Yesterday, a hot search entry touched the hearts of many people.
Zhu Ling, a talented woman from Tsinghua University, finally died of a brain tumor on December 22 at the age of 50 after suffering from the sequelae of thallium poisoning for nearly 30 years.
Whenever there is a new development in Zhu Ling's story, the unfamiliar chemical name "thallium" is always brought up.
This highly toxic chemical, which should have been kept in laboratories and other regulatory places and should be strictly supervised, has appeared from time to time in various poisoning and homicide cases around the world, causing many innocent lives.
(Zhu Ling)
In the 80s of the last century, 4 out of 7 Peggy people living in Florida, USA, were diagnosed with thallium poisoning.
The local police investigated all the suspicious people in the town and still did not find the real culprit, and the case was deadlocked for more than 1 year.
In order to find the real culprit behind the murder, Susan, a brave policewoman, volunteered to pretend to be a tenant and approached George, a neighbor who was suspected of committing a major crime.
She went to great lengths to build a relationship with George's family and gather evidence.
(Undercover policewoman Susan)
After more than a year of undercover investigation, she was arrested by the poisoned George.
The police found the remaining thallium preparations in his home and confirmed that the killer had sent threatening letters because he hated the Peggy children playing loud music in the yard.
The letter emphasized that if Peggy's family did not move out within two weeks, they would be devastated.
At the end of the story, Peggy's family did not receive immediate treatment after being sent to the hospital because the incubation period of poisoning was too long and the symptoms were unknown, and 1 of the 4 people eventually died and 2 were paralyzed.
George was sentenced to death at the age of 73 and is still in prison awaiting execution.
Also in the United States, in March 2018, Zhu Wan, a student at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, felt numb in his tongue and a noticeable burning sensation in his mouth after drinking a bottle of mineral water in his dormitory.
He immediately rinsed his mouth with water, but the burning sensation intensified in the next few days.
(Zhu Wan)
Over the next two weeks, Zhu Wan repeatedly felt that something was wrong with his drinking water, food, and mouthwash, and in addition to oral and esophageal discomfort, he also experienced symptoms of dizziness, nausea, weight loss, and headaches and abdominal pain.
Zhu Wan told his roommate, Yang Yukai, an international student, about this strange incident.
The other party insisted that outsiders had invaded their room and manipulated Zhu Wan's food.
Even at Yang Yukai's insistence, Zhu Wan called the police, but the police did not find the slightest trace of outsiders' invasion in the dormitory of the two, and the matter was over.
(Yang Yukai, Zhu Wan)
No one expected that two weeks later, Zhu Wan's condition worsened again, and he was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, and was diagnosed with thallium poisoning, but luckily picked up a life.
This time, the police had to focus their suspicious eyes on his roommate Yang Yukai, who got along with him day and night.
In the process of collecting evidence, the police found that the words ", get out" were written on Zhu Wan's bed and table, and the font was strikingly similar to Yang Yukai's handwriting.
Later, the police found records of the purchase of thallium preparations in his computer.
In this process, since Zhu Wan was diagnosed with thallium poisoning, Yang Yukai quickly evaporated.
However, the legal net was restored, and with the efforts of the police, Yang Yukai was arrested.
In the face of ironclad evidence, he argued that the thallium preparation was prepared for himself, and he committed suicide by taking poison if his grades dropped in Xi one day, but Zhu Wan just accidentally took it by mistake.
In fact, before Yang Yukai's murder, he was indeed shortlisted for the dean of Lehigh University for three consecutive years.
To be included in this list, only students in the top 10%-15% are usually eligible.
At the same time, he also won the highest level of the Lehigh University Prize in Chemistry.
Talking about the state at the time of the murder, he said that he was too concerned about his grades to face the slightest failure in his studies, and the pressure caused him to go crazy and jealous.
He is jealous that Zhu Wan's grades are also excellent and positive, and he is also very popular among his classmates, and he often invites others to his home as guests.
In the last year of college, Zhu Wan planned to move out of the dormitory, which made Yang Yukai feel even more isolated and left behind, so he became murderous.
However, such an excuse did not exonerate him, and Yang Yukai eventually pleaded guilty to the charge of "attempted murder" and was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in prison, after which he will be deported.
Cases like Yang Yukai's poisoning of acquaintances around him have also happened in Japan.
In 2019, when the Japanese police were trying a homicide case, they accidentally discovered that the suspect who killed a 70-year-old woman, a female college student, Orichi Wanria, seemed to be related to several bizarre poisoning cases.
