The Bovingdon factory poisonings
Bovingdon, England, 1971
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In 1971, Graham Young, then 23, left Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, where he had been held since his teens for poisoning relatives, and was hired as a storeroom assistant at John Hadland, a photographic instruments factory in Bovingdon, in the county of Hertfordshire. The company knew about the hospitalisation but not about the history of poisonings. Among his duties was fetching his colleagues' tea and coffee from the corridor trolley, and every worker had their own mug.
Soon the workers began to suffer from vomiting, cramps, pain and tingling, an outbreak the village nicknamed the "Bovingdon Bug" and blamed on a virus, the water and even radiation from a neighbouring airfield. About 70 people reported symptoms. The head of the storeroom, Bob Egle, 59, died on 7 July 1971, and Fred Biggs, 56, on 19 November. At a meeting with the company doctor, Young asked why poisoning by thallium had not been considered; his knowledge drew attention, management alerted the police, and Young was arrested in Sheerness, Kent, on 20 November 1971. In his room there was thallium, antimony and other poisons, as well as a diary of the doses given to colleagues and each one's reactions.
Sources
In the game
Marked Mug
A lens factory in a Hertfordshire village, England, 1971. Walter Pryce, 60, head of the stockroom, has died after weeks of leg pain and falling hair.
The trial began on 19 June 1972 at St Albans court. On 29 June, Young was convicted of two murders, two attempted murders and two counts of administering poison, and received a life sentence. Egle's cremated remains containing thallium were used as evidence, a first in a murder conviction in the United Kingdom, and the case led to new restrictions on the sale of poisons and a review of mental health services. Young died in Parkhurst prison on 1 August 1990. The game borrows the tea trolley, each person's mug, the question to the doctor and the notebook of doses; characters and outcome are fiction.
