In June 2018, a routine search through a donation bin in the English town of Amesbury led to an unthinkable disaster. Charlie Rowley, scavenging for treasures among discarded items, found a boxed bottle of Nina Ricci perfume and gave it as a gift to his partner, Dawn Sturgess. They had no idea the bottle contained Novichok—a deadly nerve agent used three months earlier by Russian agents in an assassination attempt on double agent Sergei Skripal in the nearby city of Salisbury. Exposure to the substance led to the death of Sturgess, 44, while Rowley was hospitalized in critical condition, CNN reported Saturday.
2+The moment the tragedy began is seared into Rowley’s memory. “I thought it was a nice, genuine gift, and she was pleased to receive it. But it went so tragically wrong so quickly,” he told CNN. According to him, Dawn sprayed the substance on her wrist and immediately complained of feeling unwell. “She complained of a headache and then she wasn’t responding at all. I tried to revive her. Everything happened in slow motion.” A few hours later, Rowley also began feeling ill, shaking and mumbling incoherently, before slipping into a coma.
The bottle contained enough poison to kill ten thousand people, according to official British estimates. Sturgess died ten days later, and Rowley, after waking from his coma, had to face the devastating news. “I was in shock, because it was the bottle I gave to Dawn as a gift. I felt terrible, very guilty. And it’s still hard to deal with today,” he shared. Years later, Rowley still suffers from memory problems, balance issues, and loss of use of his left hand.
2+The affair began in March 2018, when Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned on a bench in Salisbury. A British investigation revealed that Russian military intelligence agents smeared nerve agent on Skripal’s door handle, fled to Moscow, and left the bottle behind. While Skripal and his daughter survived, the Amesbury incident turned the quiet town into an international crime scene.
2+Recently, ahead of a new documentary film on the subject, sharp questions have resurfaced about Russian responsibility and public safety. The case is considered the peak of diplomatic tensions between Britain and Russia, and left a deep mark on the local community, scarred by the use of chemical weapons on its soil. The Russian agents who were identified were never arrested, and Rowley, who previously met with the Russian ambassador in London to no avail, summed up in frustration: “It’s out of my hands. There’s nothing I can do.”