Hi, everyone. Welcome to Bench. Now, I'm sure you've all heard the expression as American

as Apple Pie. Well, as American as Apple Pie is, there may be nothing more English than an afternoon cup of tea, and if you were to transpose this reasoning to the dark terrain of true crime, you could also say that a fatal poisoning is as English a thing as a mass shooting is American. That's how stark the cultural differences are when it comes to violence. In his humorous essay, The Decline of the English Murder, George Orwell complained about the

lack of patience and imagination in modern murders compared to the murders of the past. And this essay was first published in 1946. So one can only imagine how horrified Orwell would be in 2022 by how much more the quality of murders has deteriorated. But in his essay, he described the hypothetical perfect English murder. And of course, the weapon of choice was poison.

A year after Orwell's essay was published and surely unrelated to and uninfluenced by this essay, the most English of serial killers was born. One who would come to be known as the Tea Cup Poisoner. In fact, there was a movie made about the Tea Cup Poisoner back in 1995 called the Young Poisoner's Handbook. So if your pantry is stocked with tea, now may be a good time to brew some, as we begin our story about the Tea Cup Poisoner.

Founded in the early 1960s, John Hadlin Laboratories, known to local as Hadlins, was a manufacturer of camera equipment based in the village of Bovingdon, some 30 miles north of London. And by 1971, Hadlins occupied a spacious building that employed about 75 people, with the company store room housed in a long, barn-like extension from the main offices.

It was on a weekday afternoon in late May of 1971 that 41-year-old store room employee, Ron Huitt's workday, was interrupted by a sudden bout of diarrhea.

Now, this is something that, you know, happens to the best of us, but Ron's cramps persisted throughout the work week. It seemed like he'd come down with some kind of stomach bug, he thought.

And it was only once the weekend arrived that his symptoms started to ease. And by Monday, when Ron returned to work, his discomfort was pretty much gone.

But then, by late Monday afternoon, his stomach cramps returned. And he once again spent much of the rest of the week doubled over on the toilet.

And Ron wasn't alone. On the first of June, 59-year-old store room supervisor Bob Agla, a World War II vet, just a couple of years away from retirement,

suddenly became ill with a bout of diarrhea that was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. And these debilitating cramps were accompanied by other random symptoms, like a strange burning sensation in his throat.

Now, all of this was unusual for Bob and worrisome, because Bob was a man who, up to this point, had always been in robust health and almost never got sick.

He had braved the battlefields of Dunkirk during the Second World War. And unlike many of his army buddies, he made it out the other end unscathed.

He'd gone through much of his life seemingly invincible. But now, there was a new, invisible enemy, battering Bob's insides.

And he was growing increasingly powerless against it. His symptoms lingered and intensified throughout the first week of June,

during which he also developed headaches so severe that he was popping coating tablets.

So now, both Bob and his younger coworker, Ron, were experiencing waves of similar symptoms over the course of the next few weeks.

But then, Ron's time at Hadlands came to an end as he took a job with another company.

And miraculously, this stubborn stomach flu disappeared as soon as he began his new job.

So at this point, it's sounding like it could be something similar to what we now call sick building syndrome,

where employees at a specific work site become chronically ill as a result of exposure to something in the workplace.

Sometimes it's mold, other times it's bacteria or a virus, or even just an excess of allergens.

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