The Teacup Poisoner | Graham Frederick Young

A boy genius with a chemistry set and absolutely no boundaries.

At just 14 years old, Graham Frederick Young began slipping poison into his family's tea — methodically, patiently, and with detailed notes. He was caught, committed to Broadmoor Hospital, and eventually released as reformed. He was not reformed.

In this episode, Chelsea covers the deeply unsettling case of Graham Frederick Young — the Teacup Poisoner — a self-taught toxicologist who turned every workplace tea round into a deadly experiment, and whose meticulous diary of doses and symptoms became the evidence that finally put him away for life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Chelsea and I'm Jenny and this is Data Garden. Alright, Jenny. I'm gonna tell you today about Graham Frederick Young. Okay. We're gonna get into a lot of uh science and poison. Ooh. A lot of poison. So much poison. Oh no. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Uh, you know, for the science. All right. Let's start with the birth. So Graham Frederick Young was born September 7th, 1947, in Nasden, Middlesex, England. Okay. He had one older sister, Winnifred, and at 14 weeks old, Graham's mother died of tuberculosis. Ooh. Wow. His father did not handle it well and was understandably devastated. Right. So because he was so devastated by the death, it caused kind of the family to split up a little bit. So Graham was to be placed under the care of his aunt and uncle, where he would spend the first two years of his life. And his sister was sent to live with their grandparents. It wasn't until their father remarried to a woman named Molly in 1950 that the family was reunited. Okay. So it was not like a long, drawn-out kind of separation, but it was still enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Right. And that is, I think, fairly common of the time, also.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah. Uh however, because Graham was given to them at such a young age, and that's kind of all he grew up knowing for the first two years of his life, he was distressed by being separated from the aunt that he had grown so close to. That's fair. Yeah. And he just grew into a peculiar child with, you know, those fun little interests. And uh he was solitary, seemed to make no effort to socialize with others his own age.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yep. Yep. Uh when he was old enough to read, he preferred nonfiction accounts of murders, and Dr. Crippen, uh C-R-I-P-P-E-N, a infamous poisoner, was one of his favorites. He even considered the Victorian poisoner William Palmer to be a personal hero.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Hero is a choice.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Okay. From a young age, he was very fascinated with poisons. Which, as somebody who also enjoys not giving them to people, but enjoys looking at them and knowing how they come about. I get it to an extent.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I feel like it's just a good educational thing to know in case of a poisoning what might happen and how to fix it, you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

And there's a lot that you can poison people with. So an accident can occur very easily. Right. Um, however, this wasn't his only peculiar fascination.

unknown 3:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

And I won't touch quite as much into this because it's not. It does play into his character a bit, but it doesn't really play too much into what he did as much, I guess. Uh, but he by the time he reached his teens, he had a very unhealthy fascination with Adolf Hitler. Mm-hmm. And he took to wearing swastikas and claiming how misunderstood Hitler was, and Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

And he was born in like 47. Ooh. Ooh, hate that. Yeah. Hate that. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

He also, this is just like a personal slight, uh, delved into the occult. I mean, okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

That also there was a lot that Hitler was like a lot. So yeah, the uh Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

He had a lot going on. Yeah. Uh for the occult things, he would claim to have knowledge of local covens, uh, tried involving the local children in strange occult activities, and even sacrificed a cat on one occasion. Yeah. I had also seen in reading that by the noticeable like dead cats that would show up in his time period in living in that area, it was probably more than one cat, but they at least know about one. I hate that so much. I yeah, I know. Me too. Not great. Yeah. His academic interest, however, entirely revolved around chemistry, forensic science, and toxicology.

