Latest / Crime and Horror / Perhaps the 2 MOST DENSE killers of all time

Transcript

Perhaps the 2 MOST DENSE killers of all time · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today's video is about a young man who develops a
0:02
Speaker 1: mysterious sickness, which doctors eventually realize is this disease that
0:07
Speaker 1: is so rare that in the last one hundred years
0:10
Speaker 1: it's only ever been documented three times. However, how he got.
0:16
Speaker 2: This illness is far more horrifying than any of his symptoms.
0:20
Speaker 1: But before we get into that story, if you're a
0:22
Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format,
0:26
Speaker 1: then you come to the right place, because that's all
0:28
Speaker 1: we do, and we upload once a week. So if
0:30
Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, please ask the like button
0:33
Speaker 1: to walk your pet for you while you're on vacation,
0:35
Speaker 1: but don't tell them that your pet is actually an
0:38
Speaker 1: angry saltwater crocodile. Also, please subscribe to our channel and
0:41
Speaker 1: turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of
0:44
Speaker 1: our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. On
1:03
Speaker 1: the afternoon of July twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, a twenty
1:06
Speaker 1: three year old college student named Felix stood in the
1:08
Speaker 1: break room of the industrial manufacturing company where he worked
1:11
Speaker 1: in northwestern Germany. He poured some cereal into a bowl
1:15
Speaker 1: and then he took his carton of milk out of
1:16
Speaker 1: the communal fridge, and then with the cereal and his milk,
1:20
Speaker 1: he sat down at a table with two of his coworkers.
1:22
Speaker 2: So Felix was studying.
1:23
Speaker 1: To become an engineer and that was his primary focus,
1:26
Speaker 1: and on his breaks from school he would work here
1:28
Speaker 1: as a machine mechanic. But as a result of that,
1:31
Speaker 1: basically just being a college kid looking for a side gig,
1:34
Speaker 1: it made him one of the youngest people at this company,
1:37
Speaker 1: and so oftentimes Felix had a hard time relating to
1:40
Speaker 1: his coworkers who were all basically a.
1:43
Speaker 2: Lot older than him.
1:44
Speaker 1: And in fact, now as he sat down to eat
1:45
Speaker 1: a cereal, you know the two coworkers that were sitting
1:48
Speaker 1: there already, these two men named Otto and Klaus, who
1:51
Speaker 1: were in their fifties, It's like they didn't even look
1:53
Speaker 1: up and acknowledge him. They just continued silently eating their sandwiches,
1:56
Speaker 1: as if Felix wasn't even there. At first, Felix put
1:59
Speaker 1: up with the fact that this lunch break so far
2:01
Speaker 1: was pretty awkward, like there was no conversation happening here.
2:04
Speaker 1: He definitely felt like he did not belong here. But
2:07
Speaker 1: eventually the silence was deafening at this table, and Felix
2:11
Speaker 1: just couldn't stand it, and so he said to his
2:14
Speaker 1: co workers Klaus and Auto, hey, guys, a how's the
2:17
Speaker 1: day going. And Klaus looked up and stared at Felix
2:21
Speaker 1: and he just shrugged, said nothing, and went back to
2:23
Speaker 1: eating his food. Now, Klaus admittedly was known as sort
2:26
Speaker 1: of a loner employee who kind of kept to himself,
2:29
Speaker 1: so this behavior was somewhat normal, although somewhat off putting
2:32
Speaker 1: to Felix was trying to obviously start a conversation here.
2:35
Speaker 1: But then Auto he looked up and he looked at Felix,
2:38
Speaker 1: and he was about to say something, but then paused,
2:41
Speaker 1: and this grimace came over his face and he just
2:43
Speaker 1: said to Felix, you know what, I'm not having a
2:45
Speaker 1: good day. My head hurts, my stomach hurts, I feel tired,
2:48
Speaker 1: I feel kind of awful. And so now Felix is like, okay, sorry, Otto,
2:54
Speaker 1: I don't know.
2:55
Speaker 2: What to tell you.
2:55
Speaker 1: That's tough, and then the three men just kind of
2:58
Speaker 1: went back to eating and back to Now Felix didn't
3:01
Speaker 1: know how to make this any less awkward, and so
3:03
Speaker 1: he just went back to eating his cereal in silence,
3:06
Speaker 1: and then when he was done.
