Criminal Poisoning: Investigational Guide for Law Enforcement, Toxicologists, Forensic Scientists, and Attorneys (4 page)

It has even been speculated by some scholars that the Indian practice of “
suttee,
” in which the living widow was burned along with the corpse of her late husband, might have had some basis in attempting to discourage conjugal homicide (Meek, 1928, p. 1).

1.1.6. Nicander of Colophon

Nicander (204–135 BC), a physician, compiled the first poison pharmacopoeia while serving as personal attendant to Attalus III, the king of Pergamum, Greece. His favorite antidote consisted of viper parts seasoned with aromatic herbs and fruits (consisting mostly of ginger, cinnamon, myrrh, iris, and gentian). This antidote probably has no toxicological basis for its 4

Criminal Poisoning

effectiveness by today’s standards. He also wrote two poems on poisons:
Theriaca,
consisting of 1000 lines dealing with poisonous animals, plants, and remedies, and
Alexipharmaca,
consisting of 600 lines dealing with poisons in general (8 animal and 11 plant), along with the subject of cures and antidotes.

1.1.7. Philon of Tarsus

Philon was a physician who developed one of the most long-lived antidotal potions for poisoning, which was called the “Philonium Romanorum.”

This antidotal concoction consisted of multiple herbs (spikenard, henbane, pyrethrum, euphorbia, and saffron). Once again, it had no toxicological basis for its effectiveness by today’s standards.

1.1.8. Mithridates

Mithridates, king of Pontus (in modern Turkey), lived from 132 to 63 BC

and had the reputation of knowing more about poisons and their proper antidotes than any other person of his time. He was very concerned with the possibility of being assassinated by poison, so he experimented with poisons and antidotes on himself as well as captured prisoners. He developed a so-called universal antidote, which was called “Mithridatum” in his honor. This antidote remained so popular in the minds of the people that it was still available in Italian pharmacies up through the 17th century. Once again, considering the ingredients of this mixture with today’s toxicological knowledge, it is obvious that little protection could be obtained from Mithridates’ antidote.

1.1.9. The Greeks

The Greeks gave us the word
toxicon
, used to denote poison, from their word “
toxon,”
signifying a bow, which in warfare was used to shoot poisoned arrows at the enemy. From this Greek word come all of the words in use today to denote poison:
toxicology
,
toxic
,
intoxicated
, and so on. However, the word “intoxicated” today does not have the same meaning as it did in ancient Greece. If one were to ask an ancient Greek what it means to be intoxicated, that person would describe a physical condition resulting from being poisoned by an arrow.

Medea, a sorceress and the priestess of Hecate in Greek mythology, was credited as the first to use the plant known as “Meadow Saffron” (
Colchicum autumnale L.
) as a poison. Today, we know that this plant contains the very potent poison colchicine, used in modern medicine as a remedy for gout. In the classic literary work of the Greek Homer’s
Odyssey
, one finds a discussion of one of the first great sorceresses, Circe, who used poisons and potions to subdue men to her ways.

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5

The most famous of the Greek poisoners was Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedon and the mother of Alexander the Great. She was involved in the deaths of Aridaeus, his wife Eurydice, Nicanor, and many other prominent men of Macedonia.

The Greeks also developed what was known as the “Athenian State Poison,” concocted from the very poisonous plant more commonly known today as poison hemlock (
Conium maculatum
L.). This very toxic plant containing the poison coniine, was reportedly used to execute the philosopher Socrates for his crime of corrupting the youth of Athens with his philo-sophical teachings.

Aristotle, in his writings of the period, described the preparation and use of arrow poisons by the Scythians, in which they allowed the bodies of snakes to decay and combined the exuding liquid with the clear fluid from decomposing blood. This mixture was then applied to arrows for use in battles. The greatest danger from this material was likely owing to septicemia (blood poisoning) from bacterial invasion.

It is interesting to note that a review of the writings of the famous Greek physician Hippocrates reveals no information on criminal poisoning. He did, however, make his students swear that they would not traffic in poisons in their practice of the medical arts.

During the Greek period, the Court of Areopagus was assigned the function of dealing with trials for poisoning cases.

The physician Galen (129–ca. 199 AD) compounded an antidote called “Nut Theriac,” which was to be used as a remedy for bites, stings, and other poisons. This antidote consisted of plant parts and salt, mixed into porridge.

