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Tobacco Murders
Linda's Crime Notes
TOBACCO and CRIME
In 1915, there was an assassination attempt on Hussain Pasha of Egypt, and
several cigarette ends were found in the room from which the bomb was thrown.
Investigators traced the tobacconist who made the cigarettes, and he told them that the
tobacco was a special mixture made up to order. Microscopic analysis of the tobacco showed
that it was identical to that in cigarettes found in the possession of the accused man,
and confirmed his presence at the scene of the crime.
Nowadays such cases would be rare. Most smokers use mass produced brands and
the chief value of cigarette ends found at crimescenes is in the analysis of saliva traces
which can in a large percentage of cases reveal the blood group of the criminal. An
unusual, and unfortunately unsolved case involving tobacco analysis occurred in 1939. A
nine-year old girl, Pamela Coventry, was found murdered in Hornchurch. Her body had been
tied with the knees against her chest, and when she was untied, a cigarette end was
discovered pressed between thigh and chest. It was hand rolled from partly used tobacco,
and an underturn of the paper was used in the rolling. A local man, Leonard Richardson,
fell under suspicion, and when he was questioned it was found that he had many cigarette
stubs in his possession. At his trial, an expert from the Imperial Tobacco Company gave
evidence that the tobacco, the paper and the method of rolling of the stub found on the
body were identical to the cigarette stubs found in Richardson's possession. Richardson's
wife and brother, however, had collected cigarette ends from neighbours and from the
sweepings of a factory floor, and given them to an expert from the Rizla Cigarette Papers
Company, who gave evidence that the method of rolling was common to many people. There was
insufficient evidence to convict Richardson, and he was acquitted.
...................................................
The tobacco plant, nicotiana tabacum, was introduced to Europe in 1561.
It arrived at Lisbon, where the French ambassador, Jean Nicot, took an interest in the new
plant and introduced it to France. It was used medicinally as a treatment for eczema and
palsy. It was not until 1828 that the most active ingredient was isolated, and named
nicotine.
Nicotine is a rapidly effective poison, in the same group as morphine,
strychnine and aconitine. Its initial effect is that of a stimulant, but in poisonous
doses it produces nausea and cardiac irregularity, eventually paralysing the respiratory
system. The lethal dose for an adult is between 60 and 90mg. One cigar contains enough
nicotine to kill two adults if it were administered by injection. Death may take place
within a few minutes. Homicidal use of nicotine is rare but its use in horticultural
sprays has led to many cases of accidental poisoning through skin absorption. Although by
1847, tests had been devised to identify vegetable poisons in their pure forms in the
laboratory, this did not help in cases of suspicious deaths, when the poison would be
embedded in the organs of the victim. Scientists were unable to isolate vegetable poisons
from animal tissue. When the tissue was destroyed - the normal procedure in the search for
arsenic - the poison was destroyed as well. The leading toxicologist of the day, Mathieu
Orfila, lamented that the alkaloid poisons, as these vegetable substances were known,
might remain forever undetectable. He was proved wrong only three years later in a
remarkable case.
Count Hyppolite de Bocarmé was part Belgian and part Dutch, and, in keeping
with his extraordinary lifestyle, he had been born on the high seas in the middle of a
storm. His family had been bound for Java, where his father held the post of Governor. The
boy had been neglected during his childhood, and was allowed to run wild. In later years
the legend sprang up that he had been suckled by a lioness. Later on, his father had
become a tobacco dealer and then a hunter. It was not until the family returned to Europe
that the boy received any education, when he displayed an interest in agriculture and
science. He was a badly behaved youth, well known to be a swindler and womaniser. When he
was 24 his father died, and he succeeded to the title and took over the Château de
Bitremont, near the Belgian community of Bury.
Bocarmé liked to live an extravagant life, and in 1843, to increase the family
fortunes, he married a bourgeoise, Lydie Fougnies, whom he believed to be wealthy.
