The Perfect Murder

Day 26

How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways.

Brings new meaning to the original poem.

You will find me glued to the Discovery Channel on Cable TV on Friday and Saturday nights. For the longest time, I have been intrigued by murder.

How does it feel to take another life? Why do people kill? How was the murder carried out? Can one get away with the perfect crime?

Yes, I know it's such a morbid thought but, it's rather interesting one for me. In the past episodes, they did a whole segment on women murderers. Apparently, most women kill their victims by slow poisoning. It is not normal for women to resort to bloody methods using knives and guns.

I found out that it is quite easy to get poisons. Like...

Ricin - from Castor (jumping) beans
In a real case, the unhappy wife bought some castor bean from the local garden store. These beans are normally used for planting but she decided to pop a couple into the dinner and fed it to the husband.

Cyanide for apple seeds
Imagine if I start collecting apple seeds and ground them up into fine powder...

There is a "kernel" of truth, however, to the adage that apple seeds are poisonous. Perhaps you have heard of cyanide, a poisonous substance that can cause dangerously elevated acid levels in the body, seizures, coma, and death. Under certain unusual circumstances, cyanide poisoning can follow the ingestion of seeds or pits of several common fruits that are members of the Prunus species, including, apricots, cherries, almonds, and peaches, as well as apples. This harmless chemical lies inside the seed, but when the seed is moistened and crushed, it can be converted by bacteria in the intestinal tract or by an enzyme within the seed into cyanide. Because the amount of amygdalin in an apple seed is quite small, it is highly unlikely that you would become ill from swallowing one or two seeds, especially if they were not chewed. In fact, many other foods, including lima beans, also contain amygdalin in tiny amounts considered harmless.

Other household products like rat poisons, cleaning fluids and cooling liquids. The list goes on... and I am making some mental notes. As they say, you wouldn't want to leave a trail of evidence behind.

Today, I am grateful for Agatha Christie novels, FBI Files, Crime Night and The New Detective.

For that One of a Kind experiments