1.1.10. The Romans

The ancient Romans documented the grand-scale use of poisons for homicidal purposes. As early as 131 BC, according to the writer Livy, there was an outbreak of homicidal poisoning in high circles of Roman society. One of the most infamous poisoners of the time was a woman named Locusta, who was the personal poisoner for Emperor Nero. With her assistance and advice, Nero murdered his brother Britanicus with cyanide containing natural compounds, and he also murdered his mother and several wives. Livia, who was the wife of Emperor Augustus, used the belladonna plant (
Atropa belladonna
) as a homicidal weapon. Agrippina, the wife of Claudius, killed him by injecting poisons into figs he then ate. Eventually 170 Roman women were convicted and punished for their homicidal poisoning activities.

So prevalent was the use of the wolfsbane plant (
Aconitum napellus L
.), with its highly toxic alkaloid aconitine, that the emperor Trajan (98–117 AD) 6

Criminal Poisoning

eventually banned the growing of this plant in all Roman domestic gardens.

In fact, the writer Ovid referred to aconite as the “stepmother’s poison.”

In the work
Metamorphoses,
by Ovid, one finds this description of this perilous time in Roman history:

“Guest was not safe from host, nor father-in-law from son-in-law; even among brothers it was rare to find affection. The husband longed for the death of his wife, she of her husband; and murderous stepmothers brewed deadly poisons, and sons inquired into their fathers’ years before the time.”

In 82 BC, the ruler Sulla issued an edict known as “Lex Cornelia” against assassination by poison. This edict was the first legislative enactment in history against the use of poison as a means of homicide.

1.1.11. The “Italian School of Poisoners”

Deep within the psyche of the Italians of the Middle Ages existed the knowledge and will to use poisons to obtain wealth and power. In the year 1419, members of a group known as the Venetian “Council of Ten” carried out murder by poison for a fee. Three of their recipes for poison weapons are preserved as the “secreta secretissima,” in archives dating from 1540 to 1544 AD.

Chief ingredients included corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride), white arsenic (arsenic trioxide), arsenic trisulfide, and arsenic trichloride. In Venice and Rome, in the 15th to 17th centuries, there were schools for students who wished to become poisoners.

The name Borgia is the first that comes to mind regarding this location and period of time. The leader of this poisoning clan was one Rodrigo Borgia, born in 1431, who went on to become Pope Alexander VI. Among his five children were Cesare and Lucrezia, whom most people associate with murder-by-poison plots. In fact, Lucrezia, who died at the age of 39, probably never killed anyone. However, her brother Cesare, who died at the age of 32, was responsible for the murders of dozens of people in which poison was used as the instrument. The poison most frequently used by the Borgias was arsenic, which they used in the form of a poison that they called “La Cantrella,”

a mixture of arsenic and phosphorus. It is believed that their weapon was prepared as follows:

“A hog was killed with arsenic. Its abdomen was opened and sprinkled with more of the same drug. The animal was then allowed to putrefy. The liquor which trickled from the decaying carcass was collected and evaporated to a powder.” (Meek, 1928, p. 7)

With the secret popularity of a piece of jewelry known as a poison ring, certainly no one aware of the Borgia’s knowledge of poisons would want to Poisoners Throughout History

7

take dinner with them without some consternation about the possible consequences.

Around 1650 another famous Italian poisoner of the era, Madame Giulia Toffana, produced and sold a mixture to would-be users called “Aqua Toffana,”

thought to have been a solution of arsenic trioxide. She was credited with more than 600 successful poisonings and admitted to being involved in the poisoning of two popes, Pius III and Clement IV.

In 1659, the poisoner Hieronyma Spara formed a society in which she taught women how to murder their husbands by means of poisons. She dispensed her poison in small vials labeled “Manna of St. Nicholas of Bari.”

Catherine de Medici, who became the bride of the French King Henry II, was credited with carrying the Italian knowledge about poisons and methods of poisoning into France, by means of her accomplices, the Florentines Rene Bianco and Cosme Ruggieri. In fact, the king was so afraid of her poisoning powers and abilities that a “unicorn’s horn” (most likely the tusk of a marine mammal called the narwhal), then thought to be an antidote against poisons, became part of the official regal dowry. Catherine is usually also credited with being involved in the homicidal poisonings of Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre; the Cardinal of Lorraine; Coffe, a marshal of France; and the Duc d’Anjou.

