When Molly Young found in her 13-year-old stepson Graham's jacket pocket a strange bottle of liquid that exuded a disgusting smell, she asked what it was. The boy hesitated, but admitted that it was poisonous antimony. At that moment, 35-year-old Molly had no idea that she had sentenced herself to death.
Psychologists have always been interested in the question of how it turns out that a maniac grows out of an outwardly ordinary child? Frederick Graham Young was just such an ordinary boy.
Where Dreams May Come
Freddie lost his mother early and did not remember her at all. His aunt replaced his parent, so when the father married again and took his two-year-old son to him, it was a shock for him.
The boys of post-war London loved to dig in the ruins, in heaps of garbage. Graham found various trinkets there and hid them under his bed at home. Once he found a book on Satanism, Graham read it voraciously and became interested in this topic. And when he learned that Hitler was a fan of the supernatural, he was carried away by Nazism.
Young decided to implement the rituals of the sacrifices of mice, toads and birds, which he read in these books. As a result, he began to create magic powders and to some extent became an alchemist. Noticing his son's hobby, and most importantly, his success in school, his father presented him with a young chemist's kit, which contained the items that Graham needed so much - retorts, burners, crucibles and so on. Soon Graham created a poison with which he poisoned first a mouse and then a frog.
By the age of 12, he became an expert in chemistry and pharmacology, and at 13 he read a book about a 19th century criminal who poisoned his mother and wife with antimony. The teenager especially remembered the conclusion that it is almost impossible to identify traces of antimony in the body of the deceased. And the boy wanted to check it out.
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Having bought some antimony from a pharmacy, he decided to test it on a classmate Chris Williams, who sharply spoke about his experiments with mice. The poisoner poured poison into his sandwiches and tea, and soon the guy started having stomach upsets.
But Young's stepmother found the vial of poison before he completed his plan. Molly not only forbade Graham to continue the experiments, but also made a scandal to the pharmacist who sold a dangerous substance to a minor.
Within a couple of weeks, Graham found another pharmacist, and instead of Williams decided to poison his stepmother.
At first, Molly began to suffer from stomach pains, and in early 1962 she died. Her body was cremated, thereby destroying the traces of the crime. The police suspected the teenager of poisoning, but there was no evidence of this, and he was released.
After the death of his stepmother, Graham began to experience the poison already on his aunt, father and younger sister.
However, sometimes he forgot what kind of food he had poisoned, and himself more than once experienced the effects of the poison. Due to indigestion, Young Sr. went to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with arsenic poisoning.
The arrogant Graham got into a conversation with the doctor and had the imprudence to doubt this diagnosis and the competence of the doctor. At the same time, he flashed his knowledge, listing the signs of antimony poisoning.
The doctor suspected something was wrong and shared his doubts with the Young family.
Let the goat go to the garden …
The school chemistry teacher exposed the poisoner. He found in the desk where Young was sitting, bubbles of antimony oxide and detailed formulations of poisons. The teacher called the police, and on May 23, 1962, Graham Young was arrested.
The interrogation of the teenager showed both his brilliant mind and some oddities: “I thought that the doses I was giving were not lethal, but I understood that I was not doing very well. It worked like a drug on me, even though I was not on drugs. I was aware of all the idiocy of my experiences with poisons. I understood this from the very beginning, but could not stop."
Guest psychiatrist Donald Blair issued a conclusion that Graham Young is a psychopath.
At the trial, held on July 6, 1962, Young was charged with the murder of his stepmother and the attempted murder of his father and aunt. He himself claimed to be guilty only of attempted poisoning, but not of murdering his stepmother.
It was this, as well as the conclusion of a psychiatrist, that saved him from prison. The court declared the defendant insane and sent him to a psychiatric clinic in Broadmore.
The arrival of such a patient proved to be a test for the clinic staff. First, Young was not an idiot; on the contrary, he was very smart. Secondly, it is extremely dangerous, because he could make poison from the drugs that were available in the clinic. Which I began to do almost from the very first days.
Graham was very kind to the nurses, but not in the presence of doctors. To them, he wanted to seem like a jerk. As a result, friendship with the staff brought Yang bonuses: he was allowed to decorate the ward with Nazi and Satanic symbols, and he was also given a "green" pass that allowed him to freely walk around the wards and in the garden.
It was there that Graham found laurel leaves, from which he managed to obtain an extract containing potassium cyanide. He poisoned his roommate with it, the 23-year-old murderer John Berridge. Since the deceased was a complete degenerate, no one wanted to look for the culprit in his death. The same thing happened with a couple of other patients who died unexpectedly.
During his time in the asylum, Young became convinced of continuing his experiments. He stole chemicals and medicines, nurses found bottles of his "potions" in the most unexpected places. Moreover, Young began to test poisons not only on patients, but also on staff. The paramedics guessed this, so they dreamed of getting rid of the dangerous guest.
At the end of 1969, they began to prepare him for discharge. On the eve of this, in 1970, Young was released on Christmas to his aunt, who forgave him. Returning to the psychiatric hospital seemed humiliating to Graham, and on the way there he decided: "When I get out of here, I will kill one person for every year I spend here."
So, in 1971, after 9 years of "treatment" - out of 15 assigned - Graham was released. He left the psychiatric hospital as a man with much broader knowledge in the field of poisons.
Dangerous demure
In London, Graham rented a room. Information about his past, according to English law, was not subject to publicity, so he easily got a job as a storekeeper in a military optics company. There he gained access to certain substances and equipment to facilitate his experiments.
The guy's mentor was 41-year-old Ron Havith, who complained that he decided to leave the company because of the difficult climate in the team. Young sympathized with Havit and decided to teach his offenders a lesson. Coming to work, Graham liked to treat his colleagues with strong tea from a thermos. Soon, warehouse manager Bob Eagle felt ill and passed away on July 7, 1971. The autopsy did not reveal the cause of death.
In September 1971, his assistant, Fred Biggs, died after 20 days of pain and convulsions. And then four more employees became ill. The management of the company invited the authoritative doctor Ian Anderson to find out the causes of the epidemic. Tom was unable to determine what was the matter, but after talking with Graham, who showed amazing knowledge of chemistry and biology, the doctor suspected something was wrong. Scotland Yard detectives were soon talking to Young.
The latter quickly realized that Young had taken on the old. In addition, forensic experts found traces of thallium in the blood of the victims and the victims. On November 21, 1971, Graham Young was arrested and charged with murder. But there was no direct evidence against him. Investigators found a diary in his house with records of the composition of the poisons and a description of the reactions of company employees to them. But the suspect explained that this was just the fruit of his rich imagination, it was not for nothing that he was in a psychiatric hospital.
Although during the investigation Young liked to boast of "feats" in the field of poisoning, at the trial he denied everything. Nevertheless, the court found him guilty of two murders and several attempted murders. In July 1972, Graham Young was sentenced to life in a psychiatric hospital.
He was sent to serve his sentence not to his familiar Broadmore, but to a closed psychiatric clinic in Park Lane, near Liverpool. Here he lived in harsh conditions, but, according to the observations of doctors, he never forgot about his hobby. In 1990, Young grew a poisonous mushroom in a prison yard and mixed it with his excrement to produce poison. Because of this incident, the poisoner was sent to the Parkhurst maximum security prison on the Isle of Wight.
The fame of him came to prison even earlier than himself. Therefore, the inmates prepared to meet with Young. On August 22, 1990, the 42-year-old King of Poisons was found dead in his cell by the guards. The official cause is myocardial infarction. Although after cremation, no one can confirm this.
Prokhor EZHOV