Murder and Mayhem

by D P Lyle

  A: You're going to love this. Zombie Powder. Yes, Zombie Powder.

  It is the toxin of the puffer fish, also called the blowfish. The toxin is called tetraodontoxin or tetradotoxin (I've seen it written as either and also abbreviated as TTX), and it is found in the ovaries of the blowfish. The toxin is not destroyed by cooking, but if the entrails are removed before preparation, the fish itself is harmless.

  In Japan the dish is prepared in a manner that leaves a little of the toxin behind. It is called fugu and is a delicacy. The residual toxin, in small doses, gives the diner a flushed and tingly feeling. The fish must be prepared to perfection, or it can be deadly—kind of like gastronomic Russian roulette. The chefs who do this are specially trained and licensed, and even these guys screw up from time to time. Recently, maybe a year or two ago, I read about several deaths in Japan from this.

  In Haiti the toxin is used in certain voodoo religious rituals, and it is used in the "zombification" of field-workers and others. It can be sprinkled on the skin of the victim or added to his food, and it takes effect in a few minutes or up to four hours or so. It absorbs through the skin or the gastrointestinal tract.

  It is basically a neurotoxin (affects the neurologic system) and causes paralysis, speech difficulty, slow, shallow respirations, and a decreased heart rate, with a weak and thready pulse. The victim may appear dead and is indeed fairly close. The skin of the victim is cool and pale, his breathing slow and shallow, and with an almost unpalpable pulse, one could easily assume the victim was dead.

  If he survived the first twenty-four hours, without treatment he would gradually come around over the next two or three days. Proper treatment is directed toward preventing brain damage (see below) and would consist of hospitalization and giving oxygen and drugs to support the blood pressure while the toxin's effects wore off.

  How to make a zombie? you ask. Simple. Sprinkle some of the powder in the victim's food or in his shoes. He will become dizzy, short of breath, and weak, and collapse. Then lay him in a shallow ditch, cover him with leaves, and come back in about twelve hours. He will be calm, controllable, and a good field-worker.

  What causes this is an anoxic encephalopathy, which means the brain is damaged due to the lack of an adequate oxygen supply. This is the same type of brain injury that occurs in victims of drowning, cardiac arrest, carbon monoxide poisoning, and asphyxiation from any cause. In the case of tetraodontoxin poisoning, the low heart rate and blood pressure and slowed breathing causes the concentration of oxygen in the blood to fall to very low levels, which damages the brain—sort of a metabolic "frontal lobotomy." The surgical version of this happened to Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cookoo's Nest.

  In the 1980s this happened to one of my patients. According to Joe (not his real name, of course), he owned a factory in Haiti, and Jean Claude Duvalier, a.k.a. "Baby Doc," wanted it, but Joe refused to sell. So Baby Doc had some of his Tonton Macoutes goons "zombie-ize" Joe and took his factory. They slipped into his house at night and powdered his shoes. The next thing Joe remembered was waking up three days later, in a three-hundred-year-old prison with rats gnawing on his toes. It took the U.S. State Department a month to get him out of Haiti.

  Where would you get this stuff? Haiti, for sure, or perhaps in the Algiers area of New Orleans, where voodoo is still heavily practiced.

  What Poison That Can Be Secreted in a Glass Will Kill Instantly When Swallowed?

  Q: In my story a poison is placed in a glass. The victim then pours water into the glass and drinks it, dying immediately. At first glance it looks as though he has had a heart attack. However, my sleuth suspects he was

  poisoned. What poison would fit this scenario, and what clues would tip off my sleuth that the victim was indeed poisoned?

  A: There are several possibilities for your scenario, but one excellent choice: cyanide. It is quick, nasty, and effective. Even if someone attempted to save the victim, it is nearly impossible because treatment must begin immediately if any chance of survival is to be realized. Why? Cyanide is a "metabolic poison" in that it basically shuts down the ability of the body's cells to use oxygen. The red blood cells cannot carry oxygen to the tissues, and the tissues of the body can't use the oxygen anyway. It is as if all the oxygen is removed from the body instantly. This process is immediate and profound, and leads to death in one to ten minutes depending on the dosage. So even if CPR is begun immediately, the body cells still can't use the oxygen supplied by this process.

