Latest / Crime and Horror / British Intelligence couldn't believe what he found...

Transcript

British Intelligence couldn't believe what he found... · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: On July fourth, twenty eighteen, a paramedic was hurrying through
0:03
Speaker 1: a hospital in England when a supervisor flagged him down.
0:06
Speaker 2: Looking very concerned.
0:08
Speaker 1: She asked him if he had been one of the
0:09
Speaker 1: paramedics on a very specific call a few days earlier. Surprised,
0:14
Speaker 1: the paramedics said yes, the call had been completely typical,
0:18
Speaker 1: so he didn't really understand why this particular call mattered
0:21
Speaker 1: so much, But the instant he confirmed he had been there,
0:24
Speaker 1: his supervisor said she would explain in a minute, but
0:27
Speaker 1: for right now, he had to take off all of
0:29
Speaker 1: his gear, like, all of it right now, because there
0:32
Speaker 1: was a chance that what he was wearing could kill him.
0:35
Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
0:38
Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
0:41
Speaker 1: then you come to the right show because that's all
0:43
Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three, even four times
0:47
Speaker 1: every week. So if that's of interest to you, please
0:50
Speaker 1: sneak into the like button's house and remove all of
0:53
Speaker 1: their outlets and then replace it with a blank plate. Also,
0:56
Speaker 1: please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications
0:59
Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
1:02
Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On the afternoon of June
1:21
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, twenty eighteen, a forty four year old woman
1:24
Speaker 1: named Don Sturgis sat on a blanket in a park
1:26
Speaker 1: in Salisbury, England, drinking some wine with a few friends
1:29
Speaker 1: and her boyfriend, Charlie Rally. It was Don's favorite way
1:32
Speaker 1: to spend a Friday, especially since it involved Charlie.
1:36
Speaker 2: So they've been dating for.
1:37
Speaker 1: Sixteen months, and she was completely in love with him,
1:41
Speaker 1: primarily because Charlie was truly like the lone bright spot
1:45
Speaker 1: in Don's otherwise really difficult life. So down was an
1:49
Speaker 1: alcoholic who had struggled with an undiagnosed case of bipolar
1:52
Speaker 1: disorder for years, and so she had a hard time
1:55
Speaker 1: finding work and for the last two years she had
1:58
Speaker 1: actually lived in a therapy to group home. But it
2:01
Speaker 1: was a little after she had moved in there that
2:03
Speaker 1: she had very fortunately met Charlie. Now on paper, Don
2:08
Speaker 1: and Charlie did not seem like they would be good
2:10
Speaker 1: for each other. Charlie was addicted to heroin. He also
2:13
Speaker 1: didn't have a job, and he was frequently in trouble
2:16
Speaker 1: with the law, and so when they first got together,
2:19
Speaker 1: people in Don's life worried that Charlie ultimately was just
2:22
Speaker 1: going to pull her down even further into her own problems.
2:26
Speaker 1: But they did make each other really happy, and so
2:30
Speaker 1: they spent basically all of their time together going between
2:32
Speaker 1: each other's apartments and visiting the park and hanging out
2:35
Speaker 1: with their friends. And for Dawn, this taste of happiness
2:38
Speaker 1: had made her want to make some positive changes in
2:41
Speaker 1: her life. Now she still drank alcohol, but she finally
2:44
Speaker 1: got her bipolar disorder diagnosed and properly medicated, and she
2:48
Speaker 1: was feeling stable for the first time in years.
2:51
Speaker 2: She was even planning to move.
2:52
Speaker 1: Out of that group home and into a new apartment
2:55
Speaker 1: soon and hope that, you know, that would give her
2:57
Speaker 1: a chance for a true fresh start. And because of
3:00
Speaker 1: all these changes, don had planned a get together with
3:03
Speaker 1: her family to show them how well she was doing.
3:05
Speaker 1: It was in a few days, and she'd really wanted
3:07
Speaker 1: Charlie to come with her, since their relationship, at least
3:10
Speaker 1: in her mind, was a huge reason she'd been so
3:12
Speaker 1: motivated to turn this corner. Except despite how much she
3:17
Speaker 1: adored Charlie and really was excited for her life with him,
3:21
Speaker 1: at the current moment, as they sat in the park
3:23
Speaker 1: on this Friday, she actually was really mad at him.
3:28
Speaker 1: So before arriving at the park, Charlie and their friends
3:31
Speaker 1: had done some heroin and some other drugs, and being
3:34
Speaker 1: under the influence of these substances was making Charlie act
3:38
Speaker 1: like a total jerk. Down had just bought some new
3:41
Speaker 1: hair dye to give herself a new look for this
3:43
Speaker 1: get together with her family, and now Charlie, high on drugs,
3:47
Speaker 1: was wasting it by putting it in his beard and
3:49
Speaker 1: his eyebrows as a joke, and so Down ultimately was
3:53
Speaker 1: really mad, not so much because he was wasting the die,
3:56
Speaker 1: but because by dyeing your beard and eyebrows and all
3:59
Speaker 1: that that, Charlie was going to look like a total
4:03
Speaker 1: deranged mess when he met her family for the first
4:06
Speaker 1: time in a few days. And so when she expressed
4:09
Speaker 1: her concerns to Charlie, he did go and wash out
4:12
Speaker 1: the die from his face, and he got most of
4:14
Speaker 1: it out. But even after, you know, Don still felt
4:17
Speaker 1: just so annoyed by the whole thing. It's like he
4:20
Speaker 1: knew how important this meeting where her family was going
4:22
Speaker 1: to be. Why would you jeopardize that? And so in
4:25
Speaker 1: the end, even after he had cleaned himself up, Don
4:28
Speaker 1: just got up and stormed off, leaving Charlie and the
4:31
Speaker 1: friends to pack everything up. She was done hours later.
