A not-so-obvious killer

[209]

I came upon a number of hospital hyperdermic needles at a friends place a couple days ago (he is a veteranarian) and syringes come with the needle ready to go and everything.

Maybe I have just read to many Clive Cussler novels, but can't people can be killed from an air bubble entering the circuatory system? Doctors squirt out a bit of the injection ever time they stick you for a reason, so no air bubbles get in. I have even heard of guys using the last bit of oxy from their O/A torches to clean their clothing (even though your not supposed to do that!) and getting an air bubble from a tiny cut on their hand and dieing!

So how long would it take if you injected a full syringe length of air into a guy would it take to take him out? The neck would be a viable target because it is full of arteries running to the brain, but would it be functional enough to whack a target in under 1+ minutes?

[tmp]

Coronary/pulmonary by description is what you're talking about. Where the
heart is concerned death can be sudden if a large enough air bubble makes it
to the heart. As for welders getting it through cuts, I've never heard of that.

[nbk2000]

A syringe full of air is unlikely to kill. Yes, it can, but it's unlikely.

If your syringe is the size of a turkey baster, than yes it would definitely work, as enough air would be injected to replace the blood in one of the hearts chambers, rendering it incapable of pumping blood (like engine vapor lock).

Oh, and it's not likely that a coroner is going to think this is a naturally occurring event, either.

Best scene I'd ever seen involving air in the blood was when, in the movie 'Apt Pupil', the old Nazi killed himself by blowing into his IV tube, killing himself so the jews couldn't arrest him.

[teshilo]

These very old trick and coroners knows where search air buubles in body ...

[hatal]

It would be more effective if air is used with blood coagulant agent. The blood clots would form more easily and give the victim a pulmonary-embolia. Blood coagulants used by vets after minor surgeries on pets (remove tail and such) could be obtained.A bigger dose with air-bubbles would form enough clots for a painfull death.

"The neck would be a viable target because it is full of arteries running to the brain, but would it be functional enough to whack a target in under 1+ minutes?" - The brain is a well protected organ (blood-brain barrier)

[Corona]

http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/williamson/235/sicd022.html

---------------
In my whole life, I have encountered just one case of murder by air embolism and that too when I was in Edinburgh. The case was of a doctor husband who had got tired of his nagging wife. The husband was carrying on an affair with one of his female patients and his wife had got hint of that. She was having fits of faintness for quite sometime. So one day the doctor filled up a large syringe with air and injected air into her veins under the pretext that he was giving her some drug. About 200 c.c. of air is required to kill a person by air embolism. I do not know how he managed to inject that much amount through a syringe. Even a commonly used large syringe takes in about 20 c.c. of air only. He might have used a bigger syringe or may be he repeatedly pushed the air inside by removing the piston from the syringe again and again.
----------------------

What NBK said about a turkey baster.

[Jacks Complete]

There are other death mechanisms for an air bubble though. A stroke is caused by a bit of something, usually a bit of plaque from the heart artery wall, or a blood clot, getting up into the smaller veins that feed the rest of the body. When these block the blood supply to a part of the brain, it is called a stroke.

There is no reason a stroke couldn't be induced like this. Of course, you would need it to be a fatal stroke, or you would be in trouble!

[Corona]

Jack... what an idea!

Polystyrene granules (very small) mixed in sugar-water thin syrup? Will this do?

Teflon beads/microspheres which you find in super-slick engine oil additives?

You can also inject silicone glue or epoxy.... but I don't think that will carry to the brain?

Is there anything in existence that could be injected and carried through a blood vessel and is able to be influenced by an outside magnetic field? I'm sure not. But I'm asking anyway. Put a magnet near the skull and that is where the gunk collects and goodnight ladies?

Of course, as Jack said.... how do you not get caught doing this?

[Killian]

If you're there for the kill, why not stick around? To inject a mark with anything; I'm assuming the mark will be sedated/ensnared(immobile for whatever reason). Theorizing with the idea(or fact?) that a large enough air bubble stuck in one of the four heart chambers initiated by injecting air intravenously causes heart failure and it'd be obvious in an autopsy; why not pop a small pressure relief valve in through the rips afterwards and release the air?

During autopsy they'd see the puncture from the valve, but it'd be too ambiguous especially with a clean toxicology test and the heart would have stopped already preventing a bloody mess through the small puncture wound.

Any thoughts? :confused:

[The Duck Man]

Might be too obvious, sticking something in their chest...

any injection method is only good for hospital patients, druggies, Old Folks, or other in which vein punctures are considered either normal or not uncommon.

If I had to do someone in by injection, Id kill the druggie with a massive dose of whatever he took regularly, and the old folks or patients with 1.5 grams of potassium in salt form.

Nobody would wonder much about the overdose, and 1.5 grams of potassium won't be noticed in the 40 to 60 that leak out into the intercellular liquid and blood after death.

[ccw8076]

[QUOTE=hatal;91050] Blood coagulants used by vets after minor surgeries on pets (remove tail and such) could be obtained.

I worked in a veterinary hospital for some time, and the most commonly used coagulant is silver nitrate, AgNO3. It most often comes in the form of a swab which you insert into minor cuts, or even burst arteries, it clots the blood instantly. unfortunately, if you were really planning to murder someone using silver nitrate, wear gloves, because you don't want the police to catch you purple handed.

Simple synthesis AgNO3:

3 Ag(s) + 4HNO3(aq) → 3 AgNO3(aq) + 2 H2O(l) + NO(g)

So old jewelry in nitric acid of roughly 99% conc would give you all you need. it would be harder to make the silver into an aerosol though.

[cyclosarin]

You can also let gas condense out of the blood, a la decompression sickness.

For decompression sickness a diver needs to be at an appropriate depth, for a time needed for the gas to diffuse into the bloodstream, and then surface faster than the gas can safely diffuse out so it forms bubbles.

Gases have different diffusion times so the shortest safe decompression will be different for the gas in question. I was wondering if a diver was to spend some time under pressure breathing neon + oxygen, but thinking that it is nitrogen + oxygen, then the time for nitrogen decompression would be shorter than that for neon, leaving a large amount of dissolved neon in the bloodstream.

Just a thought... obviously there would be no needle marks and decompression sickness is a logical accident for a scuba diver.

[ccw8076]

I believe that neon mixed with oxygen would be apparent to any diver who put a tank of that on. Nitrox tastes much different than regular air, and I think that any experienced diver would probably be able to tell the difference. But then again, if the subject was a novice to diving or at least to nitrox, it might just work.

Also, wouldn't your body not function as well with a heavy mix of neon? It's able to function all right with the mix of nitrogen and oxygen because after all, air is 78% nitrogen anyway and reducing that percentage wouldn't do a whole lot, but since you would have to add significantly more neon to the mix, you could probably "feel" the prolonged inhalation of such a foreign element.

[cyclosarin]

Does neon have many adverse effects on the body? I was thinking of inert gas narcosis which apparently becomes more severe with the molecular weight, but I'm not sure if that would be significantly more than for nitrogen.

[rightway]

What about using carbonic acid? I have no idea how much it would take to kill someone, but it is the method of transportation of CO2 in blood, so it would merely look like asphyxiation. Even if it takes alot of carbonic acid to kill, it would still kill or at least incapacitate fairly quickly, since the nerves triggering the low oxygen/panic reflex measure the concentration of carbonic acid.

They might actually end up killing themselves via panic reactions. That way, it would slow the autopsy because until they find the needle mark, it would look alot like asphyxiation, since the victim's body would show all of the signs of asphyxiation. It would also not be particularly difficult to get a hold of, though I do not know of any uses of it, except that it was the first post-surgery antiseptic.

[nbk2000]

Carbonic acid (CO2 dissolved in water) is NOT Carbolic acid (Phenol), the first surgical antiseptic.

FAIL!

[teshilo]

In T. Clancy book "Without Remorse" (former SEAL against drug dealers) described as decompression chamber for training in deep diving used as device for interrogation/torture/killing.Man placed in it, after camera filled pressurized nitrogen/oxygen/helium/ mix .If pressure quickly reduced by operator victim got dose of pain . .After few times death and decompression sickness.

