Forensic Toxicology
Analysing Poising Case Studies
Learning outcomes
• Analyse different case studies related to poisoning crimes
Case study #1
• Mary Ansell (1877 - 1899) was an English house maid who poisoned
her sister Caroline in order to obtain a small insurance settlement.
Mary sent a cake to where Caroline resided. The cake was tainted
with phosphorous and Caroline died after eating most of it. It was
proved that Mary had recently purchased phosphorous and had
simultaneously taken out a 22 pound policy on her sister's life. Mary
was quickly convicted and executed by hanging whereupon a large
crowd gathered and cheered.
Case Study #2
• Environmental Poisoning
• Poisoned by his wallpaper, theorizes David Jones, an immunologist at
the University of Newcastle in England. The wallpaper at Longwood
House, where Napoleon lived his last years, was painted with
Scheele's green, an arsenic compound called copper arsenide. When
attacked by certain molds, possibly present in the damp environment
of St. Helena, arsenic would have been released into the air. In the
late 1950s Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador to Italy, was
diagnosed with arsenic poisoning caused by paint chips falling from
the stucco roses on her bedroom ceiling.
Case Study #3
• Radium Girls
The Radium Girls were female factory workers who
contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with selfluminous paint. The painting was done by women at three different US
paint factories, and the term now applies to the women working at the
facilities. The women in each facility had been told the paint was
harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radiumafter
being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give
them a fine tip; some also painted their fingernails, face and teeth with
the glowing substance.
Case Study #4
• The Death of Georgi Markov and
the Attack of Vladimir Kostov.
• Tylenol Tampering