1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:04,920 Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. 2 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,639 Speaker 2: So poisoners are wonderfully devious chemical compounds. 3 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:13,040 Speaker 3: They trick our bodies. 4 00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:17,160 Speaker 2: If you take an element like radium, it's structurally like calcium, 5 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:20,880 Speaker 2: so it literally the body takes radium and sends it 6 00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:23,560 Speaker 2: to the bones where it reaks all kinds of harm 7 00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:26,159 Speaker 2: because it looks to the body like calcium. That was 8 00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:28,480 Speaker 2: really what I was thinking about when I first. 9 00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:29,840 Speaker 3: Started thinking about this book. 10 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:35,120 Speaker 2: The deviousness of chemical compounds matched by the deviousness of poisons. 11 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:41,839 Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 12 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:44,560 Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical 13 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:48,280 Speaker 1: true crime podcast Tenfold War Wicked On Exactly Right. I've 14 00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:51,280 Speaker 1: traveled around the world interviewing people for the show. I've 15 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:53,920 Speaker 1: interviewed some people in person and some from my home 16 00:00:53,960 --> 00:00:57,880 Speaker 1: studio over zoom, and they are all excellent writers. They've 17 00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:00,800 Speaker 1: had so many great true crime stories, and now we 18 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:03,720 Speaker 1: want to tell you those stories with details that have 19 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:07,399 Speaker 1: never been published. Wicked Words is about the choices that 20 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:09,320 Speaker 1: writers make, good and bad. 21 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:11,040 Speaker 3: It's a deep dive into. 22 00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:17,679 Speaker 1: The stories behind the stories Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer 23 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:20,800 Speaker 1: Prize winning journalist and she's written a wonderful book called 24 00:01:20,959 --> 00:01:23,479 Speaker 1: The Poisoner's Handbook. I read it when I was doing 25 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:27,120 Speaker 1: research for my true crime book American Sherlock. Because she 26 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:32,200 Speaker 1: is an expert at fusing narrative journalism with science with murder. 27 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:35,960 Speaker 1: Deborah is the director of the Night Science Journalism Program 28 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,959 Speaker 1: at MIT. We start with the story of how she 29 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,959 Speaker 1: became a science writer, and it's hilarious. 30 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:47,360 Speaker 2: I started out in college as a chemistry major. Discovered 31 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:49,760 Speaker 2: very quickly that I didn't have the kind of attention 32 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:52,160 Speaker 2: span that you need to be safe in a. 33 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:54,080 Speaker 3: Laboratory to yourself or others. 34 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:57,840 Speaker 2: So my freshman year I was at Florida State, I 35 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:02,360 Speaker 2: generated a toxic cloud to evacuate the laboratory, and then 36 00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:06,320 Speaker 2: I set my hair on fire. I had after that. 37 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,720 Speaker 2: I mean, I literally thought to myself, I'm not going 38 00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:11,519 Speaker 2: to survive this profession. 39 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:13,240 Speaker 3: And I went into. 40 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:16,560 Speaker 2: Journalism because I like to know how things work. So 41 00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:20,240 Speaker 2: over the years, I would say to my book agent, 42 00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:23,559 Speaker 2: I want to do a book in which poisons are characters. 43 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:27,160 Speaker 2: And that was really the start of this book, because 44 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:30,520 Speaker 2: to me, poisons are really fascinating, and we live in 45 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:34,880 Speaker 2: a chemical world. I'm sitting here inhaling chemicals as we speak, 46 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:39,480 Speaker 2: you're drinking chemicals, and neither of us are healing over 47 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:44,919 Speaker 2: because most chemicals are not harmful, and so poisons have 48 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:49,080 Speaker 2: to be really devious chemical compounds. They trick our bodies. 49 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:51,440 Speaker 2: To be a poisoner, you have to plan ahead. You 50 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:54,000 Speaker 2: can't be an impulse poisoner, do You can't say I'm 51 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:56,520 Speaker 2: super mad at you, or I really want your fortune, 52 00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:59,040 Speaker 2: and so I'm just going to rush over and research 53 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:01,800 Speaker 2: the best possible and get back to you later. 54 00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:04,320 Speaker 1: They're premeditated, yes, I mean it. 55 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:09,080 Speaker 2: Of all weapons, poisons are always premeditated. You could lose 56 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:12,400 Speaker 2: your temper with a gun. You can be fearful with 57 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:16,240 Speaker 2: a brick, right, But you have to think. 58 00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:17,400 Speaker 3: I had in plan if. 59 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:19,359 Speaker 2: You're going to be a poisoner. I knew it was 60 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:21,639 Speaker 2: going to be a history. I knew poisons were going 61 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,440 Speaker 2: to be characters. But I needed someone who was going 62 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:25,400 Speaker 2: to carry the story. 63 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:27,200 Speaker 3: And I really think. 64 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:31,120 Speaker 2: Because I was so panicked, I found Charles Norris and 65 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:35,320 Speaker 2: Alexander Getler. Charles Norris was the first medical examiner of 66 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:38,080 Speaker 2: New York City and he came in in nineteen eighteen. 67 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:39,760 Speaker 3: One of his first. 68 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:44,880 Speaker 2: Hires was Alexander Getler, who was literally the first toxicologist 69 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:47,640 Speaker 2: ever attached to an American city. So they were like 70 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:52,160 Speaker 2: inventing forensic science at this moment, and they had disappeared, 71 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,480 Speaker 2: and so I went on this insane hunt to find 72 00:03:56,600 --> 00:04:01,320 Speaker 2: these guys. I went to the New York City Archives 73 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:04,240 Speaker 2: where they had archived the letters of the City Medical 74 00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:05,720 Speaker 2: Examiner's Office. 75 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:07,120 Speaker 3: In this one period. 76 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:10,480 Speaker 2: The Poisonous Handbook spans a period from about nineteen eighteen 77 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:14,320 Speaker 2: to nineteen thirty five, right through the jazz age and 78 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:18,039 Speaker 2: Prohibition and the craziness of the twenties, and that was 79 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:19,719 Speaker 2: where they had archived these letters. 80 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:21,719 Speaker 3: And it's like putting together a mosaic. 81 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,840 Speaker 2: And I knew also, in addition to you know, doing 82 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:29,839 Speaker 2: the chemistry work and the toxicology work and finding Getler 83 00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:32,800 Speaker 2: and Norris and clues to who they were, I wanted 84 00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,440 Speaker 2: to make it a period piece. I wanted people to 85 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:37,880 Speaker 2: feel like they were in that period. So I was 86 00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:42,159 Speaker 2: also looking in the newspapers and magazines of the time 87 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:45,560 Speaker 2: for portraits of the time. And then the last thing 88 00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:50,240 Speaker 2: I did is I hunted down the descendants of Alexander Getler. 89 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:50,520 Speaker 1: Good for you. 90 00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:52,640 Speaker 3: And they had. 91 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:56,360 Speaker 2: All of these old journals and letters and different pictures 92 00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:59,800 Speaker 2: in a closet and when we came down and met 93 00:04:59,880 --> 00:05:02,440 Speaker 2: me at my hotel in New York City and let 94 00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:06,680 Speaker 2: me borrow these things. And so throughout Poisonous Hambook, the 95 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:11,840 Speaker 2: arc of Poisonous Hambook is these two underpaid civil servants. 96 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:14,279 Speaker 2: But these guys are on this quest to try to 97 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:18,680 Speaker 2: figure out how to catch killers, and at this particular 98 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:19,680 Speaker 2: period in time. 99 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:21,480 Speaker 3: I mean, I really believe. 