[ccw8076]

If you wanted to use carbonic acid, just shoot him with some club soda. He would be dead, but refreshing and good with scotch.

[JouMasep]

ccw8076,

[QUOTE=hatal;91050]

Simple synthesis AgNO3:

3 Ag(s) + 4HNO3(aq) → 3 AgNO3(aq) + 2 H2O(l) + NO(g)

So old jewelry in nitric acid of roughly 99% conc would give you all you need. it would be harder to make the silver into an aerosol though.

‘Little self-contradiction here: in the equation you correctly use aqueous nitric acid (65% will do nicely), but in your text you speak of 99% strength.

That would not work; the hydronium ions needed for the reaction are seriously lacking in 99% strength HNO3.

[JouMasep]

For a really not so obvious killer: ricin!

I liked the way the it was introduced into the human body by way of perforated hollow metal microcapsule –as inserted by umbrella tip. (See: Bulgarian Secret Police V.S. dissident G. Markov)

The effect takes a while, but that is actually the beauty of it –less of a cause-and-effect link between small stab and perishing of your adversary.

On a possible variation hereof, has anyone been ever injected with one of those: needleless syringes? Do you feel much or anything at all?

So far for the more “easily obtainable” (castor beans!) neurotoxin –but what would really kick-ass, would be tetanospasmin.

You can find it in any cow patch soil by the bucket, but how do we isolate and concentrate it? Could the spores be collected in a similar way as the ricin proteins?

If somebody died of tetanus, it would be always ruled as “accidental” as long as the device that inflicts the scratch is not identifiable as a weapon. (It may not be too much of a “wound” otherwise our target would be off to his doctor for an anti-tetanus shot –thus defeating our labours)

Botulinic toxin –also nice- producing bacteria would be easy to cultivate in concentration, (if we exclude oxygen) but it is too susceptible to breakdown under ‘field operation” conditions.

But if you can feed your intended victim, start home-canning as a hobby, make not too much of a fuzz of the proper way of making things sterile, wait some months, and then select the can of tinned sausage that seems to explode “any minute now”, as the right ingredient for a life-changing chilli con carne.

Stirr as little as possible, do not heat too much. (Keep oxygen out)

(And do NOT taste your own cooking, guess how much salt it needs.)

[BlackFalcoN]

For a really not so obvious killer: ricin!

Research on RIP's (ribosome-inactivating proteins; e.g. ricin, abrin, gelonin, ...) in the last decade (fueled by the 9/11, terrorist & WMD craze :rolleyes: ) has come up with significant progress in the detection of these substances.

True, ricin won't show up in a standard gas chromatography forensic autopsy, (protein poisons are not detectable that way) but it's not the perfect killer that it was 15 years ago, where investigators had to base their criminal investigation solely on motive or other traces left by the killer. The actual toxin was pretty much undetectable back then.

The Markov case was only cleared up since they found the tiny metal pellet in mister Markov's body and the fact that he was a Bulgarian defector spy; pretty much linking the Bulgarian secret police to the assassination.

I'm sure that, if a similar event were to happen today; forensic investigators would have no problem finding the protein poison (if it was suspected) that caused the resulting death.

This doesn't make ricin (or RIP's for the same matter) a bad poison, ricinus communis beans are still pretty OTC anywhere around the world, and a crude active substance is reasonably extractable from the beans. (a pure extract without denaturing the protein is still far more difficult than mainstream media makes us believe though ;) ).
It's still preferable to many toxic alkaloids or heavy metals etc. A low profile killing on Joe average isn't urging the criminal investigator to come up with the real cause of demise as it is on a high profile mark, and it is still reasonable to believe that they won't go as far as performing the actual protein tests. (unless plant material is found in vomitus, faeces or stomach content that clearly indicates a protein poison was used)

You just have to be aware of the fact that modern toxicology has made quantum leaps over the years, and due to the introduction of mass spectrometers & gas chromatography, poisons that were lethal in very small quantities and were previous thought of as 'not so obvious killers' are easily detected now-a-days.


Edit: Reference to US Patent 6864056 : ' Method for detecting ribosome inactivating proteins '

[JouMasep]

True, ricin won't show up in a standard gas chromatography forensic autopsy, (protein poisons are not detectable that way) but it's not the perfect killer that it was 15 years ago,...

I'm sure that, if a similar event were to happen today; forensic investigators would have no problem finding the protein poison (if it was suspected) that caused the resulting death.

This doesn't make ricin (or RIP's for the same matter) a bad poison, ricinus communis beans are still pretty OTC anywhere around the world, and a crude active substance is reasonably extractable from the beans. (a pure extract without denaturing the protein is still far more difficult than mainstream media makes us believe though ;) ).
'

If what you want is a truly undetectable poison, then I would say: “forget about it”.
There is no such thing.

And as you point out, continuous advances in detection methods are made all the time; so even if you have the holy grail of poisons, it won’t likely be so for very long.

But as the worldwide documented cases of deliberate ricin poisoning in the past are numbered in dozens, the chances that the cops / forensiscs will be even looking for ricin, are slim.

One of the reasons for this may lie in the “relative instability” of the compound., as you point out, it there are some difficulties with it as it easily degrades to inactive compounds.

But that is good. If fewer would be assassins can properly produce the protein in any state of purity (efficacy, concentration, lethal quantity by volume), then it improves the chances of getting away clean for those who can actually do so. (Forget about allowing castor bean fibres to be found in the intestinal tract; oral ingestion is not the preferred, or most effective means of administering anyway)

I am confident that anyone who routinely produces high explosives, some of which are not easy to make, or which have difficultly obtainable precursors, should have not much difficulty in making ricin with decent purity and activity.

See for instance US patent 3,060,165 of 1962. (As long as one would not allow the Ph to increase / decrease too much, this should work well. Keeping it cold is obvious.)

Hmm, I did a search on this forum now. I was aware of the notion of the ricin method here, but now I see that both botulism and tetanus have also been mentioned before. It becomes truly hard to come up with original ideas after so many minds having pondered so many ways of “death and destruction”

Perhaps in the case at hand it’s time to take it to the next level.

Not: “take the tetanus bacilli and kill somebody with it”.

Rather: “how do we cultivate and isolate the tetanus bacilli / spores?”.

Any ideas?

[Man Down Under]

US patent 3,060,165 has been discredited of being able to produce weapons-grade ricin. Between its heat-sensitive nature and requirement for fine pH control, the home-brew chemist isn't going to manage it, unless theyre equal to a professional biology chemist.

The tetanus shot someone gets after stepping on a nail does nothing more than prime the immune system to respond to the presence of the tetanus bacteria, and suppress it. It does not confer immunity to the toxic effects of the toxin produced by the bacteria. So, if one cultured tetanus bacteria and chemically isolated the toxin, injecting that in a target, the victim would still die from 'tetanus poisoning', regardless of any previous immunizations.

[hatal]

The book called Homemade Posions says its lethal "Orally-a few minutes. By injection- several hours." Ricin is a liver posion which induces apoptosis. Now why does it take longer by injection? I mean wouldnt the ricin act faster by injection? Whats the mechanism that explains this? Sounds like BS from a crapbook!?

[BlackFalcoN]

Hatal; I think your source is wrong on the topic of ricin.

Ricin is a ribosome inactivating protein which works on a cellular level; it inhibits protein synthesis in the body.

Ricin consists of 2 subchains that are important to us, namely Ricin-A and Ricin-B. The Ricin-A chain stops protein synthesis once inside the cell, Ricin-B binds to the cell and allows Ricin-A to enter the cell and do it's destructive work.

Since ricin is a protein, it's quite sensitive to extreme pH's and high temperatures, which denatures much of it, making it far less potent.

That's why ricin is much more lethal if inhaled or injected, since ingestion of the substance brings it into contact with strong stomach acids, which denatures much of the pH-sensetive substance.

This it's not to say that ricin is not effective if ingested; it's just 'less' lethal.
But given the extremely low LD50 of ribosome inactivating proteins, it does not matter in many cases, since exposure to sub milligram quantities of ricin would ensure a kill.
( LD50 varies greatly depending on the source you want to cite, but are always less than 0.01 mg/kg LD50 )

The time it takes ricin to kill has been reported to be anywhere between 24 and 96+ hours, depending largely on the route of entering the body and the dose given. Initial symptoms also depend on the way ricin was introduced into the body, but can start to occur between 3 to 6 hours after exposure.

