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American Morning

Maryland Teen Facing First Degree Murder Charges For Poisoning Friend

Aired January 10, 2003 - 08:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: There is a Maryland teen facing first degree murder charges for spiking his friend's drink with cyanide. Seventeen-year-old Benjamin Vassiliev died this week after drinking a poison soda. Court records indicate that 18-year-old Ryan Furlough bought the cyanide online.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta now joins us to talk about cyanide poison, other effects there.

And, doctor, good morning to you.

Happy Friday.

Good to see you, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: I know you're a doctor, but I know you've also looked into the possibility of purchasing cyanide online. How easy or how tough is it?

GUPTA: You know, it's remarkably easy, Bill, to purchase cyanide online, as well as several other highly toxic substances. These are substances you can buy on chemical Web sites, other Web sites, all sorts of things. In fact, we had some producers right here in the newsroom just for our own little internal test to try and do it themselves. They actually, as you can see there, scrolled through the click. They actually clicked on potassium cyanide. These are just three or four clicks. It tells you it's toxic there. You can see the skull and crossbones. And then it gives you a price. I think this one was about 110 bucks. And you can actually click it, purchase it and have it sent to your home.

Potassium cyanide, a substance that people have known for a long time to be very toxic, Bill. So you can just see there, we did it ourselves. You can see how easy it is to buy cyanide, along with several other toxic substances -- Bill.

HEMMER: Yes, and what about -- cyanide is actually found in a lot of products that people probably don't even consider.

GUPTA: Yes.

HEMMER: Tell us about that.

GUPTA: That's right, yes. We actually tried to look and see where else you could find cyanide, other places you might find it. We have a list, I think, of some various places where cyanide is actually found and used. Common places, pesticides, metal strippers, metal plating solutions. You can buy that sort of stuff at, you know, hardware stores, hobby shops, electronics stores, things like that. The most remarkable thing, Bill, as you know, is you don't need an I.D. to buy any of that. A teenager, certainly a kid could go in there and buy any of that stuff and take it home. And there you would have quite a bit of cyanide there, as well -- Bill.

HEMMER: Yes, take us through, quickly, the symptoms this individual experienced and perhaps others experience. And then after that, I want you to explain to us why it took five days in this case for this person essentially to die.

GUPTA: OK, right. Well, you know, cyanide is something that people have studied for a long time. We've heard about it with the Tylenol poisonings about 20 years ago, the Jim Jones poisonings back in 1978. Basically what happens when someone gets a cyanide poisoning is that the, it actually interferes with all of the body's ability to get oxygen. So none of the cells in the body are getting any oxygen. And you can see what some of the symptoms are that actually occur when that happens, all sorts of different things will happen.

Patients will, first of all, there'll be this faint almond smell. And that's sort of important, Bill, because that's probably the only sort of distinguishing characteristic of cyanide. It's hard to taste otherwise. It's hard to smell otherwise, besides the faint almond. People feel dizzy, perhaps initially, convulsions/seizures, foaming at the mouth. That's sort of what people typically think of when they think of a cyanide poisoning. And finally, complete organ shutdown and death.

Bill, as far as this particular case five days, that is probably a bit unusual. Usually cyanide will actually kill much more quickly than that. We're talking about hours here. What happens when someone goes to the hospital, you can see sort of, I've got a list of what happens when someone actually gets there. They're going to actually try and support that person by putting them on a ventilator and trying to give them the oxygen back. They're probably going to try a medication to try and get the body to rid itself of cyanide. Sometimes that works well, sometimes not as well. And finally pump the stomach just for obvious reasons. There's cyanide in the stomach, they've got to pump it.

But, Bill, when a person comes into the hospital with cyanide poisoning, that's pretty unusual. First they've got to figure out that's what it is and then do these things. Five days is a little bit of a long time. Probably what happened in this boy's case is that he, his organs just gradually shut down and he subsequently died with really no recourse for doctors or the hospital -- Bill.

HEMMER: A startling story nonetheless.