3:07
Speaker 2: He got up and left the awkward breakroom.
3:09
Speaker 1: But Felix had only been back to his job for
3:11
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes when suddenly he felt this intense
3:14
Speaker 1: stomach cramp that made him double over in pain. Now,
3:17
Speaker 1: Felix actually was somewhat accustomed to getting cramps like this
3:20
Speaker 1: one because he was lactose intolerant, and typically if he
3:24
Speaker 1: consumed dairy shortly thereafter, he would get these stabbing pains
3:27
Speaker 1: in his stomach. That's actually why he kept a carton
3:30
Speaker 1: of his own milk in the communal fridge that was
3:33
Speaker 1: lactose free. And so suddenly Felix wondered if maybe he
3:36
Speaker 1: had accidentally grabbed the wrong milk when he had poured
3:39
Speaker 1: his cereal just now, had he grabbed regular milk causing
3:43
Speaker 1: this pain? And so as a wave of nausea came
3:45
Speaker 1: over him, Felix sprinted back into the breakroom opened up
3:49
Speaker 1: the communal fridge to see if he had grabbed the
3:51
Speaker 1: wrong milk, But he saw there was actually only one
3:54
Speaker 1: container of milk in the fridge, and it was his,
3:56
Speaker 1: the lactose free kind, and so he had no idea
3:59
Speaker 1: what was actually causing these cramps, because it couldn't have
4:01
Speaker 1: been dairy. But at this point Felix was just so
4:04
Speaker 1: nauseous that all he could think about now was the
4:07
Speaker 1: fact that he could no longer work today. He had
4:09
Speaker 1: to go home, and so Felix told a supervisor he
4:11
Speaker 1: had to go.
4:12
Speaker 2: And then he rushed out to his car.
4:14
Speaker 1: He sped home and barely made it into his bathroom
4:17
Speaker 1: in time in order to vomit into the toilet.
4:19
Speaker 2: And after he vomited, he felt a little bit better,
4:21
Speaker 2: and so he wiped his mouth and he stood up.
4:23
Speaker 1: Straight, took a deep breath, and then he went to
4:25
Speaker 1: the sink and he splashed some water on his face,
4:28
Speaker 1: and he grabbed the towel and he went to dry
4:30
Speaker 1: his face, and as he did, he noticed something. He
4:34
Speaker 1: noticed the tips of his fingers were now tinkling, like
4:36
Speaker 1: his hands were going numb, And so reflexively, he put
4:39
Speaker 1: down the hand towel and began flexing and opening and
4:41
Speaker 1: closing his hands over and over again to increase the
4:44
Speaker 1: circulation to his fingers to maybe get the feeling back.
4:47
Speaker 1: But nothing he did seemed to help, and at this
4:50
Speaker 1: point Felix couldn't help.
4:51
Speaker 2: But feel a little bit scared now.
4:53
Speaker 1: Stomach cramps and nausea were somewhat normal symptoms for him,
4:57
Speaker 1: you know, considering again he was lactose intolerant, that those
5:00
Speaker 1: were normal symptoms of illness. But losing circulation in your
5:04
Speaker 1: hands was not something he was used to.
5:06
Speaker 2: This was something else. And so even though Felix was
5:09
Speaker 2: an adult.
5:09
Speaker 1: He was twenty three years old, his first thought was,
5:12
Speaker 1: I gotta call my mom, and so that's what he did.
5:18
Speaker 1: If you don't know this, late last year, we launched
5:21
Speaker 1: a brand new, strange, dark, and mysterious show called Mister
5:24
Speaker 1: Ballin's Medical Mysteries, and so far people love it. It
5:28
Speaker 1: is a free weekly show where each week we explore
5:31
Speaker 1: a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we
5:34
Speaker 1: all can't escape.
5:36
Speaker 2: Our own bodies.
5:37
Speaker 1: Topics discussed on the show range from obscure diseases and
5:40
Speaker 1: freak occurrences to totally weird medical mishaps that sometimes result
5:45
Speaker 1: in big, amazing discoveries and other times result in just
5:49
Speaker 1: unimaginable suffering and death. To start listening, go look up
5:53
Speaker 1: and follow Mister Ballin's Medical Mysteries on any podcast platform
5:57
Speaker 1: and boom, you're in you got yourself a new weekly show.