unknown 5:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Which is why I'm not going to focus on those too much.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Definitely more on this. Because of the limited school coverage of the subjects, he did a lot of extracurricular reading. So obviously, schools only had a certain number of books that he could check out and read. So he definitely took it upon himself to further his interests and just go find some other books and obtain all the knowledge he could. I mean, I I appreciate that for sure. Yeah. He's a very brilliant kid. We will find out how brilliant. Like it's actually impressive. So his father also being a great guy, wanting to encourage his son's interest. He loves science, so yes, let's encourage that. Perfect. Bottom of chemistry set, which Graham would use for hours at a time. Uh by the age of thirteen, his knowledge of toxicology was extensive enough, he was able to convince the local chemist that he was seventeen. At the age of thirteen. Okay. Yeah. Wow. In nineteen sixty-one, Graham acquired antimony, a lustrous gray metal that is stable in air at room temperature, also toxic. He also got his hands on digitalis. Foxgloves. Arsenic for study purposes, as well as quantities of thallium. Mmm. Highly toxic, soft, silvery white metal found in the Earth's crust.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yes. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

He signed the poison register in the name M. E. Evans. Couldn't find out why, but he sure did. He eagerly set to work with putting his knowledge to the test and first targeted a fellow scientist, Christopher Williams. Yeah, he wasted no time. Okay. He wanted to see how the poisons worked and to test his knowledge and see if he knew how to make them correctly. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

And take out some fellow competition at the same time, I guess? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

I don't know 13.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Right? Why do you take out a fellow scientist?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Graham concocted a cocktail of poisons that was said to have left medical experts baffled, and Williams was lucky to survive.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Oh, survive? Well, that's good, but did survive. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Lucky to survive.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah.

unknown 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Uh since he hadn't been able to monitor the symptoms of his victim feasibly. He turned his ambitions and dark scientific intentions on the people he could monitor his family.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Cause what good is a scientific experiment if you can't watch the results in real time?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

That sounds horrible. In this case, yeah, obviously. Yep. You want to be able to observe and but wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

So first was his stepmother Molly. Then his father, and then his sister. All of them ended up having similar symptoms of excruciating stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhea. Shortly after his sister fell ill, so did Graham. For some reason. As if a mystery bug had affected the whole family. Even a couple of Graham's school friends became repeatedly absent, experiencing the same symptoms. Wow. In November of 1961, Graham served his sister a cup of tea in the morning. She consumed one drink but thought it tasted sour, and so she tossed the rest of it. An hour later, while on the train to work, Winifred began hallucinating. Oh. She had to be helped out of the station by staff and was inevitably taken to the hospital. Yeah. Doctors concluded that she had been exposed to a trope belladonna. Oh. Which we have covered so many times.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Uh Graham's father confronted him, but Graham said that he had only used the family teacups to mix shampoo. Shampoo? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yes, let's just use Graham's teacup to mix shampoo. Okay. Yeah, no poison mixing, just shampoo. Obviously.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

When the excuse is almost worse than the real reason. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

That's great. Um, his father ended up searching Graham's room. He didn't find anything incriminating, but did tell his son to be more careful. Specifically, be more careful when messing with or messing about with those bloody chemicals. Mm-hmm. So he had a hunch. He knew something was up. He's like, stop. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Uh, because Graham had also been ill on numerous occasions, it was hard to say whether it was by design to keep people off of his track, or if he was that lazy and messy with his experimenting with the teacups.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah. I personally think it's probably the first one. Because if you're sick too, well, no. Why would I make myself sick? That's crazy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And unfortunately, Molly ended up becoming the focus. The first focus, I'll say, but the focus.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

As the stepmom. Mm-hmm. After being ripped away from well, maybe not ripped, that's dramatic.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

But yeah, taken away from the aunt and uncle and basically his mother figure that he has any form of memories of.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yeah. So, yeah, I can see it, but she didn't necessarily seem like a horrible lady. But at that point, it might not have even mattered.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Uh, she ended up becoming gradually more and more ill. On April 21st, 1962, Molly was found by Graham's father writhing in agony in the back garden of their home. She was rushed to the hospital where she would die later that night. In the article that I read, it said that she was found by his father with him on looking. Just like very curiously watching.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Right, the creeper in the corner. Yeah. Oh. That's what happened. That's terrible. Yeah. I'm I.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Uh her cause of death was determined to be a prolapse of a spinal cord, which had been believed to have been from a road accident. Much later, Graham admitted to poisoning her with a lethal dose of thallium because she had developed a tolerance to the antimony that Graham had been slowly poisoning her with.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Wow.