Ricin is not a liver poison, it destructs cells by entering them and stopping protein synthesis. (which is not the same as apoptosis if I remember correctly)
It is less lethal if ingested. It generally takes more than a day before somebody dies of it. There are not many toxins I know of that will kill in under a minute when ingested (except for cyanide and it's salts)


US patent 3,060,165 has been discredited of being able to produce weapons-grade ricin. Between its heat-sensitive nature and requirement for fine pH control, the home-brew chemist isn't going to manage it, unless theyre equal to a professional biology chemist.

The extraction of ricin is not that hard for the average chemist I believe. The castor oil is removed by pressing the de-shelled beans, extraction from the pulp is achieved by water/sulphate extraction in several steps to get rid of any plant material while altering the pH to achieve optimal extraction conditions. Heat is not involved during the extraction process, so thermal denaturing is not possible.

The end product is a formed cake of filtrate that is a mixture of proteins present in the castor bean. (Ricin being one of them).

While not pure pro-analysis ricin, this mixture could be weaponized.

Read http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn/nsn-040723.htm for the article that remarks the validity of US patent 3,060,165.

It's not really the extraction that is the problem for the amateur chemist.
The real problem is to get the formed cake into fine particles which can be deployed in a WMD. Grinding, ball milling or any mechanical method that generates heat is not an option, since it will render the ricin useless.

[hatal]

Thanks for the clear up BlackFalcon. I had the hunch something was fishy. But now it turns out that the whole part about ricin was disinforming. False from the beginning to the end. Curious about the rest of this "book"...

[JouMasep]

I am aware of the critiques about the patent.

And as it has been pointed out, said critiques are likely nothing but calculated disinformation.

Remains the problem that after having effectively concentrated the ricin according to the patent, one does not have a very pure product.

If one seeks to “atomise” ricin into an aerosol, this would be easier with some pure (crystalline form)

Also, all other conditions being equal, pure compounds are more tolerant (stable) to heat and mechanical degradation.

So it would be useful to select a proper protein purification method.

There would be the more obvious methods such as chromatography, but other (precipitation) methods may work too.

At any rate, if we would want to make a pretty pure ricin, that is what we would get.

With work, applied brainpower and a bit of means, not a lot is impossible.

BTW, Man Down Under, thanks for pointing out my error w.r.t the tetanus shot, it would not do a thing against the acute, massive invasion as proposed!

But allow me to explain that in this case, I would not go for the isolation of the toxin per se. I would like the actual organisms to be present as well.

After all, having somebody die of tetanus without the bacilli presence would raise some questions! Not our intended objective.

But your argument still stands; we would like to administer a large dose, so as to eliminate the chance of survival. A standard anti-tetanus shot would not likely be good enough.

[Man Down Under]

Of course having some tetanus bacteria present would help with plausible-deniabilty, but they can also do a measurement of how much bacteria is in the body and realize that there's nowhere near enough to be responsible for the death, making it suspicious again.

But this would presuppose that they'd be looking that hard at an obvious case of death by tetanus infection, giving the lockjaw symptomology and presence of the bacteria.

If you can find a university that has it, the Journal of Infectious Diseases has everything you'd ever want to know about the cultivation and isolation of diseases and their toxins.

[KAKTUS]

~I have even heard of guys using the last bit of oxy from their O/A torches to clean their clothing (even though your not supposed to do that!) and getting an air bubble from a tiny cut on their hand and dieing!
When I was an apprentice toolmaker I was setting up a die set which had a blast of compressed air to blow the pressing from the die, I had a small cut on my left index finger and when I placed my finger in front of the air jet to test the force, it inflated my finger to about twice its diameter for almost it's full length.

In a panic I squeezed my finger until the pink froth stopped coming out and my finger was back to normal size.

I was 15 years old then and now I'm 65, so obviously it didn't kill me.

I wouldn't recommend this as a party trick as when my finger inflated it felt like a violent electric shock.

[JouMasep]

Did some more mulling on the subject, and together with certain biological agents, I feel that the nerve gasses offer some decent scope as well –even if the “not so obvious” needs to be taken differently.

When one feels that the world would be a better place sans a certain individual(s) it is often so that one is not alone in this. And said subject may be obsessed with his own safety / the contingency of would-be attackers. He may be even quite accomplished in the field of self-protection.

The advantage in this situation lies in the fact that if the subject expires, it could have been done by any of his enemies –the disadvantage would be that getting to the target would not be easy.

The problem with most methods discussed before is that they require either oral ingestion or breach of the skin –excepting poisonous gasses, but they have other problems. (Nerve “gasses” are not gasses at all of course, rather non-volatile liquids)

With the type of target at hand we can forget about ingestion and “breach of the skin” may have to mean “take shot with sniper’s rifle and run” or take suppressed pistol and hope that no-one can give a description of the gunman and that he does not run into security’s hands. All too crude and risky methinks.

Enter: Sarin.

Apply an infinitesimal amount of this on his car’s door handle and wait for the bastard to get into his car. Upon touch the agent permeates through his skin and a certain and unpleasant death ensues.

The big disadvantage to this method is that on discovery of the cretin’s demise, an undeserving member of society may also be compromised by touching same handlebar.

The other disadvantage is that making Sarin is not quite like brewing arsenic soup in your kitchen; if the proper precautions are not strictly observed, the intended target needs not to worry about you anymore.

I like Sarin –or similar nerve agents- a lot anyway and even if the symptoms may point to death by nerve gas, it is not at all a given that it will be identified as such.

Incidentally, regarding the book, it surprises me that Uncle Fester did not recommend use of a glove-box in the final preparation and handling of Sarin.

Also -O.T- if one needs to see larger numbers of persons expired, including Government Nasty No.1, the described idea of distribution via a micro-light aeroplane may be nice, but often our Chief Target may be in an urban environment, with a lot of police protection. With the counter-terrorism alerts one may never reach the destination in a slow micro-light and the manoeuvrability will be found lacking anyway amongst high-rise etc.

Enter: the model helicopter perhaps?

[cyclosarin]

Sarin is quite volatile, when it was used in the Tokyo subway they just left ruptured bags of liquid on the floor and the gas still managed to affect hundreds of people. If you used it in public I'm sure it would have undesirable risks.

Maybe a less volatile compound (soman, cyclosarin, VX) would be more useful for a contact poison, I think the synthesis of the first two would be similar to sarin with a different alcohol and Aum Shinrikyo did manage to synthesize the later.

[JouMasep]

Sarin is quite volatile, when it was used in the Tokyo subway they just left ruptured bags of liquid on the floor and the gas still managed to affect hundreds of people. If you used it in public I'm sure it would have undesirable risks.

Hmmm, you are quite right; of all the nerve agents this one is just about the most volatile!

And ideally, if one were to employ any such compound as a contact poison in the way I initially proposed, VX would be tops.

One could of course decrease the rate of evaporation of Sarin by dissolving it in a solvent/mixture/paste of high volatility.

But I'd prefer to make actual use of Sarin's higher volatility in a modification of the original proposed method of application to a car door handle.

One prepares a small, very thin bladder or glass capsule, filled with Sarin, and this is stuck to the inside of said handle bar -the very thin bladder ruptures on contact with the target's gripping hand and Sarin penetrates his skin with the inevitable result.

And the rest evaporates -thus preventing the greatest harm to anyone who does not very soon thereafter manages to smear himself with what remains prior to evaporation.

The disadvantage of secondary, undesired fatalities is thus minimised.

With regard to your general objection in this regard as to such fatalities arising through inhalation of the evaporated remains; I need to emphasise that one only needs to employ very small quantities indeed. We are not talking c.a. 30% strength by the plastic bag-full in a subway!

If less than 100 mg can kill a man, the proposed vessel only needs to contain a dozen of times that amount at the most.

Therefore the residue is not likely to cause lethal vapour concentrations in the type of enviroment where the subject's car may be parked.

The devil of this proposed method, is of course in the detail.

What is the optimal bladder / capsule material that contains the Sarin?
What is the optimal way of ensuring rupture in the most effective way?
How does one best attach the proposed vessel?