  Symptoms are rapid breathing, shortness of breath, dizziness, flushing, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, maybe seizure activity, and then death. These are also common symptoms of a heart attack. This sequence of symptoms happens very quickly, in a matter of seconds or minutes. The victim develops sudden, severe shortness of breath and a flushed face; he may clutch at his chest, collapse to the floor, and die, with or without having a seizure in the process. Also, his skin appears very pink, and if the victim hits his head or scrapes an elbow and bleeds, the blood is a noticeably bright cherry red. This is also true in carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Your sleuth could suspect cyanide poisoning from the sudden onset of breathing difficulty followed by a sudden collapse. The pinkish skin color and the bright red color of the victim's blood would be additional clues.

  Hydrogen cyanide is a gas and would not fit your situation. It is primarily used in fumigation and can be lethal if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. It is the gas used in gas chamber executions.

  Potassium cyanide (KCN) and sodium cyanide (NaCN) are your best bets. They are white powders with a faint bitter almond smell, which most people do not notice. Either could easily be sprinkled into a glass, especially if the glass was opaque, colored, or etched. Both are very powerful and only a small amount would be needed. They readily dissolve in water, alcohol, or a mixed drink.

  One caveat: Your killer must be careful when handling KCN or NaCN. They are both easily absorbed through the skin and could do in your killer. Rubber gloves and a complete avoidance of direct contact with the powder would be wise.

  KCN and NaCN are used commercially in metal recovery such as extracting gold or silver from their ores and in electroplating such metals as gold, silver, copper, and platinum. They could be pilfered from a jewelry or metal plating company. They are also sold by several chemical supply firms.

  In your story a small amount of the powder could be put in the glass and swirled to coat the inside. When the water is added and consumed, the victim would collapse and die very quickly.

  Can Ingested Cocaine Kill?

  Q: In my story the victim is killed by ingesting cocaine placed in his drink, a Manhattan. The vermouth would probably hide any possible taste. I have read a book on poisons and thought this was feasible. Is it possible? Cyanide would be easier and faster, but for my murderer cocaine was readily available.

  A: The short answer is yes, cocaine would work and could work very quickly if the dose is large enough.

  Cocaine revs up the brain and can cause seizures, and these can be lethal, especially if they trigger a condition known as status epilepticus. Typically, seizures are self-limited, running their course in a couple of minutes and then ceasing. But in status (for short) they continue sometimes for hours or even days. IV medications such as Dilantin, phenobarbital, or one of the other anticonvulsant (antiseizure) drugs sometimes won't break them. Occasionally, we have to paralyze these types of patients with Anectine (a curare-like drug that paralyzes all muscles—not just the seizing ones but also those needed for respiration) and place them on a ventilator until things settle down. This prevents them from dying from lack of ventilation or aspiration of stomach contents. Breaking these types of seizures can take several days in severe situations.

  Even without status a seizure can be lethal since it interferes with respiration or can lead to vomiting and aspiration. More likely, however, the cocaine would cause some cardiac event such as the following:

  1. Lethal cardiac arrhyth
mias (irregularity in the heart's normal rhythm): Ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation may occur as a result of the direct effect of cocaine's stimulating properties. Most people who die suddenly after cocaine use do so from this type of change in the cardiac rhythm. It may occur after ingestion, snorting, intravenous (IV) injection, or freebasing, which is the smoking of cocaine. With freebasing the cocaine is absorbed through the lungs almost as fast as if given by IV.

  2. Coronary arterial spasm (narrowing from the contraction of the muscles in the walls of the arteries): The coronary arteries are the ones that supply blood to the heart muscle. When they spasm, the flow of blood can be severely and even completely restricted, and the area of the heart supplied by that artery may die (heart attack, myocardial infarction, or MI) or a lethal arrhythmia, as described above, may result secondary to poor blood flow to the heart muscle. This is not uncommon, and I have seen several patients over the years with this occurrence.

