three weeks until he woke up and had suffered brain damage. This brain damage eventually led to him being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Later, he also developed another condition known as tardive dysdiadochokinesis, which caused him to have severe, uncontrollable shaking. One day, Henry had an overdose on his medication, which eventually led to him becoming very ill and being admitted to the hospital. After being admitted, Kristen entered the room and gave him an injection of potassium chloride, instead of adrenaline because she wanted his heart to stop completely because she knew is heart was already weak. Along with the fact that epinephrine is not likely to kill a 35 year old man. ON December 8, 1995 Henry seemed to be better, but just thirty minutes after his checkup, his heart suddenly stopped and he was revived with epinephrine. This is another way we know that Kristen didn’t use epinephrine because he definitely would have died immediately if he had even higher levels of epinephrine than he already did. Henry ended up going into cardiac arrest four times before the doctors finally called it quits and declared his death at 9:30 that night.

                Although Kristen felt this drug was fool proof, there was an instance where her plan did not work. It was on a man named Thomas Callahan. There were no problems with his heart and his appetite was fine when he was admitted. When Kristen gave him an injection of epinephrine, his heart rate went up to 215 beats per minute and his blood pressure rose to 191/116. Surprisingly, Callahan did not suffer a heart attack and returned back to normal after only half an hour.

                In order to take the attention off of herself, Kristen disrupted the hospital by causing a bomb scare. Later on that year, Kristen went to Perrault’s (her secret lover) house and acted so irrationally that he ended up calling the police and she was then sent for psychiatric treatment. While there, she admitted to Perrault that she had killed some of her patients and he eventually obtained a restraining order from her. It was brought to the police that she had killed some of her patients with epinephrine and that there were many bottles of epinephrine missing or used from the hospital. Kristen was sent to her parents’ house to live while she was on psychiatric watch. While there, she made several attempts to kill herself, but was never successful. She was in and out of the hospital for the next couple of months, but when she was at her parents’ house, she made several threatening phone calls to Perrault, which she was eventually placed under arrest for. In the end of all the drama, Kristen was found guilty and was sentenced to four consecutive life terms, plus twenty years, all without parole. The big debate was that Kristen could have been executed and the only reason she didn’t appeal for a new trial was because of this possibility.

                The actual chemistry of adrenaline is a little more complicated than it is to actually use. It is “an activating life-saving chemical which the body produces in times of crisis.” It has a couple of different functions and ways of working. For example “it is secreted by the adrenal medulla. When released into the bloodstream, epinephrine binds to multiple receptors and has numerous effects throughout the body. It increases heart rate and stroke volume, dilates the pupils, and constricts arterioles in the skin and gut while dilating arterioles in leg muscle. It elevates the blood sugar level by increasing hydrolysis of glycogen to glucose in the liver, and at the same time begins the breakdown of lipids in fat cells (1).” Adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) is mostly used to help when someone is n cardiac arrest (1). But it is also used for different things depending on how much of it is used.0.01% is used to help restart the heart, whereas .001% is used in local anesthetics, such as dentistry. Adrenaline is usually activated by stress. It is usually used when the body is decided if it wants to take flight or stand and fight.

                Adrenaline was first discovered in 1856, showing that removing the tiny adrenal glands from the liver of an animal would quickly cause it to die. This led scientists to believe that there must have been something it that was needed for survival. That same year, another man discovered that whatever made it necessary for the animal to survive was from the adrenal glands to the blood.Epinephrine is used as injection in much simpler ways, such as when using an Epipen. Epipen's are used when someone is having an allergic reaction. Along with being used for an allergic reaction, it can also be used for an asthma attack.

While epinephrine is a natural chemical, it is also toxic and has an LD50 of 4 mg per kg of body weight. Normally epinephrine is an antidote, but it can also kill if used on a frail heart, given to much, or used incorrectly in general. Epinephrine’s main job is to suppress the immune system. When it is injected into the body, its job is to be able to start the heart and shift bodily processes up a gear. Adrenaline constricts blood vessels in the skin, while dilating muscles and the liver. Also, adrenaline dilates the pupils and expands vision. It is a neurotransmitter and its chemical formula is C9H13NO3.