1.1.12. The “French School of Poisoners”

The most notorious maker of poisons in the 17th century was a man named Antonio Exili (a.k.a. Nicolo Eggidio), who was a professional poisoner once in the employment of Queen Christina of Sweden. During his imprisonment in the Bastille, he taught his skills to a fellow prisoner named Jean-Baptiste de Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. On release from prison, Sainte-Croix teamed up with a very greedy woman by the name of Marie-Madeleine d’Aubray, the Marquise de Brinvilliers. They soon experimented with many poisonous compounds, such as arsenic, sugar of lead, corrosive sublimate, tartar emetic, and copper sulfate. In fact, the marchioness even took their formulations into the hospitals of the time and mixed them in gifts of food and drink for the sick, in order to study the effectiveness of their poisonous weapons. To gain property and wealth, she allegedly murdered her father, two brothers, and a sister. Found guilty of these crimes, she was executed in 1676, at the Place de Grève, in Paris.

Another of the French poisoners was Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin (a.k.a. La Voisin) (1640–1680), who was an abortionist, and considered a sorceress of the time. She provided poisons to women so that they could do away with their spouses. One of her popular poisons was known as “La Poudre 8

Criminal Poisoning

de Succession” (inheritance powder). This poison was thought to have had a base of arsenic, mixed with aconite, belladonna, and opium. She was probably one of the last poisoners for hire. Deshayes accepted a sizeable commission to poison Louis XIV, but her efforts were unsuccessful, and she was found guilty of the attempt on the king’s life. Her punishment, after severe torture, was that she be burned at the stake.

From 1679 to 1680, there occurred in France what came to be known as the “Affair of the Poisons,” which involved numerous high-society murders.

An investigative organization known as “La Chambre Ardente” (The Fiery Room), operating in France (1679–1682) under the reign of Louis XIV, was formed to deal with murder suspects during this rein of criminal poisonings.

During the Chambre’s operation, it investigated 442 persons and ordered 367

arrests. Of those individuals investigated, 36 were executed, 23 banished, and 218 imprisoned. It was, in effect, a poisoner’s “Inquisition.”

Through the ages, many other poisoners operated around the world, in various countries:

•

In 1596, Edward Squires was hired by Spain to poison Queen Elizabeth I by smearing an opium-based poison on the pommel of her horse saddle.

•

In 1613, the Countess of Somerset was found guilty of utilizing “corrosive sublimate” (mercuric chloride) in a mass conspiracy to murder Sir Thomas Overbury while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

•

In 1776, Thomas Hickey attempted to assassinate George Washington by poisoning a dish of green peas. Foiled in his attempt, he was hanged, becoming the first American executed for treason.

1.2. POISONERS IN THE MODERN ERA

Before 1800, most poisonings were confined to the very wealthy, as a means of speeding the departure of an individual who stood in the way of an offender obtaining an inheritance or power. But, beginning in 1830, with the development of the life insurance industry and “burial clubs” for the lower classes, there was now a monetary value on the life of common individuals.

Then, it was killing for a one-time monetary reward (Watson, 2004).

We should not fool ourselves into thinking that poisoners operated only in the past, because they have continued their nefarious crimes into the present day. What follows are brief vignettes of some infamous poisoners that have, fortunately, been caught in their evil deeds, and we can learn a great deal from their cases. I have selected these cases, arranged in chronological order, from my collection of incidents of homicidal poisonings that have revealed various important facets of this type of crime.

Poisoners Throughout History

9

1.2.1. William Palmer, MD, “The Rugeley Poisoner” (1855)

In 1855, Dr. William Palmer, of Rugeley, Staffordshire, was a physician with a gambling problem. Motivated by the gain of easy money, he poisoned a fellow horse-racing gambler named John Parsons Cook. Palmer’s poison of choice was the heavy metallic element antimony. Ultimately uncovered in his crime, he was forced to stand trial. Interestingly enough, a change in venue was deemed necessary, in order to obtain a more fair trial, so the trial was moved from the small town of Rugeley to London. (The legislative action for this move is still called the Palmer Act in England.) Dr. Palmer was convicted, and it is very possible that he was involved in as many as 14 other murders. As the crowd hissed “poisoner!” he was hanged for his crime on June 14, 1856 (Lewis, 2003).