How Agatha Christie’s Pale Horse inspired the murders of the Teacup Poisoner who killed four and poisoned his own family
WHEN dad Fred Young bought his young son a chemistry set, he couldn’t have known he was signing his own wife’s death warrant. But poison-obsessed teenager Graham Young spent hours in his bedroom mixing a toxic cocktail which he then stirred into cups of tea he made for his family. Young, was just 14 when […]
WHEN dad Fred Young bought his young son a chemistry set, he couldn’t have known he was signing his own wife’s death warrant.
But poison-obsessed teenager Graham Young spent hours in his bedroom mixing a toxic cocktail which he then stirred into cups of tea he made for his family.
Young, was just 14 when he murdered his 37-year-old stepmum Molly and almost killed his dad and sister.
The young scientist – dubbed the Teacup Poisoner – would go on to claim three more lives and poison over 80 more people before his arrest in 1972.
He was caught when two of his colleagues in the lab where he worked suddenly died, and a police doctor who had read the Agatha Christie novel The Pale Horse – the basis of a two-part BBC drama that finished last night – recognised the symptoms of thallium poisoning.
The thriller, published the year Young began his killing spree, centres on a series of mystery deaths which turn out to be murder via secret poisonings.
At his trial, Agatha Christie’s whodunit was cited as possible inspiration, although Young denied reading it.
Gift of chemistry set fuelled toxic experiments
Graham Young had a rough start in life.
Shortly after he was born, in Neasden, Middlesex, his mother died and his distraught dad Fred sent him to live with his aunt and uncle.
When Fred remarried, Young was taken away from the aunt he adored and returned to the family home, where he became a withdrawn, solitary child.
Fascinated with science from an early age, he spent hours on his room experimenting with his chemistry set and earned the nickname of the “mad professor” at school.
He also developed an obsession with Adolf Hitler, started wearing a Swastika and harboured an ambition to become the world’s most famous poisoner.
By the time he was 13, he had stockpiled a collection of poisonous chemicals by convincing chemists he needed it for scientific experiments.
He began lacing cups of tea with a toxic concoction, first targeting stepmum Molly, who developed severe stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea.
She dismissed it as a bilious attack – but then dad Fred and Young’s older sister Winifred also fell ill with the same symptoms, as did classmates Richard Hands, Christopher Williams and Clive Cregar.
Again, the illnesses were put down to a bug until Winifred suffered a second bout of illness and began hallucinating, after complaining a cup of tea made by Young tasted bitter.
She was taken to hospital, where doctors found belladonna, the toxic extract of deadly nightshade, in her system.
Still no one suspected the teenager – who claimed his sister had been using teacups to mix shampoo.
Stepmum left writhing in agony after fatal dose
Meanwhile 37-year-old Molly was suffering from frequent stomach problems and her hair began to fall out.
On Easter Saturday in 1962, Fred returned from the pub to find Molly rolling around in the garden in excruciating pain while Graham watched out of the kitchen window.
She was rushed to hospital, where she died.
Her death was thought to have been as the result of complications from an earlier car accident and at Graham’s suggestion, her body was cremated.
Shortly afterwards, Fred was rushed to hospital, where he was told he had been poisoned with the metallic element antimony.
Knowing of his fascination with poison, Young’s aunt Winnie Jouvenat became suspicious and sent him to a psychiatrist who recommended calling the police.
He was taken in for questioning and confessed to killing his stepmum and poisoning his dad and sister.
It emerged that he had been slowly poisoning his family with antimony stirred in tea but, when Molly developed a tolerance, he switched to thallium, which killed her.
At the age of 14, Young was given a 15-year sentence and became Broadmoor’s youngest inmate.
Inside the secure psychiatric hospital, he continued to read books on poison and is said to have been able to extract cyanide from the laurel bushes on site, poisoning staff and possibly killing fellow inmate John Berridge.
Amazingly, after eight years, prison psychiatrist Edgar Udwin recommended his release, announcing that Young had “completely recovered” and “was no longer obsessed with poisons, violence and mischief”.
Young walked free in July 1970, despite telling a psychiatric nurse he was planning to murder one person for each year he had been in Broadmoor.
Tea rounds bring on the deadly ‘Bovingdon bug’
Incredibly, on release, Young was able to land a job at John Hadland Laboratories in Bovingdon. Hertfordshire – which manufactured infrared lenses using thallium.
Horrifyingly, Young frequently offered to make tea and coffee for his unsuspecting colleagues.
Soon after he joined, sickness swept through the firm like wildfire, with almost 70 colleagues struck down. Mistaken for a virus, it was nicknamed the Bovingdon Bug.
When one workmate, Bob Egle, died after several bouts of illness, in July 1971, and a few months later, 60-year-old Fred Biggs became Young’s fourth and final victim, suspicions began to grow.
Thanks to Christie’s novel, a doctor working with Scotland Yard recognised the symptoms of thallium poisoning – which includes vomiting, diarrhoea, hair loss, nerve damage and eventually organ failure.
At the same time, Young let slip to a colleague that his hobby was mixing toxic substances, and their conversation was relayed to the police.
Young was arrested in Sheerness, Kent on November 21, 1971 and police found thallium in his pocket.
A diary found in his bedroom noted every poisoning attempt, the amount he’d administered, their effects and, horrifyingly, whether he intended to let each one live or die.
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Young was sentenced to life in prison in June 1972.
While in prison, he befriended Moors Murderer Ian Brady, who shared his fascination with Hitler and Nazi Germany.
In 1990, at the age of 43, he was found dead in his cell at Parkhurst prison, apparently from a heart attack.
However, many have speculated that he somehow managed to conduct one final scientific experiment – this time on himself.
