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These are lists of
poisonings , deliberate and accidental, in chronological order by the date of death of the victim(s). They include mass poisonings, confirmed attempted poisonings, suicides, fictional poisonings and people who are known or suspected to have killed multiple people.
Non-fiction
Fatal
Socrates (d. 399 BC), Greek philosopher; according to
Plato , he was sentenced to kill himself by drinking
poison hemlock
Artaxerxes III (d. 338 BC), Persian king; possibly poisoned by his vizier
Bagoas
Artaxerxes IV (d. 336 BC), Persian king; poisoned by his vizier
Bagoas
Bagoas (d. 336 BC), Persian vizier and king-maker; poisoned by
Darius III
Demosthenes (d. 322 BC), Athenian
politician
Xu Pingjun (d. 71 BC), first empress of
Emperor Xuan of Han .
Antipater the Idumaean (d. 43 BC), father of
Herod the Great
Drusus Julius Caesar (d. 23), son of
Tiberius
Emperor Claudius (d. 54), allegedly poisoned by his wife
Agrippina with mushrooms or with the poisoned feather used to provoke vomiting
Emperor Zhi of Han (d.146)
Emperor Hui of Jin China (d. 304)
Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), fourth caliph of the
Rashidun Caliphate and first of the
Twelve Imams of
Shia Islam
Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (d. 720), eighth caliph of the
Umayyad Caliphate
Muhammad al-Baqir (d. 733), fifth
Imam of
Twelver Shia Islam; supposedly died after being given a poisoned saddle
Mūsá al-Kāẓim (d. 799), seventh
Imam of
Twelver Shia Islam
Beorhtric of Wessex (d. 802), unintentionally poisoned by his wife,
Eadburh
Muhammad al-Jawad (d. 835), ninth
Imam of
Twelver Shia Islam; supposedly poisoned by his wife on orders from the new caliph
Romanus II (d. 963),
Byzantine emperor of the
Macedonian dynasty
Alan III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1040)
Constantine II of Armenia (d. 1129)
Alphonse I ,
Count of Toulouse (d. 1148)
Baldwin III of Jerusalem (d. 1162)
Blanche of Bourbon (d. 1361), first wife of King
Pedro of Castile
Louis, Count of Gravina (d. 1362)
Robert, Count of Eu (d. 1387)
Ladislaus, King of Naples (d. 1414)
Dmitry Shemyaka (d. 1453), Grand Duke of Moscow; poisoned with
arsenic by
Vasily Tyomniy 's agents in
Great Novgorod
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (d. 1494)
Margaret Drummond (d. 1502), mistress of King
James IV of Scotland
Timoji (d. 1512), Hindu privateer and Portuguese ally
Juan Ponce de León (d. 1521), Spanish
conquistador ; died after being wounded by a
poisoned arrow
Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky (d. 1610), Russian general and statesman
Pocahontas (d.1617) while it is not known what she died from poisoning is one theory.
Yamada Nagamasa (d. 1630), Japanese adventurer
Marcy Clay (d. 1665), English thief and
highwayrobber
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1740), ate poisonous mushrooms
Johann Schobert (d. 1767), German composer; ate poisonous mushrooms believing them to be edible
Bradford sweets poisoning (1858); 21 people died and more than 200 others became ill when confections accidentally made with
arsenic trioxide were sold from a market stall in
Bradford, England
Charles Francis Hall (d. 1871), American
Arctic explorer poisoned with arsenic by members of the
Polaris expedition .
Nine children killed on 28 May 1879 in
Newark, Vermont after drinking from a polluted stream.
[1]
Guangxu Emperor (d. 1908), Emperor of the Qing dynasty; poisoned with arsenic by unidentified persons
Olive Thomas (d. 1920), American silent film actress; accidentally ingested a large dose of
mercury(II) chloride
Between six and eight killed and 400 became ill after eating spoiled ice cream in
Meppel ,
Netherlands in July 1921.
[2]
[3]
Madge Oberholtzer (d. 1925), rape victim of Ku Klux Klan leader
D.C. Stephenson ; died after attempting to commit suicide with mercury(II) chloride
Nine killed by apple cider contaminated by a pesticide at
Elks National Home in
Bedford, Virginia in November 1923.