6:00
Speaker 2: But if you're super impatient.
6:02
Speaker 3: Like I am, and you can't wait a whole week
6:05
Speaker 3: to get a new episode, well, with your Prime membership,
6:08
Speaker 3: you can listen to an entire batch of eight episodes
6:11
Speaker 3: at once, because we released them eight at a time
6:13
Speaker 3: on Amazon Music.
6:15
Speaker 2: So if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious.
6:18
Speaker 1: Then you really ought to give mister Ballin's Medical Mysteries
6:21
Speaker 1: a try. Two weeks later, Felix was still sick. On
6:30
Speaker 1: his mother's advice, he had gone to see his doctor,
6:33
Speaker 1: and his doctor had told.
6:33
Speaker 2: Him that he was very likely just overworked, and he prescribed.
6:37
Speaker 1: Felix some vitamins and rest, but those two things had
6:40
Speaker 1: not helped Felix. In fact, really his symptoms had only
6:43
Speaker 1: gotten worse. He was still nauseous, and that tingling feeling
6:46
Speaker 1: he had felt in his hands had now extended all
6:49
Speaker 1: the way up into his forums. And so, as a
6:51
Speaker 1: result of this mystery illness afflicting Felix, he had not
6:54
Speaker 1: been able to go back to work, and he had
6:56
Speaker 1: spent the better part of the last two weeks just
6:58
Speaker 1: lying miserably in bed. But this morning he was determined
7:02
Speaker 1: to get out of bed, take a shower, you know,
7:05
Speaker 1: have a real meal, and basically just have a normal day.
7:08
Speaker 1: And so it started relatively well. He managed to you know,
7:10
Speaker 1: prop himself up and get out of bed, but as
7:13
Speaker 1: he staggered his way towards the bathroom, he lost his
7:16
Speaker 1: balance and had to grab onto the door to keep
7:18
Speaker 1: from falling to the ground. After steadying himself, Felix did
7:22
Speaker 1: attempt to keep walking towards the bathroom, but it was
7:25
Speaker 1: like the commands from his brain were not reaching his legs,
7:29
Speaker 1: and so he kept slipping and staggering and almost falling,
7:31
Speaker 1: and so eventually he just turned around to go back
7:34
Speaker 1: to bed, but immediately he kind of collapsed to the
7:37
Speaker 1: ground and had to literally crawl painstakingly back to the bed.
7:42
Speaker 1: And then when he had finally pulled himself back on there,
7:45
Speaker 1: he pulled out his phone and called his mom again,
7:47
Speaker 1: but this time he was not calling for advice.
7:50
Speaker 2: He was calling for help. He needed her to drive
7:52
Speaker 2: him to the hospital.
7:54
Speaker 1: Later that afternoon, Felix laid in the hospital bed with
7:57
Speaker 1: his mother to his left and an emergency room neurologist
8:00
Speaker 1: to his right. The neurologist had heard about Felix's symptoms,
8:03
Speaker 1: and she was now performing a preliminary examination, which really
8:07
Speaker 1: consisted of lots of questions about Felix's drug use, about
8:10
Speaker 1: a history of neurological problems in their family, you know,
8:13
Speaker 1: had he had any recent head injuries. But basically all
8:16
Speaker 1: the questions she was asking him he said no to.
8:18
Speaker 1: There weren't any precursors to him having these issues. Next,
8:22
Speaker 1: the neurologist poked Felix's arms to see what he could feel,
8:25
Speaker 1: because he was complaining of numbness and tingling. But it
8:28
Speaker 1: was kind of like wherever she poked in his arms,
8:30
Speaker 1: he couldn't really feel it. It was like the tingling
8:32
Speaker 1: sensation had totally taken over both arms. That's all he
8:35
Speaker 1: could feel. After that, she measured his muscle reflexes in
8:38
Speaker 1: his legs and also shined a light in both his eyes,
8:40
Speaker 1: and then after that she put her tools down and
8:43
Speaker 1: she looked at Felix with a very worried expression on
8:45
Speaker 1: her face. She said that based on Felix's symptoms, she
8:48
Speaker 1: thought that some part of his nervous system, like his
8:51
Speaker 1: brain or his spinal cord, might be inflamed, and this
8:54
Speaker 1: type of inflammation can lead to things like nausea, numbness,
8:58
Speaker 1: and loss of coordination, all things Felix had been experiencing,
9:01
Speaker 1: and this inflammation could be caused by a number of
9:04
Speaker 1: different infections or an autoimmune reaction, but to know for sure,
9:08
Speaker 1: she would have to run some more tests, and so
9:10
Speaker 1: she advised Felix to be admitted to the hospital. Six
9:13
Speaker 1: days later, the neurologist went to check in on Felix,
9:16
Speaker 1: who was still at the hospital, and as soon as
9:18
Speaker 1: she walked into his room and.
