(1947-1990)

Who Was Graham Young?

At the age of 14, in 1961, Graham Young began testing out poisons on his family, eventually killing his stepmother. Graham was put into a criminal mental hospital after confessing to the poisonings of his family but was released after nine years. Upon beginning a new job, Young began poisoning again until being caught and convicted.

Early Life and Troubled Childhood

Graham Frederick Young was born in Neasden, North London, on September 7, 1947, to Fred and Bessie Young. His mother developed pleurisy during pregnancy, and died of tuberculosis three months after her son’s birth. Fred was devastated by her death, and the infant was put into the care of his aunt Winnie, while his elder sister, Winifred, was taken in by her grandparents.

The Young spent the first two years of his life with his aunt and her husband, Jack, and became very close to them. When his father remarried in 1950, and reunited the family again in St. Albans, with his new wife, Molly, Young showed visible signs of distress at being separated from his aunt. He went on to become a rather peculiar child, solitary in his habits, and made no effort to socialize with others his own age.

When he was old enough to read, he favored sensationalist nonfiction accounts of murders, and Dr. Crippen, the infamous poisoner, was a particular favorite. By the time he reached his teens he had developed an unhealthy fascination with Adolf Hitler, and took to wearing swastikas, extolling the virtues of a “misunderstood” Hitler to anyone who would listen. He also read widely on the occult, claiming knowledge of Wiccans and local covens, and trying to involve local children in bizarre occult ceremonies, which involved sacrificing a cat on one occasion. The subsequent disappearance of a number of local cats, around the same time, may have pointed to a more regular occurrence of these sacrificial ceremonies.

Academically, his only interests were chemistry, forensic science and toxicology, but the limited school coverage of these subjects forced him to advance his studies through extra-curricular reading. His father encouraged him, buying Young a chemistry set, which absorbed his attention for hours at a time. By the age of 13, Young’s comprehensive knowledge of toxicology enabled him to convince local chemists that he was, in fact, 17, and he procured a dangerous quantity of the poisons antimony, digitalis and arsenic for ‘study’ purposes, as well as quantities of the heavy metal, thallium.

Keen to put his knowledge of poisons to the test, his first victim was fellow science pupil, Christopher Williams, who suffered an extended period of vomiting, painful cramps and headaches, due to the judicious administration, by Young, of a cocktail of poisons that left medical experts baffled. Williams was lucky to survive, probably because Young couldn’t fully satisfy his scientific curiosity. Monitoring the illness of his victim when he was sick at home was not feasible. So he decided to focus on a group to whom he had unlimited access — his own family.

Poisoning His Family

When the family began to show intermittent signs of poisoning during the early part of 1961, Young’s father initially suspected that Young might be inadvertently harming the family by the careless use of his chemistry set at home, but Young denied the accusation. The potential for deliberate poisoning was never considered, especially as Young had also been ill on a number of occasions. It remains unclear whether this was by design (to avoid detection), thorough scientific interest in his own reaction, or just carelessness of exactly which teacups he had poisoned.

When Young’s elder sister, Winifred, was found by doctors to have been poisoned by belladonna in November 1961, Young’s father again suspected him, but took no action. Molly, his stepmother, became the concerted focus of Young’s attentions, gradually becoming more ill until finally, on April 21, 1962, she was found by her husband writhing in agony, in the back garden of their home, with Young looking on in fascination. She was rushed to the hospital, where she died later that night. Her cause of death was determined as a prolapse of a spinal bone and she was cremated (not surprisingly at Young’s suggestion), with no further action taken at the time. It was later discovered that she had developed a tolerance to the antimony with which Young was slowly poisoning her, and he switched to thallium the night before her death to speed up the process. There were even reports of further nausea and vomiting attacks at her funeral: clearly the death of his stepmother had not dulled Young’s scientific curiosity.

Following Molly’s death, Fred’s attacks of vomiting and cramping became more frequent and increasingly severe, and he was also admitted to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with antimony poisoning. He was lucky to have survived his son’s experimentation, but could not countenance his son’s responsibility: that role fell to Young’s school chemistry teacher, who contacted the police when he discovered poisons, and copious material about poisoners, in Young’s school desk.