Nestor Lakoba (d. 1936),
Abkhaz Communist leader; poisoned by
NKVD chief
Lavrenti Beria
Abram Slutsky (d.1938), head of Soviet spy service; poisoned with
hydrogen cyanide by
NKVD
Nikolai Koltsov (d. 1940), Russian biologist; poisoned by
NKVD
secret police
Erwin Rommel (d. 1944), German general; opted to commit suicide with cyanide after facing trial for his involvement in the
20 July plot
Eva Hitler (née Braun) (d. 1945), wife of
Adolf Hitler ; committed suicide by cyanide capsule at Hitler's side
The six
Goebbels children (d. 1945); poisoned by their parents
Magda and
Joseph Goebbels , who then killed themselves by poison and gunshots shortly afterwards
Heinrich Himmler (d. 1945), leader of the
Nazi
Schutzstaffel (SS); suicide by cyanide capsule after being captured
Odilo Globocnik (d. 1945)
Hermann Göring (d. 1946), leader of the Nazi
Luftwaffe ; suicide by cyanide capsule, long after being captured and only hours before his sentenced
hanging was to take place
Theodore Romzha (d. 1947),
bishop of the
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church ; poisoned by NKVD agents, who injected him with
curare on orders from
Nikita Khrushchev
Alan Turing (d. 1954),
British mathematician; apparently committed suicide by injecting an apple with
cyanide and taking a bite, though it has also been speculated that the poisoning was accidental
Muhammad Zarqtuni (d. 1954), Moroccan
nationalist ; swallowed a
cyanide tablet while in prison
Stepan Bandera (d. 1959); poisoned by a cyanide capsule shot from a gun by
KGB agents
1971 Iraq poison grain disaster ; at least 650 people died after eating
methylmercury -treated grain intended for seeding
Bandō Mitsugorō VIII (d. 1975), Japanese
kabuki actor; ate four livers of
fugu fish
Nine killed in
Denver City, Texas due to an accidental release of
hydrogen sulfide .
[4]
Jayanta Hazarika (d. 1977),
Assamese singer and musician
Georgi Markov (d. 1978),
Bulgarian dissident; assassinated in London with
ricin
Peoples Temple members (1978); over 900 died by cyanide-laced punch at
Jonestown
Love Canal (up to 1978); buried toxic waste was covered and used as a building site for housing and a school in
Niagara Falls, New York , resulting in claims of chronic poisoning that led to a massive environmental cleanup
Bhopal disaster (1984); accidental release of poisonous gas from a pesticide plant in
India that killed over 10,000 people and injured many more
Matsumoto incident (1994);
Sarin gas attack carried out by members of the
Aum Shinrikyo group killed 7 people and injured approximately 200
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway (1995); attack carried out by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group killed 12 and injured 1,034
Marshall Applewhite (d. 1997)
Moscow theater hostage crisis (2002); to end the crisis, the Federal Security Service (FSB) pumped an undisclosed chemical agent into the building's ventilation system, killing 40 militants and 133 hostages
Ibn al-Khattab (d. 2002), Sunni
jihadi fighter; died from a poisoned letter sent by Russian
FSB agency
Koodathayi Cyanide Murders (d. 2002–2016); 6 people were allegedly killed by Jolly Joseph using potassium cyanide
Roman Tsepov (d. 2004), Russian businessman; poisoned by unspecified radioactive material
2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump killed seventeen
Alexander Litvinenko (d. 2006), Russian ex-spy and investigator; died three weeks after being poisoned by radioactive
polonium-210
Zamfara State lead poisoning epidemic (2010); at least 163 people died in
Zamfara State ,
Nigeria
Murder of Garnett Spears (2014), a boy in New York whose mother suffered from
Munchausen syndrome by proxy , eventually leading her to give her son a fatal amount of
table salt
Slobodan Praljak (d. 2017), former
Bosnian Croat retired general in the
Croatian Army and the
Croatian Defence Council ; upon hearing of the guilty verdict upheld in his trial for war crimes, he drank poison in the courtroom and died a few hours later