4:36
Speaker 1: Around ten pm that night, Don lay on the couch
4:38
Speaker 1: in Charlie's living room listening to Charlie and their friend
4:42
Speaker 1: Sam Hobson talk about life and how unpredictable and how
4:45
Speaker 1: unfair it could be. Now Don was still feeling annoyed
4:48
Speaker 1: at Charlie, but overall she was mostly back to being
4:51
Speaker 1: in a pretty good mood.
4:52
Speaker 2: After she had stormed away from.
4:54
Speaker 1: The park, she had gone to her place and she
4:56
Speaker 1: had dyed her hair with the rest of the die
4:58
Speaker 1: that was left, and then she'd called her mom. Don
5:00
Speaker 1: actually had three kids of her own, and two of
5:03
Speaker 1: them were adults, but her own mother, so Don's mother
5:07
Speaker 1: had custody of the youngest child, and Don was hoping
5:10
Speaker 1: that maybe they could all see each other tomorrow at
5:12
Speaker 1: the s get together, and her mother had said yes,
5:15
Speaker 1: so Don was really looking forward to that. But at
5:18
Speaker 1: this exact moment, all Don really wanted to do was
5:20
Speaker 1: just go to sleep, So she got up off the
5:22
Speaker 1: couch to go grab her nightly medication out of the
5:24
Speaker 1: bathroom and just to get there, she had to carefully
5:27
Speaker 1: step around all the junk and just sort of random
5:30
Speaker 1: items that were laying strewn about all over Charlie's apartment.
5:34
Speaker 2: Charlie was always.
5:34
Speaker 1: Going out and finding things out on the street or
5:37
Speaker 1: even in dumpsters, and bringing those things back home. Sometimes
5:41
Speaker 1: he would sell these things afterwards, but a lot of
5:44
Speaker 1: the things he just sort of kept around, So the
5:47
Speaker 1: apartment was very cluttered. But Don successfully navigated the pathway
5:51
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. She grabbed her pills and then went
5:54
Speaker 1: back to the couch, swallowed the medication, and then she
5:56
Speaker 1: lay back into the cushions. Then minutes later she was
6:01
Speaker 1: The next morning, Don woke up on Charlie's couch a
6:04
Speaker 1: little bit before nine thirty am. She did have a
6:06
Speaker 1: small hangover, just a little headache, but by her standards,
6:10
Speaker 1: that was not so bad. She had not drank a
6:11
Speaker 1: ton the day before, so this was a good start
6:14
Speaker 1: to her day. Just a few minutes later, Charlie came
6:16
Speaker 1: into the room and he sat on the couch next
6:18
Speaker 1: to her and said good morning, and between Don not
6:21
Speaker 1: feeling that great physically and remembering how obnoxious Charlie had
6:25
Speaker 1: been yesterday with the hair dye, Don really didn't feel
6:28
Speaker 1: like talking to him right now. But before she could
6:31
Speaker 1: say as much, Charlie's eyes lit up and he said
6:34
Speaker 1: he'd almost forgotten. He actually had a present for her
6:37
Speaker 1: that he'd gotten a few days ago. And then Charlie,
6:40
Speaker 1: he jumped up, and he disappeared into the kitchen, and
6:42
Speaker 1: then he came back with a box which you.
6:44
Speaker 2: Said was for her.
6:45
Speaker 1: It was her gift, and this made Don forget all
6:48
Speaker 1: about her irritation with him. Don didn't get very many gifts.
6:52
Speaker 1: I mean, she had a lot of friends in her
6:53
Speaker 1: life who wanted to give her gifts, but you know,
6:57
Speaker 1: they much like her and Charlie didn't have much more,
7:00
Speaker 1: and so gifts were not a common thing in her life.
7:03
Speaker 1: And so to be receiving this gift right now was
7:06
Speaker 1: really exciting, and so Don smiled widely, and she opened
7:10
Speaker 1: up the box's lid, and inside was this clearly very
7:14
Speaker 1: expensive bottle of perfume. And she gasped when she saw it.
7:18
Speaker 2: It was brand new.
7:19
Speaker 1: She would never have been able to afford something like this,
7:22
Speaker 1: and she was shocked, frankly that Charlie had managed to
7:25
Speaker 1: get it for her, Like, how could he have gotten this?
7:28
Speaker 1: Don gave Charlie a very excited hug, and she told
7:31
Speaker 1: him she absolutely loved it. And so she pulled it
7:34
Speaker 1: out and she sprayed some on her wrists and she
7:36
Speaker 1: rubbed them together, and she thought it smelled so good.
7:38
Speaker 1: And then she handed the bottle to Charlie and told
7:41
Speaker 1: him to please put this somewhere safe. Then she stood
7:43
Speaker 1: up from the couch with a big smile on her face,
7:45
Speaker 1: and she went to get her makeup to go get
7:47
Speaker 1: ready for the day. About five minutes later, Don was
7:50
Speaker 1: sitting back on the couch with her makeup bag now
7:53
Speaker 1: in her lap, and she was applying foundation to her
7:55
Speaker 1: face and telling Charlie about how she was thinking about
7:58
Speaker 1: putting more diye in her hair, a blue streak this time.
8:01
Speaker 1: But as she finished her foundation and reached for her powder,
8:05
Speaker 1: she felt her headache suddenly intensify. She went hoping it
8:09
Speaker 1: would pass, but pretty soon she started feeling pretty lightheaded
8:13
Speaker 1: and realized she was sweating quite a bit. She stopped
8:16
Speaker 1: talking about her hair and told Charlie she was feeling
8:19
Speaker 1: really weird. Charlie seemed worried and asked if she wanted
8:22
Speaker 1: some pain relievers, but Don just shook her head. She'd
8:25
Speaker 1: already taken her meds that day and didn't want to
8:27
Speaker 1: take more pills because it could.
8:29
Speaker 2: Upset her stomach.