100 00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:24,640 Speaker 2: That people today when they're watching all these you know, 101 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:28,800 Speaker 2: Bones and CSI and all of these other shows, they 102 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,839 Speaker 2: don't realize how recent forensic science is. That we're really 103 00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:36,880 Speaker 2: talking about the nineteen thirties before some of the pieces 104 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:40,359 Speaker 2: start coming together, right, So these guys are building them 105 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 2: and that became really fascinating to. 106 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:46,160 Speaker 1: Me too well. And I think it's wonderfully told because 107 00:05:46,200 --> 00:05:48,080 Speaker 1: you do feel like the poisons or characters, we learn 108 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:49,760 Speaker 1: a little bit about the history, we learn where we 109 00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:53,159 Speaker 1: are in time. Your book coincidentally covers basically the same 110 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:55,839 Speaker 1: years my book was, nineteen twenty to nineteen thirty three. 111 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:58,839 Speaker 1: It is a fantastic time period to go through prohibition 112 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:01,680 Speaker 1: to the Roaring twenties, the depression, and see how it 113 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:04,839 Speaker 1: affects your character. I want to start with who is 114 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:05,719 Speaker 1: the poisoner. 115 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:09,160 Speaker 2: There's an idea that most poisoners are women, which is 116 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:13,480 Speaker 2: numerically not true. And if you look at FBI statistics today, 117 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:17,120 Speaker 2: what you'll find is numerically more poisoners are men. But 118 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:22,480 Speaker 2: that's because men account for about ninety odd percent of assaults, 119 00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:25,720 Speaker 2: so by numbers, there's so many more of them that 120 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:29,080 Speaker 2: numerically more poisoners are meant, if you look at recent 121 00:06:29,200 --> 00:06:32,159 Speaker 2: FBI statistics, women are seven times as. 122 00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:35,640 Speaker 3: Likely to choose poison. Yes, of course, So why is that? 123 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:39,400 Speaker 2: Because it's a non confrontational method of dealing with an enemy. 124 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:42,279 Speaker 2: You can do it, you can step away. You are 125 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:45,640 Speaker 2: going to know that you're going to be doing physical 126 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:48,760 Speaker 2: harm depending I mean, you're killing the person. But some 127 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:53,320 Speaker 2: poisons are acutely painful, and so when you're picking that poison, 128 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:55,960 Speaker 2: you're picking it partly in a vindictive way. 129 00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:58,880 Speaker 3: And so our sex almosto super available. 130 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:01,840 Speaker 1: I mean, didn't they use it for rats? 131 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:05,520 Speaker 2: That rough on rats was a famous rat poison, right, 132 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:06,240 Speaker 2: oh wow? 133 00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:07,280 Speaker 3: And it was also. 134 00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:10,920 Speaker 2: Used in cosmetics, especially in the late nineteenth century to 135 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:12,560 Speaker 2: purify your complexion. 136 00:07:13,080 --> 00:07:15,640 Speaker 3: I love, personally love arsenic as a poison. 137 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:19,640 Speaker 2: It was ruined by science because it was the first 138 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:22,920 Speaker 2: homicidal poison to become detectable in a body, and that 139 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,480 Speaker 2: was in the nineteenth century, but even in the twentieth 140 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:28,320 Speaker 2: century it was widely available. So here's what makes a 141 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:32,720 Speaker 2: great homicidal poison. Arsenic is perfect. It's odorless and tasteless. 142 00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:36,400 Speaker 2: You can put it in anything. When toxicologists first started 143 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:39,160 Speaker 2: looking at arsenic, they would taste test tiny amounts of 144 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:41,880 Speaker 2: it and things like vanilla pudding and they couldn't taste it. 145 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,600 Speaker 2: So it's perfect for whatever you want to serve it 146 00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,960 Speaker 2: up in. It's a broad spectrum poison that mimics the 147 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:52,960 Speaker 2: symptoms of a natural illness. So even when we know 148 00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:56,560 Speaker 2: how to detect arsenic, we don't always suspect it. People 149 00:07:56,640 --> 00:08:00,200 Speaker 2: got a sore throat, people got an upset stomach. If 150 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:03,800 Speaker 2: you just gave arsenic and doses over several. 151 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:06,440 Speaker 3: Times, we got sick. It looked like a natural illness. 152 00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:10,680 Speaker 2: Gastrowin and to writis and so people were still It 153 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:12,520 Speaker 2: was kind of crazy to me. I hate to see 154 00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:16,240 Speaker 2: how many people were using arsenate at that time period. 155 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:18,800 Speaker 3: Because they could get away with it. 156 00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:21,880 Speaker 2: When you look at some of the most famous mass 157 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:25,600 Speaker 2: murderers and our history who are poison killers, it's almost 158 00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:29,080 Speaker 2: always arsenic. And in the nineteenth century its nickname was 159 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:34,079 Speaker 2: the inheritance powder because it was so widely used. So 160 00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:38,000 Speaker 2: you have a city department in New York with this 161 00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:42,000 Speaker 2: one really brilliant obsessed chemist, I mean Geller used to 162 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:46,120 Speaker 2: go out and buy raw liver and inject things into 163 00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:48,480 Speaker 2: it just to see if the sales would disintegrate. 164 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:52,760 Speaker 1: When does arsenic fall out of favor. 165 00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:57,120 Speaker 2: Probably mid twentieth centuries when I stopped seeing it. Really, 166 00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:01,280 Speaker 2: I've looked at a lot of different poison and there's 167 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:05,880 Speaker 2: some really good arsenic poisons, probably into the nineteen fifties. 168 00:09:06,200 --> 00:09:09,480 Speaker 2: It's a entirely detectable poison. And the other thing about 169 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:12,120 Speaker 2: it is it doesn't go away. I mean arsenics a 170 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:15,040 Speaker 2: metaloid poison. It stays in the body the way lead 171 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:17,000 Speaker 2: would stay in the body, or you know, any of 172 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:21,400 Speaker 2: the metallic poisons, whereas plant alkaloids are much more volatile 173 00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:24,440 Speaker 2: and they don't stay that long. So you know, there's 174 00:09:24,679 --> 00:09:27,640 Speaker 2: there's sort of those kinds of issues involved. But the 175 00:09:27,679 --> 00:09:30,760 Speaker 2: other thing that happened is that the government started really 176 00:09:30,800 --> 00:09:34,520 Speaker 2: restricting access to it, So a lot of the poisons 177 00:09:34,559 --> 00:09:37,720 Speaker 2: that you could readily get, I mean, try to go 178 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:40,160 Speaker 2: down to your local pharmacy now and by arsenic. 179 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:43,640 Speaker 1: What is the current arsenic? What is used now that 180 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:45,800 Speaker 1: people get away with? Is it anti freeze? 181 00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:49,200 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. Anifries was kind of the 182 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:50,400 Speaker 2: arsenic of our time. 183 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:52,199 Speaker 1: It was very vogue for a while. 184 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:55,000 Speaker 3: Most manufacturers put a bittering agent in it, but. 185 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:57,319 Speaker 2: That wasn't because of the homicidal problem. 186 00:09:57,360 --> 00:09:58,480 Speaker 3: That was because of pets. 187 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:02,800 Speaker 2: So edifries is really sweet until they ruined it. 188 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:05,360 Speaker 3: But no, that's a good one. 189 00:10:05,840 --> 00:10:08,520 Speaker 2: Actually, people use and this is what I mean, people 190 00:10:08,559 --> 00:10:09,640 Speaker 2: use poisons at hand. 191 00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:11,000 Speaker 3: They'll use opioids. 192 00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:15,160 Speaker 2: They'll use eye drops, like you know they get the 193 00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:18,280 Speaker 2: red out eye drops. The way they do that is 194 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:21,839 Speaker 2: they shrink the blood vessels in your eye. They're veryso constricting. Well, 195 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:26,200 Speaker 2: if you're drinking something that's constricting your blood vessels, that's 196 00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:30,240 Speaker 2: really dangerous. And so people have used eye drops to 197 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,240 Speaker 2: try to kill people. There was a great case. I 198 00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:34,880 Speaker 2: can go on and on about this because I know 199 00:10:34,960 --> 00:10:36,560 Speaker 2: the way too much about it. But there was a 200 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:39,880 Speaker 2: really interesting case in Colorado in which a woman wanted 201 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:44,280 Speaker 2: to kill her husband and she grew fox glove in 202 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:48,920 Speaker 2: their garden. Okay, and fox glove contains digitalice, and so 203 00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:51,280 Speaker 2: she just picked the leaves and started tossing them in 204 00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:54,240 Speaker 2: his salads. So here's the other thing about being a 205 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:57,320 Speaker 2: smart poisoner. You have to get the dose right. People 206 00:10:57,360 --> 00:10:59,640 Speaker 2: screw this up all the time, and I have no 207 00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:02,840 Speaker 2: idea with the correct doses with leaves from a plant 208 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:07,160 Speaker 2: in a cell, likely for your husband, right, But he 209 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:09,400 Speaker 2: he ended up in the hospital and when they pumped 210 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:11,760 Speaker 2: his stomach, they were like, what are these weird leaves? 