Originally published at: Florida man pumps opioids into neighbors' home to keep them quiet (video) | Boing Boing
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My chemistry background is some lightweight undergrad stuff, so it’s definitely possible that there are constraints that I’m unaware of; but I’m puzzled by the apparent plan here:
Someone dealing with the procurement hassle and legal exposure of schedule II opioids is presumably doing that because they want those effects(presumably either the sedation, if he’s just trying to quiet the neighbors temporarily, or the respiratory depression, if permanently); and in that case it seems counterproductive to use a solvent/carrier that people are describing as smelling worse than nail polish remover.
If, on the other hand, this guy was just trying to make the neighbors miserable or generically sickened to get them to leave that would make something with a really unpleasant smell(but enough volatility that they’ll go nuts trying to nail down the source) a lot more sensible; but then why drag opioids into it when there are variety of hardware store to ubiquitous reagent supply options that would do the job?
Inaccuracies from a story reported at some remove? Something I’m failing to consider? Even criminals with relatively advanced education in the relevant area not always the brightest bulbs in the rocket ship?
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Spot test returns positive for opioids. LOTS of things will make a spot test return a false positive.
It’ll take a substantial sample and a real chemist with tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear to find out what was really in the syringe. That so many people mentioned “nail polish remover” suggests acetone was in the mix, but whether the other components were dangerous or merely obnoxious isn’t easily determined.
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I think he imagined that he was committing the perfect murder. Family OD’d on opiods? DRUGS!
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This seems like a new spin on the old “Mad Gasser” stories reported on the Futility Closet podcast:
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This seems plausible. A lot of police chem approaches are to get yay or nay on common drugs, vs. doing a deep dive.
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Whatever it was, it made their daughter very ill. Sounds dangerous AF.
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That’s a fucking despicable act.
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That’s not a great guide. Just making someone sick and miserable isn’t that hard–we have war agents specifically designed to do it, such as adamsite ( Adamsite (DM): Vomiting Agent | NIOSH | CDC ), On the flip side, there’s no shortage of carcinogens that (at the correct level of exposure) will significantly increase lifetime cancer risk while having little or no acute effect.
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I think he should get together with that mushroom lady from Australia when they both get out of prison many years from now.
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i would hope more charges are coming or at least a good civil lawsuit for effectively poisoning them. who knows the lasting effects?!?
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This news reminded me of this case. What kind of people do this?
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So very true! Thank God/s someone on this thread is focussed on what matters in this story.
ETA: Seemed like no one else had when I posted this comment.
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Pretty sure poisoning an infant with “war agents” designed to incapacitate adults also qualifies as dangerous AF.
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Seeing as all he did was squirt a small amt of the substance/s under the door, it had quite an effect on the baby. It is not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that the substance/s is/are dangerous. It also certainly appears he truly wanted to harm his neighbors, and few would choose to do so with, say, mayonnaise, least of all a former chemistry student.
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Sure. But the question remains, how dangerous? And you can’t go straight from severity of symptoms. You can make someone throw up with a glass of salt water, but we don’t ordinarily consider salt water “dangerous AF”. On the flip side, strontium-90 can produce essentially no symptoms until the cancer starts, and so is more likely to count as “dangerous AF.”
Things like this are why it’s so useful to be able to prosecute for any of poisoning, attempted poisoning, or depraved indifference. Even if what was in the syringe was half and half acetone and Axe.
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