8:30
Speaker 1: Instead, she handed her makeup bag to Charlie and asked
8:32
Speaker 1: him to go put it back in the bedroom, and
8:34
Speaker 1: then she hurried to the bathroom to splash some water
8:37
Speaker 1: on her face. And by the time she got in
8:39
Speaker 1: there and actually began putting the water on her face,
8:42
Speaker 1: it was like her whole body felt like it was
8:44
Speaker 1: on fire. She was sweating so much to the point
8:47
Speaker 1: where she felt like this water wasn't enough, and so
8:50
Speaker 1: she actually just climbed into the empty bathtub and just
8:53
Speaker 1: figured the cold tile of the tub would feel good
8:56
Speaker 1: against her hot skin. But as soon as she climbed
8:58
Speaker 1: in and laid down, she felt her breath start to
9:01
Speaker 1: catch in her chest. From the living room, Charlie heard
9:05
Speaker 1: down in the bathroom, and he heard the sound of
9:07
Speaker 1: the water turning on and then off, and then the
9:09
Speaker 1: sound of Dawn rustling around in there.
9:12
Speaker 2: Now he was.
9:13
Speaker 1: Somewhat worried about her, but he also knew she regularly
9:16
Speaker 1: had hangovers, and she clearly had one now, and so
9:19
Speaker 1: he figured, you know, that's what this was. He also
9:22
Speaker 1: really wanted to leave right now and go meet up
9:24
Speaker 1: with his friend Sam to shoot up some more heroin,
9:27
Speaker 1: because that would take the edge off his headache and
9:29
Speaker 1: his nausea.
9:29
Speaker 2: However, before he could do.
9:31
Speaker 1: That, he heard a weird sound coming out of the
9:34
Speaker 1: bathroom where Dawn was. At first, he wasn't even sure
9:36
Speaker 1: what it was, but then he realized it was a
9:39
Speaker 1: gurgling sound, and so at this point he jumped to
9:42
Speaker 1: his feet and he hurried to the bathroom door, and
9:44
Speaker 1: as soon as he opened it, he gasped because Dawn
9:47
Speaker 1: was laying there in the empty bathtub, fully clothed and
9:51
Speaker 1: frothing at the mouth. Charlie had no idea what was happening,
9:55
Speaker 1: but he instinctively ran over to her, pulled her out
9:57
Speaker 1: of the tub, and he laid her on the floor,
10:00
Speaker 1: and he could tell that she was basically unconscious and
10:02
Speaker 1: she was limp, and in fact, when he listened closely
10:05
Speaker 1: to her mouth, he couldn't even tell if she was breathing.
10:07
Speaker 1: And so Charlie's thinking, this is not a hangover, this
10:10
Speaker 1: is something way more serious. So he ran and got
10:13
Speaker 1: a phone, and he called the emergency line, and when
10:16
Speaker 1: the dispatcher picked up, Charlie frantically explained what was going
10:19
Speaker 1: on that you Don, his girlfriend had just collapsed in
10:22
Speaker 1: the bathtub out of nowhere. The operator got his address
10:25
Speaker 1: and said they would send a paramedic, but they also
10:27
Speaker 1: told Charlie he would have to do CPR on Dawn
10:30
Speaker 1: while he waited, and so they explained to him how
10:32
Speaker 1: to do that over the phone. Charlie was horrified, but
10:35
Speaker 1: he tried to take a deep breath and do what
10:38
Speaker 1: they said so we could help Dawn. So he kept
10:40
Speaker 1: the phone by his side while he straddled down and
10:43
Speaker 1: gave her chest compressions. It would take an agonizing nineteen
10:46
Speaker 1: minutes before a single paramedic finally arrived, and by that
10:50
Speaker 1: time Dawn had.
10:51
Speaker 2: Begun to turn blue.
10:53
Speaker 1: Charlie paced around anxiously inside of his apartment while the
10:56
Speaker 1: paramedic took over chess compressions. Charlie could hear the paramedic
11:00
Speaker 1: calling for more help on his radio, and sure enough,
11:03
Speaker 1: a few minutes later, more paramedics streamed inside, and at
11:06
Speaker 1: first this made Charlie feel hopeful, like more medical support
11:10
Speaker 1: meant that Don was going to be okay here. But
11:12
Speaker 1: then from his spot out in the living room, he
11:14
Speaker 1: heard one of the paramedics say something about drugs, like
11:17
Speaker 1: this could be an overdose or something. Charlie heard that,
11:20
Speaker 1: and he called out that Don didn't do drugs, but
11:23
Speaker 1: the paramedics did not seem to hear him, and a
11:25
Speaker 1: second later their voices got more urgent. They were using
11:28
Speaker 1: a lot of medical terminology that Charlie didn't understand, but
11:32
Speaker 1: he did catch one thing. Don's heart had apparently stopped.
11:43
Speaker 1: Now the paramedics were actually able to get her heart
11:45
Speaker 1: beating again, but it took them more than an hour
11:48
Speaker 1: to get her stable enough to move her from Charlie's
11:51
Speaker 1: apartment to the hospital.
11:52
Speaker 2: And Charlie he.
11:53
Speaker 1: Just watched in panic and despair as they loaded his
11:56
Speaker 1: girlfriend on a stretcher, and then he followed them out
11:59
Speaker 1: of the apartment with Dawn for as long as he could,
12:02
Speaker 1: and then before they put her into the ambulance, he
12:04
Speaker 1: leaned in and he told her he would meet her
12:06
Speaker 1: at the hospital. As the ambulance doores closed and the
12:08
Speaker 1: sirens came on, Charlie's friend Sam appeared, looking very shocked
12:13
Speaker 1: by the commotion. They'd had plans to go to a
12:15
Speaker 1: church event that day that had free food, which Charlie
12:18
Speaker 1: had totally forgotten about. But Charlie told Sam everything that
12:21
Speaker 1: had happened and said he had to skip out on
12:23
Speaker 1: that event because he needed to go to the hospital
12:25
Speaker 1: as fast as he could to meet down. But even
12:28
Speaker 1: as he was saying this out loud, he knew he
12:30
Speaker 1: really couldn't do that because if he went to the
12:33
Speaker 1: hospital right now, he had no idea how long he'd
12:36
Speaker 1: be there, and since he was addicted to heroin, he
12:39
Speaker 1: would start to get sick from withdrawal if he didn't
12:41
Speaker 1: get some drugs in his system first. And so Charlie
12:44
Speaker 1: felt trapped. He really didn't know what to do here,
12:46
Speaker 1: and he sort of felt like he was on the
12:48
Speaker 1: verge of breaking down.