211 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:15,240 Speaker 2: And so she got caught. And this happens to people 212 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:15,960 Speaker 2: all the time too. 213 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:16,400 Speaker 3: Today. 214 00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:19,800 Speaker 2: You just want to cause trouble, You just want to 215 00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:24,360 Speaker 2: cause havoc. You just like the idea. And you know, 216 00:11:24,360 --> 00:11:27,480 Speaker 2: we were talking about anti freezer eye drops or back 217 00:11:27,520 --> 00:11:30,520 Speaker 2: in the day that I'm writing about, arsenic or cyanide 218 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:34,719 Speaker 2: was used in metal polishes, right, Mercury by chloride was. 219 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:36,040 Speaker 3: Used on bed bugs. 220 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:39,520 Speaker 2: You had this incredible array of really bad things that 221 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:40,680 Speaker 2: you could get your hand on. 222 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:43,200 Speaker 3: And that's true for all of us, and most of 223 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:43,800 Speaker 3: us don't. 224 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:47,880 Speaker 2: Most of us don't have it in ourselves to just 225 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:50,640 Speaker 2: plan and plot and use these weapons. 226 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:53,400 Speaker 3: We're not like that. Poisons are rare. They're more rare 227 00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:55,520 Speaker 3: now than they were though back in the day. 228 00:11:56,240 --> 00:11:59,920 Speaker 2: So I've seen crime statistics that suggest in the nineteen 229 00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:03,720 Speaker 2: century about a third of all homicides were poison and 230 00:12:03,760 --> 00:12:05,480 Speaker 2: today they're like one to two percent. 231 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:08,840 Speaker 1: Because people think they're detectable, they won't get away with it. 232 00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:09,640 Speaker 1: Is that what it is? 233 00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:13,199 Speaker 2: That's the fact that they think they're detectable. I mean, 234 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:16,480 Speaker 2: because because the poison wants to get away with it. 235 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:21,360 Speaker 2: People think there's some amazing undetectable poison. But that's not true. 236 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:24,120 Speaker 2: There really isn't. We can find almost any of them, 237 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:26,520 Speaker 2: but you have to run the test to look for it. 238 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:29,920 Speaker 1: Talk me through your best case, and I saw carbon 239 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:34,320 Speaker 1: monoxide makes an appearance and two parts. But pick whichever ones. 240 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:35,920 Speaker 1: I mean, we have plenty of time, so pick what 241 00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:38,920 Speaker 1: everyone's you can really dig into and kind of show 242 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:41,400 Speaker 1: off Norris and Gettler's skills the most. 243 00:12:41,640 --> 00:12:43,679 Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that would be really fun. 244 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:47,960 Speaker 2: So let me take carbon monoxide for a minute, because 245 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:52,560 Speaker 2: it makes a wonderful forensic arc and because I actually 246 00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:56,280 Speaker 2: also really like carbon monoxide because it's efficient. It's a 247 00:12:56,280 --> 00:12:58,480 Speaker 2: waste of time to have an inefficient poison. 248 00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:01,480 Speaker 3: You want one that works. Carbon Oxide is a really 249 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:02,520 Speaker 3: reliable poison. 250 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:06,400 Speaker 2: So in the nineteen twenties, electricity is flourishing and everyone 251 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:09,440 Speaker 2: has electric lighting, but in fact that was really for 252 00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:13,280 Speaker 2: people who had money. And so in the poorer neighborhoods 253 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,760 Speaker 2: of New York City, which is where this story is set, 254 00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:19,440 Speaker 2: they didn't have electricity. They were still using what was 255 00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:24,840 Speaker 2: called illuminating gas. You're the toxicologist, okay, and you're called 256 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:27,520 Speaker 2: to one of these poorer apartments. It's an n a 257 00:13:27,679 --> 00:13:31,360 Speaker 2: tenement building, blue collar working class in New York City, 258 00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:33,160 Speaker 2: and this one was on the Lower East. 259 00:13:32,920 --> 00:13:33,920 Speaker 3: Side of Manhattan. 260 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:38,400 Speaker 2: And you're called because there's been an accidental illuminating guest death. 261 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:41,680 Speaker 2: And at that time there were about one thoy to 262 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:45,680 Speaker 2: twelve hundred accidental illuminating guests deaths in New York City. 263 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:49,880 Speaker 2: An illuminating gas was a coal derived gas. It contained 264 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:55,480 Speaker 2: two primary guesses mixed together. One was hydrogen, so it 265 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:59,679 Speaker 2: was explosive. Then when you would get an accidental illuminating gas, 266 00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:02,280 Speaker 2: lead if you walked into your apartment and let a cigarette. 267 00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:03,280 Speaker 3: The apartment blew up. 268 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:06,360 Speaker 2: But the other thing that contains is carbon monoxide. And 269 00:14:06,440 --> 00:14:09,120 Speaker 2: so you had these two dangerous gases. You had hydrogen, 270 00:14:09,160 --> 00:14:13,280 Speaker 2: you had carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide naturally is also odorless 271 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:16,400 Speaker 2: and tasteless. It's just why it's still dangerous today, and 272 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,320 Speaker 2: we still get carbon monoxide deaths. 273 00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:22,040 Speaker 3: You know, people leave a car running or power. 274 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,960 Speaker 2: Goes out and they use a charcoal grill in their 275 00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:28,760 Speaker 2: living room for heat, and it's emitting carbon dioxide. 276 00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:29,680 Speaker 3: You can't smell it. 277 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:32,880 Speaker 2: So now they usually, like with your gas stove that 278 00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:35,400 Speaker 2: casts carbon monoxide in the natural gas, they put up 279 00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:36,160 Speaker 2: bittering agent. 280 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:37,520 Speaker 3: It's called chloropycrin. 281 00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:40,040 Speaker 2: So if your pilot light goes out and you smell gas, 282 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:43,080 Speaker 2: you're not smelling the carbon dioxide, you're smelling the chloropycrin. 283 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:45,920 Speaker 2: And they did that because of all these accidental illuminating 284 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:49,440 Speaker 2: guess deaths. So this guy decides that he's going to 285 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:52,720 Speaker 2: use that as a cover. So Geller gets called to 286 00:14:52,800 --> 00:14:57,080 Speaker 2: this poor apartment and it's clearly some kind of gas leak. 287 00:14:57,160 --> 00:15:00,280 Speaker 2: There's actually a gas fitting broken in the apartment, and 288 00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:03,720 Speaker 2: when he goes back into the bedroom, he looks and 289 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:06,720 Speaker 2: there's a young woman dead in the bed. The cops 290 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:09,200 Speaker 2: are opening the windows to air out the apartment. The 291 00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:12,040 Speaker 2: woman has clearly been dead for some time, because she's 292 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,040 Speaker 2: pale and cold and stiff, and he takes one look 293 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:17,480 Speaker 2: at the body and says, Nope, that's not an illuminating 294 00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:18,000 Speaker 2: guess step. 295 00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:20,240 Speaker 3: He doesn't even have to cross the room. 296 00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:23,960 Speaker 2: So I actually gave the clue to that when I 297 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:29,560 Speaker 2: was describing her, which is pale, because when carbon monoxide 298 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:33,240 Speaker 2: bonds with your bloodstream and muscles the oxygen out, it's 299 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:36,120 Speaker 2: about a two hundred times as strong a bond as oxygen. 300 00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:39,920 Speaker 3: House So even if you're in a room. 301 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:41,840 Speaker 2: That has oxygen and it's not going to go into 302 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:46,720 Speaker 2: your bloodstream, And so what happens as the carbon monoxide bonds, 303 00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:49,080 Speaker 2: it changes the color of your blood. And it's such 304 00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:52,000 Speaker 2: a strong bond it makes your blood this deep cherry pink. 305 00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:53,320 Speaker 3: And people will. 306 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:57,520 Speaker 2: Describe corpses from carbon monoxide deaths is looking very healthy. 