The story of Graham Young, a maniac poisoner, whom even the jailers were afraid of

On August 22, 1990, the staff of the British prison for particularly dangerous criminals "Parkhurst", located on the Isle of Wight, breathed a sigh of relief. The lifeless body of the most dangerous criminal of the correctional institution, Graham Frederick Young, was found on the floor in his solitary cell. This man inspired everyone with horror behind thick stone walls and several rows of bars — even the guards were wary of the dead maniac and were sincerely glad when his corpse left the prison walls.

Fate was harsh with Graham Young almost from birth. Barely three months old, his mother died and his father's sister took over all the care of the baby. The aunt treated Graham as her son and, perhaps, he would have become a worthy member of society if not for the circumstances.

Graham Young (far left) with his family When the boy turned three years old, his father, Fred Young, remarried and decided to take his son to himself.

It was a serious stress for the child, although his father and foster mother took care of him no worse than his aunt. Unfortunately, they could not pay enough attention to the boy and he spent a lot of time alone with himself.

During his school years, Graham's favorite places were the ruins of London, left after the German bombing. In the 50s, there were a lot of them left, and labyrinths of broken bricks, concrete and twisted rebar were chosen by declassified elements and teenagers left to themselves.

One day, among the ruins, the boy found a book on Satanism and enthusiastically read it. After that, Young became keenly interested in evil and even began to sympathize with Hitler, which was completely strange for a British child of the first post-war years.

In the early 50s, many areas of London continued to lie in ruins, and the family did not notice any alarm signals — Graham studied well, was friendly, neat and independent.

The boy was fond of chemistry and on one of his birthdays his father gave him a set of a young chemist. Of course, no one asked what the young experimenter was doing in his room and what chemical experiments he was doing. And it would be worth doing it, because Young Jr. was interested in making poisons.

The first victims of the teenager were mice and frogs. Graham poisoned them with carefully selected doses of toxins, watching the agony with interest. When the boy was 13, a book about Edward Pritchard, who poisoned his wife and mother with antimony, fell into his hands. This story impressed the teenager so much that he decided to get hold of a dangerous chemical and test its deadly power.

Poisonous antimony was not sold to minors, so Young had to deceive the reagent seller and add years to himself. He said that he needed antimony for experiments and, being well-versed in chemistry, easily justified his purchase. Having received the coveted substance, the novice poisoner did not exchange for mice, but immediately moved on to serious business.

By nature, Young was a loner and at school he had only one friend — Christopher Williams. It was he who became the guinea pig, having received the first, trial dose of antimony in a glass of lemonade. Doctors rescued the boy, but they did not understand what caused the severe poisoning. It's hard to say why Williams survived, perhaps Young didn't want to kill him or didn't know the exact lethal dose.

Whatever it was, but Graham was pleased with the result. He had the idea to "finish off" a friend by gradually adding small doses of antimony to his food and drinks, but the bastard was afraid of exposure — too serious a noise arose after the incomprehensible poisoning of a schoolboy.

Then Graham decided without hesitation to experiment with his family. Only in the autumn of 1961, the symptoms of poisoning appeared in the boy's father, his stepmother, sister, aunt and ... in Graham himself. Once a young poisoner mixed up the plates and sprinkled antimony into his food.

Of course, suspicions fell on the self-taught chemist, because he was the only one in the family dealing with toxic compounds. Once his stepmother even found a bottle with a skull and bones on the label in his pocket, which spoke eloquently about its contents. But the very idea that a schoolboy could poison the people closest to him seemed seditious to everyone.

The elder Yang generally assumed that poisoning happens due to the fact that Grem does not comply with safety regulations and sometimes drags dishes from the kitchen to his laboratory. One day the poisoner was on the verge of exposure — his sister Winnfred was poisoned so badly that she had to be rescued in the hospital.