unknown 13:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

The kicker is that he suggested she be cremated.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Oh. Imagine that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

And they did. But yep. At her wake, Graham even poil poisoned a male relative by lacing a jar of mustard pickle with antimony. Kid is off the rails, okay? He just really wants to experiment on everybody.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

It's it's it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Shortly after, Fred, Graham's father, had an attack of vomiting and cramping that became even more severe. When he was admitted to the hospital, he was diagnosed with antimony poisoning. At least they actually found it this time. We're like, oh, that that's bad.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Uh he was lucky to survive his son's experimenting, but it was Graham's chemistry teacher that actually ended up contacting authorities after he found he discovered poisons and copious materials about poisoners and the white supremacy Nazi stuff, but specifically copious materials about poisoners and poisons and having actual physical poisons in his school desk.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Just so good on the teacher. Mm-hmm. Graham ended up being sent to a police psychiatrist at only 14 years old. Yeah, also he's only 14 at this point.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

That's insane.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Graham was arrested on May 23rd, 1962, after the vials of thallium and antimony were found in his possession. He had admitted to poisoning his father, sister, colleague, and school friends. But no murder charges were brought against him for his stepmother's death, because any evidence would have been destroyed when she was cremated. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Psychiatrist Dr. Christopher Fish, F Y S H. Okay. Yep. Testified that Graham had a psychopathic disorder.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that they caught that, but yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Uh rather than a mental illness and therefore had failed to develop a moral a normal moral sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah. The watching people struggle and die, that is 100% in my not scientific medical opinion, uh, for sure psychopaths.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

His moral compass is lacking.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Dr. Fish also felt that it was extremely likely, in quotes, that Graham would re-offend and recounted one conversation with Graham where he stated, I am missing my antimony. I miss the power it gives me.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Ew.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

At 14. Well. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

That's a whole different kind of toxic relationship.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah, he poisoned his entire family.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah. Well, yeah, I just mean yeah, the missing the power that it gives you.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

That's a whole codependency of That's a different kind of crutch, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Uh Graham was committed to Broadmoor Maximum Security Hospital and not to be released for 15 years without the approval of the home secretary. Wow. This is an important detail. He was not to be released for 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

We'll run back to that. At 14 years old, Graham was the youngest inmate since 1885. That seem yeah. Yeah. Incarceration didn't seem to dampen his curiosity for experimenting, though. Within the first few weeks of his arrival, a fellow inmate, John Barridge, died of cyanide poisoning. How do you get cyanide in prison? Surprisingly very easy, actually. Which is horrifying. Some of the staff and other inmates suspected Graham, mostly because he delightfully explained how cyanide could be extracted from laurel leaves. Oh. And unfortunately for this place, the grounds around Broadmoor were covered with laurel bushes. However, Graham's confessions were not taken seriously. And Barridge's death was ultimately rutled as a suicide.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

That's one case. I should have probably started this with you're gonna be going what? A lot during this. Because that's one case of why would you turn a blind eye to that? Just yeah, why? So there's that's the first one. Uh later, Harpic, a brand of toilet cleaner in the UK, was found in a nurse's coffee, and the contents of a missing packet of sugar soap, another cleaning material, were found in a tea urn that could and probably would have caused a mass poisoning if it had not been discovered. Wow. Yeah. Graham continued to read about poisoning, but kept his obsession more well hidden than before. Due to the belief that if he appeared less obsessed with poisoning, he would get released sooner.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I mean, yeah, that's usually how that works, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Hide it better, and then you can go back to society again. Yeah. Yay, early 1900s. Well, mid, I guess, because 1965 now, but Yeah. So in 1965, Graham applied for his first release pff from Broadmoor. His father and sister attended the hearing and stated not only that if he were to be released, none of his family would be willing to home them. But also, his father said his son should never be released. Yeah. Yeah. Uh the application was rejected. Okay. Unfortunately. Five years later, in June of 1970, the Broadmoor psychiatrist Edgar Udwin wrote to the home secretary to recommend Graham's release, claiming that he was no longer obsessed with poisons, violence, and mischief. And he is no longer a danger to others. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. However, this one is this is another example of come again. It is noted that Graham remarked to one of the nurses at Broadmore, when I get out, quote, I'm going to kill one person for every year I've spent in this place.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Though the comment was recorded on his file, it didn't seem to have much influence in the decision to release him.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Well, yeah. I'm not sure how you could even take that as anything other than because that would be almost not a justified putting reasonable or like a I could understand somebody who feels being locked up is like, you know, that that would be almost a maybe not normal reaction, but a reaction of I'm pissed about being in prison, so now I'm going. To take my revenge when I get out. I don't know how you could take that as anything other than I'm gonna do this when I get out.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

