Boing Boing: Murdered spy Litvinenko was killed with radioactive teapot

British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a “hot” teapot at Londons Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing.

Holy CRAP, what a development. I suspect that actually the poison was introduced into the tea so that Litvinenko would drink it, and the radioactivity is just a carryover of that. How horrifying to think of all the people afterwards who might have used the teapot, or handled it, but fortunately it was probably washed out enough so that no one else was in danger of ingesting enough trace amounts to kill them or make them ill.

There’s a very good slideshow at the ABC site that covers the main facts of the case as they currently stand. No, this is not THE actual teapot, but it was one like this. How incredibly devious, but yet how old-school British murder-mystery of the Russians (if indeed they are responsible). There are lots of “cosy” mystery novels were the poison ended up being served at tea. The one I know involved hallium in
the sugar (called Final Curtain), and of course at first investigators thought Litvinenko was poisoned with thallium. What an odd coincidence.