Word: thallium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...book was The Pale Horse, a vintage Christie whodunit (1961) in which the villain plots to kill some factory workers with thallium, a tasteless, soluble and highly toxic substance that had never before been used on humans as a poison in Britain. The "fellow" was Graham Frederick Young, 24, who did precisely what Dame Agatha predicted could be done. Last month he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering two of his fellow workers at a small photographic-equipment factory in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, by dosing their tea and coffee with thallium...
...suspicious owner of the plant alerted local police and, in due course, Young's shabby digs in Hertfordshire were searched. There police found "enough thallium to keep a pharmacy in business for an entire month." Phials and bottles of the stuff, along with containers of other poisons, stood in neat rows on his windowsill. As it turned out, Young was such a master of poisons that he knew exactly what dosage to administer to each of his victims in order to slow their dying and disguise the cause. He even kept a diary detailing his "experiments" on workmates...
...Young was sentenced to 15 years in the maximum-security Broadmoor mental hospital for having attempted to poison a classmate, his father and his sister. His stepmother died shortly after his confinement. Young admitted during the trial last month that she was the first person he had poisoned with thallium...
...dead. Such incidents have become increasingly common as sheep growers and federal agents have used more and more poisons to kill predators. In some areas, foxes, weasels, eagles and a number of other species have virtually disappeared. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency has banned 19 products containing cyanide, thallium sulfate, strychnine and sodium monofluoracetate. These poisons, said Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus, "represent a hazard to the public welfare through the indiscriminate destruction of our valuable wildlife resources...
...significant numbers as resident birds. Colorado has already lost its resident bald eagles." Besides the aerial sluicing, at least a hundred eagles have died in Wyoming in recent years by electrocution on power lines. Another score was killed last May when Rancher Van Irvine baited antelope carcasses with thallium sulfate, ostensibly to kill coyotes, a violation of state fish and game regulations for which he paid $679 in fines last month...