Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
This Kid Is a Serial Killer - The Graham Young story
Mon, 03 Feb 2025
This is the story of Graham Young aka the Teacup Poisoner
Chapter 1: Who is Graham Young and what are his obsessions?
So this kid, his name's Graham. And Graham is just weird. All right, so Graham is 14 and he's obsessed with, of all things, poison. He reads a lot about poisons at home. He's always looking at chemistry and toxicology books at school and at the local library. Kid's just a weird ass. But one day, Graham decides that just reading about poison isn't enough. He needs to get his hands on some.
Chapter 2: How does Graham obtain poison?
And so he goes to the local chemist and he convinces the chemist that he's actually older, 17, and that he needs some chemicals for study purposes, for school. And so the chemist gives him access to some anemones, some digitalis, some arsenic, and some thallium. Hope I said all that right. And now Graham has everything he needs to start poisoning people, which he does.
Chapter 3: What methods does Graham use to poison his classmates and family?
He poisons one of his classmates at school by sprinkling some lead acetate on his cookies and cakes, and the kid ends up barfing all over the place. He also starts poisoning his family at home, sneaking chemicals into their dinners and their drinks, and his family starts getting these weird bouts of sickness off and on, like random stomach pain and diarrhea.
He even poisons himself a couple of times. Probably sometimes by accident, but also probably sometimes to avoid suspicion. Like he doesn't want to be the only one in his family not getting sick. Like that looks suspect. Now, Graham's sister, who we'll just call sister, she gets lucky. She manages to mostly escape getting poisoned because she usually eats at her boyfriend's house. Not at home.
Chapter 4: What happens when Graham's sister is poisoned?
But one day, Graham manages to poison her, too. He sneaks a belladonna, a toxic plant, into her tea. And so she gets sick, really sick. And they rush her to the hospital, and the doctors are like, yeah, girl, you were poisoned. Now, at this point, both Graham's dad and sister, they believe that Graham had something to do with sister getting poisoned. I mean, how could they not?
He's a weird-ass kid obsessed with poison. But dad and sister think that Graham probably just poisoned her by accident, like he was just goofing around. Now, I don't know how someone would accidentally poison someone, but okay. Anyway, then a few months later, Graham's stepmom gets really sick, because he's been poisoning her with antimony and eventually thallium.
Chapter 5: How does Graham's stepmother's death raise suspicions?
So they rush her to the hospital, and later that night, stepmom dies. This weird-ass kid just unalived his own stepmom. And because her death is kind of sudden and mysterious, doctors have no idea that she was poisoned. They assume she died from a prolapsed cervical disc from a bus accident she got into a while back.
I mean, this all went down in the 60s, so I guess the practice of medicine just wasn't where it is now. Anyway, meanwhile, Graham has been poisoning his dad this whole time too. And so then dad, he gets extremely sick, and then he gets put in the hospital. Now at this point, some people are getting suspicious about Graham, particularly his science teacher at school.
Chapter 6: What events lead to Graham's father's hospitalization?
So science teacher goes and he searches Graham's school desk one day and bam, he finds bottles of poison and notes about other infamous poisoners. And so he reports this to the headmaster of the school, and they get in touch with the family doctor, and they all agree that they gotta go call the police, because Graham is obviously up to some shady .
And so police, they go arrest him, and he admits to poisoning his father, his sister, and his classmate. And so at 14 years old, he gets admitted to Broadmoor, a psychiatric hospital, and he's one of the youngest patients to ever be admitted there. So, congratulations? But even while he's locked up there in Broadmoor, he's still low-key poisoning people.
Like some of the staff and the patients sometimes find that their drinks have been tampered with. One of the fellow inmates ends up dying with cyanide in his system. Like some shady stuff. Regardless, years go by and Graham, he wants out of this place. And over time, he gets really good at lying and hiding his obsession with poisoning people. And this unfortunately works.
After eight years in the psychiatric hospital, when he's 23 years old, he finally gets released. And he immediately goes right back to poisoning people. He starts staying in a hostel where he poisons people there. Then he gets a job in a photography supply business and he starts spiking his coworkers tea and coffee and they all get sick.
Then he poisons his manager at work and manager gets really sick and dies. Then another coworker of his gets sick and this coworker is admitted to the hospital and within about two weeks, boom, he dies. But this time, the doctors are pretty sure he ingested something toxic. Meanwhile, the management at the photography supply business, they're all getting suspicious.
Like, why are we all getting sick all of a sudden? And they start an internal investigation. So the company's medical officer comes to the store to talk with the staff. And he tells the staff, you know, I don't think you guys were actually poisoned. And Graham is there, and he starts arguing with the medical officer. Like, of course they were poisoned. I mean, look at all their symptoms.
Like he was there defending his work or something. And so the medical officer realizes that Graham has a suspiciously deep knowledge of poisons. And he tells management, and management contacts police. So eventually police search Graham's house and there they find poisons and diaries detailing all of his crimes. And then kapow, he gets arrested.
And I don't have a mugshot, but here's how he looked in real life. And so eventually Graham goes to trial and he's ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Weird ass.
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