Assassination of Kim Jong-nam (d. 2017), using a nerve agent at
Kuala Lumpur International Airport
Dawn Sturgess (d. 2018), accidentally poisoned with the same
Novichok nerve agent used in the
poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Shady Habash (d. 2020), Egyptian filmmaker; his cause of death was officially ruled as
alcohol poisoning , with the prosecutor-general further elaborating that Habash had mistakenly drinken alcohol-based
hand sanitizer
Tribistovo poisoning (2021); carbon monoxide leak from a power generator killed eight teenagers in the
New Year's Eve night
Non-fatal
Grigori Rasputin , Russian mystic; survived being poisoned with
potassium cyanide , as well as being shot, bludgeoned, and being thrown into a frozen river before he finally died by
drowning
Clare Boothe Luce , fell ill from
arsenic poisoning in 1956 but did not die
Nikolay Khokhlov , poisoned by radioactive
thallium in Germany in 1957 for refusing to work as a
KGB assassin
Alexander Dubček , Slovak politician; survived an attempt to poison him with
strontium-90 in 1968
Hafizullah Amin , second President of
Afghanistan ; survived a poisoning by a Soviet agent in 1979
Zhu Ling ,
Chinese university student poisoned with
thallium in 1995
Khaled Mashal , leader of Palestinian fundamentalist organization
Hamas ; survived being poisoned by Israeli assassins in 1997 after two of the assassins were captured and an
antidote was supplied by Israel in exchange for their release
Anna Politkovskaya , Russian journalist; poisoned during a flight to
Beslan in 2004
Viktor Yushchenko , Ukrainian politician; poisoned with
dioxin during the
2004 Ukrainian electoral campaign
Viktor Kalashnikov , Russian ex-KGB colonel; both he and his wife survived being poisoned with
mercury in 2010
Vladimir Kara-Murza , Russian opposition politician; poisoned in 2017 (also possibly in 2015) with an unknown toxin
Sergei and Yulia Skripal , Russian former double-agent and his daughter; poisoned in 2018 in
Salisbury ,
England with Novichok nerve agent
Alexei Navalny , Russian opposition leader, poisoned in 2020 with Novichok, during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow
Unnamed Taylor Child deliberate destruction of a child's
liver caused by her mother, Shauna Taylor, in an act of
Munchausen by proxy and intentional
iron poisoning .
Alleged
Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC)
Mithridates VI of Pontus (d. 63 BC), king of
Pontus and
Armenia Minor
Ptolemy XIV of Egypt (d. 44 BC); if so, by his sister
Cleopatra
Augustus (d. 14), Roman Emperor, with poisoned figs by his wife
Livia
Germanicus (d. 19),
Roman general
Claudius (d. 54), Roman Emperor, by his wife
Agrippina the Younger
Boudica (d. 60 or 61), Queen of the Iceni tribe and leader of the rebellion against Roman rule in Britain; committed suicide by poison according to
Tacitus , though
Dio Cassius claimed natural illness
Constance of Normandy (d. 1090), daughter of King
William I of England
King John of England (d. 1216); with peaches
Pope Benedict XI (d. 1304)
Stefan Dusan (d. 1355), Serbian king
Anne Neville (d. 1485), Queen Consort of England, died of tuberculosis but said to have been poisoned by her husband
Richard III
Matthias Corvinus (d. 1490), King of Hungary
Catherine of Aragon (d. 1536), Queen Consort of England, thought to have been poisoned by her former husband
Henry VIII of England or his wife
Anne Boleyn
Barbara Radziwiłł (d. 1551), Queen of Poland
King Eric XIV of Sweden (d. 1577); according to folklore, he was killed from poisoning by arsenic hidden in pea soup
Tycho Brahe (d. 1601), Danish astronomer
Jamestown colonists (1607–1610); standard historical accounts suggest many early colonists died of starvation, but the possibility of arsenic poisoning by rat poison (or of death by
bubonic plague ) has also been reported
[5]
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (d. 1612)
Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy (d. 1637)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (d. 1791), Austrian composer; with