Young was sent to a police psychiatrist, where his encyclopedic knowledge of poisons soon became apparent, and Young was arrested on May 23, 1962. He admitted poisoning of his father, sister and school friend, Williams, but no murder charges were brought against him for the murder of his stepmother, as any evidence had been destroyed at the time of her cremation. Still only 14, he was committed to Broadmoor maximum security hospital, the youngest inmate since 1885, for a minimum period of 15 years.

Incarceration barely dampened his enthusiasm for experimentation, and within weeks the death of an inmate, John Berridge, by cyanide poisoning, had prison authorities baffled. Young claimed to have extracted cyanide from laurel bush leaves, but his confession was not taken seriously, and Berridge’s death was recorded as suicide. On other occasions, staff and inmates’ drinks were found to have been tampered with, including the introduction of an abrasive sodium compound, commonly called sugar soap, used for preparing painted walls, into a tea urn that could have caused mass poisoning had it not been discovered. He continued to read widely about poisoning, although he began to keep his obsession increasingly well hidden when authorities made it clear that appearing less obsessed would speed up his release.

By the late 1960s, Young’s doctors seemed oblivious to his continued fatal fascination and recommended, in June 1970, that he be released as he had been ‘cured’. Young celebrated by informing a psychiatric nurse that he intended to kill one person for every year he had been in Broadmoor; the comment was recorded on his file but, amazingly, never influenced the decision to release him.

Later Crimes

When Young was released on February 4, 1971, now aged 23, he went to stay in a hostel but had contact with his sister, Winifred, who had moved to Hemel Hempstead following her marriage. Despite having been poisoned by him, she was more forgiving than her father, who initially wanted nothing to do with his son. She was concerned about his fixation with his crimes: he took great delight in visiting the scenes of his past crimes, thriving on the reaction of his old neighbors in Neasden when they recognized who he was.

He made trips to London, where he stocked up on the antimony, thallium and other poisons required for his experiments, and a fellow hostel resident, 34-year old Trevor Sparkes, was soon exhibiting the familiar cramps and sickness associated with any proximity to Young. Another man he befriended experienced such agony that he took his own life, although no connection to Young was established at the time.

Young found work as a store man at John Hadland Laboratories, a photographic supply firm in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where his new employers were aware of his Broadmoor stay, but not his history as a poisoner. They might have had some reservations, given the easy availability of poisons such as thallium, routinely used in photographic processes, but he had, in any case, already secured his poison supplies from unsuspecting London pharmacists. His willingness to make tea and coffee for his co-workers raised no concerns, therefore, and when Young’s boss, 59-year-old Bob Egle, began to experience severe cramps and dizziness, it was attributed to a virus known locally as the bovingdon bug, which had afflicted a number of local schoolchildren. Other Hadland workers complained of similar cramps, but none were ever as severe as Egle’s who, curiously, seemed to recover when off work ill, but instantly became sicker than ever on his return to work. He was eventually admitted to hospital where he died, in agony, on July 7, 1971. His cause of death was recorded as pneumonia.

In September 1971, 60-year-old Fred Biggs began to suffer similar symptoms to Egle, and general absenteeism at Hadland increased dramatically, with employees suffering a variety of unusual and debilitating ailments, including the usual cramps, hair loss and sexual dysfunction. Various sources were considered, including water contamination, radioactive fallout and leakage of the chemicals used at the firm itself, but no real progress was made towards the cause.

Biggs was eventually admitted to the London Hospital for Nervous Diseases but took a long time to die, a cause of some frustration to Young, who recorded his displeasure in his diary. He eventually succumbed, on November 19, 1971, in excruciating pain.

This second death raised great concern within the firm. By this stage, about 70 employees had recorded similar symptoms and there were fears for personal safety. The doctor on site tried to reassure staff, by insisting that health and safety rules were being strictly adhered to, and was taken aback when Young challenged him in front of colleagues, quizzing him on why thallium poisoning had not been considered as a cause, considering that it was used in the photographic process. The doctor was surprised at Young’s in-depth toxicological knowledge and brought it to the attention of the management, who in turn alerted the police.

