Particularly in Britain there have been some notorious male serial poisoners, including Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, who dispatched a string of prostitutes with strychnine in the late 1800s. His Victorian compatriot, Dr. William Palmer, used the same substance to murder his motherin-law, his brother, four children, an uncle, various creditors, and a close friend. The most notorious serial poisoner in recent British history was, in many ways, the most remarkable: a precociously brilliant, remorseless psychopath who began his homicidal career while still in his boyhood. Just three months after his birth in 1947, Graham Young’s mother died. Initially, the infant was cared for by his aunt. At two, he was sent to live with his father, who had since remarried. Later, psychiatrists would trace Young’s extreme psychopathology—his utter inability to feel human warmth or empathy—to the loss of his mother at such a critical moment in his emotional development. His lifelong obsession with poison manifested itself from an early age.