12:49
Speaker 2: You know, this was just so much, But then.
12:51
Speaker 1: He remembered he had a methodone prescription at the local pharmacy.
12:56
Speaker 1: Methadone is a drug that's often given to people who
12:58
Speaker 1: are addicted to heroin were you know, trying to get clean,
13:01
Speaker 1: and this drug is used to help them with addiction
13:04
Speaker 1: and withdrawal symptoms. It sort of closely mimics what the
13:07
Speaker 1: body would feel if it shot up the drug, but
13:10
Speaker 1: without you know, the euphoria and the actual high sensation
13:13
Speaker 1: of using the drug. Now, Charlie had not actually filled
13:16
Speaker 1: his methodone prescription yet, mostly because he was not focused
13:20
Speaker 1: on getting clean. But as he's thinking about needing to
13:23
Speaker 1: be at the hospital all day and needing to be
13:25
Speaker 1: you know, coherent and being able to talk to doctors
13:28
Speaker 1: and nurses and Dawn, he thought, well, hey, I'll go
13:31
Speaker 1: fill my methodone prescription.
13:33
Speaker 2: I'll take that.
13:34
Speaker 1: It'll keep me, you know, from getting sick, but I'll
13:36
Speaker 1: also be clear minded.
13:38
Speaker 2: So I can be in the hospital and helped on.
13:40
Speaker 1: So Charlie asked Sam if he would come with him
13:43
Speaker 1: on a different outing to go to the pharmacy to
13:45
Speaker 1: get his methodone. A couple of hours later, at around
13:48
Speaker 1: three thirty pm, Charlie got back to his apartment with Sam.
13:52
Speaker 1: It had been incredibly hot outside and walking around for
13:55
Speaker 1: that long they now were both dripping with sweat. After
13:58
Speaker 1: they had gone to the pharmacy, Charlie and Sam had
14:01
Speaker 1: actually gone by that church event, but not really to
14:03
Speaker 1: get food, but instead to literally go say a.
14:06
Speaker 2: Prayer for Dawn.
14:07
Speaker 1: Now they were back at his place to pack up
14:09
Speaker 1: a bag both for himself and also for Dawn that
14:12
Speaker 1: they would bring to her at the hospital, and then
14:14
Speaker 1: Charlie didn't really know how long he would be there,
14:16
Speaker 1: but he now had his methodone and figured he'd be okay.
14:20
Speaker 1: But as Charlie was doing this, it was like he
14:22
Speaker 1: couldn't think straight. He had this really intense headache, and
14:26
Speaker 1: even though it had been hot outside, it was like
14:29
Speaker 1: he just couldn't stop sweating. And so Charlie was thinking
14:32
Speaker 1: to himself, you know, maybe it's the methodone. He had
14:34
Speaker 1: never done it before, and maybe this is like a byproduct,
14:36
Speaker 1: maybe these are symptoms from taking methodone. So he decided
14:40
Speaker 1: he would just take a shower, thinking that would kind of,
14:43
Speaker 1: you know, clear out these symptoms and he'd be back
14:45
Speaker 1: to normal. But after the shower, he felt even worse,
14:49
Speaker 1: and when he looked in the mirror, he saw his
14:51
Speaker 1: pupils were now constricted to little pinpricks. But he still
14:56
Speaker 1: tried to press on here and he went into his
14:58
Speaker 1: room to get dressed and to finish packing Dawn's bag.
15:01
Speaker 1: But as just a couple of minutes went by, he
15:04
Speaker 1: noticed his heart began to race, and has it raced
15:06
Speaker 1: to God, faster and faster, like he couldn't calm it down. Now,
15:10
Speaker 1: over the past couple of days between.
15:12
Speaker 2: The methadone and heroine.
15:14
Speaker 1: You know, Charlie had basically used a lot of drugs,
15:17
Speaker 1: but he did drugs all the time, and he'd never
15:20
Speaker 1: felt this combination of symptoms before. And so Charlie he
15:23
Speaker 1: leaves the bedroom and he goes into the living room
15:26
Speaker 1: and he just sits down on the couch, feeling completely awful,
15:29
Speaker 1: and he has this thought.
15:30
Speaker 2: Come to him.
15:31
Speaker 1: He's thinking, Okay, I don't think it's the drugs, because
15:34
Speaker 1: I always do drugs and this is not it. I've
15:36
Speaker 1: never felt this way. And he looks over at Sam,
15:39
Speaker 1: his friend, and he has this weird thought that it's like,
15:43
Speaker 1: what if Sam poisoned me? What if that's what's going
15:46
Speaker 1: on here? What if I've been poisoned? And without really
15:49
Speaker 1: thinking through how or when this could have happened or why,
15:53
Speaker 1: Charlie began berating Sam, saying.
15:55
Speaker 2: You poisoned me? Why did you do this to me?
15:58
Speaker 1: And Sam was so caught off guard that he was like,
16:00
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? And he began backing away,
16:03
Speaker 1: and Charlie he just jumped up off the couch and
16:05
Speaker 1: began to pursue Sam like he was going to attack him.
