Apr 07 2009
High School Girl and Graham Young.
Once upon a time. There was a teenage girl from Shizuoko, Japan. She used to have a weird fascination with a killer who was known for playing with his poisons. One day to honor this killer she decided to poison her mother, and write about it on her blog.
“WEB DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL GIRL
July 3 “Let me introduce a book: Graham Young’s diary on killing with poison. The autobiography of a man I respect. He murdered someone at the age of 14.”
September 4 “To kill a living creature. The moment of sticking a knife into something. The warmth of the blood. The little sigh. It is all a comfort to me.”
September 26 ”My mother will go to hospital tomorrow and nobody has yet found out what the cause is. To my regret, she is not covered by good insurance, so life will be a little difficult.”
October ”I took a photo of her today as I did yesterday. My brother said I had a penetrating stare and that he was horrified.”
October ”According to my aunt, my mother has started having hallucinations. She seems to be suffering from insects that don’t exist or white shadows by the door.”(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article585815.ece)
What kind of person influenced her you ask? Well that is a simple answer you find if you read on. 
Graham Young was born on September 7,1947. He was a very strange little boy. At the age of nine he would steal his mothers perfume and nail polish. He wanted to find out what chemicals they contained and to get high off the fumes. The little boy had strange heros as well, just like the little girl in Japan. Instead of admiring himself though he admired Adolf Hitler and people who used poison to murder others. He would lock himself in his room and do experiments with a chemistry set that his father had bought him. Graham would soon go from blowing up the neighbors wall to poisoning innocent animals. One day he grew tired of poisoning animals, in his mind it was time for bigger and better subjects to experiment on. So Graham Young turned to his friends from school. Graham quickly grew dissatisfied with poisoning his friends. He couldn’t be around them all the time to constantly observe the affect of the poison. He needed subjects that he could constantly watch, so he thought “What better subjects then hisown family?”
He started with his step-mother first, Molly Young. In September,1961 Molly young began to experience vomiting, diarrhea and extreme stomach pains. His father took her to the hospital but they couldn’t find out what was wrong. Molly was sent back home. Soon after poisoning Molly, Graham moved on to his entire family. Fred young his father, and his sister, Winifred. Soon the whole family came down with the case of vomiting and body aches. Graham sometimes experience the ordeal himself. Only when he forgot what food he put the poison in.
In November 1961 Winifred started to have hallucinations. One day she was taking the train to work. Winifred started seeing things. The hallucinations had gotten so bad that she even needed help out of the train station. Later that even Winifred wound up in the Hospital.
It didn’t take long for doctors to discover that Winifred was suffering from poisoning. The doctors related the news to her father. Fred automatically thought his son was behind it. He went home and searched his young son’s room, but nothing was found. He even asked his son, but Graham blamed his sister. Graham told his father that Winifred did it by mixing her shampoos in the tea cups. Fred didn’t believe his son , but he had no proof that his son was involved. In the year 1962 Molly’s symptoms had grown worse. She was losing her hair. Her back was constantly aching. She had even lost weight. On Easter Sunday, Molly Young died. The people at the morgue didn’t say she died of poison though. They related her death to a prolapsed bone at the top of her spine. They blamed that on an auto accident. Later on doctors discovered that prolonged poisoning could achieve such a symptom.
During this time Graham’s father Fred was suffering from the same sickness as Molly. Fred was taken to the hospital. The Doctors didn’t have a clue what was going on with old Fred. Then Finally they came up with an answer. Fred was being poisoned, but what kind of poison they did not know. They couldn’t figure out if it was arsenic or antimony. They did know that one more dose would have killed Fred. After hearing the results about Fred, the whole family grew to suspect Graham. Some family members though were still in denial that a young boy could do such a thing. At school Graham was very involved with performing lab experiments. His experiments grew to cause his chemistry teacher Geoffrey Hughes some concern. One day Geoffrey Hughes decided to take a look inside Graham Young’s school desk. There his teacher discovered a large quantity of poisons, and varies essays written on well known poisoners. Mr Hughes knew something wasn’t right. He decided to act on his instinct and notify the police of his concern.
The police set Graham up. They invented a story that a career officer was interested in him. Instead of being a career officer though it was an undercover police psychiatrist. The police psychiatrist interviewed Graham over different chemicals. Graham excited told the undercover police psychiatrist, everything he knew about certain poisonings and the symptoms that they caused. Soon after the interview the police psychiatrist reported his finding to the police officers.
The police brought Graham in for questioning, but like always Graham denied it. After hours of questioning Graham finally broke down, and confessed. He also told the police that it became an addiction. He enjoyed watching and studying the effects of the poison. To him it was like a drug that he couldn’t live with out.Graham was convicted of poisoning his father Fred Young, his sister Winifred Young, and also his friend Chris Williams. He was sent to Broadmoor Maximum Security Hospital for fifteen years. The judge ordered the hospital to not release Graham Young without the permission from the head official. Graham was only fifteen at the time. He was known as the youngest inmate of Broadmoor since 1885.
You would think that poisoning would have stopped there. It did not. Graham Young discovered certain elements in the Hospital that could produce certain poisons. While in the Hospital Graham had managed to poison his room mate. He was also caught trying to poison the staff. He became a long joke of the facility. Every time someone knew began working at the facility they were well warned to never let Graham near their tea or coffee.Graham spent eight years at Broadmoors. He eventually seem to convince the head prison psychiatrist, that he was all better. So Dr Edgar Velwin recommended his release.
On February 4, 1971 Graham was released. His sister wanted to believe that Graham was all better so she accepted Graham back into her home. Graham finaly got a job as a store clerk at a photography firm in Bovingdon, Herfordshire. He worked at John Hadland Ltd. It didn’t take long though for Graham to go back to his old habits. Graham started to put poison in his co workers tea. Everyone started having the same symptoms. Bob Egle the store room manager, was the first to die. Then Fred Biggs the stock supervisor followed after. Soon Graham had to start mixing up poisons to cause his victims to have different symptoms. He knew if all his victims had the same symptoms soon the cops would realize what was going on. A staff meeting was called for all the employees. At this staff meeting a doctor was invited to talk with the fellow workers and convince them everything was all right. Some of the workers grew worried they were thinking it was a hygiene problem but the doctor put their mind to ease. Graham for some unknown reason began to ask the Doctor questions. He asked the doctor why they ruled out poisoning as a result of so many getting sick.
The doctor was concerned and stunned actually. It didn’t make sense that this man would be so concerned. It really didn’t make since that he knew more about what was causing the symptoms then the doctors. The doctor went to the police. The police went to Winifred’s house and searched Graham Young’s bedroom. There they found the evidence to put Graham Young away for life. They found his journal. Graham wrote down those he poisoned and how much was given to each victim. He wrote down the symptoms that they suffered, and how long it took for the poisons to show they were taking effect. The journal was filled with notes as if it was made to record science experiments. Saturday, November 21,1971 Graham was arrested.He was charged of two murders, two attempted murders, and two counts for administering poison. Graham was sentence to four counts of life imprisonment, each with consecutive five year sentences. He served his sentence at Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. He died in 1990 at the age of forty-two of a heart attack.
Besides inspiring the highschool girl Graham Young also inspired the makings of these.
Movie: The young poisoner’s handbook
Book: The St, Alban’s Poisoner
Song: Poison by Macabre
Taste the pain by Church of Mysery.
My Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/graham_young
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/graham_young
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article585815.ec