9:19
Speaker 2: Saw Felix, she saw he looked terrible. His body was.
9:22
Speaker 1: Limp, his face was swollen, and his eyes were sort
9:25
Speaker 1: of glazed over, like he was staring off into the distance.
9:28
Speaker 1: By this point, doctors had run imaging scans on Felix
9:31
Speaker 1: and had discovered that his brain and brain stem were inflamed,
9:35
Speaker 1: like the neurologist had suspected, but the neurologist could not
9:39
Speaker 1: figure out why this was happening. Typically, inflammation like this
9:43
Speaker 1: was caused by an infection, but the neurologist had tested
9:46
Speaker 1: Felix for every infection she could think of that could
9:49
Speaker 1: have caused this, and all those tests had come back negative.
9:52
Speaker 1: So her new working theory was Felix must be having
9:55
Speaker 1: an extreme autoimmune reaction, which is basically when your immune
9:59
Speaker 1: sist malfunctions and starts attacking your own body. Autoimmune reactions
10:04
Speaker 1: can cause things like brain swelling. But this theory didn't
10:07
Speaker 1: really help Felix very much because, first of all, it
10:10
Speaker 1: was nearly impossible to test to see if this theory
10:13
Speaker 1: was even true that it was an autoimmune reaction, and
10:16
Speaker 1: second of all, even if you knew that's what it was, unfortunately,
10:20
Speaker 1: autoimmune reactions are notoriously difficult to treat. Basically, it was
10:24
Speaker 1: a shaky diagnosis that did not come with an easy cure.
10:28
Speaker 1: The neurologist had given Felix some anti inflammatory medication, hoping
10:31
Speaker 1: that maybe that would help, you know, based on her
10:33
Speaker 1: research around autoimmune diseases, but it basically did nothing. And
10:37
Speaker 1: she knew that if she didn't find a way to
10:39
Speaker 1: lower the swelling in his brain and brain stem, that
10:42
Speaker 1: Felix could potentially suffer permanent brain damage or even death.
10:46
Speaker 1: So now, in Felix's hospital room, the neurologist walked over
10:49
Speaker 1: to him and tapped his shoulder and she asked him
10:52
Speaker 1: how he was feeling, and Felix when he sort of
10:54
Speaker 1: looked up at her. His eyes were rolled back in
10:55
Speaker 1: his skull, and it took a minute for him to
10:57
Speaker 1: focus on her. And then it was clear to the
10:59
Speaker 1: neurologist that it took all of his energy to croak
11:02
Speaker 1: out an answer, but the words he said didn't make
11:05
Speaker 1: any sense.
11:06
Speaker 2: He said metal mouth, and the neurologist said what, like,
11:10
Speaker 2: what are you trying to say?
11:12
Speaker 1: And then he said, taste water, And at that point
11:15
Speaker 1: the neurologist realized what Felix was trying to say is
11:18
Speaker 1: that he had a metallic taste in his mouth and
11:21
Speaker 1: he wanted a cup of water to clear his mouth.
11:23
Speaker 1: The neurologists felt like this had to be a clue
11:25
Speaker 1: about what was going on with Felix. It was not
11:28
Speaker 1: some random symptom like this has to be connected to
11:31
Speaker 1: the totality of what was wrong with him. But she
11:34
Speaker 1: didn't know what a metallic taste in his mouth had
11:37
Speaker 1: to do with his other symptoms, and so she was baffled.
