British Serial Killer Graham Frederick Young's Fatal Question

"Have you considered thallium poisoning?" was the question Graham Frederick Young asked the doctor investigating the death of Fred Biggs, Young's co-worker in an optical equipment manufacturing store in Hertfordshire, England.

This was probably one of the most interesting and telling questions ever asked - and one must question Young's state of mind at the time that he asked it - as it precipitated an investigation into Young's past and unearthed the interesting fact that in 1962 he had been imprisoned in Broadmoor for nine years for poisoning his stepmother, Molly. Young's 'poison diary' was then discovered, which contained detailed entries of the effects of different poisons apparently administered to about 70 of his co-workers at the plant. Young's defense to this piece of evidence was that the entries in his journal merely outlined a plot for a novel that he was thinking of writing. Young had, however, also boasted to other co-workers of his interest in chemistry and this ultimately proved to be his undoing. It was then but a short step for the police to implicate him in the murders of both Bob Egle and Fred Biggs, plant workers who, up till then, were believed to have died from the dreaded 'Bovingdon Bug'. It turned out, however, that the 'Bovingdon Bug' was not the viral infection it was at first thought to have been but was, in fact, the result of Young's dosing his co-workers with tea laced with antimony and thallium.

During his trial for the two murders, Young was piqued that he became known as only the Teacup Poisoner; he had wanted to become known as The World's Poisoner but it seems that three victims did not a world make. In June 1972 at the completion of his trial, he was found guilty of the murders of both Biggs and Egle and sentenced to life in prison (a rather different fate from that of his hero, William Palmer, who had been hanged for his poisonous crimes). Also, while Palmer was the first person tried in Britain for murder through the use of strychnine, Young was the first person tried in Britain for murder through the use of thallium. A parallel can also be drawn between Young's case and that of the deadly Dr Fred Shipman, in that both cases caused the British government to review and revise legislation so that such poisonings could not happen again.

Whilst in prison, Young also met Ian Brady, the male half of the famous Moors Murders partnership, and they found that they both shared an interest in Nazi Germany. Young was also partial to Voodoo, which he practiced extensively when he was younger, and which love was shared with Raymond Fernandez, one of the Lonely Hearts killers.

Young died at the age of 42, while still in prison and apparently of a heart attack. There is a persistent rumor, though, that he made himself a cup of tea shortly before he died...

Sources:

Schechter, Harold. The Serial Killer Files. New York: Ballantine Books (2003)
Graham Young Graham Young Wikipedia
Johnny Sharp Graham Young, The St Albans Poisoner TruTV Crime Library
Graham Young - Famous Criminal Crime & Investigation Network
Graham Young Murders Database
Kingsport Times
Winnipeg Free Press