I was leaning to a very thinly blown glass ampoule, attached with a custom-made adhesive pad -akin to double sided adhesive
(Anybody who has played around with a bunsen burner and glass tubing knows the type of wall thickness I refer to.)

A dedicated protective applicator would be handy, we would not like the vessel to break too soon!

I reckon that such a method or variations hereon, offer quite some scope.

I like VX well enough, even if its tendency to persist worries me. That- together with with its awesome toxicity made me not even look into its method of synthesis.

From what I have seen, it seems not very much more involved than the older agents, precursors can be well obtained etc.

But a very good "spring cleaning" after preparation and disposal seems a good idea.

If Sarin is nasty, this stuff is something else alltogether

[junk12]

JouMasep, I like the way you think. Please go on. ;)

I was also thinking Sarin could be used/delivered as chronic exposure vapors with some nasty irreversible symptoms as desired result, but through researching I stumbled at site http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000189.html and at least two facts are opposing that:

... GB evaporates at approximately the same rate as water. ...
... An earlier study (Crowell, Parker, Bucci and Dacre, 1989) also found no evidence that GB (Sarin) exposure at nonlethal doses caused any neuropathology.

[JouMasep]

Thanks for that link!

It is useful to know that if one chooses to mess around with Sarin, without being so careless as to expose oneself to lethal levels, sub-lethal exposure (s) will be well survivable. We won’t have to worry about any future, long term nasties such as malignant tumours cropping up in all kinds of places.

I’ll now write up a summary, from my own perspective, of what has gone before on this thread.

With the advanced state of forensic analytical methods today, no truly undetectable method of killing exists; we can thus only strive to use methods that may mask the nature of the method just before, during and after the kill. All other circumstances being the same, the less obvious the method was in any of these stages, the less likely is an in-depth search for the employed compound / method in question.

This approach excludes use of needles in all cases. (Excepting insulin dependant diabetes and druggies) The needle mark will be found, red flags will pop up. The only advantage in using a needle lies in the more unobtrusive nature of administering –relative to using a bullet that is…..

On the practical side –for now- I feel less confident in dealing with all the vagaries that may beset the preparation and deployment of the biological agents. (But this may be my own limitation, being much more routined in matters chemical)

That leaves oral poisons, gasses and compounds that kill by penetration of the skin.

Of the oral poisons (many of which are also very effective on inhalation, or injection) ricin seems both possible to obtain and by most standards quite undetectable. The principal drawback of ricin lies in its sensitivity to degradation on exposure to any heat and unfavourable pH’s or even mechanical friction. This can be well dealt with using the right methodology.

I’m not much for gasses; of most of these one needs rather appreciable quantities (logistical problems), some of them are extremely easily recognised as the cause of death (such as carbon monoxide and HCN) and gasses by their nature are not easily directed and confined in terms of their presence and concentration. There are some situations where they can be effectively deployed. (Eg. Break in exhaust pipe looks like damage by rock, CO may have entered car –accidental death may be ruled.)

Agents that kill after penetration of the skin are not new; even during the times of Lucretia Borgia they seemed to exist –even if we do not know their nature now.
My bias in favour of the nerve agents is born out of the well-documented excellent efficacy thereof. (Or lack thereof when you are using stupid methods such as some Japanese cult movements tend to employ –the kill rate is pitiful!)

Nerve agents have a wide range of solubility in water and rates of evaporation, and can therefore be used in a variety of ways by selecting the right particular compounds.

They would be ideal, but certain difficulties have to be contended with:

-They are less easily made than most compounds; all equipment needs to be constructed in such a way that accidental contact by the operator is excluded.

-Most of them are not very stable and they cannot be kept for very long. The stabilizers that are known, are difficult to find (Anyone has something good for Sarin?)

-Some of the precursors are not easy to get, or some chemicals are at the top of the various Watched Lists around the world. Notably PHOSPHORUS.

Thus having summarised some stuff, I have ended with a practical objective, namely the OTC preparation of white phosphorous.

Some material has been written on this forum about this; it don’t look like anyone made himself a decent load of it in his backyard.

That situation should not persist. SWIM is in the process of moving, all that has not been used for years will have to be fixed, re-assembled upgraded and augmented. A dedicated fireproof workshop / lab to be built. At least he will have some time then. He was of a mind to build a general purpose arc furnace anyway.

A nice new thread about the serious production of P to be started then?

[megalomania]

I have been meaning to try this one as soon as I suitably modify a microwave. US6207024 Method of Preparing Phosphorus - by microwave. This sounds like the best bet for the home experimenter or small lab to produce phosphorus.

[aliced25]

Probably the best route for poisoning, provided you have access to the intended victims abode and they live by themselves (or with others who are irrelevant) would be carbon monoxide, light a small fire near their air conditioner/reverse phase heater - which is starved of oxygen. Once the job is complete, enter, place a saucepan full of vegetable oil on the stove, turn on flat out and leave.

Another useful alternative would be to put together a basic thermite mix, aluminium, silicon dioxide and sulfur - burn it off near their window with them the day or so before. This would be easy, everybody loves fireworks & thermite displays, don't they?

Simply return when they are sleeping and place a garden sprinkler in the area where the aluminium sulfide is and leave. The H2S will cause serious problems, especially if the intended victim is asleep at the time (ie. they have no chance of smelling it and escaping). Provided you can explain how the aluminium sulfide happened to be there, you are home free.

[JouMasep]

light a small fire near their air conditioner/reverse phase heater - which is starved of oxygen.
Forget about that method.
a) The majority of light commercial a/c systems only recirculate the air within the area to be cooled. You’d sooner drop dead yourself –trying all the time to get the CO into your targets house that way.
b) “to start a (non smoky/smelly) oxygen-starved fire in outside environment and directing the effluent" ANYWHERE seems a bit reaching.

If you are really desperate:
To a): introduce a small diameter hose into room (car) of target. This could be thru venting holes, windows partially prised open etc.

To b): either fabricate portable Kipps-like apparatus generating CO from sulphuric and oxalic acids, on site, and attach to hose above - or generate gas prior to kill and compress with refrigeration compressor into butane bottles in your lab. Use as above.

put together a basic thermite mix, aluminium, silicon dioxide and sulfur - burn it off near their window with them the day or so before. This would be easy, everybody loves fireworks & thermite displays, don't they?
The first (CO) method presumes that one has unhindered and (un-noticed) access to target’s premises –for long enough to execute the dastardly deed.

But your second H2S method goes as far as to presume that you are chummy enough with the target that the two of you will engage freely into pyrotechnical activities and that he does not care about the very ugly burn marks and yucky remains!

You would need a fair amount of sulphide on the guy’s windowsill. Enough to even have said windows cracking from the heat generated.

If one is serious at all, the first try should work. If that was not successful, there may never be a second chance –if one stays with iffy methods………

If you have –for example of course!- this detestable, filthy rich uncle, and you are his beloved heir; and if you REALLY need the money!

I would then proceed as follows:
-Epoxy-glue a sharp, hard rock to a hydraulic jack.
-Place this under his car, perforate the floor of the car.
-Dent and weaken exhaust near hole. (Welds will crack if abused; the idea is not to make much of a hole for fear of objectionable noise.
-Introduce your own CO gas (as made above) into car.

If it is a cold day and he drives off with windows closed, heater off (engine still cold), then he won’t get far.

If there’s no chance-rescuer daring enough to (soon!) smash the car window of the old man who dozed off, parked funny next to the road, you should reach your pecuniary objective within reasonable time.

[aliced25]

Nearly all 'planned' murders (being those with a planned target) are committed by people with a close association with the victim thereof.

This is why I suggest the two mentioned methods are worthwhile.

If one wants to boost the CO method, the addition of calcium (or some other alkali metal) formate to the burner mix should substantially raise the CO levels.

Very little H2S is required for the suggested approach, especially if one takes advantage of airconditioning intakes, these provide a direct route from the source of the poison and the target thereof.

Other options should really take advantage of known ingress & egress routes travelled by the target, which can then be flooded with either of these agents (or preferably phosgene - slow acting). The better agent would always be the CO if one wants to make it look like an accident, whereas if the need to look accidental is incidental, stick with the H2S/Cl2CO approach - the target can be an awful long way down the road before any major effects will be noted.

