Poisoning homicides

Human toxicity data, especially the median lethal dose, is extrapolated from animals or from accidental poisoning, homicides and suicides. Extrapolations from animal data are educated estimates which consider the differences in species and building in a safety factor. If a lethal dose is 10 mg/kg in a rat and we consider a human to be 10 times more sensitive 1 mg/kg will have another 10-fold safety margin. Animal testing also involves using what may seem as ridiculous doses in order to cover the safety factor. To find a statistically valid effect which occurs once in one million subjects, several million animals would have to be used, which is exhorbitantly... 

Let me give you an example of this, which is particularly true in homicides. The individual is engaged in an activity and suddenly misinterprets something. He wakes up in the back of a car and smells poison gas and hits someone over the head with a pipewrench. Or he is robbing a store and someone smiles. There is a sudden impulse and he kills an individual. 

There is a long history of the use of Aconitum, Delphinium and Consolida species as the source of poisons and medicinals [1]. These three genera in Ranunculaceae family yield diterpenoid and norditerpenoid alkaloids. The name Delphinium derived from dolphine-delphine due to the shape of their flower buds [2]. Aconitum has an evil reputation from the antiquity [3]. The plant was used as poison in old Greece, also in north-west Pacific the natives used it to poison the whales and also as arrow poison. In England in the ancient times the plant was used against wolves, boars, tigers as well as against rodents, and it was also a homicide material [4]. 

Those early metallurgists who were clever enough to learn how to transform crude ores to shiny metals were prohahly also observant enough to discover that some of the materials being worked with could harm them. Some of the earliest written accounts of humans on earth provide evidence that the ancient Greeks and Romans were well aware of the poisonous properties of certain plants and metals. The case of the poisoning of Socrates with hemlock is only the most famous of the early references to the deliberate use of certain plants for suicidal or homicidal purposes. 

McGee MB, Jejurikar SG, VanBerkom LC. 1987. A double homicide as a result of chloroform poisoning. J Forensic Sci 32 1453-1459. 

Hundreds of deaths associated with parathion exposure have been reported. These deaths have resulted from accidental, suicidal, and homicidal poisonings. It has been the cause of most crop worker poisonings in the United States. Fatal human poisonings have resulted from ingestion, skin exposure, and inhalation (with varying degrees of skin exposure). 

Methods for the identification and determination of pharmaceutical drugs in the forensic setting are required in order to detect their abuse and misuse (e.g., accidental or suicidal overdosage, homicidal poisoning, illicit performance enhancement). Some pharmaceutical drugs may also enhance the toxic potential of illicit drugs and/or alcohol and their determination is necessary in order to ascertain cases of mixed-drug intoxications. 

Alkaloids are pharmaceutically active compounds contained in plants. Some of them exhibit also important toxic properties and may be encountered in forensic toxicology as a cause of accidental, suicidal, or homicidal poisonings. 

In Stingeder s group the unique capabilities of sector field ICP-MS and LA-ICP-MS were employed to reconstruct details of a homicide by thallium poisoning, which took place about 40 years ago in Austria.29 Thallium was determined in several human bone samples after acid digestion in a microwave oven. The thallium concentration measured by ICP-MS and GF-AAS varied from 1.07-2.63 p,gg 1, which was up to 170 times higher compared to the concentration found in persons who died due of natural causes. LA-ICP-MS was employed to analyze a thumbnail from the poisoned person compared to a control person. Thallium peaks were detected in the nail of the victim at a distance of 2.5 mm from the younger edge of nail.29... 

Belluck, D.A., Benjamin, S.L., Baveye, P. et al. (2003) Widespread arsenic contamination of soils in residential areas and public spaces an emerging regulatory or medical crisis . International Journal of Toxicology, 22(2), 109-28. Bollinger, C.T., van Zijl, P. and Louw, J.A. (1992) Multiple organ failure with the adult respiratory distress syndrome in homicidal arsenic poisoning. Respiration, 59, 57-61. 

Incorrect conclusion Morgues 1 of crematoria II and III were converted into homicidal gas chambers equipped with installations for the intended purpose of evacuating poison gases.217... 

This Swiss author also reported about a study on the alleged gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. This study, so Mohler, had been prepared by an American expert for execution technologies, who had come to the conclusion that there had never been any gassings with poison gas in Auschwitz. One of his main arguments was the absence of traces of the poison gas supposedly used in the walls of those locations identified as homicidal gas chambers . Since this was a quite intriguing argument, I decided to order a copy of this... 

Data recorded in Tables III and IV shows the amount of the insecticide in the unchanged form. However, most of the tissues also contain the metabolite of the insecticide. From the above discussion it is evident that the study of the distribution of pesticides in different tissues and body fluids can help in resolving the questions of how and when the pesticide was administered. Furthermore, the clue regarding the nature of poisoning whether suicidal, homicidal or accidental can also be obtained by careful study of the distribution pattern of the insecticides in body tissues and fluids derived by quantitative TLC. 

---