16:09
Speaker 1: But after only taking a couple of steps away from
16:11
Speaker 1: the couch, Charlie's mouth filled up with so much saliva
16:16
Speaker 1: that he stopped being able to speak clearly. All he
16:19
Speaker 1: could do was kind of gurgle and spit out this froth.
16:22
Speaker 1: And then his legs got so weak and wobbly that
16:25
Speaker 1: he had to lean against the wall just to keep
16:27
Speaker 1: from falling down. And then he felt his whole body
16:31
Speaker 1: begin to seize up. And then the last thing Charlie
16:33
Speaker 1: was aware of was his friend Sam grabbing a phone
16:36
Speaker 1: and calling for an ambulance. About an hour later, inside
16:41
Speaker 1: of the emergency room of the Salisbury District Hospital, the
16:44
Speaker 1: on call doctor stood in Charlie Rally's treatment room while
16:47
Speaker 1: a nurse at his bedside took his blood. The doctor
16:50
Speaker 1: had just finished examining Charlie, who was now unconscious. He
16:53
Speaker 1: clearly had a seizure and now he had a fever.
16:56
Speaker 1: He had constricted pupils, and he had labored breathing. So
17:00
Speaker 1: to the doctor, Charlie's condition was very serious, but the
17:04
Speaker 1: doctor was sure he knew exactly what had caused it.
17:07
Speaker 1: Charlie had overdosed on drugs, and the doctor really felt
17:11
Speaker 1: strongly about this because Charlie's girlfriend down had been treated
17:15
Speaker 1: that morning for the exact same thing. She'd been brought
17:19
Speaker 1: in after her heart stopped, and she'd had a lot
17:21
Speaker 1: of the same symptoms as Charlie.
17:23
Speaker 2: Now they had.
17:24
Speaker 1: Stabilized her, but she'd been admitted to the intensive care
17:27
Speaker 1: unit and was still listed in critical condition, and so
17:31
Speaker 1: the doctor felt really confident in his diagnosis of both
17:34
Speaker 1: Don and Charlie because the symptoms fit, and the officer
17:37
Speaker 1: in charge of both cases had confirmed that Charlie at
17:40
Speaker 1: least was a known drug user, and the apartment where
17:43
Speaker 1: they'd both been found had been full of needles and
17:46
Speaker 1: other drug paraphernalia. Over the next twenty four hours, neither
17:50
Speaker 1: Don nor Charlie got any better. In fact, they both
17:54
Speaker 1: got much worse. Their nervous systems began to completely break down,
17:59
Speaker 1: meaning that a essential body functions like breathing were beginning
18:03
Speaker 1: to fail. Down was literally in a coma, being kept
18:06
Speaker 1: alive by a life support machine, and Charlie was also
18:10
Speaker 1: still unconscious and his breathing had declined to the point
18:12
Speaker 1: where they had to put him on a ventilator. He'd
18:15
Speaker 1: also been moved to the intensive care unit, same as Dawn,
18:19
Speaker 1: and so at this point Charlie and Down no longer
18:22
Speaker 1: looked like they had simply overdosed on drugs, you know.
18:25
Speaker 1: It seemed like maybe they actually took a bad drug,
18:27
Speaker 1: like there was poison in the drugs they took, perhaps,
18:30
Speaker 1: or something completely different. But none of the medical staff
18:34
Speaker 1: could figure out what was actually wrong. It was totally anomalous.
18:38
Speaker 1: By the afternoon of July third, so, three days after
18:41
Speaker 1: Down and Charlie were hospitalized, one of the doctors in
18:44
Speaker 1: the intensive care unit where they were His name was
18:46
Speaker 1: Stephen Jewkes. He had officially taken over both of their cases.
18:50
Speaker 1: Doctor Jewkes had seen the results from the initial toxicology
18:53
Speaker 1: screenings and they showed that while Charlie did have a
18:57
Speaker 1: significant amount of heroin and other drugs in his system,
19:01
Speaker 1: Don did not. All her results showed was that she'd
19:04
Speaker 1: taken some prescription psychiatric medication, and so doctor Jewkes had
19:07
Speaker 1: sent more of their blood to another lab to test
19:10
Speaker 1: for a wider range of drugs.
19:12
Speaker 2: So he was waiting on those.
19:13
Speaker 1: Results, but admittedly he was losing faith that the results
19:17
Speaker 1: he was going to get would give him his answer.
19:19
Speaker 1: Now by this point, doctor Jeukes had ruled out some
19:22
Speaker 1: things that could have caused their symptoms. Like at one
19:25
Speaker 1: point they believed that, you know, maybe the two have
19:28
Speaker 1: been exposed to a gas leak in Charlie's apartment, because
19:30
Speaker 1: some of the symptoms you get with the gas leak
19:32
Speaker 1: are similar to what they had. But the main reason
19:35
Speaker 1: this theory didn't really work out is, you know, Don
19:38
Speaker 1: and Charlie had been in the apartment together that morning
19:41
Speaker 1: that Don was brought into the hospital, but only Don
19:44
Speaker 1: was affected, Charlie wasn't, and so presumably they were both
19:47
Speaker 1: being exposed at the same time to you know, if
19:49
Speaker 1: there was a gas leak. But then Charlie he leaves
19:52
Speaker 1: the house for several hours, so he's out completely unexposed
19:55
Speaker 1: to whatever was in there. He comes back into the
19:58
Speaker 1: apartment and then he feels sick. It just it didn't
20:01
Speaker 1: really add up. If he got sick from a gas
20:03
Speaker 1: leak in the apartment, it should have happened at the
20:05
Speaker 1: same time as dawn. Also, the first responders when they
20:09
Speaker 1: were in there working on Dawn, they didn't report smelling
20:11
Speaker 1: anything odd. Now, of course, some leaks like carbon monoxide
20:15
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to smell that, but a typical
20:18
Speaker 1: gas leak you would be able to smell.
20:19
Speaker 2: It smells like rotten eggs.