antimony
Napoleon Bonaparte (d. 1821); some claim he was killed with arsenic by someone on his staff, though the evidence is inconclusive
Pope Pius VIII (d. 1830)
Zachary Taylor (d. 1850), 12th President of the United States; theorized by author Clara Rising that his milk was poisoned during an Independence Day celebration
John Gallagher Montgomery (d. 1857), U.S. Congressman from
Pennsylvania
Charles Darwin (d. 1882), English naturalist; possibly died due to self-medication with
Fowler's solution , one-percent
potassium arsenite
Hanoi Poison Plot (1908), a group of local Vietnamese tried to poison the entire French colonial army's garrison in the Citadel of Hanoi
Huo Yuanjia (d. 1910), wushu master and Chinese national hero; arsenic
Emperor Gojong of Korea (d. 1919); allegedly poisoned by the Japanese
Maxim Gorky (d. 1936), Russian writer;
NKVD chief
Genrikh Yagoda admitted at the
Trial of the Twenty One that he ordered to poison Gorky and his son
Robert Johnson (d. 1938), American musician
Raoul Wallenberg (d. c. 1947), Swedish humanitarian who saved tens of thousands of Jews during
World War II ; reportedly poisoned in
Lubyanka prison by
Grigory Mairanovsky
Joseph Stalin (d. 1953); officially
cerebral hemorrhage , but according to
Vyacheslav Molotov 's memoirs and historians
Radzinsky and
Antonov-Ovseenko , Stalin was poisoned on
Lavrenty Beria 's orders
Vasili Blokhin (d. 1955), former executioner of
NKVD
Lal Bahadur Shastri (d. 1966), second Prime Minister of India
João Goulart (d. 1976), former Brazilian president ousted by 1964 coup d'état
Carlos Lacerda (d. 1977), Brazilian journalist and presidential nominee
Pope John Paul I (d. 1978)
Gulf War syndrome , a chronic multi-symptom disorder afflicting more than 250,000 returning veterans and civilian workers of the
Gulf War of 1990–1991; while the etiology of the condition continues to be debated, various manmade poisons have been suggested as possible causes
Yuri Shchekochikhin (d. 2003), Russian investigative journalist; died presumably from poisoning by radioactive
thallium
Yasser Arafat (d. 2004); reputedly died from liver
cirrhosis , which may be a consequence of chronic
alcohol use or poisoning. Some Arafat supporters feel it is unlikely that Arafat habitually used alcohol (forbidden by
Islam ), and so suspect poisoning. However, it is also important to note that cirrhosis is not necessarily caused by alcohol use, or indeed any poison at all.
Ardeshir Hosseinpour (d. 2007),
Iranian nuclear scientist; possibly assassinated by
Mossad with "radioactive poisoning" or "gas poisoning"
[6]
[7]
[8]
Poisoners
Locusta , professional poisoner hired by Roman emperor
Nero and his mother
Agrippina the Younger for several murders
Lucrezia Borgia (d. 1519), alleged by rivals of the Borgia family to be a poisoner, using a hollow ring to poison drinks with white arsenic
Edward Squire (d. 1598), English scrivener and sailor executed for conspiring to poison Queen
Elizabeth I and
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
George Chapman , hanged after murdering three common-law wives
Mary Ann Cotton , 19th-century woman who poisoned family members for financial gain
Maria Swanenburg , Dutch serial killer who murdered at least 27 and was suspected of killing more than 90 people
Thomas Neill Cream (d. 1892), British serial killer
Vera Renczi , Romanian serial killer who used arsenic to kill two husbands, a son, and 32 suitors
Nannie Doss , black widow
Anna Marie Hahn (d. 1938), American serial killer
Dr.
John Bodkin Adams , British doctor acquitted in 1957 but suspected of killing 163 patients via
morphia and
barbiturates .
[9]
Anjette Lyles , American
restaurateur responsible for the
poisoning deaths of four relatives between 1952–1958 in
Macon ,
Georgia , apprehended on May 6, 1958, and sentenced to death, yet later was
involuntary commitmented due to her diagnosis of
paranoid schizophrenic , died aged 52 on December 4, 1977 at the
Central State Hospital ,
Milledgeville in Georgia.
