Poison kills grandmother and 4-year-old grandson in Brooklyn, months-old mystery deaths now deemed homicides
A 4-year-old Brooklyn boy and his grandmother were poisoned three months apart last year, with both fatally dosed using a tasteless and odorless product once used to kill vermin, police sources said Thursday.
The child’s parents were in the middle of a custody battle when little Wilhelm Ducatl fell suddenly ill on May 24, 2021, police sources said.
Cops responded to a call for help from the boy’s Bensonhurst home to find the tot complaining of severe stomach pains, police said. Medics rushed him to Maimonides Hospital in critical condition, where he died two days later.
After the medical examiner’s office told police the boy was possibly poisoned, cops launched an investigation into the Feb. 17, 2021, death of the boy’s 63-year-old maternal grandmother, Tafoon Man. The Lower East Side resident was staying at the boy’s home when she also began suffering from stomach pains before passing away at Mount Sinai Brooklyn.
The city medical examiner’s office ruled Wednesday that the boy and his grandmother were homicide victims. There were no immediate arrests.
Both victims died of acute thallium poisoning, police sources said.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, thallium was discovered in 1861 and used across the centuries by murderers because of the difficulty in detecting its presence. It was typically employed to kill rats or mice but its production was banned in the U.S. back in 1984 due to its toxicity from even accidental exposure.