[JouMasep]

Mulled about it a bit more; I would have to advise against using your H2S route;
A) because it could not work as proposed.
B) because by the time you could effectively kill uncle / rich step dad in this way, you would have laid a trail right to yourself. Things out of the ordinary at the crime scene, and also your own actions and motives.

Very little H2S is required for the suggested approach, especially if one takes advantage of airconditioning intakes, these provide a direct route from the source of the poison and the target thereof.

These are words that sound plausible, but from my point of view, that’s about it; “words”. I don’t see it practically happen. Details!!!

I presume that you will not hope that a coroner will rule the death as “myocardial infarct” and be unaware of the poison gas. Instead you hope for “death by misadventure, inhalation of gas.”
Otherwise one would be stupid to make a poison gas in such a very, very conspicuous and difficult way. (Thermite will have burnt a nice hole into the brickwork outside rich step dad’s bedroom, there will be stinky, wet remains, you two were seen “making a bright fire” there, etc.

So a few problems to be solved:
-Unless your rich nasty uncle –sorry target- is loony and doesn’t give a crap about his house, the pyrotechnical bonfire cannot be done at the very improbable place of a bedroom’s windowsill, right next to the air-condition unit and thus it has to be a lot bigger than you may think. So you do it down at the ground / pavement, still very close to the aircon’s modified inlet. (You do know that H2S is heavier than air, it will not rise by itself.)
-You have present an air-conditioning unit in your target’s bedroom –but these things do not suck air from the outside to inside, they re-circulate and cool the inside air.
-So you’ll need to tinker with it in such a way that it does what you want. Leave no fingerprints; be not observed doing so by anybody. And make the modification possibly reversible, as after all we have a death by poison gas at hand. The unit WILL be examined.
-You have dissuaded your target to clean up the pyro-mess and leave it right where it is.
-You have planned the events in such a way that there is nary a breath of wind as otherwise you can forget about much H2S getting into your uncle’s bedroom.
-You have provided for the fact that the sprinkled water creates an additional downdraft, which is not what you want.
-You have determined at which stage the concentration of H2S is maximal inside –at which time you will somehow switch off the modified aircon -because now the thing will blow in fresh air from the outside.
-You will have catered for the fact that the rate of generation of H2S with tap water on the fused sulphide (Ph levels greater than 8,5) will be modest, it will go slowly, allowing some of the H2S to be dissolved in the water as well.
-You are aware that whatever H2S does get sucked up into the aircon, does NOT accumulate in the bedroom, it gets also further blown into the house or wall vents as your required modification creates a positive pressure in the room.

It may be so that the LD50 levels of H2S are very low but in my opinion your method would never work. WAY too many ifs and lack of thought-out detail.
So to kill him anyway, you would have to pump in additional H2S into his bedroom. (If it’s pure, it does not stink so much).

At any rate it is hardly a less than obvious way of killing, as you have already implicated yourself as having played with step-dad and made the precursor to his instrument of death.

You will have to just hope that you will be cool during the “interviews” that follow and that nothing sticks.

Do not forget that you ARE known as the “chemistry nut” in the family and you DO have a motive.

If it smells chemically (which it will be doing for some time) and if you benefit –it IS you.

Why not a botched burglary or hijacking and a bullet? Messy, but far less pointers to yourself.

Perhaps a “therapeutic thought experiment”; ways to kill the impossible bastard etc –it may make you feel better already –but one should leave it at that.

On a last thought, perhaps you are lucky and your uncle has his aircon mounted at floor-level. I have never seen this, but in that case your method would be less improbable -but still bloody risky.

[Roy Paci]

I feel the need of saying something about the firs part of the thread, since the last part has actually moved to other subject.

The first part was: "a not so obvious killer" and was about injecting people's vessel

If I can access a vein and I want to kill someone I would promptly go for KCl. A 25ml syringe with a saturated solution is far more than enough.

Kaliemia is kept around 3.5-4-5 millieq./100ml. At 7.0 you it is very likely (forget SURE when talking about human body and medicine) that the poor heart will arrest in dyastole.
Why looking for anything else?


So... you have to kill someone? I'm sure you don't and you won't. Should you think how to?


wondering what to inject ricin or other crap in a vein is like looking for a way to distill urea from urine t make UN. What is the hard part? Getting the acid or the urea?

Same thing here? What is the problem?

You got a vein? A sirynge of KCl would promptly kill the owner of that vein. And kcl is something you find everywhere. And you can use whatever salt of K either.

Dysionia is a quick way to kill a person. The quickest, I think. And K+ omesthasis an Ca++ omeosthasis are the most critical, acting on myocardial cell's membrane stability.
And people from US should know this question well...

And this is about injecting substances.

About injecting air:

veins:

lungs are emunctory beside being "something you use to breathe". Gases injected in veins passes trough lungs that "push" them in the alveolar spaces making them breathed away. Clear?
This has a limit. Limit is 40ml of gases. Air in this case. And it means 40ml in a brief period(will try to find out what "brief" means).

Artery:

anything solid or gasseous will block branch of the artery injected. The bigger is the "anything" the bigger will be the artery hence bigger will be territory undergoing ischemia.

You wanna kill someone immediatly? Inject air in subject's inner carothid. Or common carothid. Or brachiocefalic trunk. or aorta. Or left ventricule. Or Left atrium.
More bacward you go, more air you should inject. But you really need a tiny amount to go trough brain circulation.

problem again is: getting a needle into an artery.

Last but not least:

sorry fo this long post... but... Someone was talking about killing people with tetanus? This is ridicolous. Unless it was a joke, then was funny.
Killing one by infection requires one of the following:

a) defedated subject like AIDS patient in late stage, as well as CF or Leukemia.
b) being in a desert isle, starve the subject a bit and then colonize him. This will work if subjects can't acces any kind of hospital, even the crappiest in calcutta, possibly.

thanks

Roy

[JouMasep]

Why looking for anything else?
Because the needle will leave a mark and the massive amount of potassium present is both very easy to detect and not even less than obvious –after all is this not part of the well known sequence of administered substances in an execution by lethal injection?

Curiously, regarding the latter, Teresa A. Zimmers; Jonathan Sheldon et al found that "evidence from North Carolina, California, and Virginia indicates that potassium chloride in lethal injection does not reliably induce cardiac arrest." (Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation)

There are many, many substances (In fact everything) that will kill if enough is injected; but your "25ml" would take a good-sized needle -or a very thin needle and a long time.

So would you ask your target to sit still, find a vein and then to take many seconds to do your work?

You may find killing people with tetanus “ridicolous” or a “joke”.

but the fact remains that tetanus is an "acute and often fatal disease". And that is when NO foul play is intended!

Further, consider the fact that: "On the basis of weight, tetanospasmin is one of the most potent toxins known. The estimated minimum human lethal dose is 2.5 nanograms per kilogram of body weight (a nanogram is ONE BILLIONTH of a gram), or 175 nanograms for a 70-kg (154lb) human.

So if one were to cultivate Clostridium tetani, and to then extract said tetanospasmin, and to then further administer this as a cocktail with the original bacteria through an innocuous looking wound, not too far away from the central nervous system, one would have very good chances of success.

In fact you seem to generalize when referring to “killing by infection” in general and to then list unworkable preconditions that would support your claims to ridicule.

But none of these “ridiculous” conditions need to be present for tetanus to kill if a wound is present with a sufficient amount of the Clostridium tetani, sufficiently close to the CNS.

In fact all that would be required would be a lack of appropriate medical care, very soon. And that is if we don’t artificially “enhance” the common infection…………

On the balance, I do not find your comments justified at all.

Sure, KCL would be a lot easier [to prepare].

So would be dropping a slab of concrete on his head.

By the way- viz:
So... you have to kill someone? I'm sure you don't and you won't. Don’t worry about the moralizing.

This thread is of an academic nature (and I see fit to add a slight tongue in cheek to it here and there) -no need at all for admonishing to the contrary!