The case attracted the attention of the police and the investigation established that the cause of the girl's serious illness was a kind of potent poison. But neither the formula of the substance, nor the way in which it got into the body of Winnfred then could not be established. Graham's sister survived, and the villain himself was even glad of it — he did not want to kill her and used her only as a test subject.

The main target of the monster was his stepmother, Molly Young. Antimony was mixed into her food regularly in small doses, so the woman gradually faded away. It all ended with the fact that Molly went out into the garden one day and fainted there. She was rushed to the hospital and pumped out there, but she died soon after. Graham Young was very pleased with the result and encouraged to kill again.

The next victim was the father. Just a few weeks later, he was admitted to the hospital with exactly the same symptoms as his wife, but even after that, he did not report his son. The poisoner was exposed by his chemistry teacher, who found empty vials with antimony residues and a notebook describing the dosages of the poison in the teenager's desk. The teacher immediately reported the discovery to the school director.

But instead of handing over the young monster to the police, he was invited to a school psychologist. The specialist talked to Graham and found that he was simply maniacally obsessed with the idea of poisoning others. Only after that, the school administration, who really did not want a scandal, was forced to turn to law enforcement.

Graham denied everything at first, but then he began to talk in detail about his experience of poisoning and did it with burning eyes and very enthusiastically. During a search in the boy's room, seven vials of various poisons and stocks of ingredients for their preparation were found. "I did it all!" the schoolboy proudly declared, flattered by the attention of the police and journalists.

Since everyone doubted the adequacy of the poisoner, he was sent for psychiatric examination. The survey showed that Graham Young is sane, but at the same time has a number of serious deviations and, most importantly, shocking views on the world around him:

So one of the doctors who examined Graham wrote in the medical report. The poisoner himself spoke about his passion like this:

Graham Young was accused of murdering his stepmother and attempted murder of his father and sentenced to compulsory treatment in a psychiatric clinic of the Broadmore prison type. The poisoner spent 9 long years there. Strangely enough, the unsociable Yang became a favorite of patients and staff at the hospital. After a couple of years, he began to make a lot of concessions and was even allowed to move freely around the clinic.

The Broadmore Psychiatric Hospital has ended badly.

One day, one of Broadmore's patients, 23—year-old murderer John Burridge, fell on a walk, began to convulse and, despite the efforts of doctors, died. Since there was only one poisoner in the clinic, Graham was immediately suspected. But the management decided not to make a fuss and soon paid for it. A few months later, several doctors and nurses had symptoms of poisoning.

In order to solve the problem, the chief physician filed a corresponding document with higher authorities, in which he recognized Yang as cured. So after 9 years, the poisoner was released. He got a job as a storekeeper in a company that supplies optical equipment, and began to lead an inconspicuous life of a London philistine.

But very soon some of Yang's colleagues began to feel unwell, their skin became dry, breathing was difficult, and their hair began to fall out. No one connected this with the fact that the new storekeeper willingly volunteered to make tea and coffee for everyone around. In 1971, the head of the company's department, Bob Eggl, died. He was 59 years old and everyone associated his death with age and poor health.

But when, two months later, the still young and full of energy manager Fred Biggs died, everyone suspected something was wrong. It all ended with the arrest of Young, who again, out of vanity, willingly told the details of his crimes. The court again questioned Graham's mental health and sent him to a psychiatric hospital in Liverpool.

The poisoner stayed in the institution for only two years and was transferred to prison at the request of doctors who were terrified of the maniac. This was not surprising, Yang had reached such heights that he could make poison literally out of thin air. In prison, the criminal was kept strictly, but clearly underestimated. Once he was caught mixing a poisonous mushroom grown in a walking yard with his own feces to get a deadly neurotoxin. This incident caused panic among the jailers.

Therefore, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the 43-year-old maniac suddenly died in his cell. Everyone thought that Young had taken his own life, but the autopsy showed that he was killed by a heart attack. But the Minsk poisoner Valery Nekhaev, who also poisoned colleagues right and left, also without any serious motives, suffered a well-deserved punishment and was shot.