Mystery Writer's Guide to Forensic Science - Poisons XI

Note: If you are reading this information because you plan to use it on your spouse or in-laws, please leave. This guide if for the use of writers or students only. If you murder someone, you will be caught.

STRYCHNINE TREE

AKA: Nux vomica, Poison Nut, Semen strychnos and Quaker Buttonswith

Where is it found? Native to India and other parts of Southern Asia but you can get this poison anywhere - However, in the USA, it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.

Symptoms: Ten to twenty minutes after exposure, the body's muscles begin to spasm, starting with the head and neck in the form of trismus and risus sardonicus. The spasms then spread to every muscle in the body, with nearly continuous convulsions, and get worse at the slightest stimulus. The convulsions progress, increasing in intensity and frequency until the backbone arches continually. Convulsions lead to lactic acidosis, hyperthermia and rhabdomyolysis. These are followed by postictal depression . Death comes from asphyxiation caused by paralysis of the neural pathways that control breathing, or by exhaustion from the convulsions. The subject dies within 2–3 hours after exposure.

Fast or Slow Acting: Fast

How is used as a poison? Inhalation, swallowing or absorption through eyes or mouth.

How can you make it so the victim won't notice it? Strychnine is one of the most bitter substances known so very difficult to ingest without notice. However, they may ingest a large fatal quantity before noticing.

What would the autopsy find?

 Click Photo to Enlarge

Case studies: Strychnine is one of the principle murder poisons both in fiction and in fact. In Victorian times it was a major part of rat poison, which was available, no questions asked, from most shops. The pre-death convulsions it causes are called tetanic because they look like tetanus, a disease that was endemic in the inner cities at the time. It is believed that many men met their ends via strychnine but murder was never suspected.

• Strychnine poisoning (in contaminated wine) is one of the theories concerning the death of Alexander the Great.
• Strychnine was used in several of the murders committed by serial killer Thomas Neill Cream, who poisoned prostitutes on the streets of London.
• Famous Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson's whiskey bottle was laced with strychnine, resulting in pneumonia.
• A childhood friend of Vincent Van Gogh, Margot Begemann, attempted suicide by ingestion of strychnine.
• Belle Gunness of La Porte, Indiana, also known as Lady Bluebeard, reportedly used strychnine to murder her victims at the turn of the last century^.
• Hannes Hirtzberger, Mayor of Spitz in Lower Austria was reported to have been poisoned by Helmut Osberger, a local wine producer.
• Jane Stanford, co founder of Stanford University may have died from strychnine poisoning.
• Oskar Dirlewanger, the notorious WWII leader of the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, a penal battalion composed of German criminals, was known to have murdered several Jewish girls in the Lublin Ghetto in Poland by having them stripped naked and injected with strychnine. This was done for the entertainment of himself and his officers who watched their fatal convulsions while relaxing.
• A woman in San Diego, California was a victim of strychnine poisoning in 1990 at the hands of her husband, who had dialed 911 but hung up the telephone without leaving his name or address. Persistence on the part of the dispatcher and the rescue workers allowed them to locate and extract the victim, but she eventually died in the hospital.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine_poisoning
http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/strychnos_nuxvomica.htm
Handbook of Autopsy Practice