20:21
Speaker 1: Plus you also have the fact that when Charlie got sick, Sam,
20:25
Speaker 1: his friend, was in the apartment as well, and he
20:27
Speaker 1: did not get sick. So all told, the gasleak theory
20:31
Speaker 1: seemed to not be it. Doctor Jeukes had also briefly
20:34
Speaker 1: wondered if maybe what had happened to Don and Charlie
20:37
Speaker 1: was connected to this strange toxin exposure case that had
20:41
Speaker 1: come through the hospital a couple of months earlier. However,
20:44
Speaker 1: the victims in that case were from out of the country,
20:47
Speaker 1: and Don and Charlie had not been out of England,
20:49
Speaker 1: so doctor Jewkes had ruled that out as well. But
20:52
Speaker 1: doctor Jewkes did have one theory he still thought was
20:55
Speaker 1: a good one. Maybe this was pesticide poisoning. It matched
20:59
Speaker 1: with their symptoms, and doctor Jukes knew that sometimes street
21:02
Speaker 1: drugs can be contaminated with pesticides, so if Don and
21:06
Speaker 1: Charlie had both taken something that doctor Jukes hadn't tested
21:10
Speaker 1: for yet, then they could have maybe been exposed that way.
21:13
Speaker 1: He had told the police about this theory, and so
21:15
Speaker 1: they'd issued a press release encouraging drug users to be
21:19
Speaker 1: extra cautious in case, you know, there was this.
21:21
Speaker 2: Pesticide out there.
21:23
Speaker 1: But doctor Jukes also knew that drugs were not the
21:26
Speaker 1: only way people could be exposed to pesticides. Simply eating, drinking,
21:29
Speaker 1: or breathing in contaminated food or water or air could
21:33
Speaker 1: be fatal. And this was extremely troubling to doctor Jukes
21:37
Speaker 1: and everybody else involved with the case, because if Don
21:41
Speaker 1: and Charlie had been exposed to potentially deadly chemicals just
21:45
Speaker 1: by doing normal things in their home or neighborhood, that
21:48
Speaker 1: meant that basically everybody else in their neighborhood was also
21:51
Speaker 1: in danger of getting sick too. Now, until Don or
21:54
Speaker 1: Charlie woke up again, they were not going to be
21:57
Speaker 1: able to figure out, you know, where they had been
21:59
Speaker 1: or what they had touched or ingested before they got sick.
22:03
Speaker 1: So doctor Jukes felt like he needed to get that
22:05
Speaker 1: information from somewhere else and fast. The next morning, July fourth,
22:17
Speaker 1: so four days after Dawn and Charlie got sick, doctor
22:20
Speaker 1: Jeukes pushed open a door to a room where Don's mother,
22:24
Speaker 1: her three sisters, and her son were all waiting. He'd
22:26
Speaker 1: heard they were all here visiting Dawn, and so he
22:29
Speaker 1: had had one of the nurses send them to one
22:31
Speaker 1: of these hospital family rooms so he could speak to them.
22:34
Speaker 1: He was hoping that they might be able to shed
22:36
Speaker 1: some light on where Don had been and what she
22:38
Speaker 1: might have eaten or drank before she got sick. Now
22:42
Speaker 1: Don's family was staring at him with anxious expressions on
22:45
Speaker 1: their faces. He barely got out his introduction before they
22:48
Speaker 1: started lobbing questions at him about what was going on
22:51
Speaker 1: and why the news was describing Don as some kind
22:53
Speaker 1: of drug addict.
22:55
Speaker 2: Doctor Jukes just held up his hand to slow them down.
22:57
Speaker 1: Then, once they were quiet, he explained that it First
23:00
Speaker 1: they had believed this was an overdose because she had
23:02
Speaker 1: all the symptoms for it, but now, based on how
23:06
Speaker 1: the symptoms had progressed, he knew overdose was very likely
23:10
Speaker 1: not the case here. Then he told them his theory
23:13
Speaker 1: about the pesticides and said he really needed their help
23:16
Speaker 1: with it. He asked them to tell him everything they
23:18
Speaker 1: could about down her habits, her health history, and the
23:21
Speaker 1: people she typically saw. Don's mother said she had spoken
23:24
Speaker 1: to Down on the phone the night before all this started,
23:27
Speaker 1: and she said Dawn seemed fine. She had even asked
23:29
Speaker 1: to see her young daughter the next day at the
23:31
Speaker 1: big family get together they were planning. Aside from that, though,
23:35
Speaker 1: the family said that Don struggled with alcoholism and her
23:38
Speaker 1: mental health, and she didn't always tell them everything, and
23:41
Speaker 1: so they just didn't know much about Don's daily life
23:45
Speaker 1: with Charlie or her friends in Salisbury, although they were
23:48
Speaker 1: pretty sure that she rarely ever went outside of the city.
23:51
Speaker 1: But what the family primarily wanted to communicate to doctor
23:54
Speaker 1: Jewkes was that Don was not just some nobody the
23:57
Speaker 1: way the news had betrayed her. She was a loving
24:00
Speaker 1: mother and sister and daughter and friend, and she was
24:03
Speaker 1: really trying to do better, and she was doing better.
24:06
Speaker 1: She didn't want much, She just wanted a place of
24:08
Speaker 1: her own and a little more stability in her life,
24:10
Speaker 1: and that's the path she was on, and so they
24:13
Speaker 1: begged him not to give up on her. Doctor Jeukes
24:16
Speaker 1: promised he would not, but as he left the room,
24:19
Speaker 1: he couldn't help but feel disappointed. He was glad to
24:22
Speaker 1: know more about Dawn as a person. She seemed wonderful,
24:25
Speaker 1: but he had been hoping for some kind of breakthrough
24:28
Speaker 1: about what exactly had happened to her, and he hadn't
24:30
Speaker 1: gotten that. I mean, none of them had been able
24:32
Speaker 1: to give him any answer that could maybe even begin
24:35
Speaker 1: to explain what was going on, and so at this
24:38
Speaker 1: point he really wasn't sure what else he could even do.