Some side effects of using small doses of epinephrine are sweating; nausea and vomiting; pale skin; feeling short of breath; dizziness; weakness or tremors; headache; or feeling nervous or anxious (2). If epinephrine is used incorrectly, like the way Kristen used it, it can speed up a person’s heart rate and raise their blood pressure, which eventually leads to cardiac arrest, or even worse, death (2).

1. http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemis/Adrenaline#Epinephrine_versus_adrenaline

2. http://www.drugs.com/mtm/epinephrine-injection.html

3. All other information used in this paper is from the Molecules of Murder book

Chapter 3: Atropine and Mrs. Agutter's Gin and Tonic

                This murder mystery was straight out of the classic blackmail mysteries. A man (Mr. Agutter) tried to kill his wife by placing atropine in her gin and tonic. He told his wife that the bitter taste was just part of the drink. Coincidentally, there was a psychopath, at the time, who had been “spiking the shelves of an Edinburgh supermarket.” Mr. Agutter was a biologist that had worked with atropine before so he knew the qualities of the poison that it took to kill a human. He knew how much it took to kill a person, but also how much to add to the drink in order to disguise his murderous plan. He also knew that he did not want to kill right away, so he only added enough atropine to the drink in order to make them very ill.

                There were many thoughts going through Mr. Agutter’s mind at the time. In the summer of 1994, he had reported that he was so depressed that he was thinking about taking his only life. Along with these depressing feelings, he also had major financial problems in his marriage as well as being part of an affair with a much younger woman than his wife. This woman wanted Mr. Agutter to leave his wife and live with her. This younger woman’s name was Carole Bonsall. Mr. Agutter wanted to be with her, but he couldn’t divorce his wife because they were in such financial debt that if he did he would be left with no home and very little income. The only other option in Mr. Agutter’s eyes was to remove his wife from the picture.

                This psychopath that was mentioned earlier was a fake. He didn’t exist. The only way for Mr. Agutter to get away with this murder was to either find someone to blame the murder on or to make someone up, you tell me which one is easier. Obviously no one would take the blame for murder for someone, so he went with the second choice. In order to make his wife’s death look random and accidental, he “spiked several other one-liter bottles of tonic water with atropine and replaced them on the shelves of the safeway supermarket.”

                On August 28, Mr. Agutter poured his wife the drink containing atropine. His plan would have went over smoothly, but there was a problem, his wife did not drink all of the drink. Mr. Agutter must have put a specific amount of atropine into the drink in order to ensure the outcome of his wife. Because the drink was so sour and bitter, she could not finish it all. Although even the amount she drank was enough to kill her, it did not happen instantly. She collapsed to the floor soon after she drank the drink, she felt dizzy after trying to stand up, as well as having weird hallucinations. In order to show that he really did try to save his wife’s life, he called a local doctor and left and urgent message, not thinking that anyone would receive the message. He was very wrong and the locum practitioner on duty that night got the message and called an ambulance immediately. Mrs. Agutter was rushed to the hospital where her life was saved.

                Later, there was an investigation of the Agutter’s house. You would think a murderer would be smart enough to get rid of all the evidence of a murder, but not this one. This one failed to dispose of the evidence in his own home. There was more atropine in his wife’s drink than there had been in all the other drinks that had been consumed from the supermarket. Later Mr. Agutter was found guilty and he was sentenced to twelve years in jail. Mr. Agutter tried to appeal this sentence, by saying the evidence was “entirely circumstantial and that the forensic samples had been mishandled by the police.” Neither of these worked on any of the three judges and the sentencing was to be put forward immediately. While in jail, Mr. Agutter devoted his time to teaching his inmates how to read and he worked in the jail’s library.  In 1998, Mrs. Agutter was granted a divorce, but when he was released from jail in 2002, or almost released, he called his former wife to tell her that he was innocent and was coming back to live with her. Because this obviously didn’t happen, he went back to live with his parents and got a new teaching job. He taught philosophy and medical ethics. How appropriate considering he knew exactly what he was talking about.