He would never actually do it. Uh-huh. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah.

unknown 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

So Graham was officially released from Broadmoor on February 4th, 1971, at the age of 23, after only eight of the 15 years that he was meant to spend there.

unknown 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

He stayed in a hostel, though Dig contact his sister, who had moved away after marrying. She was a lot more forgiving than their father. But she was still concerned with his fixation on his own crimes. He it's reported that he enjoyed visiting the scenes of his past crimes to kind of get a reaction from his neighbors that still recognized him. Oh so criminals returning to the scene of the crime for the notoriety of it, basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Ugh.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

It was only a matter of weeks before Graham continued on with his fatal interests. He tried to acquire poison from John Bell in Croydon, but to no prevail, since the chemist required written authorization in order to sell the things he wanted.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Mm-hmm. Almost like a little poison book of like a record of who they sell it to.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

He later returned with the required authorization and obtained 25 grams of antimony potassium tartrate. He told the chemist that he needed it for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Later on, he returned more to get 25 grams of thallium. Jeez.

unknown 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

That seems like a lot. I want to say, yes, I have a scale at home to like literally see what grams. Also, all I can think of is the comedian Eliza talking about going to a different country and seeing the measurement in grams and like thinking cocaine and be like. Okay. At least one of them, I believe. But let's get back to Graham and his everything. Graham and his grams. So he attended a storekeeping training course in Slough and befriended another resident of the hostel that he'd been staying at, uh 34-year-old Trevor Sparks. They would occasionally visit a pub together and they would share a bottle of wine in Sparks' room. They were friends. On the night of February 10th, uh Sparks fell violently ill. Earlier in the evening, he had accepted a glass of water from Graham. Sparks' symptoms would come and go over the next few months. So he recovered from whatever was in the water, and then just over the next few months it would keep happening and just come and go and go. At one point, he was so ill at a football match that he had to leave the pitch after a few minutes, and the specialists couldn't seem to pinpoint the cause and just chalked it up to things like kidney infection, uh bowel infection, stomach infection, etc. Ugh.

unknown 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Miraculously, Sparks gradually recovered after leaving Slough in April of 1971. Yeah, it's almost like if you distance yourself from the problem, you get better.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Right, this is giving some Henry Gerrard vibes of the next, Graham secured a job as an assistant storekeeper at John Hadland Laboratories in Bovingdon. Oh, Bovingdon, Hertfordshire.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

It was a photographic photographic supply firm.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Which happened to also be near his sister's home in Hamel Hempstead. Just a fun fact. His employers were aware of his Broadmore stay, but not of his history as a poisoner that led him there. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it's because he just flat out lied. Well yeah. Yeah. Um as his employers understood it, he had had a nervous breakdown when his mother died in a car accident. And they even received references as part of his rehabilitation at Broadmoor. None of it apparently mentioning the poisonings that happened, but while out and in Broadmoor. Yeah, because that's not important. No. Yeah. Or the threats. Yeah. At his new job, he was fine. He offered to make teas and coffees for his co-workers.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

No.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Regularly, which raised no concerns. He just seemed nice. He was making teas and coffee for people. Each employee had their own mug as well. Oh. Which made it easier for him to target them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, strangely enough, Graham's 59-year-old boss, uh Bob Eggle, began experiencing severe cramps and dizziness, which everyone attributed to the Bobbington bug. Because the problem is that there was also just like a bug that would go around with the grade school children and all that. And so they're like, oh no, I must just be sick. It's it's a bug, it'll pass, it's fine. That's what they thought, anyway. So other Hadland workers also began complaining about similar symptoms that Bob had, but none of their symptoms were quite as severe. So it was like he was kind of picking favorites in a way. Uh Bob recovered when he took time off work and then became sicker when he came back.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Wow.