24:41
Speaker 1: But as doctor Jewkes headed back towards his office to
24:44
Speaker 1: try to figure out his next move, he saw a
24:46
Speaker 1: lab tech rushing towards him down the hallway. The tech
24:49
Speaker 1: was holding a piece of paper, and when he reached
24:51
Speaker 1: doctor Jewkes, he shoved the paper into his hands. The
24:54
Speaker 1: tech was out of breath, but told doctor Jewkes he
24:57
Speaker 1: had to read this right now. So doctor Jewkes he
25:00
Speaker 1: looked at the paper and he saw that it was
25:02
Speaker 1: the lab results for Don and Charlie, And when he
25:05
Speaker 1: scanned its contents, he could not believe what he was reading.
25:09
Speaker 1: The new blood test that he had ordered did not
25:12
Speaker 1: confirm the presence of pesticides or of any other street drugs,
25:15
Speaker 1: but they did show something else, something so unexpected and
25:20
Speaker 1: so dangerous that doctor Jewkes now knew for certain that
25:24
Speaker 1: Don and Charlie were not the only ones at risk here.
25:27
Speaker 1: Everyone was like literally everyone in Charlie's apartment building, everyone
25:32
Speaker 1: in Don and Charlie's neighborhood, all the paramedics, all the doctors,
25:35
Speaker 1: all the nurses that had treated them, and all the
25:38
Speaker 1: patients in the hospital, literally everybody. In fact, it was
25:42
Speaker 1: even possible that everyone in the whole city was now
25:45
Speaker 1: in danger and it might already be too late. And
25:48
Speaker 1: so doctor Jewkes sprinted down the hall towards his office.
25:52
Speaker 1: He picked up the phone and he called the police.
25:55
Speaker 1: A few hours later, the deputy head of investigations for
25:59
Speaker 1: one of England's counter terrorism units, Philip Murphy, stood on
26:03
Speaker 1: the street outside of Charlie's apartment building. His team had
26:07
Speaker 1: completely cordoned off the whole building and evacuated everybody who
26:10
Speaker 1: was inside. Dozens of officers and crime scene technicians were
26:14
Speaker 1: going in and out of the space, wearing these big
26:16
Speaker 1: protective suits, and they were swabbing surfaces and collecting evidence.
26:21
Speaker 1: Because of those tests that doctor Jukes had run, Murphy
26:24
Speaker 1: knew exactly what substance had sickened Dawn and Charlie, but
26:27
Speaker 1: he had no idea how they could have come in
26:29
Speaker 1: contact with it, and answering that question was now a
26:32
Speaker 1: matter of international security.
26:34
Speaker 2: Now.
26:35
Speaker 1: Not only was Murphy's counter terrorism unit involved, but so
26:38
Speaker 1: were multiple other agencies, including the UK's Secret Service, which
26:43
Speaker 1: is known as MI five.
26:45
Speaker 2: MI I five would deal.
26:46
Speaker 1: With the other countries outside of Europe that were now
26:48
Speaker 1: getting involved in this. In addition to Charlie's apartment, the
26:51
Speaker 1: counter terrorism unit had been deployed to the hospital and
26:54
Speaker 1: were making anyone who visited Dawn and Charlie now wear
26:57
Speaker 1: protective gear. They had contacted all the paramedics in all
27:00
Speaker 1: the officers who'd interacted with Don and Charlie, and made
27:03
Speaker 1: them back up their uniforms and equipment as biohazards. Some
27:07
Speaker 1: police officers were now sifting through literally thousands of hours
27:11
Speaker 1: of CCTV footage from all around the city from the
27:14
Speaker 1: past few weeks looking for any signs of Don or Charlie,
27:18
Speaker 1: and others were contacting Don and Charlie's friends to try
27:21
Speaker 1: to get a sense of their recent movements. At least
27:23
Speaker 1: one friend had already taken officers on a tour of
27:26
Speaker 1: a park they'd all gone to the day before Don
27:28
Speaker 1: and Charlie got sick. Murphy actually had a team headed
27:31
Speaker 1: there right now to close it off and start taking
27:33
Speaker 1: more samples. He also had another team at Don's place
27:36
Speaker 1: doing the same thing, and so as Murphy stood there
27:39
Speaker 1: watching the officers and suits go in and out of
27:41
Speaker 1: Charlie's apartment. He knew that really, as big as this was,
27:45
Speaker 1: this was actually just the beginning. He was going to
27:47
Speaker 1: have to be patient because even though the situation was
27:50
Speaker 1: clearly urgent, he also knew it could take a long
27:53
Speaker 1: time to figure out exactly what happened and why. And
27:56
Speaker 1: so at this point, all Murphy or anybody else for
27:59
Speaker 1: that matter, could do here was just hope that, you know,
28:02
Speaker 1: the authorities found some answers before more people got hurt.
28:06
Speaker 1: But just four days later, on July eighth, Down was
28:09
Speaker 1: taken off life support and died in the hospital, And
28:12
Speaker 1: of course that was incredibly tragic, but specifically for Murphy,
28:16
Speaker 1: he was hoping to get a chance to speak to her.
28:19
Speaker 1: She was, you know, a potential treasure trove of information
28:22
Speaker 1: about how this whole thing happened, and now, of course
28:24
Speaker 1: he would never get that chance. On July eleventh, so
28:28
Speaker 1: eleven days after Don and Charlie first got sick, with
28:31
Speaker 1: Don now deceased and Charlie alive but still unable to talk,
28:35
Speaker 1: the agencies working on the case had managed to eliminate
28:37
Speaker 1: almost every location that Don and Charlie had visited as
28:41
Speaker 1: the source of this toxic substance except for one, and
28:45
Speaker 1: that was Charlie's apartment, and so Murphy sent the forensics
28:48
Speaker 1: team back to the apartment to search it all over again.