Subsequent forensic inquiries revealed the thallium poisoning — the first recorded case of deliberate poisoning by this heavy metal ever recorded. Young’s poison conviction was soon unearthed, as were his collection of poisons, and meticulous diaries recording explicit dosages administered to individuals, and their reactions to the dosage over time.

Trial and Aftermath

Young was arrested in Sheerness, Kent, on November 21, 1971, where he had been visiting his father. A quantity of thallium was found on his person. Under interrogation, he admitted verbally to the poisonings but refused to sign a written admission of guilt. He clearly relished the notoriety that his day in court would afford him.

Young’s trial commenced on June 19, 1972, at St. Albans Crown Court, and he was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of administering poison. Young pleaded not guilty and seemed confident that he would be acquitted, as his previous conviction could not be entered into evidence, and he felt it would be impossible to identify him as the only person with the means to poison Egle and Biggs.

He was delighted at the media hype that surrounded his trial, and did his best to appear sinister, in an attempt to unnerve the jury and assembled gallery, but was reportedly less than thrilled with the sobriquet “The Teacup Poisoner,” which he felt too parochial, belittling his skill and knowledge. He thought “World Poisoner” more appropriate.

Young had not reckoned with the advances made in forensic science in the decade since the death of his stepmother, however, and the effect that the reading of tracts of his diary, in which he cold-bloodedly lists the effects of his poisons, would have on the jury: He was found guilty on all charges on June 29, 1972, receiving four life sentences.

When the jury were apprised of his previous conviction, and his release as a “cured” mental patient only months before the crimes took place, they recommended an urgent review of the law regarding the public sale of poisons.

The Home Secretary also announced an immediate review of the control, treatment, assessment and release of mentally unstable prisoners, despite the fact that Young had been regarded as legally sane during his trial. The Aarvold Report, published in January 1973, led to the reform of the way these prisoners were monitored upon release and resulted in the creation of the Advisory Board for Restricted Patients.

When asked whether he felt any remorse over his sadistic killings, he is said to have replied: “What I feel is the emptiness of my soul.”

Young was incarcerated at the maximum-security Parkhurst prison, on the Isle of Wight, the home of Britain’s most serious criminals, usually reserved for those with severe mental conditions. Here he befriended Moor’s Murderer, Ian Brady, who became infatuated with the 24-year old Young, although the attraction was not reciprocated. Brady described Young as genuinely asexual, excited only by power, clinical experimentation, observation and death. They spent considerable time together, playing chess and bonding over their fascination with Nazi Germany; Young regularly sported a Hitler moustache.

Young was thrilled when a waxwork of himself was added to the Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, alongside his boyhood hero, Dr. Crippen.

Young died in his cell at Parkhurst on August 1, 1990, aged 42. The official cause of death was heart failure, although there remains conjecture that fellow inmates, who, with the exception of Brady, were always extremely wary of Young, may have poisoned him or, alternately, that he grew tired of prison life and poisoned himself, in one final gesture of control.

Young’s worldwide notoriety brought the effectiveness of thallium as a deadly poison into focus for the first time: it was used extensively as a coating on U.S. missiles fired during the first Gulf War, to devastating effect.

In 1995, a black comedy about Young’s life, entitled The Young Poisoner’s Handbook was released in cinemas.

In November 2005 a 16-year old Japanese schoolgirl was arrested for poisoning her mother with thallium. She claimed to be fascinated by Young, having seen the 1995 film, and kept an online blog, similar to Young’s diary, recording dosage and reactions.

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QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1947
• Birth date: September 7, 1947
• Birth City: Neasden
• Birth Country: England
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Graham Young is best known as the Teacup Poisoner, responsible for the killing of at least three people in England.
• Industries
• Crime and Terrorism
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Death Year: 1990
• Death date: August 22, 1990
• Death City: Parkhurst, Isle of Wight
• Death Country: England

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Graham Young Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/crime/graham-young
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 21, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014