Hi,Zoe
Hey,hey easy,boy Whoa!
Watch out,kid Sorry
Are you okay?
Hey,little man,come on
Try and get try and get his helmet off
What happened?
Oh,my God
God,he's not breathing
Freddy St John is
the third 11-year-old boy
to drop dead of a heart attack in the last four weeks
Otherwise perfectly healthy?
Yep
All the local doctors are stumped
This town is desperate for answers,Hood
Welcome to Pooler,Georgia
Rachel,
look around
What's missing?
Kids
There are no kids
Something's put the fear of God
in this place
It's nothing to do with God
People fear what they don't understand,
and right now what they don't understand
is healthy 11-year-old boys
dropping dead from heart attacks
How you all doing?
Hi
Bill Larsson
Dr Jacob Hood,Special Science Advisor to the FBI
This is Special Agent Young
Hi,there
Listen,no disrespect,
but a lot of other doctors have been here and none of them
come up with any answers
Well,I'm not actually that kind of doctor,
but I'll bear that in mind
Well,if you'd like to step this way,
the hospital administrator is waiting for us
Any additional EKG tech to 3 West
Additional EKG tech to 3 West
We've had to bring in extra doctors
from Savannah and Garden City just to cope
Every parent
with an 11-year-old boy wants an EKG,a stress test,
and a CRT performed on their son,
whether their insurance can cover it or not
Can't say I blame them Hmm
Of the three victims,
none of them had any indication
of a genetic disorder or a history of heart trouble
Blood tests reveal nothing
Autopsies came up negative
for anything other than cardiac arrest
Daniel Harker,first victim,
11 years old,
suffered from asthma;
the second victim Peter LaTerriere,
11 years old,was
borderline obese; and the third victim
Freddy St John
was an athlete
11-year-old kids don't just drop dead of heart attacks
This is my son Stephen
Mom,can I go home now?
Hi,Steve
Go wait for me by the nurses' station
Nice to meet you
Some of us parents have decided
to keep our children home
until we know what's going on
The school really isn't
up to the standards it should be these days,
though few of them are
We'll start at the school
Mm-hmm
We need to check in
with the office upstairs
Where are you going?
Just going to take a look at something
What are we supposed to do?
Walk through the doors like normal people
And the bear said,"You didn't really come here
to hunt,did you?"
No,thanks
That bear
I thought I told you to wait for me
in the hallway
I'm sorry Sorry isn't good enough
You should know better
And you shouldn't be spending time
with these kids
You get back to my office
Go
I tell you
I sure hope you and your partner can get to the bottom of this
Dr Hood is not my partner He's my responsibility
Oh,hi
Well,you must be Dr Hood
I'm,uh,Charlie Craig
I'm the principal here
D Do you mind telling me exactly what it was that,uh,
you were doing up there?
You got a CO pocket in your ventilation shaft
Um,a what?
Carbon monoxide
There's a,a dip in the shaft
where carbon monoxide likes to accumulate
I found a dead rat in there
It was poisoned by the CO
- And,and you can tell that by? - Blood
Blood
Carbon monoxide clings to the hemoglobin
and it turns the blood
kind of bright red
You see how my blood
from before is much darker
than the blood exposed to the CO
And that is this what's killing the kids?
Carbon monoxide is potentially lethal,but I don't think
your leak is big enough to cause heart attacks
However,it is a hazard
You need to get it checked out
Rachel,Deputy,
let's check out the rest of this place
Mom,I want to go back to school
You will when this is all over
Who were those people in here?
The government sent them
to find out what happened to those boys
Did you finish your homework?
Yes
I'm going to walk home,okay?
Alone?
You have to work for another two hours
Nothing's going to happen to me
Honest
You have your key?
Yeah
All right,you call me when you get home
Okay?
I will
Hey,get your backpack
Oh,thanks
Running your environmental inspection of the school
was the easy part
What do you mean?
From here on in,every site we hit
comes with grieving parents
What exactly are you looking for?
Anything that will help us learn
what brought on Daniel's heart attack,ma'am
Mind if I,uh?
Are either of you two into,
uh,computers?
No,that was our son's thing,not ours
Uh-huh
Did you find something on there?
No
Mrs Harker?