307 00:15:57,600 --> 00:15:58,560 Speaker 3: They're flushed pink. 308 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,160 Speaker 2: And so when you see that body in the bed 309 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:04,120 Speaker 2: and she's pale, you know it can't be carbon monoxide 310 00:16:04,160 --> 00:16:06,560 Speaker 2: just by looking. So they took the body of this 311 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:09,200 Speaker 2: woman this is nineteen twenty three. Back to the more 312 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:12,360 Speaker 2: and they'd do a blood draw and sure enough, there's 313 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:15,040 Speaker 2: no carbon monoxide, particularly in the blood, but there is 314 00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:18,800 Speaker 2: another gas, which is carbon dioxide. So if you find 315 00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:22,520 Speaker 2: high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood, that's a 316 00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:26,160 Speaker 2: sign of exphyxiation or strangulation or suffocation. 317 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,080 Speaker 1: There weren't marks on her anywhere, no trauma. 318 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:32,480 Speaker 2: There were, and so when they realized that she had 319 00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:35,560 Speaker 2: this high level of carbon dioxide in her blood, that's 320 00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:38,600 Speaker 2: what they started looking for. And what they found was 321 00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:41,680 Speaker 2: under her hair up the back of the neck were 322 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:46,040 Speaker 2: the bruises made by her husband's fingers. He had suffocated 323 00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:48,480 Speaker 2: her and he'd put a pillow on and held it 324 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:50,440 Speaker 2: like with his fingers on the back of her neck, 325 00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:52,760 Speaker 2: and he had done it so hard. I actually have 326 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:56,520 Speaker 2: an autopsy sketch from nineteen twenty three where you can 327 00:16:56,520 --> 00:16:59,440 Speaker 2: see these lines radiating from the back. 328 00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:01,800 Speaker 3: Of her neck. That's abrasion, abrasion, abrasion. 329 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:05,359 Speaker 2: And so once they did that, they went back to 330 00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:08,040 Speaker 2: the husband and he confessed that he had killed her 331 00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:10,320 Speaker 2: and then broken the gas fitting and tried to fake 332 00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:11,480 Speaker 2: an illumining guest it. 333 00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:15,119 Speaker 3: And so that's a great piece of chemical detective work. 334 00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:16,640 Speaker 3: That crime is really. 335 00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:21,080 Speaker 2: Solved by knowing something about forensic toxicology, which is a 336 00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:26,080 Speaker 2: really great science, and then putting all the puzzle pieces 337 00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:30,960 Speaker 2: together and using that information. But Gilmer then sat around 338 00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:33,840 Speaker 2: for a while, you know, I imagine him doing this, 339 00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:37,320 Speaker 2: and he thought, yes, but what if her body had 340 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:39,840 Speaker 2: just stayed in that room. We hadn't found the body 341 00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:42,720 Speaker 2: right away, it had stayed for many hours in a 342 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:44,720 Speaker 2: room filled with carbon monoxide. 343 00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,560 Speaker 3: There's a lot of orifices in the body. Could that 344 00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:49,240 Speaker 3: have worked? 345 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,480 Speaker 2: Could that carbon dioxide have built up in her bloodstream? 346 00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:55,720 Speaker 3: And he did some experiments that you could never do today. 347 00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:59,360 Speaker 2: He went to Charles Norris and asked for unwanted bodies. 348 00:18:00,119 --> 00:18:03,320 Speaker 2: During prohibition, there were a lot of unwanted body people 349 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:04,120 Speaker 2: you know, were. 350 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:05,560 Speaker 3: Drinking poisonous alcohol. 351 00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,600 Speaker 2: They would die, their families wouldn't claim them. And he 352 00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,680 Speaker 2: built these metal coffins and he put the bodies in them, 353 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:15,119 Speaker 2: and he filled them with carbon monoxide and he let 354 00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:18,440 Speaker 2: them sit for days and it didn't alter the level 355 00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:20,280 Speaker 2: of the gas in their blood at all. There was 356 00:18:20,359 --> 00:18:23,520 Speaker 2: no way that you would absorb carbon monoxide after death. 357 00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:27,880 Speaker 2: So that told him that if you find a body 358 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:30,800 Speaker 2: with high levels of carbon monoxide in the blood, it's 359 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:33,800 Speaker 2: called carboxy human globin, then that's. 360 00:18:33,560 --> 00:18:34,240 Speaker 3: What killed you. 361 00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:34,840 Speaker 1: Okay. 362 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:37,600 Speaker 2: So that leads me to my next story, which is 363 00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:39,440 Speaker 2: slightly grcious, fantastic. 364 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:40,040 Speaker 3: Okay. 365 00:18:57,560 --> 00:19:01,919 Speaker 2: About two or three years later, this guy gets caught 366 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:06,160 Speaker 2: on the docks in Brooklyn throwing body parts into the river. 367 00:19:06,840 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 2: He's a construction worker room and he lives in this 368 00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:13,000 Speaker 2: one part of Brooklyn, and the police catch him dropping 369 00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:15,520 Speaker 2: a bag with a leg in the river, and they 370 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:19,280 Speaker 2: go back to his apartment and there they find. 371 00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:20,879 Speaker 3: The top of the woman's body. 372 00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,920 Speaker 2: Her arms are missing, her legs are missing, but her 373 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:27,440 Speaker 2: chest and head are still there. So they immediately charge 374 00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,720 Speaker 2: him with a dismemberment murder. So Charles Norris is the 375 00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:34,000 Speaker 2: medical examiner on call that night, and Norris had come 376 00:19:34,040 --> 00:19:38,640 Speaker 2: from this very wealthy East Coast family, the Norrises, who 377 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:40,440 Speaker 2: founded Norristown, Pennsylvania. 378 00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:43,720 Speaker 3: And even though he worked in this you. 379 00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:48,000 Speaker 2: Know, very battered, underfunded office, he had personal money and 380 00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:51,240 Speaker 2: so he always went to crime scenes driven by his chauffeur. 381 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:56,800 Speaker 2: And so his chauffeur drives him to this poor, shabby 382 00:19:56,880 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 2: rooming house in Brooklyn and he was a big guy and. 383 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,560 Speaker 3: Played football at Yale. And he sweeps out of the car. 384 00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:04,960 Speaker 2: I see this in my head like a movie, right, 385 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,359 Speaker 2: And he goes upstairs and he looks at the body 386 00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:11,679 Speaker 2: and he says to the police, now, boys, this is 387 00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:16,080 Speaker 2: not dismember This doesn't make any sense at all. 388 00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:19,479 Speaker 3: This woman was dead before she was dismembered. And they 389 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:20,880 Speaker 3: go no, no, no, no, no, no no. 390 00:20:21,440 --> 00:20:24,120 Speaker 2: And he goes, let me take this back and take 391 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:27,040 Speaker 2: a look, because what he had seen from across the 392 00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:30,680 Speaker 2: room is this body, even though there was this massive 393 00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:35,720 Speaker 2: bleed out right from the limbsman cut off was pink hmm. 394 00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:38,679 Speaker 2: And that suggested to him that it was a carbon 395 00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:39,600 Speaker 2: monoxide death. 396 00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:43,320 Speaker 3: And so he goes and they do the drawing. 