[10]
[11]
Genene Jones , homicidal nurse
Grigory Mairanovsky , received Soviet PhD degree for testing poisons on
political prisoners
Stella Nickell , used cyanide-laced Excedrin to kill her husband and another woman in suburban Seattle in 1986
Charles Sobhraj , serial killer who preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s
Jim Jones , cult leader responsible for the mass murder–suicide of 918 of his followers in 1978, using cyanide-laced
Flavor-Aid at
Jonestown ,
Guyana
Michael Swango , American physician and surgeon who fatally poisoned at least thirty of his patients and colleagues
Graham Frederick Young (d. 1990), British serial killer
Members of the
Aum Shinrikyo religious group in Japan in the 1990s often used poisons for murder, including chemical weapons such as
VX and
Sarin
Daisuke Mori , Japanese nurse convicted of one murder and four attempted murders by
muscle relaxant
Harold Shipman (d. 2004), English general practitioner and one of the most prolific known serial killers in modern history
Richard Kuklinski (d. 2006), American
contract killer who was associated with the
Gambino crime family
Andrey Lugovoy (b. 1966), Russian deputy of the
State Duma found by
European Court of Human Rights
beyond reasonable doubt to have killed
Alexander Litvinenko
Dmitry Kovtun (b. 1965), Russian
KGB agent who with Andrey Lugovoy killed
Alexander Litvinenko
Anatoly Chepiga (b. 1979), Russian
GRU officer identified by journalists as one of the attackers of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
[12]
Alexander Mishkin (b.1979), Russian
GRU officer identified by journalists as one of the attackers of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
[13]
Fiction
As poisoning is a long-established plot device in
crime fiction , this is not intended to be an exhaustive list.
Novels
Crime
Anthony Berkeley :
The Poisoned Chocolates Case
Ann Granger :
Say It With Poison
Francis Iles :
Before the Fact (filmed as
Suspicion ),
Malice Aforethought
Agatha Christie :
Three Act Tragedy ,
Sad Cypress ,
A Pocket Full of Rye ,
Crooked House ,
And Then There Were None
John Dickson Carr :
The Burning Court , The Black Spectacles (U.S. title: The Problem of the Green Capsule )
Raymond Postgate :
Verdict of Twelve
Freeman Wills Crofts :
The 12.30 from Croydon
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle :
A Study in Scarlet , The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
Dashiell Hammett : Fly Paper
Dorothy Sayers :
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club ,
Strong Poison
Gosho Aoyama : Case Closed/Detective Conan
Rex Stout : Fer-de-Lance , The Red Box , Black Orchids
Cornell Woolrich :
Waltz into Darkness (filmed as
Mississippi Mermaid and
Original Sin )
Isaac Asimov :
The Death Dealers ,
The Naked Sun ,
David Starr, Space Ranger
Other
Films
Television
Plays
See also
References
^
"Newark, VT Accidental Poisoning, May 1879" . Stevens Point Daily Journal (Wisconsin). 7 June 1879. Retrieved 24 October 2020 .
^
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_apotheek_van_burgemeester_J_Knopper_van_Meppel,_het_centrale_punt_vanwaar_de_vergiftiging_van,_SFA022006453.jpg
^
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19210713.2.68
^ Swindle, Howard (June 1975).
"The Deadly Smell of Success" .
Texas Monthly . pp. 64–68, 96–97. Retrieved December 14, 2010 .
^ Public Broadcasting Service,
Secrets of the Dead , 2011. Accessed 4/25/2012
^ Ap, Ynet and (4 February 2007).
"Report: Mossad assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist" . Ynetnews .
^
"U.S. Website: Mossad killed Iranian nuclear physicist - Haaretz - Israel News" . Archived from
the original on 2007-02-06. Retrieved 2007-02-05 .
^
http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359775445&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull [
permanent dead link ]
^ Cullen, Pamela V., "A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr. John Bodkin Adams", London, Elliott & Thompson, 2006,
ISBN
1-904027-19-9
^
Criminal History: Anjette Lyles poisoned 4 family members for money . Beimfohr, Chelsea. WMAZ-TV. 7 November 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
^ "Georgia's most notorious murderess". Wilkes, Donald E. Flagpole magazine. 22 December 1999.
^ Roth, Andrew; Dodd, Vikram (26 September 2018).
"Salisbury poisoning suspect identified as Russian colonel" . The Guardian . Retrieved 26 September 2018 .
^
"Second Skripal Poisoning Suspect Identified as Dr. Alexander Mishkin" . Bellingcat. 8 October 2018. Retrieved 10 October 2018 .
10.Journey to the seemingly idyllic world of Native Hawaiians. Synopsis
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8084776/plotsummary#synopsis
Fields Concepts Treatments Incidents Related topics