SOFT 2004 Meeting Abstracts - Society of Forensic Toxicologists

P44
FATAL CASES DUE TO CYANIDE INTOXICATION THROUGH A LOCAL SUICIDE­
FOSTERING WEBSITE
SK Lee l , JY Yang l , KW Kiml, SY Lee!, YS Park l , HS Chung*l, YC Y002; INational Institute of Scientific
Investigation, Seoul, KOREA; 2College ofPhannacy, Chungbuk National University, KOREA
With the rapid development of the infonnation technology industry, new opportunities for committing
suicide have appeared and become a social problem. With internet availability at most schools, companies
and homes, committing suicide using the information from internet websites has been increasing. An
individual opens a local suicide-fostering website that provides the infonnation for suicide, selling poisons,
recruiting members who want to commit suicide and promoting them to kill themselves together. The
poisons mainly introduced on the suicide websites are cyanide salt and pesticides. Two cases related to
cyanide salt were reported here. One man and two women in case 1 and three men and two women in case
2 were found dead in a motel on two separate occasions. Experimental grade potassium cyanide was also
discovered in both cases. Identification and quantification of cyanide ion were performed by microdiffusion
method after blood and gastric contents were collected at autopsy. Postmortem blood concentrations of
cyanide ion ranged from 53.8 to 208 flglml in case 1 and from 5.4 to 194 flg/ml in case 2. The cyanide ion
concentrations in case 2 were all over 100 flg/ml except one of the victims, where the blood concentration
was 5.4 flglml. Based upon the history, autopsy and toxicology findings, (1) the victims were in their teens
and 20s who use the internet, (2) experimental grade KCN was used in these cases while industrial grade
NaCN was used in most of the previous cases, and (3) the postmortem blood concentrations in these cases
were generally much higher than previous cases in Korea (0.4-74 flg/ml) and those reported in other
countries (1.1-53 flg/ml). The government should strengthen education for human dignity as well as poison
control in order to protect youth prone to suicide seduction.
Keywords: Cyanide, Intoxication, Internet
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