In other words, many people should be impressed by the classic American drama "Breaking Bad":
The terminally ill high school chemistry teacher Walter White (commonly known as Lao Bai) in order to make a sum of money for his wife and children, he did not hesitate to take risks, made high-purity methamphetamine in the laboratory, and gradually cultivated into the world's top drug lord...
Who would have thought that the fictional "poisoner" story now has a realistic version:
Recently, the Clark County Court in Arkansas heard a drug-making case in which two chemistry professors, Terry Bateman and Bradley Rowland, from Henderson State University, were the protagonists of the case.
They were accused by prosecutors of collaborating in the production of high-purity methamphetamine in university laboratories.
What is even more unexpected is that Bateman left the lawyer aside and defended himself, and he showed a touching teacher image in the courtroom who painstakingly restored the plot of "Breaking Bad", just to give the students the touching teacher image of "science popularization drug production process".
In the end, the jury actually believed that he was innocent and was acquitted...
Professor Bateman
emmmmm......
According to Bradley Rowland, another main culprit in the case, chemistry professor, everything was originally bateman's head.
Both were colleagues at Henderson State University, bateman specializing in organic synthesis, rowland specializing in theoretical chemistry, and one of the senior members of the American Chemical Society, both of whom had nothing to do with drugs.
Professor Rowland
One day in 2014, however, Bateman mysteriously ran to his office and told him and several other chemistry professors that he had found a whole bunch of phenylacetic acid.
Ordinary people may have no concept of hearing things, but as soon as people who are majors in chemistry hear phenylacetic acid, the strings in their brains tighten at once.
Because phenylacetic acid is not only an intermediate in organic synthesis such as medicine, pesticides, and spices, but also an important intermediate in the synthesis of methamphetamine, and it is a controlled precursor chemical in many countries.
Bateman said to have found a whole bunch of phenylacetic acid, didn't it...
Henderson State University Laboratory
Rowland, who understood the spirit, immediately talked to Bateman privately, and after the two exchanged some ideas, they quickly reached a willingness to cooperate in drug production.
In this way, the two began to synthesize methamphetamine in the university's laboratory.
Rowland was in charge of hands-on experiments, Bateman was responsible for theoretical checks, and carefully wrote down the chemical equations for synthesizing methamphetamine and the process of making poison.
After the success of the drug production, Rowland stored the small bottle containing the methamphetamine in the safe deposit box in Bateman's office...
However, there are no impermeable walls in the world, and illegally making methamphetamine in the laboratory is definitely going to go wrong.
One day in October 2019, several students suddenly felt a pain in their chests, followed by a sweet and pungent smell.
They followed the smell and soon found that it was the laboratory used by professors Bateman and Rowland.
The students went in to check and found that someone had accidentally opened the bottle containing benzyl chloride and forgot to close it.
Finding the pungent thing was benzyl chloride, the students and other professors were nervous because the substance was one of the intermediates of making methamphetamine.
Some students immediately raised doubts:
Could it be that the two professors are making something illegal, like drugs!?
So someone ran to the police, and the local police entered Henderson State University, went straight to the science building where the two chemistry professors were located, arrested two people, and found a large amount of evidence.
In Professor Bateman's office, prosecutors found not only bottles containing methamphetamine, but also phenylacetone (commonly known as p2p), an intermediate product of synthetic methamphetamine and deoxyephedrine, and, of course, the pungent intermediate product benzyl chloride found by the students.
After bateman and Rowland, two chemistry professors, were arrested for drug production, the state university science building where they worked was forced to close for three weeks due to investigations.
After investigation, the police preliminarily concluded that the two men had been making drugs for at least more than ten months.
After entering the court trial, the facts of the case became confused, and the versions of the case confessed by the two "drug dealers" were quite different.
According to Rowland, the idea of making drugs was that Bateman started, and then the two worked together to make the drugs.
But bateman explained:
Drug production is done by Rowland alone.
For years, he himself was kept in the dark...
Recently, when it was bateman's turn to pass the court, bateman made a surprising move, he shrugged off the lawyer to defend himself, and actually exonerated the drug-making crime.
In defending himself, Bateman stressed that the bottles storing methamphetamine in the office safe belonged to his colleague Rowland, who did not know from beginning to end that they contained drugs, thinking it was ordinary chemicals.
As for the documents in the office that contain the process of synthesizing methamphetamine and related chemical equations,
Bateman said that the students are curious about the process of making drugs in the American drama "Breaking Bad", and as a teacher who is enthusiastic about answering questions for students, he should give detailed and reliable answers.
As a result, Bateman carefully wrote down the process document of synthetic methamphetamine for students to learn and observe, purely for the purpose of "popular science knowledge points".
For such reasons, the jury members actually believed it.
Not long ago, the court officially acquitted Bateman and exonerated the "drug dealer" ...
After a while, rowland, another protagonist in the "poisoner" case, will be put on trial, and Rowland's crime of participating in drug production is almost impossible to run.
Not surprisingly, he will face jail time, plus $35,000 in compensation to the school.
The chemistry professor who wrote down the detailed drug production process himself "did not participate in the drug production at all", just to give students "detailed science popularization" knowledge points in American dramas...
Such reasons can also persuade the jury to acquit him, only to say...
Reality is far more magical than TV dramas-. -