397 00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:47,359 Speaker 2: Sure enough, she had been killed by a lethal level 398 00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:51,880 Speaker 2: of carbon monoxide. And they knew from Alexander Gettler's experiments 399 00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:55,320 Speaker 2: with those bodies that that meant she was dead before 400 00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,520 Speaker 2: she was dismembered. That was enough carbon monoxide to kill her. 401 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,200 Speaker 2: And so they looked at it and they said, okay, 402 00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:04,760 Speaker 2: this one was dead when she was dismembered. What happened, right, 403 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:08,560 Speaker 2: He didn't kill her by dismembering her, which was what the. 404 00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:10,040 Speaker 3: Police were accusing him of. 405 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:10,639 Speaker 1: Wow. 406 00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:14,760 Speaker 2: And so they went back and they were finally able 407 00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:18,000 Speaker 2: to reconstruct this, and it turned out that this guy 408 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,800 Speaker 2: was a neighbor of the woman and he had gotten 409 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,680 Speaker 2: super drunk on bootleg whiskey, and in the course of this, 410 00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:28,359 Speaker 2: they had actually knocked out the pilot light on the stove, 411 00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,879 Speaker 2: and the apartment had filled with illuminating guests. And he 412 00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:37,119 Speaker 2: was bigger than her. He had just passed out but 413 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:38,080 Speaker 2: had killed her. 414 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:39,040 Speaker 3: And so he. 415 00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:43,760 Speaker 2: Wakes up from this illuminating guest stupor and finanic dead 416 00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:48,000 Speaker 2: woman in his apartment and panics and makes the what 417 00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:51,800 Speaker 2: we're going to call a really bad decision that the 418 00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:54,119 Speaker 2: only way to deal with this is to get rid 419 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:56,560 Speaker 2: of the body. But she's big enough that he has 420 00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:00,080 Speaker 2: to cut her in pieces to do it, and so well, 421 00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:02,960 Speaker 2: he was getting rid of one part of the body 422 00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:05,640 Speaker 2: when the police caught him, but he hadn't actually killed her. 423 00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:07,000 Speaker 3: It was an accidental death. 424 00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:10,560 Speaker 2: So he was charged with a legal dismember of a body, 425 00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:12,040 Speaker 2: but he wasn't charged with murder. 426 00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:17,040 Speaker 1: What would be a classic example of someone of Gettler 427 00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:20,480 Speaker 1: and Norris or just Getler catching someone besides the carbon 428 00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:24,040 Speaker 1: monoxide cases, What are the tailtale signs that we really 429 00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:27,520 Speaker 1: didn't know until they came along besides the pink in 430 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:28,760 Speaker 1: the carbon monoxide. 431 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:30,320 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. 432 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,720 Speaker 2: Well, I started Poisoner's Handbook with a chapter on chloroform, 433 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:38,000 Speaker 2: and chloroform makes a really good kind of example of this. 434 00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,800 Speaker 2: There was some very early forensic toxicology at the time 435 00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:47,679 Speaker 2: that would tell you something about whether chloroform had killed you, 436 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:51,240 Speaker 2: but mostly people got away with it. And I briefly 437 00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:53,760 Speaker 2: in that book look at the case of William Rice. 438 00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:57,880 Speaker 2: There was the sort of power behind Rice University, who 439 00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,960 Speaker 2: was killed by chloroform, and because the forensic science of 440 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,679 Speaker 2: the time was so sketchy, they were never able to 441 00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:09,160 Speaker 2: fully sort out exactly what happened. So you had this 442 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:12,119 Speaker 2: kind of, you know, sketchy, uncertain but sort of the 443 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,879 Speaker 2: slow beginning of trying to figure out chloroform. Alexander Geller 444 00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:17,760 Speaker 2: was the scientist who actually figured it out. 445 00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:20,160 Speaker 3: And he did this actually. 446 00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:25,360 Speaker 2: In regarding illegal abortion, in which the abortionists and at 447 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,960 Speaker 2: the time, of course the nineteen twenties abortions dangerous and illegal, 448 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:33,119 Speaker 2: insanely dangerous, insanely illegal. This guy had used chloroform to 449 00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:36,480 Speaker 2: put this young woman under, and then he had butchered 450 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:42,119 Speaker 2: her and she had died, and he had pretended that 451 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:43,280 Speaker 2: she had. 452 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:45,000 Speaker 3: Just you know, he couldn't figure it out. She was 453 00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:46,600 Speaker 3: injured before he got to his place. 454 00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:50,320 Speaker 2: And Geller was able to actually figure out how to 455 00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:52,840 Speaker 2: tell how much chloroform would have been in your brain 456 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,760 Speaker 2: and the time of the surgery, so he could actually 457 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,200 Speaker 2: track like the path of the chloroform in the brain, 458 00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,879 Speaker 2: when when it reaches peak concentration, when it starts to 459 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,600 Speaker 2: fade away. I actually have a chapter of my book 460 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,560 Speaker 2: about thallium, which is an interesting poison. It's a broad 461 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:13,919 Speaker 2: spectrum poison, very difficult to actually detect it in the body, 462 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,680 Speaker 2: but it has very distinctive symptoms and probably the best 463 00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,119 Speaker 2: known of those symptoms is your hair falls out. And 464 00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,040 Speaker 2: thallium is an element like arsenic. It was used in 465 00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,320 Speaker 2: rat poisons a lot in the early twentieth century in particular, 466 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:28,600 Speaker 2: and it testicides. 467 00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:30,240 Speaker 3: It'll kill anything, you know, going. 468 00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,880 Speaker 2: Back to my example of poisons tricking the body, thallium 469 00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,880 Speaker 2: gets picked up by the potassium channel, so it clobbers 470 00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,040 Speaker 2: you in every cell because potassium is everywhere in your body. 471 00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,359 Speaker 2: But it makes your hair fall out when you start 472 00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,520 Speaker 2: getting a toxic ghost. There's an acta Christie Mystery of 473 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:46,320 Speaker 2: the Pale Horse. 474 00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:48,800 Speaker 3: If you know anything about thallium. 475 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:51,640 Speaker 2: Two women are fighting and pulling each other's hair and 476 00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:53,640 Speaker 2: one of the women her hair comes. 477 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:54,280 Speaker 3: Out and clumps. 478 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:59,040 Speaker 2: Afterwards, she's like, ad didn't hurt And it turns out 479 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 2: to be one of the clues. 480 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:00,560 Speaker 3: It is right. 481 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,520 Speaker 2: And in the nineteen thirties it was widely used as 482 00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:07,399 Speaker 2: depilatory creams for women. And you can go into the 483 00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,600 Speaker 2: Journal of the American Medical Association and find doctors reporting 484 00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,240 Speaker 2: all these bald women. You know, they had tried to 485 00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,399 Speaker 2: use thallium creams to remove their mustache or. 486 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,520 Speaker 3: Whatever, and all their hair fellas Oh wow, and it 487 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:20,040 Speaker 3: kills you. 488 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:23,520 Speaker 2: But the case in my book is about someone who 489 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,199 Speaker 2: was accused of a thallium murder that he didn't come in. 490 00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:27,120 Speaker 3: We think of. 491 00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,879 Speaker 2: These guys as just out there to, you know, catch 492 00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,800 Speaker 2: the killers. But when the evidence shows that person wasn't 493 00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,760 Speaker 2: a killer, that's equally important. 494 00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:36,920 Speaker 3: So there was a thallium case. 495 00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,439 Speaker 2: Thallium is now also like arsenic, a restricted substance, But 496 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,440 Speaker 2: there was a murder. I want to say about twenty twelve, 497 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,159 Speaker 2: twenty thirteen with a woman who is a chemist for 498 00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,840 Speaker 2: Bristol Meyers squib Danlelee. She was in New Jersey and 499 00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,199 Speaker 2: she stole it from their supplies and she and her 500 00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,520 Speaker 2: husband were going through a messy divorce and she didn't 501 00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:58,560 Speaker 2: want to deal with it or him, and so she 502 00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,080 Speaker 2: put thallium in something. It doesn't have a strong taste. 503 00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,360 Speaker 2: And what was bad luck for her is he ended 504 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:08,159 Speaker 2: up in the Rutger's hospital and none of them recognized 505 00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,719 Speaker 2: it because no one kills with alium anymore. Even when 506 00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:12,720 Speaker 2: his hair started falling out, they were like, what is 507 00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,399 Speaker 2: going on? And he just kept getting sicker and sicker. 