Her father was an eccentric apothecary, and had raised his two children, Lydie and a
sickly son, Gustave, to aim for marriage into a titled family. After the marriage,
Bocarmé found that Lydie was not nearly as wealthy as he had imagined. The couple liked
wild parties and extravagant hunts, and her income of 2000Fr. per annum was not nearly
enough to support this, not to mention the upkeep of the château and its staff of
servants. This situation created some tension between the couple, and violent quarrels
would alternate with bouts of mutual passion. When Lydie's father died, her annual income
increased to 5000Fr., but this was still far too little. They managed for some time by
selling off what land they could, but by 1849 this source had dried up. Their last hope
was that Gustave, who had inherited the major part of his father's fortune, would die
unmarried, in which case, all his possessions would go to his sister. This was not
unlikely, as Gustave, who had never been strong, had been very ill since the amputation of
a leg.
In the spring of 1850, however, Gustave bought the château of an impoverished
noble family, and there were rumours of his interest in the former owner, Demoiselle de
Dudzech. On 20th November, messengers arrived at the Bocarmés to say that Gustave would
be arriving at noon to announce his engagement. A number of curious preparations were made
for this event. It was normal for the children of the family to eat with their elders in
the main dining room, but on that day they were banished to the kitchen. The food was to
be served, not by the château servants but by the Countess herself.
That afternoon, the maid, Emmerance, heard a sound from the dining room as if
someone had fallen to the floor, and Gustave crying out "Oh, oh, pardon,
Hyppolite!" She went to see what the matter was, but as she approached the dining
room door she collided with the Countess who was rushing out, closing the door behind her.
The Countess ran into the kitchen, fetched some vessels of hot water, and ran back to the
dining room. Soon afterwards she called to Emmerance, and Gilles the coachman, for help,
saying that Gustave had been taken ill, and she thought he had had a stroke.
They found Gustave lying on the floor of the dining room. Bocarmé was in a
state of great excitement. He ordered vinegar to be brought to him, and proceeded to pour
glass after glass of it down Gustave's throat. He then ordered that Gustave should be
undressed and his body washed with vinegar. The Countess rushed to the laundry with
Gustave's clothes and threw them into hot soapy water. Gilles, after throwing more and
more vinegar over Gustave at Bocarmé's excited orders, was then told to remove the body
to Emmerance's room and lay it on the bed.
The Countess was up most of that night scrubbing the floor of the dining room.
She also scrubbed Gustave's crutches, but later decided to burn them. Early in the morning
the Count took a knife and began scraping the dining room floorboards. He continued in
this task until late afternoon. Eventually, the Count and Countess, by now both exhausted,
went to bed. At this point the servants met together and discussed what to do. All of them
were alarmed and terrified by the events of the last twenty-four hours. They decided to go
to the priest and tell their story. By the time they had done so, rumour had also reached
the examining magistrate in Tournai that Gustave Fougnies had died an unnatural death.
The examining magistrate , Heughebaert, arrived in Bury accompanied by three
gendarmes and three surgeons. He was sceptical of the rumours and so, leaving the
gendarmes behind in Bury, arrived at the walled and moated château with only the surgeons
and the town clerk for company. The fireplace of the dining room was filled with ashes,
and it was clear that books and papers had been burned there, while the dining room floor
was littered with wood shavings. At first the Count refused to see the magistrate, but
eventually he was obliged to appear. When Heughebaert asked to see the body he was led
reluctantly to a darkened room, and when the Countess refused to draw the curtains he did
so himself. Bocarmé tried to hide Gustave's face with his hands, but it was apparent that
this was anything but a natural death. The young man's face was badly cut, and the mouth
appeared burned and blackened.
Heughebaert ordered that the body be examined at once. The doctors carried it
to the coach-house, and two hours later, announced their verdict. The mouth, tongue,
throat and stomach showed distinct corrosive burns and they believed that Gustave had died
from drinking some corrosive liquid, probably sulphuric acid. Heughebaert supervised the
removal from the body of all the organs that might be useful for a chemical examination.
They were sealed in vessels containing pure alcohol. He then placed the Count and Countess
under arrest.
