Killing / suicide with pills?

WormHeart · May 9, 2013

Hey all.

I'm in the midst of a project where somebody spikes a drink with a lethal dose of "medicine" to kill a child.

But wanting to get my facts straight, I went to research and it turns out it is much harder to get your hands on lethal medicine these days.

Ordinary sleeping pills are really not very effective apparently, and has a higher chance of the victim vomiting and going to the hospital, than sleeping into death.

Any good ideas for a workaround? I feel I'm missing something obvious, but cant figure it out. It needs to be accessible, although not instantly accessible.

I've considered stuff like Fantasy (the party-drug) but is unsure if that would be lethal.

The process really need to be gentle, since my character could not physical do anything to the victim. :-/

Nekko · May 9, 2013

What if your character happened to have some left over medication that had been prescribed to them legitimately, such as Tylenol or cough syrup with Codeine, or Vicodin?

WormHeart · May 9, 2013

Well, that could work, I suppose, but it would be fairly easy to solve. Only a stupid murderer uses his own prescription to kill with

But if what I read is true, even those brands are less likely to outright kill someone and more likely to cause them to get very, very sick.

I might have to work around it and simply skip the details - just noting that it was hard to get his hands on.

cornflake · May 9, 2013

WormHeart said:
Hey all.

I'm in the midst of a project where somebody spikes a drink with a lethal dose of "medicine" to kill a child.

But wanting to get my facts straight, I went to research and it turns out it is much harder to get your hands on lethal medicine these days.

Ordinary sleeping pills are really not very effective apparently, and has a higher chance of the victim vomiting and going to the hospital, than sleeping into death.

Any good ideas for a workaround? I feel I'm missing something obvious, but cant figure it out. It needs to be accessible, although not instantly accessible.

I've considered stuff like Fantasy (the party-drug) but is unsure if that would be lethal.

The process really need to be gentle, since my character could not physical do anything to the victim. :-/

You didn't mention you wanted it undetectable/hard to figure out.

A child (provided you're talking about a reasonably small one) is going to be easier, because you can do more with a dosage you can get your hands on than you could to someone thrice the size.

You could use an easy-to-acquire poison, like ethylene glycol (car antifreeze, which is sweet) which can be fatal at a decent dose.

The other thing I'd think you could do would be to have the murderer in contact in some way with someone with a condition that requires a medication that could do in a kid. Like the murderer has a grandfather who takes digitalis or nitroglycerin or something and slip a pill or two out of the bottle at a time so as to hopefully not be noticed, then chuck the hoard in a drink or whatever.

blacbird · May 9, 2013

cornflake said:
You could use an easy-to-acquire poison, like ethylene glycol (car antifreeze, which is sweet).

Not any more:

Australia, the U.K., and seventeen U.S. states (as of 2012) require the addition of a bitter flavoring (denatonium benzoate) to antifreeze; in 2012, U.S. antifreeze manufacturers agreed voluntarily to add a bitter flavoring to all antifreeze that is sold in the consumer market of the U.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol

caw

Chasing the Horizon · May 9, 2013

WormHeart said:
But wanting to get my facts straight, I went to research and it turns out it is much harder to get your hands on lethal medicine these days.

Not really. Heroin and Oxy are both widely available on the street, and they're plenty deadly in high doses.

Your character is unlikely to get away with it no matter what, though. A child's death will trigger an autopsy, and they'll find the drug. At least a common street drug like heroin would be hard/impossible to trace the purchase of.

ETA: If you're stuck on using a prescription drug, try an anti-anxiety drug like Ativan or Valium. That's what my friend used to kill herself and it worked for an adult, so I'm sure it would work on a young child. And Ativan has virtually no taste whatsoever when you crush it up, oddly. Doctors hand out the scripts like candy too, at least here in the US.

rwm4768 · May 9, 2013

I think you'd have to mix a lot of different pills in very high dosages. Take enough depressants and your murderer or self-murderer should be able to shut down the body. I'm not sure, though.

This is for purely research purposes, right?

Also, in doing some research for you, I came across a site that lists twenty suicide methods. It seemed like kind of a messed up place, though, so I didn't hang around. A place advocating suicide seems a little wrong.

WormHeart · May 9, 2013

rwm4768 said:
Also, in doing some research for you, I came across a site that lists twenty suicide methods. It seemed like kind of a messed up place, though, so I didn't hang around. A place advocating suicide seems a little wrong.