11:40
Speaker 1: So she just grabbed a cup of water off the
11:42
Speaker 1: nearby table and handed it to Felix, and Felix immediately
11:45
Speaker 1: put it to his lips and tried to drink it,
11:47
Speaker 1: but it was like he couldn't, and the water just
11:49
Speaker 1: dribbled down his chin onto his chest. And as the
11:52
Speaker 1: neurologist stared at her patient, she couldn't help but feel
11:55
Speaker 1: like she was just totally failing here. I mean, obviously
11:58
Speaker 1: there was something horribly wrong with Felix, but she had
12:01
Speaker 1: not come up with a proper diagnosis yet, and all
12:03
Speaker 1: the medications and treatments she'd suggested so far had done
12:06
Speaker 1: nothing for his symptoms. And she knew if she couldn't
12:09
Speaker 1: get the swelling to go down, it was just a
12:11
Speaker 1: matter of time before he suffered permanent brain damage or death.
12:15
Speaker 1: And so at this point, the neurologists realized a big
12:18
Speaker 1: change would have to be made in Felix's care. Clearly
12:21
Speaker 1: what she was doing was not working, and so she
12:23
Speaker 1: decided to transfer him from her hospital to a local
12:26
Speaker 1: university hospital, where she knew there were some specialists there
12:30
Speaker 1: who they might be able to figure out what was
12:32
Speaker 1: going on here. But the next day at that university hospital,
12:36
Speaker 1: that team of specialists that had been assigned to Felix's
12:38
Speaker 1: case were just as baffled as the neurologist had been,
12:41
Speaker 1: because now Felix didn't just have swelling in his brain,
12:44
Speaker 1: and a metallic taste in his mouth. He also was
12:47
Speaker 1: experiencing kidney and liver failure, and this collection of symptoms
12:51
Speaker 1: meant Felix very likely did not have an autoimmune condition.
12:55
Speaker 1: They tested him again for more infections that maybe could
12:58
Speaker 1: still leave the possibility open that it was an autoimmune condition,
13:02
Speaker 1: but again those still all came back negative, and so effectively,
13:05
Speaker 1: these specialists who were here to solve this puzzle for
13:09
Speaker 1: back at square one, they had made no further progress,
13:11
Speaker 1: and so at this point all Felix's doctors could do
13:14
Speaker 1: was just hope that whatever illness was plaguing Felix would
13:18
Speaker 1: sort of resolve itself on its own, and they would
13:21
Speaker 1: just you know, do their best to manage his symptoms
13:23
Speaker 1: and try to keep them comfortable until it did.
13:25
Speaker 2: However, by September.
13:26
Speaker 1: Of twenty sixteen, so two months after that first day
13:29
Speaker 1: that Felix went home sick from work, he had not improved.
13:32
Speaker 1: He spent most of his time laying in bed, unconscious,
13:36
Speaker 1: barely clinging to life. At this point, most of these
13:39
Speaker 1: specialists were just monitoring Felix. However, one of them still
13:43
Speaker 1: felt like a diagnosis here was still possible.
13:47
Speaker 2: We just need to keep looking.
13:49
Speaker 1: And so this doctor actually decided that instead of monitoring Felix,
13:52
Speaker 1: he was going to start looking into some medical research papers,
13:55
Speaker 1: because he figured, you know, whatever Felix had had to
13:58
Speaker 1: be really, really rare. If it wasn't, they would have
14:01
Speaker 1: figured it out by now, and they clearly had not,
14:04
Speaker 1: so he must have something rare.
14:05
Speaker 2: And if there's one place you can.
14:06
Speaker 1: Go to learn about very rare conditions and diseases, it's
14:10
Speaker 1: medical research papers. And so he began combing through all
14:13
Speaker 1: these papers, and sure enough, he would actually find a
14:17
Speaker 1: case about another patient who had the exact same symptoms
14:21
Speaker 1: as Felix, and they even appeared in the exact same order.
14:24
Speaker 1: First the stomach cramps and nausea, followed by the tingling
14:28
Speaker 1: in the arms, then the loss of coordination in the legs,
14:31
Speaker 1: then the swelling of the brain, followed by the metallic
14:34
Speaker 1: taste in the mouth, and then ultimately kidney and liver failure.