[Roy Paci]

Wasn't meant to moralize, but to clarify to people reading that I'm not participating in a conspirancy to kill anyone, lots of silly people out there!! :)

People was talking about needles, and my answer was about that. And as I told, Ca++ is good as well. So I think we agree in this point.
I said that in poisoning by injecting something, the hardest task is getting the needle in.

If we are to find a non detectable substance, we are missing the point thinking about richin.

Second... In the part of the country were I'm living, in the last ten years there have been reported 5 cases of tetanus. None of them resulted in death.
Cause if you got the guy to get the disease, can you even prevent him to be cured?
Society, hospitals, ambulance, pancuron chloride, ventilation... His team is full of people willing to save him. And you are alone!
Maybe if you get half a gram of toxin he wouldn't arrive on time to the ICU. but...

Any clue on how to cultivate clostridium tetani? You could get him. Ok. How would you isolate him? You're likely to collect it in spore form, from horse poo or something like this.
Get it to germinate and tell me how you did it.

And then.. you got your clostridiums in your reactor. You agree?
How do you extract toxin??
And this is not enough. Clostridiums are not so smart bacteria. They wouldn't feel ok in a common wound. They are strictly anaerobious. So the best wound to get them in should be one with an ischemic necrosis. I don't know how many chanches your cocktail would have in a "standard" wound. And if it is difficult to sting someone with a needle, I don't know many guys eager to get a stinky cocktail poured on their open wounds. Actually most of the people I know use to medicate and dress their wounds. Maybe to prevent people administer them clostridium cocktail(just a joke)!

What would you ask to YOUR target?

I like the academic nature. My consideration about 25ml KCl was good in academia. Me and other guys here assumed we got the needle in.

You show me the problem about the needle. Now solve the ones about getting the toxin.

What does tongue in cheek mean?

[JouMasep]

Hi Roy,

To start with your last question first, it simply means: “using humour”. It is perfectly all right to make a serious point, but to also make the presentation thereof more digestible by adding a bit of humour, irony –or even sarcasm. ‘Glad you asked; allow me to throw a few examples in the following post. Enjoy!

I have carefully read your two posts here.

I will continue to demonstrate that
a) Your claims to ridicule viz. the premise that e.g. tetanus enhanced with toxin as a less-than-obvious method to kill is invalid.
b) Your own method of injecting potassium –or calcium- for that matter in relatively large quantities is completely lacking in practical value. It is useless to try and turn this by saying: “I presume the needle is in the vein already”.

It may be that others (myself included) have postulated earlier the use of a syringe here in one way or another. Certain disadvantages have been highlighted (I myself have rejected it in the end.) And now, later on in this thread, you present such a use as a truly great idea -which it is absolutely not, especially when using such a crude agent as potassium.

And whilst you do so, you try to ridicule legitimate arguments, and you even purposely distort suggested methods in order to further that objective.

Now, I do not know if you care how this all looks, or perhaps you truly reckon this is all very impressive. And perhaps this is so; perhaps I am alone in my opinion that you are a bit in trouble by now.

I feel that it is fair to say that you came close to flaming those who proposed the principle the “tetanus” method. This in itself is still OK with me. But when you then came up in that same first post with a total cliché of a method, and one that is useless as well, you entered onto a slippery slope….

-A “deadly injection” has been used as a theme in literally many hundreds of TV whodunits, plays, detective novels, and movies. This fact alone compromises the less-than-obvious principle. Needles leave marks. Pathologists notice such marks as they notice 22 cal. holes.
-Any such method that requires the administration of large volumes of liquid, with a very easily detectable substance further invalidates this.
-Further, if said method requires also unhindered access to a vein, and a protracted period of administration (or a very large needle) how can one hope to be less-than-obvious?
-Lastly, when said substance is part of the universally known method of “execution by lethal injection”, what are you thinking?

Feel free to continue flogging your dead horse here, perhaps you’ll get it to walk the way you want… (I almost think I do something like that myself right now –but in another sense altogether…)

wondering what to inject ricin or other crap in a vein is like looking for a way to distill urea from urine t make UN. What is the hard part? Getting the acid or the urea?
Roy, you are writing strange, incoherent stuff here. Now I don’t know what you hope to get from this; but as nobody suggested “an injection of ricin in a vein”, only you write this crap –in a disjointed, crappy way. So you show nothing but that you have a poor debating technique.

People was talking about needles, and my answer was about that. And as I told, Ca++ is good as well. So I think we agree in this point.
I said that in poisoning by injecting something, the hardest task is getting the needle in.
Waste of time stating the obvious. “The hardest task of dropping a slab on somebody’s head is getting him to lie still whilst you lift it. But I can tell you that a rock is good as well. Who would disagree with this?

I like “agreement”. “Agreement” is good. But who agrees with what precisely in your own quote above?
If we are to find a non detectable substance, we are missing the point thinking about richin.
What is this now again? You want to tell us that RICIN CAN ACTUALLY BE DETECTED?
No way, get out of here!

But was this thread actually not about “ less-than-obvious ?” or was it about “ undetectable ”? And why even go there. Quite some time ago, I for one conceded already that there is no such thing as “undetectable’ when it comes to poisoning.

So in the last –say- 2,8 million unexplained deaths (cause of death “inconclusive”), in how many were they actually LOOKING for ricin? And how many cases of ‘murder by ricin” have been found and documented?

What may the answers to these two questions prove?
a) Ricin is not part and parcel of the general “substances to look for” in unexplained deaths.
b) The positive testing for ricin is not generally available.
c) No VIPs have been killed by ricin in the last decades or so.
d) Generally murderers are crude, depraved, unimaginative and inadequate lowlifes. (Hence their need to resort to murder) These qualities do not lead to the conception of the idea –let alone to the successful preparation of good ricin –which is less than dead easy. Hence the killings by ricin are rare, therefore together with reasons (a) and (b) the paucity of such documented murders.
e) To try killing somebody by ricin is just about impossible, and it is also ridiculous.
Take your pick.

You like ‘ridiculous”. I’ll give you very improbable and very ridiculous.

Call “Q” (from your local Secret Agents’ Technical Division).
Tell Q that you want to kill some disloyal traitor in a foreign, hostile country. Tel him about how the cretin is looked after by the hostile Western secret services and that you want to get away clean, with a minimal amount of mess or fuzz. No bullets, no bombs, no messy car accidents.

Q must be getting old and senile; look at this totally ridiculous method he came up with:

We make ricin; ignore those who say that it is just about impossible to make it pure.
We fabricate a tiny, tiny, hollow metal sphere.
We drill small holes around sphere.
‘Fill cavity with your ricin.
‘Seal holes with slowly dissolving goop.
‘Select an umbrella (“we like the model John Steed also uses” the old idiot said)
‘Now modify this umbrella to shoot the little sphere into the defecting dog’s leg.
You make it look like an accidental prod, in a crowded area.
`Walk away as slow as you like, take the cheapest standby flight back to our Motherland –you have all the time in the world.
He will die much later. And even if the imperialist capitalist dogs search like hell because there is no chance this was “natural causes”, they’ll find nothing in a hurry.
And even if they do, you’ll get away with it because from the time that it happened, for days the dog will have no idea that he is doomed.

Roy, I did not want to bore you (and others) with an otherwise well known story –but you’ll have to admit that if I proposed this particular, detailed method, and if you did NOT know it as factual history, then you would scream “ridiculous” at the top of your voice.

Second... In the part of the country were I'm living, in the last ten years there have been reported 5 cases of tetanus. None of them resulted in death.
That’s because nobody WANTED them dead.

And how close were the wounds to the spine or the brain? How deep were they? What was the initial amount of spores or active bacteria in the wound? Remember that by far the majority of suspected tetanus infections originate in the extremities (The sole of the foot in particular). The further from the CNS, the more time for successful medical intervention.

The fact that none of the five cases you mention did die is not in disagreement with statistics. Only 11% of reported cases die. Now this is significant to my mind when we consider the following:
-By far the majority of cases of tetanus originate from wounds in the limbs, and in particular the soles of the feet. (Penetration here is both probable and give nicely anaerobic conditions.) However, the further away from the central nervous system, the longer the incubation time, the more time for successful medical intervention.
-Therefore we can say with certainty that in the cases where the wounds are closer to the CNS, the incidence of fatalities is much higher than 11%. (This presumes deeper –not larger- ‘anaerobic” wounds, or an opportunity of spores to become active; an absence of more recent vaccination.)

