thanks for the ping.....This is exactly why we need more information. Something just doesn’t smell right
Pick Your Poison
DR. DOUG HANSON
Forensics Contributor
http://www.officer.com/article/10249370/pick-your-poison
Poisons have been used throughout history as a means of getting rid of philosophers, politicians, husbands, wives, and even brothers-in-law. Some cases of “murder most foul”.
“Pick your poison” may be the old saying, but most poisoning victims don’t get to pick their poison—someone else does it for them. Arsenic, cyanide, and strychnine are the things we think of immediately as poisons. Most pesticides are poisonous to humans, as are the materials sold as rat or rodent poisons. Probably the most famous character in history to die from poison was Socrates, who drank tea made from the hemlock plant. This plant, which resembles parsley, contains a variety of highly toxic chemicals. The most potent of these is coniine, a neurotoxin that destroys the functioning of the central nervous system.
The list of potentially poisonous substance is very large. Many poisons act slowly or require a large dose to be lethal. Poisoning cases can be accidental or suicides, while other poisoning cases are clearly homicides. Many poisons are neurotoxins, affecting the nervous system in a variety of ways but generally leading to impairment of lung function and suffocation of the victim. Homicide poisoning is often intended to mimic some medical situation, a heart attack or diabetic coma. This makes determining the cause of death difficult. However, the forensic toxicologist, like any other forensic investigator, has a broad base of knowledge and a wide array of chemical analytical methods available to dissect even the most complex poison cases.
Murder Most Foul
That’s how the news media portrayed the murder of Nevada Sate Controller Kathy Augustine by her third husband, Chaz Higgs. Police believed that Higgs gave her a lethal dose of the muscle relaxant succinylcholine. Higgs was the nurse who had cared for Charles Augustine, her second husband, after his stroke. Shortly after Charles’s death, Higgs married Kathy Augustine. At the time she died, she was running for State Treasurer. However, Augustine had been impeached by the Nevada Assembly for misuse of state funds. Higgs, who apparently married her because he thought she would have money and power, decided to murder her.
Being a nurse, Higgs had access to a wide array of drugs. The choice of succinylcholine was a good one because it is not normally tested for in toxicology screens. Succinylcholine is a strong muscle relaxant that paralyzes the respiratory muscles. It is normally used in a hospital to allow the insertion of a breathing tube into the throat of a patient who is still conscious. In higher doses it can paralyze the entire breathing apparatus, and the victim slowly suffocates to death. The autopsy showed that Augustine had died of a heart attack. A small needle mark on her buttocks was overlooked in the initial autopsy. However, investigators were not so sure, and when police searched Higgs’ house they found succinylcholine and other drugs in his possession. Higgs was arrested and eventually convicted of her murder.