Thank you, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes. HEMMER: Sanjay Gupta looking at that for us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Poisoning Friend>


Aired January 10, 2003 - 08:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: There is a Maryland teen facing first degree murder charges for spiking his friend's drink with cyanide. Seventeen-year-old Benjamin Vassiliev died this week after drinking a poison soda. Court records indicate that 18-year-old Ryan Furlough bought the cyanide online.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta now joins us to talk about cyanide poison, other effects there.

And, doctor, good morning to you.

Happy Friday.

Good to see you, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: I know you're a doctor, but I know you've also looked into the possibility of purchasing cyanide online. How easy or how tough is it?

GUPTA: You know, it's remarkably easy, Bill, to purchase cyanide online, as well as several other highly toxic substances. These are substances you can buy on chemical Web sites, other Web sites, all sorts of things. In fact, we had some producers right here in the newsroom just for our own little internal test to try and do it themselves. They actually, as you can see there, scrolled through the click. They actually clicked on potassium cyanide. These are just three or four clicks. It tells you it's toxic there. You can see the skull and crossbones. And then it gives you a price. I think this one was about 110 bucks. And you can actually click it, purchase it and have it sent to your home.

Potassium cyanide, a substance that people have known for a long time to be very toxic, Bill. So you can just see there, we did it ourselves. You can see how easy it is to buy cyanide, along with several other toxic substances -- Bill.

HEMMER: Yes, and what about -- cyanide is actually found in a lot of products that people probably don't even consider.

GUPTA: Yes.

HEMMER: Tell us about that.

GUPTA: That's right, yes. We actually tried to look and see where else you could find cyanide, other places you might find it. We have a list, I think, of some various places where cyanide is actually found and used. Common places, pesticides, metal strippers, metal plating solutions. You can buy that sort of stuff at, you know, hardware stores, hobby shops, electronics stores, things like that. The most remarkable thing, Bill, as you know, is you don't need an I.D. to buy any of that. A teenager, certainly a kid could go in there and buy any of that stuff and take it home. And there you would have quite a bit of cyanide there, as well -- Bill.

HEMMER: Yes, take us through, quickly, the symptoms this individual experienced and perhaps others experience. And then after that, I want you to explain to us why it took five days in this case for this person essentially to die.

GUPTA: OK, right. Well, you know, cyanide is something that people have studied for a long time. We've heard about it with the Tylenol poisonings about 20 years ago, the Jim Jones poisonings back in 1978. Basically what happens when someone gets a cyanide poisoning is that the, it actually interferes with all of the body's ability to get oxygen. So none of the cells in the body are getting any oxygen. And you can see what some of the symptoms are that actually occur when that happens, all sorts of different things will happen.

Patients will, first of all, there'll be this faint almond smell. And that's sort of important, Bill, because that's probably the only sort of distinguishing characteristic of cyanide. It's hard to taste otherwise. It's hard to smell otherwise, besides the faint almond. People feel dizzy, perhaps initially, convulsions/seizures, foaming at the mouth. That's sort of what people typically think of when they think of a cyanide poisoning. And finally, complete organ shutdown and death.

Bill, as far as this particular case five days, that is probably a bit unusual. Usually cyanide will actually kill much more quickly than that. We're talking about hours here. What happens when someone goes to the hospital, you can see sort of, I've got a list of what happens when someone actually gets there. They're going to actually try and support that person by putting them on a ventilator and trying to give them the oxygen back. They're probably going to try a medication to try and get the body to rid itself of cyanide. Sometimes that works well, sometimes not as well. And finally pump the stomach just for obvious reasons. There's cyanide in the stomach, they've got to pump it.

But, Bill, when a person comes into the hospital with cyanide poisoning, that's pretty unusual. First they've got to figure out that's what it is and then do these things. Five days is a little bit of a long time. Probably what happened in this boy's case is that he, his organs just gradually shut down and he subsequently died with really no recourse for doctors or the hospital -- Bill.

HEMMER: A startling story nonetheless.

Thank you, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes. HEMMER: Sanjay Gupta looking at that for us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Poisoning Friend>