unknown 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

On July 7th, 1971, Bob Eggle was admitted to the hospital, and Graham called them for updates on Eggle's progress, just seemingly concerned. Bob ended up dying at the hospital where the cause of death was attributed to Jillian Barr Syndrome. Oh. Yeah. At the funeral, the managing director, uh Godfrey Foster, recalled Graham remarking, it was sad that Bob should come through the terrors of Dunkirk only to fall victim to some strange illness.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Oh yeah. Damn. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

During all of Eggle's absences, his fellow co-workers had all of Graham's attention. Because the main target's gone, so time to look at everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

These specific people, and these are going to happen some of them in separate cases, and then some of them simultaneously. Or at least a couple of them simultaneously. But the next few people we're going to talk about are Ron Hewitt, Diana Smart, David Tilson, Jeff Robat, and Fred Biggs. All victims to Graham's favorite duo, Antimonium Thallium.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Ugh.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Wow. So Graham had been repl hired to replace Ron Hewitt, who had already put his notice for another job, so he was out the door. So luckily for him, he only had to deal with this for a little bit, and then he was gone.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Graham poisoned his tea with the antimony until Ron left for his new job.

unknown 31:23

Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

And then him leaving led to Graham being promoted at least for a probationary period to head stormin. For the next few months, he focused on his other coworker, Diana Smart. Often and mainly when she annoyed him.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Yeah. Also using antimony, because of course.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

One diary entry read, Di irritated me yesterday, so I packed her off home with an attack of sickness. I only gave her enough to shake her up. I now regret that I didn't give her a larger dose capable of laying her up for a few days. Wow. I don't know what she did. Right. But damn. On October 8th, 1971, Graham put thallium acetate in unsuspecting David Tilson's tea. Graham had added sugar to disguise the taste of the thallium, but then the tea ended up being too sweet. So David had maybe a couple drinks and then got rid of the rest. He's like a week later, Graham gave Tilson a second dose of thallium. Tilson's symptoms at the hospital were as follows numb legs, breathing difficulties, chest pains, his hair fell out, and his skin was so tender that he couldn't even have the hospital blanket on. Yeah. The weight of the bed sheets was too much for how sensitive his skin was. Yikes. And Graham even had a backup plan, which is insane. To visit Tilson in the hospital with a bottle of brandy laced with even more thallium. Luckily, Tilson recovered, but he was left permanently impotent. Yeah, so on top of everything else and losing his hair. Yeah. Now he's permanently impotent as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

That's that's so bad.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Yeah, thallium's bad.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

I didn't know a whole lot about thallium before reading this, and holy shit. There's a reason that it is uh yeah, it's dicey. Yeah. Left to the professionals. So while all of that was going on, Graham was also poisoning another employee, Jethro Bat.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Well, don't want to leave him out, apparently. Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Uh they, and strangely enough, had become friendly. And Bat would give him rides home. And just yeah, they would be chill and gorgial. Uh Graham admitted to giving Bat coffee in two doses containing four grams of thallium, enough to kill him. Bat luckily found the coffee too strong for his liking. And though he didn't end up drinking it all, he still ended up drinking enough to put him in the hospital. He recovered in the end, but he was left the same as Tilson. So he was still permanently impotent after all of that. He also had very similar to the same symptoms, losing hair, cramps, all of that. And Graham in his diary had an entry saying, I feel rather ashamed in my action in harming Jay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Why? Because he was nice to you and you still poisoned him.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Like but then like that instance gave him a flicker of empathy-ish, kind of, and be like, oh, I do feel bad for that one. It's like okay. I mean, yeah, you felt something. Maybe. But also, yeah, maybe he wrote it down in a book that nobody was supposed to see.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

