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
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