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Andrew Consalvo, David Luukko, Luke Dubrosky
The Wall’s were found dead in their raised ranch home in Bristol, Connecticut on May 7, 2017. Pronounced dead at the scene, 45 year old father Carlton Wall, and his wife Jasmine Wall, were found in their bed leading authorities to believe they died in their sleep. The two children, Jackson, age 10 and his older sister Susan, age 15 were both found dead at the breakfast table. The incident seemed to occur right before the two took off for school and there was something unusual about the bodies. When the neighbors were questioned all fingers pointed to the maid, who was the only other person with access to their house, and she had been there that morning making the children's breakfast. The children had missed the last four days of school with a reported illness. Neither parent had been into work for a few days as well, leading forensic scientists to be of suspicion. How had these innocent people died so quickly and what was the cause?
The family's bodies were taken to examiners to determine the cause of death. Noticeable organ failures were present in the livers and kidneys of all four, potentially being an ingested toxin. Through further examinations there was signs of internal bleeding and signs of large scale organ failure. This was all too much to be coincidental, so another step was taken. Detectives interrogated the children's school and asked why they had reported out sick. The noted reason of absence was cramping, vomiting, hallucinations, and seizures. Similar results were gathered for the parents absence from work as well. Based on symptoms the victims had before hand, and the cause of death recorded, investigators believe ricin was used to kill the family.
In order to figure out if the poison really had been ricin, samples of the families livers were delivered for examination. The method used is called time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay, this method isolates the ricin by adding antibodies. These antibodies bond with the ricin and then can be removed by the scientists. If it had not been ricin, it would not have bonded to the antibodies. The reason why this is so accurate in collecting the ricin is because it is designed to draw any ricin out of an environment and only ricin. The sample of ricin was then separated from its antibodies by using lactose to remove all surface bonding. The sample of ricin is then dried and weighed revealing 40 micrograms, 2-8 times the lethal dose, in each of the victims bodies. Ricin was definitely the poison used, now all that is left is linking it to the culprit.
Citations
Wednesday, May 31st, 2017, the trial began. With the evidence piling up against the maid, there seemed to be little hope for her. The prosecution claimed that she had a tin of ricin with her fingerprints all over it. They then began to explain the science behind it, displaying evidence of the poison in each victim's system. They explained their method of ricin extraction and how to determine the lethal dosage. While the actual science is confusing, the overall statement was without a doubt, that ricin killed the family. Once the scientists explained only ricin was extracted from the samples, without it being mistaken for another chemical, there was little defense left. The jury was in favor of forensic science. The maid was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
The quaternary structure of ricin is a globular, glycosylated heterodimer of approximately 60–65 kDa. Ricin toxin A chain and ricin toxin B chain are of similar molecular weights, approximately 32 kDa and 34 kDa, respectively.
Ricin toxic A chain (RTA) is an N-glycoside hydrolase composed of 267 amino acids. It has three structural domains with approximately 50% of the polypeptide arranged into alpha-helices and beta-sheets. The three domains form a pronounced cleft that is the active site of RTA.
Ricin toxic B chain (RTB) is a lectin composed of 262 amino acids that is able to bind terminal galactose residues on cell surfaces. RTB forms a bilobal, barbell-like structure lacking alpha-helices or beta-sheets where individual lobes contain three subdomains. At least one of these three subdomains in each homologous lobe possesses a sugar-binding pocket that gives RTB its functional character.
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“Ricin.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 1 Apr.
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“Ricin.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 May 2017,
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