14:37
Speaker 1: And just like Felix, this patient's diagnosis in this medical
14:41
Speaker 1: journal was not an infection, nor was it an autoimmune disease. Instead,
14:46
Speaker 1: it was a condition that was so rare it had
14:48
Speaker 1: only been recorded three times anywhere in the world over
14:52
Speaker 1: the last century. But this doctor understood that even though
14:56
Speaker 1: Felix's symptoms did appear to match, it still was high
15:00
Speaker 1: unlikely he actually had this diagnosis because it's so unbelievably rare. However,
15:06
Speaker 1: the doctor thought, well, you know, I'll just rule this
15:08
Speaker 1: condition out. All I need to do is a simple
15:10
Speaker 1: blood test, and so he did this blood test on Felix,
15:14
Speaker 1: literally believing it would just rule this out. Except when
15:17
Speaker 1: the results came back, it was positive. This doctor had
15:21
Speaker 1: just solved the case, the one that nobody else seemed
15:23
Speaker 1: able to do.
15:24
Speaker 2: But the doctor was not happy.
15:26
Speaker 1: Instead, as he stared at the test results, he was
15:29
Speaker 1: kind of horrified because this diagnosis was a death sentence
15:33
Speaker 1: for Felix. There was no cure for this, and worse,
15:36
Speaker 1: this diagnosis meant other people potentially could be in danger here,
15:40
Speaker 1: and so the doctor knew his next step, of course,
15:42
Speaker 1: would be to contact Felix's family and tell them what
15:45
Speaker 1: he had discovered, but he also knew this was no
15:48
Speaker 1: longer just a medical problem. The doctor called local law
15:52
Speaker 1: enforcement and they began their investigation immediately. They interviewed basically
15:56
Speaker 1: everyone Felix ever interacted with on a regular basis, and
16:00
Speaker 1: they also sent forensic technicians to all the places that
16:03
Speaker 1: Felix spent any time, and these technicians ran tests on
16:06
Speaker 1: all the surfaces.
16:07
Speaker 2: That Felix might have touched at one point or another.
16:10
Speaker 1: They also ran tests on the food and the water
16:12
Speaker 1: that he might have consumed, that even at one point
16:14
Speaker 1: tried to test the air that Felix had potentially breathed.
16:17
Speaker 1: And they did all this because they were trying to
16:20
Speaker 1: find one very specific substance. But despite basically looking everywhere
16:25
Speaker 1: in Felix's life for weeks and weeks, they didn't find it. Meanwhile,
16:29
Speaker 1: Felix's condition only got worse. By the end of September,
16:33
Speaker 1: he had slipped into a vegetative state, but at least
16:36
Speaker 1: so far, the doctor's worst fears had not been realized.
16:39
Speaker 1: They actually expected other people to begin to turn up
16:42
Speaker 1: to hospitals with similar symptoms as Felix, but they hadn't. So,
16:47
Speaker 1: with no answers, but with no other victims either, the
16:50
Speaker 1: police investigation began to wind down. Felix remained in a
16:54
Speaker 1: vegetative state four months and then years, and officials still
16:59
Speaker 1: just had no idea how this actually happened to him.
17:01
Speaker 1: They just kind of concluded that well, this was a
17:04
Speaker 1: horrible tragedy that very likely will never actually be explained,
17:08
Speaker 1: but at least hopefully it will never happen to anyone else.
17:10
Speaker 1: But then, two years after Felix fell into his coma,
17:14
Speaker 1: some very strange things began to happen at his old
17:17
Speaker 1: manufacturing job. So, at this manufacturing company where Felix used
17:21
Speaker 1: to work, it actually was pretty commonplace for employees there
17:24
Speaker 1: to get sick fairly regularly, like more than normal. However,
17:29
Speaker 1: their illnesses were sort of basic things like headaches and
17:32
Speaker 1: stomach aches and feeling sort of tired, things that didn't
17:35
Speaker 1: really raise big red flags. But now Otto, the middle
17:38
Speaker 1: aged man who had complained to Felix over their lunch
17:41
Speaker 1: break about his stomach and his head hurting, was going
17:44
Speaker 1: into kidney failure, and in fact he was so sick
17:46
Speaker 1: he couldn't come to work anymore and had to get
17:48
Speaker 1: dialysis three times a week just to live.
17:51
Speaker 2: And also, another much younger.
