The Count of Bocarmé and the first nicotine murder
Belgium, 1850
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 November 1850, Gustave Fougnies died at the Château de Bitremont, in Belgium, during a dinner at the home of his sister and his brother-in-law, Count Hippolyte de Bocarmé. The count, deep in debt, stood to lose the family inheritance if his brother-in-law married, which was about to happen. The death was presented as a sudden illness.
The chemist Jean Servais Stas developed a method for isolating alkaloids from human tissue and proved that the victim had been poisoned with nicotine, which the count had distilled from tobacco leaves grown on the estate. It was the first conviction for poisoning with a pure plant substance. The count was executed in 1851.
Sources
In the game
Sweet Smoke
La Perla cigar factory, Havana, 1957, 4:05 pm. Don Aurelio Echevarría, 71, owner of the factory, died at 3:40 pm in his own office.
The game borrows the indebted relative who poisons a family member with nicotine so as not to lose an inheritance. 1950s Havana, the characters and the outcome are fiction.