I think I came across the same site, and it was deeply disturbing. :-o

Thank you for the suggestions everybody - I need to go read about the different drugs now.

I didn't clarify that the murderer loves the child, so it has to be something painless. He couldn't do anything that would hurt her, hence he goes with poisoning a Dr. Peppers.

And he does realize he wont get away with it.

WormHeart

WormHeart · May 9, 2013

rwm4768 said:
This is for purely research purposes, right?

If there ever is a strange death in my circle of friends, my internet searches will damn me

Curse you, research - you make me seem like a psycho pervert. Every time!

njmagas · May 9, 2013

WormHeart said:
If there ever is a strange death in my circle of friends, my internet searches will damn me

Curse you, research - you make me seem like a psycho pervert. Every time!

I've asked my better half to clear my search history for this reason, in the event of my untimely death.

LJD · May 10, 2013

I've been on more than one med that is toxic in large amounts, or has potentially-fatal interactions with other drugs or food. But my impression is that you will usually know something is very wrong by vomiting, nausea or severe headaches--and it sounds like this isn't what you want? Anyways, you could look into TCAs--but apparently this is a not uncommon cause of fatal drug poisoning, so it might be easy to solve. Or MAOIs, which have severe interactions with a long list of things such as cheese and cold medication. MAOIs are rare, and I was given specific instructions on what to say to the doctors in ER if I ever had a reaction in case they weren't sure what to do. (If you get proper treatment though, you will be fine.) Supposedly this was the method used to murder someone in this old murder mystery. Not so easy to get your hands on an older MAOI though, as it is a prescription drug of last resort due to the ridiculous list of serious food/drug interactions. I don't think they're even available in some countries.

mirandashell · May 10, 2013

Nicotine is extremely poisionous in liquid form.

dangerousbill · May 10, 2013

WormHeart said:
Hey all.

I'm in the midst of a project where somebody spikes a drink with a lethal dose of "medicine" to kill a child.

Possibilities:

1. Be vague. It could just be 'something form the gardening store'.

2. Illegal drugs like cocaine or heroin.

3. Poisonous plants, which are surprisingly common.
http://www.livescience.com/11356-top-10-poisonous-plants.html

James D. Macdonald · May 10, 2013

A child? You can do them in with vitamins-with-iron.

Or grand-dad's blood pressure pills.

Check your contract to be sure it doesn't have a "no harmful formulas" clause. If it does, you'll have to dose the drink with handwavium anyway.

Dandroid · May 10, 2013

You have hundreds of options...but if you can cause a febrile seizure, it would look more natural...asa is in wintergreen

Chasing the Horizon · May 10, 2013

mirandashell said:
Nicotine is extremely poisionous in liquid form.

This is a really great idea, because nicotine liquids are readily and widely available. They're used for the electronic cigarette stop-smoking aids. They're not dangerous when used as intended, but if you dumped an entire bottle in a child's soda, it would almost surely be lethal. It would certainly be a creative way of killing someone, though it might come dangerously close to giving instructions.

nikkidj · May 10, 2013

I remember an emergency medicine toxicology lecture titled "One Pill Can Kill." It's about the effect of poisons in children. Clonidine is the one I remember the most-- it causes sedation in children, respiratory depression, and low blood pressure, and is in a gel-like capsule that can be pierced and the medicine removed. It also comes in a patch that can be applied and then removed after an appropriate time for dosing. It's really dangerous because it acts quickly, is commonly found in grandma's medicine sorter, and is small enough to be readily consumed and absorbed by the mucus membranes.

cornflake · May 10, 2013

blacbird said:
Not any more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol

caw

I had no idea; learn somethin' every day. Yay for saving animals from licking that stuff up!

WormHeart · May 10, 2013

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

The nicotine idea is really great, but I realized something when reading James' comment.

I'm not really interested in giving my reader a recipe to kill people, so I think I will fudge the issue and just comment on how hard it was to come by. Liquid death.

Also, since it is for a major anthology (hopefully), they might disagree with providing the unwashed masses with such information too.

We'll see.

WormHeart

Killing / suicide with pills?

WormHeart

Dual class author / nightguard

Nekko

Back to purring

WormHeart

Dual class author / nightguard

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

blacbird

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW

WormHeart

Dual class author / nightguard

WormHeart

Dual class author / nightguard

njmagas

LJD

mirandashell

dangerousbill

Retired Illuminatus

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

Dandroid

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

nikkidj

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

WormHeart

Dual class author / nightguard