  Crack cocaine, because of its greater concentration and delivery through the lungs, is particularly dangerous.

  In your scenario the ingestion of cocaine from a spiked drink could cause all the above. A seizure, a heart attack, or a sudden death from an arrhythmia or any combination could happen. The victim may clutch his chest and complain of shortness of breath, become pale, and sweat profusely—exactly like a heart attack. He may fall to the floor in a grand mal seizure. His back would arch, his eyes roll back, and powerful jerking motions of his arms and legs would occur. He might bite his tongue, causing it to bleed, or he might vomit and aspirate. In the case of the arrhythmia, the victim would simply collapse and die. Fade to black, cut, print, roll the credits.

  One more thought: Cocaine is bitter and is a local anesthetic that numbs the victim's mouth. However, the taste can be masked, especially if it is the victim's third or fourth drink. And since the absorption rate of cocaine by the GI tract is fairly rapid by the time the victim senses the numbing effect or otherwise figures out that something is amiss, he might be on the floor with no pulse. Additionally, if the victim is not a user, his tolerance for an acute dose of cocaine is greatly reduced so that a smaller dose can prove lethal.

  What Happens in Carbon Monoxide Poisoning?

  Q: I am working on a story in which one of the characters is murdered by piping the exhaust from a gasoline engine into the room where she is sleeping. What actually happens in this circumstance? What causes death? I read that people who die in this manner have bright red skin. True? Why? How long after she lost consciousness would she still have a chance to survive if found?

  A: The culprit in exposure to exhaust from a gas-powered engine is carbon monoxide (CO). It can also come from a faulty gas heater or a fireplace where the gas or the wood are incompletely burned. Complete combustion of gas or wood forms carbon dioxide (C02), the same gas we exhale with each breath. Though high levels of CO2 can be harmful and even deadly (this is what happens when people suffocate in car trunks, abandoned refrigerators, vaults, and so forth), CO2 is not nearly as toxic as CO.

  Our red blood cells (RBCs) contain hemoglobin, which is an iron-containing molecule that binds oxygen and carries it to our tissues, where it is released. The tissue cells then use the oxygen for all their vital processes. Inhaled CO is rapidly absorbed through the lungs and into the bloodstream, where it binds with hemoglobin with an affinity 210 times that of oxygen. This means that if air is inhaled that contains CO, the hemoglobin prefers to take on the CO and not the oxygen. The cells can't use CO, so the net effect is that they are suffocated.

  The combining of CO with hemoglobin produces carboxyhemo-globin, which gives the blood a bright cherry red color. It is true that people dying from CO poisoning can have a bright red color to their skin and the mucous membranes inside the mouth, but not always. Cyanosis causes the skin to have a blue-gray color and it occurs due to lack of oxygen; this duskiness may mask the red hue from the carboxyhemoglobin.

  Most fatal cases are found to have carboxyhemoglobin levels in their blood of 50 percent or more, though the old, young, and chronically ill may succumb to levels as low as 25 to 30 percent. This is particularly true of people with chronic heart or lung disease.

  At autopsy the M.E. would suspect CO poisoning from the history (the victim being found in a garage with a car engine running), the reddish color of the internal tissues, and the cherry red hue of the blood. This cherry red color of the blood usually requires a concentration of carboxyhemoglobin greater than 30 percent. The skin in dependent areas, where the blood settles after death, are most likely to show the characteristic red color, but this may be masked by the purplish blue color of the dependent lividity. Even in these situations, however, the margins of the lividity may show the red color. The M.E. would then test the blood for carboxyhemoglobin in order to determine if it was the cause of death.

  By the time she absorbed enough CO to lose consciousness, she would be very near the point where she would suffer permanent brain damage and death.

  As to how long your victim could survive after losing consciousness, there is no exact answer since too many variables are involved. Her age, weight, and general health status; the concentration of the CO; how airtight the room was; and what drugs or alcohol, if any, she consumed prior to exposure are just a few of the things to consider. A ballpark would be half an hour at the outside; fifteen minutes would be better. If you need to make it an hour or so, provide some sort of ventilation into the garage—something the killer didn't notice that would supply just enough fresh air to extend the time of death a little. It might be an open window, or perhaps the family dog comes to investigate after the bad guys leave and pushes open the door that leads from the house to the garage, thus allowing some fresh air to enter.

