Hessam Ghane convicted for possessing enough cyanide to kill ‘several hundred’

Hessam Ghane kept his cyanide under his kitchen sink. According to the feds, the 60-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran

was admitted to an Overland Park, Kansas,

emergency room on February 4, 2003, because he had threatened suicide

using cyanide that he had acquired through his years as a scientist.

Police searched Ghane’s home in Independence, Missouri, and found a

bottle containing 75 percent potassium cyanide. Ghane told the cops he

didn’t know that it was illegal to possess the chemical and that he

intended to use it in teaching, to conduct experiments, or to kill

himself.