Now tetanus is both well known and feared; one will therefore do what one can to stop it from killing accidental victims. And STILL those deaths, more than one out of ten.

But contrary to what you still wish to think, I propose to kill by direct administration of the toxin and the toxin alone. The addition of the spores / bacteria, is merely to further plausible deniability, to minimize the chances to suspicion that foul play is present.
Society, hospitals, ambulance, pancuron chloride, ventilation... His team is full of people willing to save him. And you are alone!
No I am not!

I have my superior weaponry. I have ready the toxin tetanospasmin in a quantity that wipes out all that you come up with. And that is what none of the reported cases ever had to worry about.

Now this toxin is exceedingly potent. And once it is present in the body it will go to the spinal cord, to the brain. Not only the voluntary muscles will go into spasm, leading to seizures, but by just adding a bit extra, I will ensure that the autonomous nervous system will be knocked out as well. Breathing stops. The heart stops. Good luck with your pancuron chloride. (Or would that be the bromide salt perhaps?)

How much would you use and what do you hope to do against my weapon’s total blocking of the inhibitor impulses, thus shutting down the release of the neurotransmitters?

Or will your pancuron actually save the day? Should I stock up on it, if I ever would go and produce my nerve agents? In case I spill a drop or so on my sandals: never fear! A shot of pancuron will see me right –not? If it works for tetanospasmin, it surely works for sarin as well –not so?

Oh I forgot I have only a “bit” of the toxin in my arsenal, you don’t think that’s enough.
Maybe if you get half a gram of toxin he wouldn't arrive on time to the ICU. but...
Roy are you aware that this amount you quote may kill over TWO COMMA EIGHT MILLION individuals? (Maths: 0,5 gram / 175 nanograms = 2,857,143 humans of 70 kg).

Or do you wish to dispute my earlier quoted lethal dose?

I propose to use 300 times over that lethal dose in my cocktail –just because you are so sceptical.

Lets see, that would be 53 micrograms for you! That could kill one man three hundred times over. Still not a lot by weight because I could dish out this much to 20 other targets from a single milligram….

Two things should become clear finally, I hope.
1 The potency of the toxin is mind-boggling.
2 Your argument viz. the victim can reasonably be saved, is lost.

If you disagree, you must disprove my point that no agent on earth can counteract a massively large excess dose of tetanospasmin.
Even pancuron, which is the only agent of all that you mention that has any chance, would still only be effective for a very much smaller dose than I propose.

If a bullet penetrates the heart, theoretically a heart-lung device can keep things going for a while. But an assassin usually does well with a hearth shot.

Sometimes there is nothing that doctors can do; you know that. My proposed method would be such a case.

All objections as to how to administer the “cocktail” have become obsolete. A wound -ANY wound that would carry away the sub milligram quantity of toxin into the bloodstream would result in death.

What would I ask my victim? Read on.

“That “Asshole On A Skateboard” as you just called him, may have given you 40 bucks for a new pair of trousers. The nurse who dressed your wound may have done a decent job. But you had at least half a pin-head amount of 3% pure tetanospasmin in that wound. That asshole is our most talented young agent

Now please make your peace, you are dying.

With regards to the part of procurement and isolation of clostridium tetani, -even if I have neither experience nor specific knowledge about this type of procedure, I do not reckon this to be total rocket science. If I am wrong, tell me, show me.

Kitasato isolated it from human tissue one hundred years ago…(They were short of horses in Japan at the time, I reckon. Seeing that I actually am short on available human tissue myself, I gladly make use of your suggestion to equine faecal matter.)

I concede possible problems as to the isolation of the toxin, but that is only because I have no clue as to either the structure of it, nor as to its vulnerability to degradation.

If you know more that I in this regard, please help me out there.

Alternatively, I am quite sure that in time I will get that right, should I be so inclined.

After all, for over the last 80 years, the toxoid vaccine is made from isolated, and then denatured tetanospasmin –ain’t it then? So even if THAT would be rocket science, the methods are actually older than the modern rocket itself…..

I am positively feeling sanguine about this method now. The more I look at it, the more I see that it has very interesting potential.

Roy, I owe you.

I invite you to further ridicule me about such details viz. the cultivation and isolation of the toxin and the insurmountable difficulties in this regard.

Who knows how far we’ll take this –to me at least- surprising new direction.

Sincere thanks.

By the way, this is very ironic; I just see this now. Read this carefully.

You come with “ your method ” which is part of lethal injection .
You attack “ my tetanus method ”
And then, to further counteract “ my tetanus method ” you come up with “ pancuron ”
And this pancuron is…..
Yes, YES! This is ALSO part of the sequence of the lethal injection !

Roy, you are gifted. I am in awe.

Oh and viz. Wasn't meant to moralize, but to clarify to people reading that I'm not participating in a conspirancy to kill anyone, lots of silly people out there!!
Yah, I am one of those silly people!

For a moment I thought that you were talking to ME, because of your own use of the word “YOU”

And who on earth would see some very lame attempt at a hypothetical method to kill by injection of K+ as anything to a true conspiracy? And who would then actually require such pompous caveats before reading such lame attempt? (Good you do not moralize. So we should from now on all put such waivers on the forum –except where we talk about the price of eggs perhaps?)

But you meant to say “I” –not “You”.

I should have gotten it the first time, of course.

I was both silly and ridiculous, really.

Yah.

[Roy Paci]

I see. You got really angry. And this could be partially due to my not so good english level. So here I have to do a step backward. I'm sorry for having exposed my issues in such an annoying way.

I will gather a few data (you wouldn't say so, but I can do it).

Meanwhile:

By the way, the silly people are the ones who read this forum and claim to have found a nest of terrorists.

Just one question, hoping that you are not getting it wrong: it IS just a question.

you meant that "our" agent goes to the "dog" and shoot him like "BANG!!"?
How do you say the ricin get into the blood? I assume intradermically. Right?

[JouMasep]

With regard to your question:
How do you say the ricin get into the blood? I assume intradermically. Right?

My own preference would have been subcutaneous –or even deeper.

I reckon that even in a less sensitive part of the body such as the back of the calf- any such proposed object would cause irritation quite soon.

When the sphere is not deep enough, it will be scratched and an urge to remove it will exist, with deeper objects there will still be such a urge, but I reckon it to be less. It is much more difficult to remove for one, but the irritation factor is also of a lesser, different nature.

In the end one went with “Q’s” modus operandi. And if it worked, we should perhaps not second-guess him.

“BANG”? Noo, not like that!

A thicker, hollow needle is projected through a spring (or compressed air) mechanism into the tissue.
Then when the needle is at maximum depth, a plunger is depressed from within the needle, thus ejecting the sphere (within the tip of the needle) into the tissue.
Now the needle is retracted.
The whole process takes a split second.
All that is left, is a small bluish puncture mark –the result of a small accident in the underground; some idiot’s pricking with an umbrella.

I did not get these details from “Q” himself, but that is the logical way, that is how I would have done it.

I still detect some doubt from your side as to the feasibility of the project –am I right?

That previous post of mine was almost unreadably long. But that was after editing out some stuff!

Please take note that in my original, full draft, I had included both comments viz. your English language skills –and how a lack thereof might have well contributed to a somewhat uncouth style. And also that despite this, I deemed you more capable than may seem at first glance.
I am compelled to be empathic, as I only started to first use English until into adulthood. (I’m Dutch)

I think it is very important not to underestimate others too soon –that would seem a good guide rule, no?

[Charles Owlen Picket]

Local anesthetics and a non-oxidizing material like titanium prevent irritation long enough for the mechanism to function. This, from the analysis of the Bulgarian "umbrella" technique by a blogger who claimed PhD status & how studied such events.

[JouMasep]

Local anaesthetics

Ah, but of course!

I do not know if a particular type was mentioned, but dare I suggest something with a prolonged action like lidocaine / prilocaine eutectic mixture or bupivacaine.

We would avoid the ester-types. Whilst cocaine may be readily available on the black market (One can even synthesize it -believe it or not!), it will hydrolyse in no time.