The real culprit of the Nagoya poisoning case: Vanya Ouchi, a female college student
As the police continued to question her, Ouchi admitted that she had poisoned two of her classmates when she was in high school.
The first poisoning took place around May 2012.
She mixed thallium preparation, a highly toxic substance, into the female classmate's drink, but fortunately, the girl felt that the drink tasted wrong and spit it out, so she did not cause personal injury.
The second poisoning took place between May and July 2012.
This time, she mixed thallium preparations into the drinks of boys at the same table twice, and the other party experienced abdominal pain, hair loss, vision loss and other symptoms after drinking, and was diagnosed with thallium poisoning after being sent to the hospital.
Later, the boy had to drop out of school because of his weakened eyesight and was transferred to a special school for the disabled.
However, due to the small dose ingested by the victim in this poisoning case, and due to the long incubation period of the disease, the chain of evidence of poisoning was destroyed, and other reasons, the police did not find the real culprit of poisoning, so Ouchi Wanria escaped pursuit.
The real culprit of the Nagoya poisoning case: Vanya Ouchi, a female college student
It wasn't until 2019, after Ouchi Wanria was arrested for murdering the old woman again, that the police looked through her past history and finally confirmed that she had poisoned others with thallium many times.
In the end, she was convicted of several crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In October 2023, Japanese police arrested a 37-year-old man, Kazuki Miyamoto, for intentional homicide.
The crime is suspected of killing Hinako Hamano, a college girl, by poisoning him with thallium.
During the trial of Miyamoto Kazuki, the police also had an "unexpected" gain.
It turned out that Kazuki Miyamoto's aunt was also hospitalized for poisoning in July 2020 and is still in a coma.
During the treatment, the doctor extracted a small amount of thallium from Aunt Miyamoto's urine.
Coincidentally, in October of the same year, Miyamoto succeeded his aunt as the head of the family real estate company.
The police therefore suspect that Miyamoto used thallium preparations to poison her aunt three years ago for personal gain.
However, Miyamoto has been silent in denying the new police charges, and the case is still being heard.
From the above malignant incidents, it can be seen that the symptoms of thallium poisoning have a common characteristic, that is, the incubation period is long, it is not easy to be detected immediately, and it is easy to be misdiagnosed and misdiagnosed.
And this is also an important reason why many ill-intentioned people choose "thallium" as a tool for committing crimes.
As a heavy metal, thallium is widely used in electronics, military industry, aerospace, chemical industry, metallurgy and other industries.
Thallium was initially used in the medical field because it can treat diseases such as tinea capitis, but it was found to be highly toxic and began to be added to rodenticide, insecticide, and anti-mildew agents.
Thallium is colorless, odorless and easily soluble in water, which can damage health and even endanger life after being accidentally eaten.
Symptoms of poisoning include hair loss, pain in the limbs, hair loss, gastrointestinal reactions, neurological damage, etc.
1 gram of thallium can cause human death, even if the rescue is timely, if the degree of poisoning is too deep, it will cause irreversible consequences such as muscle atrophy and permanent damage to the liver and kidneys to the patient.
Schematic diagram of thallium poisoning symptoms
Although thallium detoxification can promote the excretion of thallium ions using Prussian blue, the medical community has not yet found an ideal cure for the sequelae associated with thallium poisoning.
Schematic diagram of thallium poisoning symptoms
In clinical medicine, thallium poisoning is relatively rare, and has the characteristics of long onset time and unknown initial symptoms, so it is easy for poisoned patients to be misdiagnosed at the beginning, which will cause extremely serious consequences.
From this, it can be seen that thallium must be controlled very strictly.
At present, the world has its own set of requirements for the sale and management of thallium.
The mainland has strict regulations and clear guidelines for the detailed requirements for thallium sales channels, sales quantities and storage locations.
Under normal circumstances, there must be a certificate issued by the relevant unit to purchase thallium through formal channels.
Even if you have a hazardous chemicals business license, selling hazardous chemicals to individuals without authorization is still suspected of the crime of illegal trade in dangerous substances, which constitutes a criminal offense.
After reading these human tragedies caused by "thallium", I believe many people have a common feeling: compared to the hopelessness of thallium, what really makes people feel frightened is actually those devils who hide around the crowd and wear masks.
Evil, jealousy, and selfishness in human nature are far more deadly than the thallium that "seals its throat when it sees blood".
I hope that Zhu Ling, who just celebrated his 50th birthday on November 24 this year, will go to heaven and earth on the day of the winter solstice, and will always be accompanied by the sound of the piano.