Once back at Tournai, Heughebaert engaged a carriage with fast horses and went
to Brussels with the specimens. There was only one man he wanted to examine the remains, a
professor of chemistry called Jean Stas. Stas was at thirty seven the leading chemist in
the country. When he found the laboratory at the École Militaire where he taught, to be
poorly equipped, he set up equipment in his own home, turning the whole house from cellar
to roof garden into a laboratory. In later years, ministers and kings would come to visit
him there. It was in this home laboratory between the months of December 1850 and February
1851, that Stas made the breakthrough - he devised the method for demonstrating the
presence of vegetable poisons in human tissue.
He was quickly able to rule out sulphuric acid as a cause of death. Like most
of his contemporaries, he used his sense of taste and smell to identify chemicals. He at
once remarked to Heughebaert on the smell of vinegar, and was told of the repeated washing
of the body in this substance. It occurred to him that this might well have been done to
mask the presence of another poison. After a number of experiments, he identified a smell
which reminded him somewhat of coniine, the poison found in hemlock, and realised that he
might be dealing with a vegetable poison. Further purification of the material resulted in
a brownish substance with the unmistakable smell of tobacco. He was able to submit this to
the laboratory tests for pure nicotine, and obtained a positive result. Stas sent his
extract to Heughebaert with a letter suggesting that he investigate whether the Bocarmé's
had ever had nicotine in their possession.
Heughebaert at once went to search the château and questioned the servants.
The feeble minded gardener told him that during the summer, he had helped the Count
prepare eau-de-cologne, and for this purpose, the Count had bought enormous quantities of
tobacco leaves and made extracts of these in a laboratory in the castle washhouse. The
resultant extract had been placed in a cupboard in the dining room, and the following day
the Count had removed all the equipment from the washhouse. In the next few days,
Heughebaert was able to trace a number of chemists to whom Bocarmé had gone to seek
advice about the extraction of nicotine from tobacco leaves. He found the buried bodies of
cats and ducks which Bocarmé had experimented upon, and eventually he found the
equipment, hidden behind some panelling in the château. He sent the animal remains to
Stas, as well as samples of wood from the floorboards and even the trousers the gardener
had worn when preparing the "eau-de-cologne". Stas found traces of nicotine in
all of them.
So how had Stas made the breakthrough? Vegetable poisons are alkaline, and
soluble in both water and alcohol. The substances of which the human body are made are
soluble either in water or in alcohol, or else they are insoluble in both. If the material
is reduced to a pulp, and exposed to alcohol to which an acid has been added, the
resultant filtrate will take with it those substances soluble in alcohol together with the
poison, leaving behind the insoluble bodily substances. Water could then be used to
dissolve the poison, leaving behind those bodily substances insoluble in water. The
crucial thing therefore was the mixture of alcohol and acid. The organs had, it will be
recalled, been preserved in alcohol - and the acid? Bocarmé had added this himself - the
vinegar.
At the trial in the following May, the two defendants had no recourse but to
accuse each other. The Countess admitted that she had helped to murder her brother but
said that her husband had compelled her by brute force. The Count admitted he had made the
poison but said he had stored it in a wine bottle and his wife had given it to her
brother. It was a feeble lie that fooled no-one. It was obvious from the appearance of the
body that Gustave had died violently, probably being held down while the nicotine was
forced down his throat. Bocarmé must have thought that his rank would protect him. A
court reporter wrote of him "His air of assurance is prodigious". His counsel
painted the Countess as a designing woman and sought the sympathy of the court by pointing
out that his client had had a disturbed upbringing. The Count was found guilty of murder,
but the Countess, to the indignation of the populace was acquitted, it is said because the
jury could not bear to send a lady to the guillotine. There were no such scruples about
her husband, however, and despite his petitioning the King, Bocarmé went to the scaffold
the following July.
Stas earned lasting fame, and his method of identifying the alkaloid poisons is
fundamentally the same as that used today.
Linda Stratmann
…………………………………
©Linda Stratmann
References:
Murder Whatdunnit by J. H. H. Gaute and Robin Odell
The Murderer's Who's Who by J. H. H. Gaute and Robin Odell
Proof of Poison by Jurgen Thorwald.
Country Copper by G. H. Totterdell.
...................................................
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