Charlie Rowley thought he'd found a treasure when he pulled a bottle of Nina Ricci perfume from a charity bin in Amesbury, England. He gave it to his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, in June 2018, but within minutes of spraying it on her wrist she collapsed—and died 10 days later. What Rowley didn't know was that the bottle contained Novichok, a deadly Russian nerve agent.
"She sprayed it and gave it a sniff and applied (it) on her wrist. And a short while after, she said she felt peculiar," Rowley told CNN. "I tried to revive her. Everything was going in slow motion." Rowley himself fell ill hours later and spent weeks in a coma. When he woke up, he was told that the poison had killed Sturgess, who was 44.
The bottle was a leftover from an earlier assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, three months before. British investigators determined Russian operatives had used Novichok to poison Skripal and his daughter in March 2018. Both survived, but the nerve agent resurfaced in the discarded bottle that Rowley unknowingly recovered.
Rowley survived but suffered severe lasting damage, losing use of his left arm and struggling with balance and vision problems. "I felt terrible, terribly guilty over that … and it's still hard to deal with today," he said. His memory has never fully recovered.
The Russian operatives responsible were identified but never arrested.
Indeed, there are many substances on our planet capable of killing humans, and some in a very short period of time. Some of these poisons have become infamous throughout history, while others are not as popular—but can be equally as deadly.
In this gallery, you'll find some of the most dangerous poisons on the planet. Click through to reveal them.