               

                Atropine is “a mixture of two chiral molecules and is chemically DL-hyoscyamine.” It is also part of the alkaloid group (3). It is a white powder-like substance that was isolated in 1833 by two German chemists. They discovered the poison by extracting it from berries of the deadly nightshade and its leaves. The deadly nightshade is also known as Atropa Belladonna, which is a native of woodland and waste areas. It is still grown today in France for sedatives, stimulants and antispasmodics. A single berry of deadly nightshade contains enough atropine to kill a young child. Although this is true, it is also possible for a human to survive small amount of the poison. Along with killing people, atropine has other different effects on the body. For example, by putting a few drops into the eye, you can produce a fashionable doe-eyed appearance. Just one time use of this is enough to last up to several days. Often these treatments can lead to damage and even blindness if used too often. In different areas of the world, atropine had different uses. In Morocco it was an aphrodisiac, in the Nepal it was a sedative, whereas in the Middle East it was believe to “reinforce the effects of marijuana.” “Atropine, a naturally occurring belladonna alkaloid, is a racemic mixture of equal parts of d- and 1-hyocyamine, whose activity is due almost entirely to the levo isomer of the drug (2).”

                In the United States, there are around 500 cases of accidental atropine poisons a year. These accidental poisons are rarely ever severe enough to lead to being admitted to the hospital. Atropine is not very soluble in water, but its solubility can be improved by reacting it with sulfuric acid to form atropine sulfate. This was another downfall that I believe Mr. Agutter failed to realize when trying to murder is wife. There are many symptoms that come from atropine poisoning. Some of these symptoms include: an increase in body temperature (stays high for at least eight hours), dilated pupils (you can barely see anything), dryness of the mouth, thirst, difficulty swallowing, dilation of the blood vessels (led people to believe atropine poisoning was scarlet fever), rambling speech and dizziness. Other symptoms include “increases heart rate, dries nasal and oral mucosa, as well as other secretions throughout the body, including preventing perspiration, dilates pupils and increases intraocular pressure, slows the movement of food through the gastrointestinal tract, constricts smooth muscle around the urethra, causes hallucinations (1).” Symptoms of atropine start to come into effect after only 15 minutes. It works almost instantaneously when injected into the body. In the body, atropine only lasts about two hours, but it can take up to three or four days to be completely out of the system.

                In small amounts, atropine works by inhabiting the glands that produce saliva, tears, phlegm, and sweat. Whereas in large amounts it can affect the eyes, it can even cause the eye muscle to become paralyzed. Atropine can be absorbed through open wounds, but not through the skin.

                There are many treatments that come with atropine that help with most of the symptoms that come with the poison. In order to start detecting the toxin, you would first start to pump out the contents of the stomach and flushing it with huge amounts of water. When admitted, the patients are given injections of physostigmine almost immediately. Physostigmine stimulates the receptors that were once turned off by atropine.

                Atropine is also used as an antidote. It has been used for spasms caused by Parkinsonism. It can potentially walking, sitting and the speech of those affected. Pysostigmine causes the heart to slow and the stomach to contract, but its effects can be counteracted by atropine. Atropine involves a molecule known as ACh in order to be considered an antidote. Also, atropine blocks the receptors, which ACh is targeting. Atropine has also been used in war zones for soldiers. Soldiers are issued with shots that contain atropine in them. They would only take these shots if they encounter a nerve gas attack. As an antidote, atropiine has often been replaced by epinephrine when it comes to curing, or helping bronchial asthma (3).

                Along with the almost murder of Alexandra Agutter, there was also a murder that was successfully done by Dr. Robert Buchanan in 1892 by using morphine and atropine. During the autopsy of Anna Buchan, they found about five grains (300 mg) of morphine in her body. The pinpoint pupils that Anna had were a definite giveaway that Anna was murdered. If only Robert had put in belladonna drops before she died, he probably would have gotten away with her murder.

1. http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showwiki.php?title=Atropine

2. http://www.rxlist.com/atropine-drug.htm

3. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/42015/atropine

4. All other information used in the paper is from the Molecules of Murder book