17:53
Speaker 1: Employee, whose name was Elias, he was twenty six years old,
17:56
Speaker 1: he had begun having stomach aches. Now, again that was
17:59
Speaker 1: fairly common this company, but for Elias, these were not
18:03
Speaker 1: normal stomach aches. These were crippling, severe like you can't
18:07
Speaker 1: focus on anything else type of stomach aches, similar to
18:10
Speaker 1: the ones Felix was having. Now, Auto and Elias had
18:13
Speaker 1: not spoken to each other about their respective illnesses. This
18:16
Speaker 1: was a place where people just kind of got sick
18:18
Speaker 1: periodically and kept it to themselves. It was just not
18:21
Speaker 1: really that big of a deal. So they hadn't talked
18:23
Speaker 1: to each other, and they certainly had not connected what
18:26
Speaker 1: was happening to them to Felix and his illness, which
18:29
Speaker 1: was now over two years before.
18:31
Speaker 2: But that would all change one day in May of
18:33
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen.
18:34
Speaker 1: So again we're still talking about two years since Felix
18:37
Speaker 1: went into his coma, when Elias was having his lunch
18:41
Speaker 1: in the company breakroom, and he would discover something that
18:44
Speaker 1: would connect everything and blow this case wide open. Elias's
18:49
Speaker 1: shocking discovery led police to do a search of a
18:51
Speaker 1: local home, and at first this home seemed totally ordinary
18:55
Speaker 1: until they went down into the basement, because down there
18:58
Speaker 1: it looked like a mad scientist laboratory. There was this
19:02
Speaker 1: metal table with all these beakers and scales on it,
19:05
Speaker 1: and then behind it were all these shelves that were
19:07
Speaker 1: stacked high with old jam jars and paint cans and
19:11
Speaker 1: even old mannaise bottles, and it would turn out inside
19:14
Speaker 1: of these mismatch containers was a collection of deadly chemicals
19:19
Speaker 1: that a judge would later say were more toxic and
19:22
Speaker 1: more deadly than the literal chemical weapons that were used
19:26
Speaker 1: during World War One. This basement laboratory belonged to Klaus.
19:30
Speaker 1: He was one of the two employees that Felix sat
19:32
Speaker 1: with during that very awkward lunch break. The one was Otto,
19:36
Speaker 1: who told Felix didn't feel very good, and the other
19:38
Speaker 1: was Klaus, the man who, when asked how his day
19:41
Speaker 1: was going, just looked up at Felix, shrugged his shoulders
19:44
Speaker 1: and said nothing.
19:45
Speaker 2: It would turn out.
19:46
Speaker 1: For years, Klaus had been buying deadly chemicals online, mixing
19:50
Speaker 1: them together, and then sort of testing these concoctions on
19:54
Speaker 1: his coworkers. He would just poison their lunches and see
19:57
Speaker 1: what happened. Felix's very rare to that only three people
20:01
Speaker 1: had experienced in the past century in the whole world,
20:04
Speaker 1: was effectively extremely acute mercury poisoning, basically an ungodly high
20:11
Speaker 1: level of mercury poisoning. Because Klaus was literally just putting
20:16
Speaker 1: mercury into Felix's cereal and he was just eating it up.
20:20
Speaker 1: In addition to poisoning Felix's cereal, Klaus also put lead
20:25
Speaker 1: literally right on top of Elias's sandwiches, and then he
20:28
Speaker 1: also put a combination of lead and cadmium into Auto's food.
20:32
Speaker 1: Klaus was only caught because Elias made that big discovery
20:36
Speaker 1: while he was eating his lunch. He noticed there was
20:38
Speaker 1: a strange powder sitting on top of a sandwich, and
20:41
Speaker 1: so he called the police. Klaus never explained his motives
20:44
Speaker 1: for the poisonings. In March of twenty nineteen, he was
20:47
Speaker 1: ultimately sentenced to life in prison, and unfortunately, ten months
20:50
Speaker 1: after that, Felix, who had been in a vegetative state
20:54
Speaker 1: for three years to that point.
20:56
Speaker 2: Passed away.
20:56
Speaker 1: As for Elias and Auto, they still suffer from long
20:59
Speaker 1: term facts of chemical poisoning.
21:10
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching.
21:12
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
21:14
Speaker 1: the comments. And remember, we have hundreds of videos for
21:17
Speaker 1: you to binge right now. But if you're looking for
21:20
Speaker 1: a recommendation for me of that one video that's worth
21:23
Speaker 1: your time, well it's this one right here, So give
21:26
Speaker 1: it a watch, all right, Until next time, see ya