508 00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,520 Speaker 2: And there was a nurse in the hospital who had 509 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,719 Speaker 2: come over from China, where there are more thallium poisonings, 510 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,159 Speaker 2: and so she said to the doctors, this really looks 511 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,120 Speaker 2: like a case I saw in China, And they ran 512 00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,879 Speaker 2: the test and sure enough, he was loaded with thallium 513 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,280 Speaker 2: that was pure blind. Look, there's an antidote for it. 514 00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:38,040 Speaker 2: But by the time they figured it out, it was 515 00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,080 Speaker 2: too late and they killed So she went to prison. 516 00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,320 Speaker 2: But you know, it's a good example of the fact 517 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,800 Speaker 2: that scientists can be dangerous, right because there are people 518 00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,960 Speaker 2: doctors like Neil Cream back in the day, or scientists 519 00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:56,000 Speaker 2: like Danley Lee to day, or who have access to 520 00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,480 Speaker 2: these things when the rest of them us don't, and 521 00:26:58,560 --> 00:26:59,640 Speaker 2: sometimes use them. 522 00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,199 Speaker 1: What is the deadliest thing that we have access to 523 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:06,280 Speaker 1: now that's used as a poison is advizine. I mean 524 00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:07,959 Speaker 1: that we were talking about eye drops. 525 00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,000 Speaker 2: If you could get your hands on bochulinim a, the 526 00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:16,080 Speaker 2: Bochulinum bacteria is the bacteria that creates an incredibly lethal 527 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:17,520 Speaker 2: neurotoxic poison. 528 00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:18,800 Speaker 3: They use it in botox. 529 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:19,919 Speaker 1: Oh, I have all. 530 00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,359 Speaker 2: My natural wrinkles, but if I wanted to get rid 531 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,719 Speaker 2: of these little wrinkles between my forehead and I did 532 00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,520 Speaker 2: a botox injection, it would paralyze the muscles and you 533 00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:31,200 Speaker 2: wouldn't see the lines as much. So that poison is 534 00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,680 Speaker 2: actually one of the most poisonous compounds on the planet. 535 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,000 Speaker 3: It is super lethal. There's a it's methyl mercury. 536 00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,080 Speaker 2: Dimethyl mercury that I think that's really hard to get 537 00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:44,760 Speaker 2: is so poisonous that if you. 538 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,480 Speaker 3: Touch it and it actually there was a case where a. 539 00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,199 Speaker 2: Dock in the lab was working with dimethyl mercury and 540 00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,400 Speaker 2: had a tiny hole in her glove and it killed her. 541 00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:52,920 Speaker 1: Oh wow. 542 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,480 Speaker 3: There are a lot of really super poisonous things out there. 543 00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:01,240 Speaker 2: It's always you know, how you just them that makes 544 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,359 Speaker 2: the difference. Not every poison goes through your skin the 545 00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,600 Speaker 2: way salts of mercury does, but mercury is really dangerous 546 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:08,000 Speaker 2: that way. 547 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,040 Speaker 1: Why do you think the history of poison is important? 548 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,280 Speaker 2: You have to think of poisons as chemical weapons. And 549 00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,760 Speaker 2: if you look at the history of humankind, we've long 550 00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:22,399 Speaker 2: had access to chemical weapons. I mean, arsenic was used 551 00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,159 Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The bores 552 00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,719 Speaker 2: has supposedly figured out a formula of poison that they 553 00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,960 Speaker 2: would put on doorknobs so that they could kill people 554 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:38,360 Speaker 2: through skin contact. We have used different poisons, you know, 555 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:43,520 Speaker 2: snake poisons, plant poisons, and I was using bacchulinome as 556 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,920 Speaker 2: an example. But a lot of the most poisonous things 557 00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,840 Speaker 2: on the planet are actually natural. So one of the 558 00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,320 Speaker 2: things the history of poison tells us is natural doesn't 559 00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,800 Speaker 2: mean safe. We play that game with ourselves all the time. 560 00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,680 Speaker 2: But some of the most dangerous things on Earth are 561 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:05,040 Speaker 2: naturally occurring. So the more we understand these poisons, the 562 00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:09,280 Speaker 2: more we can understand them as risks. Radioactive poisons is 563 00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:13,560 Speaker 2: a homicidal threat as imputin radioactive poisons as a public 564 00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:15,880 Speaker 2: health threat as in the Radium Girls. 565 00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,160 Speaker 3: And I think it gives a lot. 566 00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,160 Speaker 2: Of insight into who we are, the way we use them, 567 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,800 Speaker 2: the way we regulate or don't regulate against risks. How 568 00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,280 Speaker 2: much do we really care about protecting the general public? 569 00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,560 Speaker 2: Regulations are just consumer protection. How do we make smart 570 00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:36,000 Speaker 2: decisions as individuals about what risks we worry about. 571 00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,320 Speaker 1: I want to talk about two more quick cases just 572 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,320 Speaker 1: because I know that the audience likes the razzle dazzle 573 00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,200 Speaker 1: of the cases. I like the Wood Alcohol. 574 00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:44,440 Speaker 3: Yeah, I love. 575 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,640 Speaker 2: That story because it's actually a story of the US 576 00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:53,120 Speaker 2: government as a homicidal poisoner. And during the nineteen twenties 577 00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:57,880 Speaker 2: there was actually the Chicago Tribune ran an editorial saying 578 00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:01,400 Speaker 2: that the Eighteenth Amendment, which was the behind prohibition and 579 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,720 Speaker 2: outlawed trade and transportation of alcohol, was the only constitutional 580 00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,000 Speaker 2: miniment that carried the death penalty with it. 581 00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:10,560 Speaker 3: And you will also find newspaper stories of the. 582 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,520 Speaker 2: Time in which people call the US government the Borgia government. 583 00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,760 Speaker 2: So why is that prohibition was a really moral crusade 584 00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,520 Speaker 2: by a small group of people who believed that they 585 00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:25,240 Speaker 2: could make society like them by restricting access to alcohol, 586 00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,800 Speaker 2: we wouldn't have public drunkenness and intoxication and annoying people 587 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,400 Speaker 2: on the streets. And they were able and part of 588 00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,880 Speaker 2: the sort of societal upset that surrounded World War One 589 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,760 Speaker 2: where people felt like everything was falling apart. To put 590 00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,640 Speaker 2: through this idea of controlling behavior through controlling alcohol, it 591 00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:47,600 Speaker 2: immediately went south. The nineteen twenties is the most anarchistic decade. 592 00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,040 Speaker 3: I think, at least up until this point, but the most. 593 00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:54,200 Speaker 2: Anarchistic decade in American history, because there's a constitutional minment 594 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,640 Speaker 2: and people flowed it by the millions. 595 00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 3: You have illegal. 596 00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:01,760 Speaker 2: Bars called speakeasies every where in the decade. There were 597 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:04,479 Speaker 2: like fourteen thousand of them in New York City alone. 598 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:06,680 Speaker 2: And so if you're having bars and the sale of 599 00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,560 Speaker 2: alcohol is illegal, where do you get the alcohol? You're saying, 600 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:13,440 Speaker 2: screw the eighteenth Amendment and the Volstad Act which went 601 00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:15,520 Speaker 2: in to enforce it. I'm just going to drink, But 602 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,160 Speaker 2: where am I going to get my alcohol? So people 603 00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,240 Speaker 2: put stills in their houses. Sometimes people talk about bathtub gin, 604 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,360 Speaker 2: and they would distill whatever organic material they could get 605 00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:29,800 Speaker 2: their hands on, which was sometimes the furniture. And so 606 00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,120 Speaker 2: you can distill wood, it's called destructive distillation of wood 607 00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,920 Speaker 2: and get what alcohol. The alcohol we drink today and 608 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,640 Speaker 2: I colone myself in the drinking alcohol today group is ethanol, 609 00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,000 Speaker 2: which we get from grain or grapes or potatoes or 610 00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:48,880 Speaker 2: vodka or whatever. But from wood you get methanol or 611 00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:51,720 Speaker 2: what alcohol, and it tastes like an. 612 00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,280 Speaker 3: Ax like, just like grain alcohol. 