A number of prominent persons were killed or committed suicide using potassium cyanide, including members of the Young Bosnia and members of the Nazi Party, such as Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, World War II era British agents (using purpose-made suicide pills), computer scientist Alan Turing, and various religious cult suicides such as by the Peoples Temple and Heaven's Gate.
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The fact that the Judicial Medical Officer Dr. Lalantha de Alwis, who conducted the autopsy on the body, had testified that the body smelled of Potassium cyanide (which LTTEers had used over the years to suicide) and that he found pieces of glass in the mouth of the body stood as strong evidence to support the Police.
In 1982, DeLong became involved in the investigation of the Chicago Tylenol murders, in which seven people died from potassium cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules.
The solubility of gold in a water and cyanide solution was known by 1783 (Scheele), by Bagration in 1843 and Elsner in 1846 who recognized the necessity of oxygen in the process, (a method of exctraction by chlorination (Plattner) considered during 1848 proved uneconomical) this prior to the discovery of an economical method of treatment with potassium cyanide by J.S. MacArthur (with R. and, or, W. Forrest).