I need help killing people with science.

sickmuse · Feb 15, 2012

No, really. I do.

I have a medical scientist (who cured Parkinson's disease in the future, actually), early- or mid-thirties woman sort of being held hostage/blackmailed/idk in a home-type setting. She needs to murder some jerks in order to get revenge and advance the plot and stuff. The usual. This is post zombie- and nuclear- apocalyptic New Mexico or thereabouts, although the location is in a safe zone. Zombies are all neutralized, and the nuclear attack was in the southeast USA.

My scientist isn't really big on killing people in general. I know from research that most women prefer to use poison or hire someone, but I'd like to give her some agency, so I'm leaning towards the first. Also, because she was specifically targeted for so much abuse because she's a scientist (which her captors find intimidating), I'd really like for her to kill them with science. The people holding her are definitely heroin dealers, but they could (probably?) also be cooking meth. So!

1. Is there a badass way she could poison 4-5 people at once using something in the household? Bonus points if the average Jane/Joe wouldn't realize mixing two things or doing something to a substance (or whatnot) will make it lethal. Clearly, I am not a scientist. =/

2. If my best shot is a meth lab, what do I have her do and what are the odds that heroin dealers also deal meth? Can she mix two chemicals and get something that's poisonous and easy to slip into food she's making?

Huge thank you in advance!!!

Clueless · Feb 15, 2012

Appleseeds have been known to be used as poison, and are infact extremely poisonous. It's only because of the very small number of seeds per apple that people don't die from them.

sickmuse · Feb 15, 2012

Yeah, something like that would definitely work. I just wonder how many she needs and how long it would take to crush them up to kill fourish people. I'm also wondering if maybe the heroin could be cut with something like rat poison (I've heard of it happening, just not sure how often). Guess I should research more!

Clueless · Feb 15, 2012

Yeah, I was thinking that the quantity might be an issue. I like the rat poison idea, but it seems obvious (to mee, at least). It sounds that the more obscure (and simple) the idea, the better the story will progress.

Drachen Jager · Feb 15, 2012

They used a trick in Breaking Bad near the beginning of the series (the protag is a chemistry teacher). You can easily make an acidic vapour in a meth lab, in fact bad meth cooks sometimes do it by mistake. It's not 100% deadly, but it will burn the lungs and if they breathe in enough they'll drown in their own liquified lungs.

I highly recommend watching that episode if you want to use that method, it's quite well enacted.

Archerbird · Feb 15, 2012

She can poison someone with quite a lot of common household items. Lye for example, which is also used by meth labs.

Sounds incredibly painful too: http://oehha.ca.gov/public_info/pdf/Sodium Hydroxide Fact Sheet Meth Labs 10'03'.pdf

sickmuse · Feb 15, 2012

yeah, that's a definite possible. I'm wondering about combining two drugs now, though. Hmm.

Okay, so how plausible is it that I could kill 4 people with fairly large amounts of alcohol, quinine, and thioridazine? Is it stretching reality too much for this to happen to all 4? It doesn't have to be 100% at the same time, though that's ideal, and it can take several weeks/months if necessary. I'll update my OP too.

http://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/quinine-with-thioridazine-1982-0-2184-0.html

Sea Witch · Feb 15, 2012

I'm not sure about your MC's environment, but there are a number of common plants and flowers that are quite toxic (and some are deadly). Daffodil, Hyacinth, Foxglove, Philodendron, Monkshood, Datura, Brugmansia, Oleander, Hemlock. Even nicotine is very toxic (deadly) in high concentrations.....

Some tasty vegetable soup would be my vote....

sickmuse · Feb 15, 2012

That's true. I'm not sure how familiar she is with specific plants, though. I'm leaning towards this pharmacology solution, if I can do it plausibly!

Archerbird · Feb 15, 2012

Sea Witch said:
I'm not sure about your MC's environment, but there are a number of common plants and flowers that are quite toxic (and some are deadly). Daffodil, Hyacinth, Foxglove, Philodendron, Monkshood, Datura, Brugmansia, Oleander, Hemlock. Even nicotine is very toxic (deadly) in high concentrations.....

Some tasty vegetable soup would be my vote....

This too. And re; the apple seeds. There's a cyanide compound in there somewhere. Also in various other seeds/kernels.

Orianna2000 · Feb 16, 2012

I remember a teen mystery novel where the MC's brother got sick and almost died because his girlfriend was feeding him apple salad every day and hadn't bothered to remove the apple seeds before chopping up the apple bits. It was ignorance in her case, but still sobering to contemplate.

Sorry, I'm not a chem expert, I just wanted to share that about the apple seeds. Like Archerbird said, I think it was cyanide in them that caused the poisoning, if that helps.

robjvargas · Feb 16, 2012

Ethylene Glycol

A common plot element when mothers with Munchhausen by Proxy Syndrome are in the story.