613 00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,960 Speaker 2: In the early stages, accept that it's poisonous. And the 614 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:03,080 Speaker 2: reason it's poisonous is because we metabolize grain alcohol or 615 00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:07,600 Speaker 2: ethyl alcohol to carbon dioxide and water, and we metabolize 616 00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:12,360 Speaker 2: wood alcohol to formaldehyde and formic acid, and formic acid 617 00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,560 Speaker 2: attacks your optic nerves. One of the first symptoms of 618 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,920 Speaker 2: methanol poisoning is blindness, and formaldehyde kills you, and so 619 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,320 Speaker 2: it literally cooks you in formaldehyde from the inside when 620 00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,800 Speaker 2: you're drinking wood alcohol. And you started having wood alcohol 621 00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:31,240 Speaker 2: deaths from these home brews, from some of the illegal 622 00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:35,719 Speaker 2: alcohol that the bootleggers were stealing. Industrial alcohol which has 623 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:37,560 Speaker 2: a lot of methanol in it, and they. 624 00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,320 Speaker 3: Were trying to clean it up a little. 625 00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,080 Speaker 2: They hired chemists to get the wood alcohol out of 626 00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,000 Speaker 2: the mix, but they couldn't always get it all out, 627 00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,600 Speaker 2: so you had a lot of alcohol related poisonings that 628 00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,560 Speaker 2: were wood or methyl alcohol. And then the government is 629 00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:56,080 Speaker 2: getting increasingly frustrated because despite the amendment, everyone's drunk, and 630 00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,840 Speaker 2: they were drunk er. There was nothing like a nice 631 00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,120 Speaker 2: like glass of wine. Everything's whiskey at this point, you're 632 00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:03,680 Speaker 2: just drinking straight alcohol. 633 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,040 Speaker 3: So the government decides to enforce prohibition by. 634 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,600 Speaker 2: Adding more wood or methyl alcohol into the industrial alcohol 635 00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,440 Speaker 2: which is being stolen. About sixty million gallons of industrial 636 00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,600 Speaker 2: alcohol were being stolen every year during prohibition, and so 637 00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:19,640 Speaker 2: they said, well, let's just make it more poisonous and 638 00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,520 Speaker 2: so then people won't drink it, and that doesn't happen, 639 00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,800 Speaker 2: but they put enough methanhol into the mix that the 640 00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:29,480 Speaker 2: bootleg chemists can't get it out, and so you start 641 00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:33,440 Speaker 2: seeing this wave of die offs related to this illegally 642 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:34,400 Speaker 2: traded alcohol. 643 00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:36,280 Speaker 3: In New York. The first year, I think there were 644 00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:37,440 Speaker 3: a thousand people dead. 645 00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,320 Speaker 2: They thought maybe ten ish thousand nationwide, and so that's 646 00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:43,840 Speaker 2: why you start seeing people calling the US government, the 647 00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:48,160 Speaker 2: Borsia government, and Charles Norris, one of my heroes actually 648 00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,200 Speaker 2: wrote a magazine article called our National Experiment and Extermination 649 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,600 Speaker 2: because he felt that that's what we were doing, and 650 00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,520 Speaker 2: he knew and this is also true that the people 651 00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,480 Speaker 2: were really getting poisoned, were, you know, not the Scott 652 00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:03,880 Speaker 2: and Zelda Fitzgerald who had a lot of money and 653 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,200 Speaker 2: partied with their bootleggers and got good stuff, but working 654 00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:09,720 Speaker 2: class people couldn't afford the good stuff. 655 00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:10,879 Speaker 3: And so to me. 656 00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,640 Speaker 2: The most important message in that story is that moral 657 00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:18,200 Speaker 2: crusades are dangerous. You think the ends justify the means, 658 00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:22,640 Speaker 2: and they really don't ever justify the means. And so 659 00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,000 Speaker 2: you have the government believing this and having the power 660 00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,960 Speaker 2: to actually poison its own citizens in what they saw 661 00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,920 Speaker 2: as a moral caused And so to me, that's the 662 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:34,360 Speaker 2: story of the US government. 663 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,680 Speaker 3: And this time period is a murderer. 664 00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:38,920 Speaker 1: What about mercury, That is the last one. 665 00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,759 Speaker 2: So my mercury case is actually a case of finding 666 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:43,080 Speaker 2: someone innocent. 667 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,279 Speaker 1: But good good finally, which is. 668 00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:45,799 Speaker 3: A good thing. 669 00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:51,080 Speaker 2: But mercury was widely available at the time, not now. Actually, 670 00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:53,560 Speaker 2: when I was a kid, you could get elemental mercury 671 00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:54,640 Speaker 2: by breaking. 672 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,000 Speaker 1: A thermometer, right, me too. 673 00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,040 Speaker 2: And elemental mercury is not as dangerous as salts of 674 00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,279 Speaker 2: mercury because if you actually. 675 00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:03,360 Speaker 3: You know, you play with it. 676 00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:05,879 Speaker 2: It skitters off your skin, but it doesn't absorb through 677 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,600 Speaker 2: your skin. I used to push those little mercury balls around. 678 00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,120 Speaker 2: I never had mercury poisoning, Whereas once you mix mercury 679 00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,520 Speaker 2: with a salt, which is like bichloride of mercury, which 680 00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,399 Speaker 2: is a pesticide or was also actually used to treat syphilis, 681 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,319 Speaker 2: you're getting something that really absorbs. And so you did 682 00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:27,000 Speaker 2: see accidental mercury deaths at the time, you saw some 683 00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:31,320 Speaker 2: homicidal mercury deaths. The way we're most exposed to mercury 684 00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,080 Speaker 2: today is from air pollution. You have mercury fallout from 685 00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:39,000 Speaker 2: air pollution. It goes into the water. Fish absorb it. 686 00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,680 Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons that the federal government today 687 00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,520 Speaker 2: now suggests that you don't eat too much tuna, especially 688 00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,480 Speaker 2: if you're pregnant, because of the amount of mercury in 689 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:49,160 Speaker 2: the tuna. 690 00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:50,839 Speaker 3: The story I told in the book was. 691 00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:53,360 Speaker 2: About a guy who a lot of people thought was 692 00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,440 Speaker 2: kind of one of these I don't know that you know, 693 00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:00,000 Speaker 2: the kind of man who glombs onto a wealthy society 694 00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,400 Speaker 2: woman and engineers himself a cushy life. 695 00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:04,919 Speaker 3: His name was Webb, and he. 696 00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:09,239 Speaker 2: Married a wealthy young woman, Gertrude, and her family and 697 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,280 Speaker 2: her friends all believed he only married her for the money, 698 00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,320 Speaker 2: and they had only been married a couple of years 699 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:20,799 Speaker 2: when she mysteriously died and the doctor found mercury in 700 00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:25,800 Speaker 2: her system, and the family publicly accused him of poisoning 701 00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,520 Speaker 2: her with mercury, which was super easy to get, and 702 00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,160 Speaker 2: so he goes through this very public trial. I mean, 703 00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,600 Speaker 2: her family was actually holding press conferences, and this was 704 00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:37,720 Speaker 2: out at a resort. 