28:52
Speaker 1: That afternoon, a lead officer with the forensics team stood
28:55
Speaker 1: in the middle of Charlie's small apartment alongside some of
28:58
Speaker 1: his colleagues. Lead officer and his team were all dressed
29:01
Speaker 1: in these very heavy duty protective suits, so they moved
29:04
Speaker 1: slowly around the cramped space as they took samples of
29:07
Speaker 1: surfaces and bagged potential evidence. All the stuff, all the
29:11
Speaker 1: clutter in the apartment made it really hard to get around.
29:14
Speaker 1: There were clothes on the floor and open bags of
29:16
Speaker 1: fabric and dirty dishes stacked in the sink and on
29:19
Speaker 1: the counters and overflowing trash cans, and in the bedroom
29:23
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of makeup and some hair dye
29:25
Speaker 1: boxes scattered on the floor, along with needles and other
29:28
Speaker 1: drug paraphernalia. There was not a ton of furniture in
29:31
Speaker 1: the apartment, but it was all over the place because
29:33
Speaker 1: paramedics had pushed it around during their response, and other
29:36
Speaker 1: areas of the place were littered with medical debris like
29:39
Speaker 1: rubber gloves and plastic wrappers, and there was also just
29:42
Speaker 1: some trash and just kind of like random objects water bottles,
29:45
Speaker 1: plastic toys piled up on the window sills. It was
29:49
Speaker 1: almost like there was literally too much in the apartment
29:52
Speaker 1: to even effectively test it all. But as the lead
29:55
Speaker 1: officer walked around doing his best to identify things to
29:59
Speaker 1: be tested, something on a counter caught his eye. It
30:03
Speaker 1: was an object that looked very different from anything else
30:07
Speaker 1: in the apartment. Now to understand what happened to Don
30:11
Speaker 1: and Charlie, you have to go back in time to
30:14
Speaker 1: three and a half months before they got sick, when
30:17
Speaker 1: an unrelated older man and a younger woman were found
30:21
Speaker 1: unresponsive on a park bench in Salisbury and brought to
30:24
Speaker 1: the Salisbury District Hospital, the same one that Don and
30:27
Speaker 1: Charlie would go to. Now, this older man and the
30:30
Speaker 1: young woman when they came into the hospital, they were
30:32
Speaker 1: experiencing seizures and they couldn't stop vomiting. But after being
30:37
Speaker 1: treated at the hospital, they actually both fully recovered. And
30:40
Speaker 1: at first the doctors there, including doctor Jewkes, thought this
30:44
Speaker 1: man and woman were just regular civilians who had gotten sick,
30:48
Speaker 1: maybe from an overdose, But soon it became clear that
30:51
Speaker 1: both of those things.
30:52
Speaker 2: Were not true.
30:54
Speaker 1: Number one, they were not just regular civilians. The older
30:58
Speaker 1: man was a Russian spot who had defected to England,
31:02
Speaker 1: and the young woman was his daughter, and they had
31:04
Speaker 1: definitely not overdosed. They had been poisoned. An investigation discovered
31:10
Speaker 1: that the substance that had been used to poison them
31:12
Speaker 1: was this very rare and deadly chemical weapon created by
31:15
Speaker 1: Russia called novachuk, a kind of nerve agent. And so
31:19
Speaker 1: three and a half months later, after Donn and Charlie
31:22
Speaker 1: were hospitalized in getting worse and worse, and then that
31:25
Speaker 1: lab tech rushed down the hallway to show doctor Jukes
31:27
Speaker 1: their new lab results. It was noviachuk, the deadly chemical
31:31
Speaker 1: that doctor Jewkes saw printed on the paper that was
31:34
Speaker 1: in their system. Investigators in the spy poisoning case had
31:38
Speaker 1: never been able to figure out exactly how the poison
31:41
Speaker 1: had been administered to the spy and his daughter. But
31:44
Speaker 1: the item that Murphy's forensics team had found on the
31:47
Speaker 1: counter in Charlie's apartment, the one that kind of stood
31:50
Speaker 1: out and didn't really appear like it belonged in this space,
31:54
Speaker 1: was the item that ultimately solved that mystery. It would
31:57
Speaker 1: turn out Charlie actually found the source of the poison unintentionally.
32:03
Speaker 1: It was that brand new bottle of perfume that he
32:06
Speaker 1: had given to Dawn on the morning they both got sick.
32:09
Speaker 1: Because Charlie hadn't actually bought this gift at a store,
32:12
Speaker 1: he couldn't have afforded it. Instead, he had found it
32:15
Speaker 1: in a dumpster during one of his many dumpster diving excursions,
32:18
Speaker 1: and that dumpster just so happened to be the exact
32:21
Speaker 1: same dumpster where a Russian agent had discarded the poison
32:26
Speaker 1: perfume after the attempted assassination. So when Dawn accepted Charlie's
32:30
Speaker 1: gift and sprayed it on her wrists and excitement, she
32:34
Speaker 1: had accidentally exposed herself and Charlie to the deadly nerve agent.
32:39
Speaker 1: Charlie would eventually recover from his exposure to Noviachuk. As
32:42
Speaker 1: for the three Russian agents that authorities suspect were involved
32:45
Speaker 1: in this thing, they went back to Russia and have
32:48
Speaker 1: never been prosecuted, and Russia has denied involvement in the poisoning.
32:57
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
32:59
Speaker 1: Let me know it you thought of it in the
33:00
Speaker 1: comments below, and remember, we have a whole playlist of
33:04
Speaker 1: places you can't go episodes ready for you to binge
33:07
Speaker 1: right now, So go ahead and click here and give
33:10
Speaker 1: them a watch, all right, until next time see it.