You should come and take a look at this
Well,it looks to me like,um,
like Daniel was making some kind of video journal
See,from all these entries here,
it looks like it goes back a long time,maybe,uh,
half a year
Show you how it works
Trisha Gordon smiled twice at me today,
and I think she switched places
in line with Cindy Mollo
so she'd wind up on my softball team
Girls are sort of stupid
but she's kind of cool
God
Hey,Stephen,Jesse got it
Yeah,just like I said I would
You coming?
I guess
Yeah
I don't want to do this,Jesse
Me neither
Maybe we shouldn't,Jesse
- I think it's dangerous - Me,too
Oh,chicken
Chicken!
Come on,man Do it
Show these wimps how tough you are
He's too scared
Ha,ha,looky what I got for you
Ooh,look at that
Lick it Lick it
Come on,Stephen Lick it
You got to lick it
Do it,man
Come on,chicken
- Come on Lick it - Crazy,dude
That's it
You see anything in there
that might be responsible for these deaths?
Unfortunately,I haven't seen
anything in this town that could be responsible for that
It's Neal St John,Freddy's father
You about to head on over to my place,
see what I got at home might have killed my son?
- Take it easy,Neal,come on - That's your brilliant plan,huh?
Take it easy Sir,we're just trying to find out
what caused the heart attacks
So what do you got so far?
That's none of your concern,Neal
Oh,no?!
Well,you're wrong there,Bill
No,Neal,
I'm 100% right,
and unless you want to commemorate
your son's tragic death by getting thrown in jail,
you'll back off
Who the hell are you?
Mr St John,all that's important is
I'm here to find out exactly what or who killed your son
All right
But I can't wait forever
Go home
Maybe we can call a parent meeting at the school
You know,you bring everybody together and you talk
to them at once
Maybe
Just sit down
Just calm Going now
All right,let me just get this rolling
Sit down Come on,everybody
Let us get it going
Bill,this isn't good,boy
Uh,can I have you two come down?
Can't you see that you're not
All right,quiet Quiet Quiet Quiet
Quiet,please Please
Calm down,everybody
Just calm down
We're gonna get to the bottom of this
We're gonna get to the bottom of it
Now,I want to thank you all for coming tonight
We're not interested in thanks
We want to know if our kids are safe!
You all quiet down
Should we be leaving town?
I mean how are you gonna protect our kids?
Now let's not get
hysterical,but,all now,listen to me
Everybody,just calm down please
Now,the government is trying to help
They have sent us
a scientist from the FBI
He's gonna help us
I want to I want to introduce him to you
His name is Dr Jacob Hood
Dr Hood
Hood?
Hood
They're waiting for us back in the auditorium
No drugs or viruses
No poisons
No visible signs of bruising,
trauma,or stress
when it comes nominators,same age,same sex,same school
So what am I missing?
We came here
to talk to the parents
So,don't you think that we should head on
Are you okay?
Who who are you?
We're here to help you
I'm Dr Hood,Stephen
We met at the hospital
I I have to find my mom
Stephen Come on
Breathe deeply
He's hyperventilating
Chatham County
McKinley Elementary School
We need an ambulance
It could be cardiac arrest
Mom!
A Stephen,
you scared me
I could have lost you
I'm sorry
What happened?
You never went home Where did you go?
Hello again,
Stephen
Dr Hood?
That's right
How are you feeling?
Stephen,
tell me what happened
Stephen,
who are you protecting?
Get it off!
No,Stephen,don't!
He's terrified of needles!
Can we get a nurse?
Right here
Thank you very much
The tox panel shows traces of bufotenin
What the hell is bufotenin?
It's a hallucinogenic,
and it's more than capable of causing a heart attack
He was with a boy named Jesse Freeman
out by the swamp
They were getting high
He wouldn't tell me with what
Thank you,Mrs Brown
That's that's helpful
Jesse Freeman
Mrs LaTerriere
mentioned him,too
Where'd they get the bufotenin?
You can find it in mushrooms,
but more commonly in the skin of a very special toad
That's a black swamp snake,Rachel
Don't worry
He's perfectly harmless
That right there is just a baby
Yum,yum
Pretty damn tasty
There's one right there!
Hood,what exactly are we looking for here?
Bufo alvarius
Colorado River toad
In Georgia?
That's the species that carries the bufotenin
These kids must have got it somewhere
This swamp is the closest thing we got
to a toad's natural habitat in this area
Oh!