705 00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:39,160 Speaker 3: It wasn't in New York City. 706 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,760 Speaker 2: It was added this sort of fancy resort for wealthy 707 00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:44,920 Speaker 2: people that was a little bit out of the city. 708 00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:49,040 Speaker 2: And the local doctor took it upon himself to do 709 00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:53,120 Speaker 2: the chemical analysis and was like, oh, this is definitely 710 00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:57,400 Speaker 2: a homicidal mercury poisoning. And so finally the New York 711 00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,120 Speaker 2: City Medical Examiner's Office got called in as consultant because 712 00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:05,040 Speaker 2: Charles Webb, the publicly accused husband, was a resident of 713 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,319 Speaker 2: New York City, and so Getler got the samples and 714 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:13,680 Speaker 2: reanalyzed them and was like, this doesn't even make sense. 715 00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,000 Speaker 2: It wasn't a toxic dose of mercury to begin with. 716 00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:17,879 Speaker 3: And then he. 717 00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:21,400 Speaker 2: Later discovered that her doctor, who had been sort of 718 00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,239 Speaker 2: hiding in the wings, had been treating her with a 719 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,640 Speaker 2: mercury compound, and so the mercury in her body was 720 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,600 Speaker 2: actually just related to the medical treatment, and she had 721 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:35,080 Speaker 2: actually died from a natural cause of death. And so 722 00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:40,040 Speaker 2: they were able to publicly exonerate him, and then they 723 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,560 Speaker 2: all went and apologized and hoped that he would share 724 00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:44,879 Speaker 2: her fortune with them. 725 00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:46,560 Speaker 1: I guess not. 726 00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,919 Speaker 2: For some reason, he was holding a grudge and refused 727 00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:52,400 Speaker 2: to do it. 728 00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:53,080 Speaker 3: But he did. 729 00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:55,640 Speaker 2: And there's actually a park in New York City that 730 00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,320 Speaker 2: is named after her that he's set up in her honor. 731 00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,759 Speaker 2: And so that goes back to the case I was 732 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,160 Speaker 2: making earlier. People will accuse, and especially when poison is 733 00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:09,359 Speaker 2: floating around anywhere, it's really easy to accuse people. And 734 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,279 Speaker 2: especially in the time period that I'm talking about in 735 00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,880 Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties. People did not mess around with the 736 00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,440 Speaker 2: death penalty in the nineteen thirties, so you had actual 737 00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:24,640 Speaker 2: cases where people would be convicted then they were electrocuted 738 00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:27,680 Speaker 2: within the month. There was not this long appeal process 739 00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:29,719 Speaker 2: and a number of the people who I followed who 740 00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,800 Speaker 2: were guilty. That was true, and going back to arsenic 741 00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:38,320 Speaker 2: for a minute in that timeframe. Early on in my book, 742 00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:43,080 Speaker 2: I have this murderous Fanny Crayton retrospectively had clearly killed 743 00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,200 Speaker 2: her brother with arsenal and gets away with it. And 744 00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:49,880 Speaker 2: then she, in the way that poisoners always believe that 745 00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:53,960 Speaker 2: they can do it again, appears again in Gettler's Orbit 746 00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,000 Speaker 2: in the mid nineteen thirties, and she and one of 747 00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,279 Speaker 2: her neighbors have conspired to kill his wife, and so 748 00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,439 Speaker 2: they use rat poison rough on rats that they put 749 00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:06,400 Speaker 2: into a kind of milkshake thing, and this time she 750 00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:11,480 Speaker 2: gets caught. She was electrocuted almost on the instant after 751 00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:12,240 Speaker 2: that case. 752 00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:13,960 Speaker 3: And one of the. 753 00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:16,520 Speaker 2: Things that happened to me after Poisonous Hambok came out 754 00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:20,120 Speaker 2: is that one of her great grandkids contacted me because 755 00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:22,560 Speaker 2: he was trying to find where she was buried. And 756 00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,440 Speaker 2: after she was electrocuted at Singsing, the family, her husband 757 00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,520 Speaker 2: and daughter refused to bury her. 758 00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,319 Speaker 3: They didn't want anything to do with her. 759 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,000 Speaker 2: They wanted her to disappear, and so she's actually buried 760 00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:35,719 Speaker 2: in the graveyard at the sing sing. 761 00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,280 Speaker 3: Prison, which I was able to tell him. 762 00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:40,839 Speaker 2: And that was the other thing I realized when you 763 00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,399 Speaker 2: were mentioning this, I realized that you've run into this too. 764 00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,719 Speaker 2: Is that a number of times I would be contacted 765 00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:52,680 Speaker 2: by people who were the descendants of murderers or victims 766 00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:56,320 Speaker 2: of murders from the nineteen twenties, and I was like, Wow, 767 00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:57,719 Speaker 2: that happened one hundred years ago. 768 00:39:58,040 --> 00:39:59,480 Speaker 3: And I talked about this. 769 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,480 Speaker 2: I gave it to at the New York City Medical 770 00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,319 Speaker 2: Examiner's office about some of these people who had come 771 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,319 Speaker 2: after I wrote the book, and they said, oh, yeah, 772 00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,359 Speaker 2: you know, we see this all the time. People come 773 00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,000 Speaker 2: back for decades because they didn't get justice, because they're 774 00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,320 Speaker 2: still trying to find justice, and it's just a reminder 775 00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:16,920 Speaker 2: of a long shadow of murder. 776 00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:25,600 Speaker 1: Tasts on the next episode of Wicked Words, Paula Yu 777 00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,200 Speaker 1: on the murder that shook Detroit's Asian American community. 778 00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:32,760 Speaker 4: He was beaten into a coma on June nineteenth, nineteen 779 00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,200 Speaker 4: eighty two. June twenty third, nineteen eighty two was when 780 00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:38,480 Speaker 4: they took him off life support, and then he was 781 00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:41,600 Speaker 4: buried on June twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two, one day 782 00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:45,120 Speaker 4: after the June twenty eighth wedding was supposed to take place, 783 00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:49,920 Speaker 4: and all the wedding guests went to the funeral instead 784 00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,840 Speaker 4: of the wedding. The time that he was in a coma, 785 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,320 Speaker 4: they were getting wedding presents were being delivered to the house. 786 00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:09,920 Speaker 1: My new book, All That Is Wicked is available for 787 00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,120 Speaker 1: pre order now, including the audiobook. All that Is Wicked 788 00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,800 Speaker 1: is based on our first season of tenfold War Wicked. 789 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:17,920 Speaker 1: You might think you know the whole story of Killer 790 00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:21,319 Speaker 1: Edward Ruloff's crimes, but there's so much more. My book 791 00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,960 Speaker 1: American Sherlock is also available. This has been an exactly 792 00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,960 Speaker 1: right tenfold War Media production. The producer is Alexis Mrosi. 793 00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,240 Speaker 1: Our mixer is Ryo Baum. Our sound designer is Andrew Epen. 794 00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,560 Speaker 1: Curtis heath Is. Our composer Nick Toga did the artwork. 795 00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:41,360 Speaker 1: Ilsabrink designed the website. The executive producers are Georgia Hartstark, 796 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:46,000 Speaker 1: Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram 797 00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,239 Speaker 1: and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at 798 00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,440 Speaker 1: tenfold More And if you know of a historical crime 799 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,680 Speaker 1: that could use some attention, especially if it happened in 800 00:41:55,719 --> 00:42:00,640 Speaker 1: your family. Email us at info at tenfoldwar wicked dot com. 801 00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:04,080 Speaker 1: We'll also take your suggestions for true crime authors for 802 00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:04,880 Speaker 1: Wicked Words