So still fake it.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Yeah. But that was the only particular poisoning that he seems to have recorded any amount of feeling remorse about or any kind of shame about. The next and last was Fred Biggs, a 56-year-old local counselor and part-time employee at Hatland. At the first Graham used antimony to poison him, but after falling to the Bobington bug, he recovered. On October 30th, in 1971, Graham put three doses of thallium in Biggs' tea. Within days, he was admitted to the Hemel Hempstead General Hospital, then transferred to the Whittington Hospital in North London, followed by another transfer to the London National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Because his central nervous system had deteriorated to the point that he couldn't speak. And he had trouble breathing, and parts of his skin were peeling off. Ooh. Yeah. And of course, Graham, in a illusion of concern, would keep up with his condition by contacting Biggs' wife and asking for status updates. Wow. Yeah. Until Biggs finally died on November 19th, 1971. Oh. It's the the illusion that really gets me of just like calling spouses or calling hospitals to check up on somebody. And it's it's not at all out of concern. Right. It's out of scientific study.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

In the most cold calculated way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Right. Asking the wife, oh, well, how is he today? Does he have this symptom? This symptom. You know, I can only imagine how that would go. And it's gotta be in a way that's not super suspicious, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

But you know, you would well, yeah. Cause when he first made it to Broadmoor, he was talking about how you could make cyanide out of the laurel leaves. So I'm like, so if he did tone it down and kept it toned down, then maybe he was able to ask the questions in a more disguised kind of way.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yeah. Or I mean he might have just been the weird dude that everybody is like, oh, he's just really happening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Yeah. I could see either one, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

So all of these sicknesses and sudden suspicious deaths finally drew some attention, and Graham's co-workers became increasingly suspicious of him. Mm-hmm.

unknown 38:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Philip Doggett uh told management about Graham's unhealthy obsession with poisons, but the firm's medical officer, Dr. Ian Anderson, I believe it's how that's pronounced. It's like I A I N. I think I think so. Ian sounds close enough. All right. Or at least Dr. Anderson. Yep. Uh told the staff that heavy metal poisoning had already been ruled out. Which, funnily enough, led to an argument between him and Graham, who insisted that the symptoms displayed by the victims absolutely pointed to this diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

I mean, yeah, ask the science man first. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah. Intrigued and curious, Anderson quizzed Graham further, only to discover exactly how vast Graham's knowledge was. This prompted the firm's owner, John Hadlan, to finally contact the police. And a background check, a full one, by investigators, was finally conducted.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Oh good.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Which revealed Graham's previous convictions on well, not convictions, but his past with poisonings and why he actually went to Broadmoor. On November 20th of 1971, Graham was arrested at the home of his aunt and uncle in Shearneys, Kent. Though nothing incriminating was found on his person, and he claimed no wrongdoing. In parentheses, I couldn't help but audibly laugh while researching this just for the sheer audacity of this man. His aunt heard him ask one of the officers as he was being led out the door, which one is it you're doing me for?

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

And I did. I read that. I was just like.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

All right. I mean, I guess if he's caught and he knows, then what's the point in hiding? Uh but yeah, that's a fun one.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Um when his dwelling was finally searched by officers, uh, they discovered a large stash of bottles containing poisons, which included 434 milligrams of thallium and 32.33 grams of antimony. Other poisons found were atropine, acinitine, and digitalis. And then they also obviously and inevitably found the Nazi paraphernalia, and they found his diary where he had been keeping all of those detailed notes on the doses he administered, their side effects, and whether he was going to let each person live or die.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Wow. Oh, that is yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Yikes. So he went from also, I guess, just scientific study and hard analysis to kind of deciding whether or not he was gonna play God.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yeah. Wow. He admitted to all of the poisonings and even admitted to having committed the perfect murder by killing his stepmother and then the cremation. So, yep. He even spent because this is just who this guy was, twenty minutes explaining to officers the effects of thallium on the human body. Okay. Yep. When questioned as to why he poisoned people, he said, I suppose I had ceased to see them as people. At least a part of me had. They were simply guinea pigs. Which checks out for the way he acted the entire time. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Don't think he's lying there.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