To even further prolong the anaesthetic effect with epinephrine (restricting blood flow) may be contemplated, but the trade-off would be that our agent (ricin) would also be assimilated more slowly. (That is to say: if the epinephrine it is still around by the time the “sealant” blocking the tiny holes in the spheres has been dissolved –this is a matter of timing by trial and error)

Other methods of prolonging the anaesthetic effect do also exist (incorporation into liposhperes?), I am not familiar with the precise procedures in these.

At any rate it should be possible to avoid discomfort at the small entry-wound for many hours using a L.A cocktail, by which time intervention will be too late.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

American Dental Journals abound with techniques for implementation of local anesthetics incorporated within super fast action administration modalities. I was going to quote from one some time back but didn't have time. There is a technique for the elimination of nerve response which interposes the fast action with the longer action local for dental intervention (the elimination of the nerve or broken tooth) via a single hypodermic injection. ...So that injection #1 can't be felt in it's initial use and there after the nerve is prepped for dental intervention.

Search: American Journal of Dentistry, Local Anesthetics, emergency intervention. That's where I got it to begin with. My initial interest was whether such would preform equally outside the dental arena (in the deeper tissues of the body) for the emergency setting of a broken bone by one's self.

[JouMasep]

Along similar lines a technique to pre-anaesthetize before inserting e.g. a large drip-needle exists. However, this requires multiple injections and a certain interval of time in between them. There are also subtle aspects to such techniques that will be hard to implement “in the field”.

The problems posed to gain an absence of pain/discomfort on the second, larger needle-trauma will not easily be negated by the practical problems thus posed to a successful “hit and run”

An accidental prod with something like an umbrella does not need to be absolutely painless. And if the mechanism’s action is very fast, the tip very sharp and an appropriate anaesthetic will make any pain subside sufficiently and soon enough, then the initial pain felt will seem “natural”.

Incidentally: “local anaesthesia, allowing to set one’s own bones in an emergency situation, without hope of timeous medical treatment.”

Hmm, that could be a true godsend in say, a remote mountaineering accident….

My guess is however that it would not be practically feasible.

So unless one is up to a DIY Lumbar epidural- or spinal anaesthesia (not really, I reckon), I would advocate morphine.

And hope that one has the fortitude to keep the dose not too high, allowing to proceed with what must be very, very hard -without passing out from too much poppy.

[James]

I think that any concealed attempt to kill someone is like a trick. It works great until someone else finds out how. I think we should all work on the assumptions that lions lurk here and not mention details. IIRC they don't actually detect ricin itself there's another thing the body produces in response that's easier to detect. Somewhere I heard of the concept of a method-motive-oppurtunity triangle. Avoid having the police find find yours. Most of the mehods outlined rely on secrecy and concealment, use them.

[waveguider]

I do not want to be accused of bringing up a dead thread but since Hypoxia induced by Nitrogen asphyxiation has not been discussed in this thread, I thought I might bring it up.
I originally heard about this murdering method while watching a television program named ''Execution - Horizon: How To Kill A Human Being'' which is available to watch on youtube.

I believe that instead of using Carbon monoxide in the ''fill the victims car/room with CO'' idea, mentioned above, one could use nitrogen or Argon gas. I may be wrong but I think that using Argon would be a more efficient than nitrogen on account of it's higher density which would help diminish the diffusion of the gas when the victim opens the car/room door, although using argon would be slightly suspicious.
Unconsciousness can occur under 30 seconds, if this is done right, the victim would simply, and maybe even euphorically, drift off into death.

Wikipedia mentions, under it's entry on nitrogen asphyxiation, that ''The reason an oxygen deficient environment can kill so quickly is that when oxygen levels are low enough, the natural diffusion of oxygen in the alveoli reverses, causing the body to rapidly lose its own blood oxygen.''

[Misfit]

My apologies if this has been mentioned before, but has anyone considered the use of those plug-in room fresheners to disperse noxious substances?
A "free sample", suitably doctored, could be mailed to the recipient of your choice, perhaps with a covering note stating that it should be used in the bedroom at night to aid in a restful sleep, the new type with a built in motion detector also lend themselves to some interesting possibilities.

[Alexires]

Misfit - I don't think it has been mentioned in this thread, but NBK came up with the idea of using "air fresheners" as area denial weapons (see here (http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=3784))

Also, clean up your grammar/spelling/punctuation.

[megalomania]

Because argon is so dense, it will sink to the floor in any room it is filling up. In the absence of stirring air currents, it would take a lot of argon to fill up an entire room to toxic levels just by pumping it in.

Yes, misfit, we have a whole thread on that topic going back years.

[Roy Paci]

For the local anesthetic technique... Remember that mos of them are irritating at least for few seconds. So they can sting when injected, in my opinion.

[Roy Paci]

Four months ago I wrote this and didn't post it.. It is about a discussion between me and Joumasep in the second page of this thread.



1) Ricin – there are not a lot of sources. The 16th edition of Harrisons’s internal medicine does not spend a word about it. However I found a nice Review on Ricin Poisoning on JAMA 2005; 294: 2342-2351. In the first part it reports CDC considering Category B, due to its ease of dissemination, moderate to high morbidity and LOW!! Mortality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov#Attack_and_death
Here says something interesting about the umbrella hypotesis. The part about the no-chance treatment I retain it less reliable than JAMA and I think that disagreeing on this point is pure insanity.
CDC in 2003, stated that efficacy of subcutaneous way of administration has NOT been tested yet. I think that my definition of ricin being “crap” is totaly inadequate, and I apologize for that.
But: markov episode alone is not enough to say that ricin is the perfect killer and that subcutaneous administration would be efficient. Maybe he(markov) was unlucky and maybe not all the truth has been told about that case(additional poison?Controlled or thamed media?). It was even the third or fourth attempt to kill him. Could be a good attempt, but still not a one that could guarantee the result. I would conclude that there is not enough studies that backup ricin theory. From case to case its action may vary with no possibility for you to make a good forecast on the result. You could kill someone. You could just get him feel really bad. Almost same probability(JAMA article).

My objections about local anestetichs:

-their injection is usually a bit painful, addition of sodium bicarbonate could do it less painful, but up to a point.
-their action last, at one point, even with the addition of adrenaline in the mix
-they give a feeling of numbness and the subject can notice it

2) Organophosphates poisoning are treated with atropine for its muscarine-like effects and with benzodiazepine for the nicotine-like central effects, according to Goodman – Gillmans. No point in discussing about x-curon use, here.

3) Maybe injecting veins is not your point, but is the point of who started this thread. And I find the answers about that not being complete.”. If you come to say that potassium is not effective in killing people... No way! 40meq of potassium are more than enough.
They need to be administered quickly. No effect is produced when administered over a hour long period. On potassium efficacy I prefer not to post references, since all physiology textbooks report similar datas. I would take a look on Guyton or ye olde Tinsley Randolph Harrison, if I wanna read something about that.
K+ is recognized to be a dangerous thing to deal with. Far more better than ricin, at least. This said if intravenous administration of both K+ and ricin are compared.

4) I forgot to say this by first istance... but: have we consider that in western countries most of people are immunized for tetanus toxin?
From tetanic presentation onset, mortality is something around 40 – 50%. Harrison’s says 10%, but I do think this is an error and 40 - 50% is more realistic.
Saying that you’re not thinking about getting the toxin if you wanna kill someone by it is like saying you are not caring how to get polonium 210 to to poison someone with it. At least, it sounds similar to me.
Tetanus diagnosis is performed by clinicians with no need for lab tests. Even because biologic samples from the wound of these patient are negative for clostridium, but you can still be sure clostridiums are there.
Point is: if in most of cases analysis labs are not able to isolate Clostridiums, you are still sure it is such a piece of cake to get it?

Some bibliographic that back up my statements about tetanus....


************EDIT************
I got thebibliography on a paper sheet, but I'm lazy. As long as I can get a scanner, i'm not posting it!
************************

Conclusion:

A good way to act could be this:

1) try to inoculate tetanospasmin.
2) Realize subject is immune
3) Go for ricin
4) When subject is hospitalized, play being a nurse or a doctor and inject quickly 40meq K+.
5) Shouldn’t it work, a VX bomb in the ward could do.