  What Duration of Exposure to Natural Gas Would Be Required to Kill a Person?

  Q: I'm setting up an attempted murder. A character goes home, gets roaring drunk, and passes out. Then somebody sneaks into his house, turns on the gas stove, and blows out the pilot light. Any idea on how long it would take the guy to die or, in this case, how long he can be in there without dying? I want him to get sick but survive with no ill effects.

  A: This is a difficult if not impossible question to answer, which is a good thing for story crafting. There are lots of options.

  The effect of the gas on the person depends on three things in general: the concentration of the gas inhaled, the duration of exposure, and the condition of the victim prior to the event.

  The concentration would depend on the flow from the gas jet, the size of the room or house, and the amount and character of ventilation in the room. A small studio apartment would fill with gas more quickly than a 5,000-square-foot house. Also, the victim would likely be closer to the point of origin of the gas. A studio would have the kitchen area and the sleeping area in the same room, as opposed to the bedroom being down the hall or upstairs from the kitchen in a house. Open windows, ceiling fans, or the air-conditioning system would supply some degree of ventilation and prolong the intended victim's survival. Of course, the electrical circuits of the fan or air conditioning could trigger an explosion once the gas concentration reached a certain level, but that doesn't fit your scenario.

  The exposure time is self-explanatory. The longer the exposure at any given gas concentration, the more likely death would occur.

  The condition of the victim plays a role because people with heart or lung disease, diabetes, liver or kidney problems, and certain other medical conditions would be more susceptible than the average person. Also, alcohol or other sedative drugs would interfere with the cough reflex and impair the victim's ability to recognize the symptoms of exposure (cough, shortness of breath, headache, an unpleasant taste in the mouth, blurred vision, and so forth), thus lessening the likelihood that he would realize what was happening until it was too late.

  Why is this confusion good? Because you have great leeway in how you handle the plot. Whether it's an hour or several hours and whether your vic
tim survives or not is up to you. I wouldn't leave him in the room overnight or all day, particularly if his home is a small apartment. Most people would die from even moderate levels of exposure for that amount of time. Otherwise, make it fit what you want.

  What Substance Could Be Added to Water to Hasten Death in Someone Stranded in a Desert?

  Q: In my story a young man is released deep in the desert with only a bottle of water. Is there a substance that could be added to the water that would hasten dehydration and death?

  A: Two very simple ones: alcohol and diuretics.

  Alcohol acts like a diuretic, as anyone who has had a couple of beers knows. Remember, you don't buy beer, you merely rent it. Alcohol depresses the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland, which makes a hormone called antidiuretic hormone (ADH). This hormone causes the kidneys to hold on to water. The depressing effect

  of alcohol decreases the amount of ADH released and thus what reaches the kidneys. The result is that the kidneys "open up," and urine volume increases dramatically. Thus, alcohol is a diuretic.

  Diuretics are a class of drugs that, by several different mechanisms, force the kidneys to filter more water from the bloodstream and produce more urine. Common ones are hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), Dyazide, and Lasix (furosemide). HCTZ and Dyazide are mild, while Lasix is powerful. In fact, a single dose of Lasix may bring about the loss of several quarts of water. That is why this particular medication is useful and at times lifesaving for the treatment of individuals with heart failure and pulmonary edema, a condition in which the body is severely fluid overloaded and the lungs are filled with water.

  In your situation you could dissolve a 40-milligram Lasix tablet in the water. It has little taste, but to make sure no funny taste is detected, Gatorade or fruit juice could be used. In this case the killer would give the victim a liquid that the victim believes is lifesaving, while in reality the concoction will only make things much worse. Depending on the temperature, the terrain the victim must cross, the dryness of the air, and the size, age, and health of the victim, it may take a couple of days for him to reach a life-threatening level of dehydration. The addition of Lasix to his water supply may cut this to a few hours.