No. Probably not.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Graham Young was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and four accounts of administering poison with intent to injure, as well as four accounts of administering poison to cause bodily harm. He pleaded not guilty, obviously. Right. Uh which made it hard to find anyone to represent him. But also when you spend twenty minutes explaining to the officer. Officers, the effects of thallium on the human body.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

Yeah, it's gonna be a little difficult.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

I didn't poison people, I just know how they all work. Right. And the detailed journal of notes and scientific study and observation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

So because of that, the trial date had been postponed several times.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Uh-huh. Yeah. That that makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Mm-hmm. Even though he retracted his earlier confession to police, because he had admitted all of them, and then he retracted it. After admitting to all of it, uh the evidence against him outside of that, obviously, was still very strong. Seventy-five witnesses were called to give testimony. Graham himself was the only witness in his own defense. Wow. And he claimed that the diary was just a fantasy for a novel after it was read out loud in court. No. He sure tried.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

No.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

No.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

No.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

The cremated remains of Bob Eggle were analyzed and found to contain nine milligrams of thallium. And this was at least recorded here, the first instance of cremated ashes being used as evidence in a murder conviction.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Yeah. Okay. Which I thought was just neat. Yeah. Really shitty that it had to happen. Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

On June 29th, 1972, after an hour and 38 minutes of deliberating, the jury found Graham Young guilty of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of administering poison with intent to injure, and he wasn't found guilty of poisoning Sparks or Buck, who his name shows up only later from what I the two or three places I had been reading. Um when he was at the hostel, there was like another friend, kind of friendly person that he had known, and I am going to allege that that is Buck, because they don't name him. Oh like, oh yeah, there's Sparks, and then another guy. It's like where's Buck come from?

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

So uh but he wasn't found guilty of poisoning Sparks or Buck.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

And acquitted on all four counts of administering poison to cause grievous bodily harm. I don't know. I j I don't ask them. I don't know. I it's okay. Maybe they bought that the journal was just a fantasy novel playwright. I have no idea. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Alright.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Alright. Graham ended up dying in his cell at Parkhurst Prison on the evening of August 1st, 1990, a month before his forty-third birthday. Oh. Yeah. Though his death was listed as myocardia infarction, so heart. Um he had no history of heart disease. And it's speculated that Graham either committed suicide or was murdered by prisoners or prison staff who felt unsafe around him. Wow. I mean to be fair, uh they almost died at Broadmoor, so these ones just kind of pulled the gun a little faster if that is what took him out. Or he could have just committed suicide and decided to take his own life that way.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Yeah, I'm not sure, because that's kind of after so long in prison and cause that would have been what almost 20 years of being in prison? Let's see.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

1972, 1990? Yeah?

SPEAKER_01 48:42

That's an awfully long time to just one day decide, oh, I don't want to be here. Which I mean, I yeah, I so yeah. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

Both are interesting theories. The second one seems a little more possibly possible. Yeah. Because also 43 is still, I mean, even for it's it's the 1900s, it's not the 18, 1700s. Oh, yeah, no, that's still that's very young. Yeah. Yeah. So the aftermath of this tale did lead to some good things. Oh, good. Um, it ended with the home secretary Reginald Malding confirming that more safeguards were to be introduced governing the release of mentally ill offenders.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Additionally, no patient from a special hospital could be discharged without two recommendations. So just the one dude being like, nah, he's fine, he won't reinvent. No, you need to.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Uh, from psychiatrists, following his conviction, there were reports of copycat poisonings, and therefore, the Poisons Act of 1972 was created to restrict and control the sale of poisons. Hmm. Yeah.

unknown 50:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

So in the end, some good did come from his actions, but obviously it also took m murders to happen, but right.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

That's a very common thing even today.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Yep.

unknown 50:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Something crazy happens, hmm. Let's not that let happen again. And then more rules and regulations. Yeah. That should have been there in the first place. But yeah, so they definitely decided that they wanted to keep like do more checks and pay more attention, honestly, to releasing people, especially ones that look like they could maybe reoffend and just actually care. Right. Is kind of also what it seems like. Yeah. Because it's just too loose. Yeah. Yeah. And he was supposed to be in there for 15 years, no earlier than 15 eight. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That is the tale of Graham Frederick Young. And that's also why I said, yeah, the Nazi stuff, the Hitler stuff, that is bad. Right. But for what he did, that is not prevalent.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's That is wild.