Shakesbear · Feb 16, 2012

Food poisoning would be an easy way to kill four people. It is not always reliable though. Sea Witch has listed some poisonous plants which could be used, though there are many more. It is not that hard to prepare a poison using them - you can do a decoction using the hard parts of plants - bark, seeds, roots, etc. Decoction can use ordinary kitchen equipment. Infusions can also be made using leaves and/or flowers. What you might need to do is some research into the symptoms of some of the poisons. For example Oleander contains cardiac glycoside see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_glycoside
I have made a study of plants that poison, please PM me if you want to know more - can't promise that I will know the answers though.

thothguard51 · Feb 16, 2012

Question...what is the circumstances?

Are the bad guys just letting her do what she pleases? No one watching over her? Would they make her eat or drink anything she prepares for them? Give me a plausable excuse on how she can get away with this and I am there...

Nick, who has had mild cases of food poisoning several times and knows it ain't fun...

Literateparakeet · Feb 16, 2012

sickmuse said:
That's true. I'm not sure how familiar she is with specific plants, though. I'm leaning towards this pharmacology solution, if I can do it plausibly!

If she knows pharmacology, then she likely knows something about plants. Many drugs are made from plants. Foxglove, for example, is a heart medication, digitalis.

Comadin, a blood thinner, is used as rat poison.
http://www.druginfonet.com/index.php?pageID=faq/new/DRUG_FAQ/Coumadin.htm

frimble3 · Feb 16, 2012

If they're heroin dealers, and they're just letting her wander around loose, why not just get her hands on some of their product, and kill them with an overdose of heroin? Or, 4 overdoses of heroin? Apparently it kills quickly at high doses, so with luck the last guy will be dying by the time he notices the first guy is dead.

Clueless · Feb 16, 2012

If your main character has schizophremia, you might want to look at medicines that affect the level of dopamine in a person's body. It wouldn't be lethal in most cases, but dopamine also regulates reactions to certain chemicals

sickmuse · Feb 16, 2012

^^ yeah, that's pretty much where I am... the newer anti-psychotics can have some weird interactions with a lot of other substances, so that might be something. I'm not sure about her ability to go outside a lot, or to get any sort of vegetation on a regular basis in post-apocalyptic New Mexico, but I'm not ruling out the plant-based toxins.

Shakesbear · Feb 16, 2012

sickmuse said:
^^ yeah, that's pretty much where I am... the newer anti-psychotics can have some weird interactions with a lot of other substances, so that might be something. I'm not sure about her ability to go outside a lot, or to get any sort of vegetation on a regular basis in post-apocalyptic New Mexico, but I'm not ruling out the plant-based toxins.

The plants do not have to be fresh. Some plants can be dried and used to make an infusion.

sickmuse · Feb 16, 2012

true, but how likely is it that she'd be able to get her hands on them easily? Is oleander, dried or otherwise, likely to be lying around in a random kitchen? That's my main concern, I guess.

blacbird · Feb 17, 2012

Me too. Who do you have in mind?

Aside from that, there are dozens of natural poisons (including oleander, which is widely grown as an ornamental plant) that anyone with botanical knowledge could obtain. And sufficient knowledge is easily researchable. At the risk of providing scary information:

Monkshood.
False hellebore.
Baneberry.
Death Camas (well-named).
Hemlock (the onion-like plant that grows in marshes, not the unrelated large northwestern tree).
Peach and almond leaves.
Certain mushrooms of the genera Amanita, Galerina and Cortinarius. The latter would be particularly devious, as the symptoms of poisoning might not show up until two weeks after ingestion, by which time it's too late for treatment.

Poisoning someone with these botanical substances is so rare that most medical personnel would have trouble figuring it out.

caw

sickmuse · Feb 17, 2012

thanks! I don't know how worried I am with autopsies and the like; I feel like doctors have more important things to worry about, given the circumstances.

mccardey · Feb 17, 2012

I need help killing people with science.

Child. Really - have you given any thought to gardening? Stamp-collecting?

Knitting is nice...

:Sun:

Killing people is Not Very Nice....

tsk

sickmuse · Feb 17, 2012

mccardey said:
Child. Really - have you given any thought to gardening? Stamp-collecting?

Knitting is nice...

I'm sure someone will get killed with a shovel eventually, and someone is currently on the verge of dying from a self-inflicted knitting needle injury. I haven't figured out a way to work the stamp thing into a death yet.

Shakesbear · Feb 17, 2012

sickmuse said:
true, but how likely is it that she'd be able to get her hands on them easily? Is oleander, dried or otherwise, likely to be lying around in a random kitchen? That's my main concern, I guess.

Good point. However, I am researching poisonous plants for a specific reason and this is one of the problems I had to think about. If I wanted to extract the poison from a plant I would have to use my kitchen as there would be no where else to do it. I do have an open fire and I could use a good old fashioned 'witches cauldron' to make a sort of decoction or an infusion. But I thought that as everyone has a kitchen that would be the place I would work. I would have to keep the poisons away from foodstuff and label it with the name and have a skull or another poison symbol on the containers. There are, to my beginners knowledge, at least forty three poisonous plants that can be found in the UK - that excludes fungi.

I need help killing people with science.

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