unknown 51:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

He was so brilliant too. And it's unfortunate to see that he was that brilliant and ended up going down a murderous path.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Right. Yeah. Yeah. He could have done so many good things with that.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

So many. Convincing people that he was three or four years older than he was with just his knowledge alone is impressive. Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what they said about Ted Bundy at his trial, the judge talking to him, oh, if you wouldn't have gone down this path of murder, you would have we I would have been happy to have you in my courtroom. And you know, it's hard to think about, but it's like, yeah, they were smart. That's very smart. Usually how they get away with stuff.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Usually.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Unfortunately. But yeah, and so many things. And now you've got to learn about thallium and the effects of thallium on the human body. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

I think I have only read about thallium as like prolonged like overtime exposure, like years time exposure. And that that can cause like a lot of like diseases and cancers and like all kinds of things. So I I I didn't know that it also did the thing, like a lot of it. It's bad for you, but I didn't I hadn't read about it in the sense of yeah, you get too much at one time and it'll still do bad things. So yeah, absolutely. Really bad things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

Yeah. The skin peeling was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Yeah. No, I hate that.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Yeah, no, that's yeah. I've seen other things that do stuff like that, but yeah, I was just like, oh, and noted. And just how much he loved antimony.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Which is not a poison I think of often. No. No. It's just it's a chemical in the periodic table. It's a metal.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Apparently also very toxic and used for poisoning, if so be it, I guess, if you choose.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

Yeah. So and uh luckily well, obviously unfortunately his stepmother had passed, but luckily his father and his sister didn't actually manage to fall victim to his experiments either.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

And I'm glad that they were wary of him being released and not trusting him a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

More specifically the father, but yeah. At least the sister was there being like, mmm, no, he's he's uh it's not great. Yeah. But yeah, his dad was very much gung home. Uh do not let that boy out, and nobody will house him if you do.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

Yeah. Which true. He ended up going to a hostel.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

So he didn't stay with family. His sister, even though he lived somewhat near her. He wasn't staying there either. Yeah. Yeah. The more you know. Yeah. Another name in the books, which is crazy. Uh intelligence and actions. Yeah. Yeah. Commitment to science. Right. I respect the commitment. Yeah. Uh yeah, the half-habard hazardly just poisoning everybody's tea and things, maybe not so much. Yeah. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Right. Especially just, oh, she annoyed me.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

She annoyed me enough that I sent her home. Dang, I wish I would have laid her up in bed for a while and given her that much instead. So spiceful.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

So rest in peace to the victims. And he is also dead, whether that had been by his own hands or others. Right. And luckily, we got some new rulings out of it and restrictions and guidelines to make things a little bit safer. Yes. And I'm sure more happened after that too. Oh yeah. I'm sure. But at least here are some of them.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Yeah. And I mean maybe not as much.

SPEAKER_02 55:52

Yeah, hopefully not as much were needed after this.

unknown 55:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

But alas, it's the world, so who knows?

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:01

Yeah. So. I hope you liked my presentation.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

I did. That was, yeah, that was a wild ride for sure.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

Twists and turns and staring. Like, what do you mean they let him right?

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah. Which yeah, and I should. Obviously, I sound like, oh, they finally caught on. We know in hindsight, obviously. Like, I'm not saying these people were all stupid for not catching on, but it's because they didn't know his background. Had anybody done a thorough check or that been a consistent thing to do, then none of that would have happened. But yeah, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:45

And even then, they kind of only caught on because the guy made the claim that metals poisoning was uh already ruled out and invalid. Which pissed Graham off because he really needed to correct him. Right. So thanks for watching and listening. And next week we will have the dog still. And Jenny will be presenting.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

So I'm excited. See what fun you come up with.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

It will be fun.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

Until then, take care. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

Bye.