Hello
I know
you
I got him
Ribbit
See,this little guy
say hello
When he's agitated like that,
he secretes this poison,which is a hallucinogen
bufotenin
What people normally do is they
they burn off the poisonous element,
and render it harmless; then they smoke it
But if it's harmless,then why did Stephen have a seizure?
Well,I think what
our kids have been doing is,uh,
a thing called "toad licking"
You,uh,get him agitated
Kind of like he is now
Soon as he starts to secrete the poison,
you lick it,get very high
That's sick
But if toad-licking caused
the cardiac arrests,
then why didn't the other boys test positive
for the bufotenin?
Rachel,that's a very good question
Well,I got another one for you
How does a Colorado River toad end up in a Georgia swamp?
That's simple
Someone brought him
But who?
I think we should ask Jesse Freeman
He seems to be our local toad pusher
I'm gonna ask you one more time,Jesse
Where'd you get the toads?
Stephen Brown almost had a heart attack
because of it
You give it to any of the boys that died?
No way
I never hang with any of those losers
except for school
when I got no choice
Jesse,
why don't you do your mom a favor
and be straight with us?
If you cooperate,I'll get the deputy here
to keep you out of this
Tell them,Jesse
All right
I took them from Lizzie Summers' place
I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt
Just wanted to have some fun
Okay
Thank you
What's Stephen's mom
doing here?
Lizzie Summers has been in town for about three years
She set up shop out here
as a homeopathic pharmacist
Miss Summers!
Deputy,how can I help you?
Miss Summers,
these folks are from Washington,DC
They're here to help us find out
how those young boys died
Special Agent Rachel Young
from the FBI Hi
Dr Jacob Hood
The Jacob Hood?
Um I suppose
I read your paper on dark matter
"Unknown,
"intangible,immeasurable
and yet without it,the heavens would fall "
I was rooting for you to win the Nobel Prize that year
Oh,well,if you were,you're one of only three people
in the western hemisphere,but thanks nonetheless
Yeah
Do you grow,uh,
sceletium tortuosum?
Oh,yeah,and kanna
I use it as an anti-anxiety remedy
Yeah,but it's much more than that,isn't it?
Kanna goes back to prehistoric times
Early hunter-gatherers used it as an appetite suppressant
so they could hunt
for days without going hungry
But show us where you keep your Colorado River toads
You have quite a variety of dangerous animals
and insects here
Well,sometimes the most
dangerous venoms and poisons
serve as lifesavers
What do you do
with the toads?
Oh,homeopathic erectile dysfunction medication
I sell it over the Internet,
along with other remedies
Miss Summers,
we found bufotenin
in the blood of an 11-year-old boy
who nearly had a heart attack
Jesse Freeman
said he got the toad that produced it here
I keep this shed very secure
Now,these these toads,they breed like rabbits,
so it's very hard to keep a head count
Now,if someone wants to take a chance
and come in and steal one,
I don't see what I can do to stop it
But if I've got to string up razor wire,
I might as well move back to the city
Yeah,well,maybe if you'd stayed in the city
all three of these young boys might still be alive
Jesse,Jesse,Jesse
What's up,honey?
Mommy,why is Jesse so cold?
No!
It's rather late
I'm sorry about the hour,
Beatrice,but we need to speak with you
My son is asleep
He's been through a terrible time
Jesse Freeman is dead
Another heart attack
Well,I feel for his mother
God knows she's suffered a lot because of him
Nothing to what she'll suffer now that he's dead
What were you doing
outside the Freeman house today,Mrs Brown?
I went to give that boy a piece of my mind
and to tell him to stay away from my son
Then I saw that you beat me to it
Do you mind if I take a look at your bathroom,your kitchen?
Why?
To satisfy my scientific curiosity
Help yourself
Thank you Through here?
Mm-hmm
No TV?
We don't have a TV
It's an unnecessary distraction
Did you find what you were looking for,
Dr Hood?
Not yet,Mrs Brown
Thank you Good night
Well,that was an interesting response to Jesse's death
I'll say
I didn't find any environmental toxins
that could cause heart attacks in children
Could you get there right away?
Freddy St John's dad heard about the toad venom
Went out to Lizzie Summers' place and busted it up
I'm gonna go pick him up
Miss Summers
We heard what happened
Are you okay?
No Not really
I don't get someone taking their anger out on plants
Deputy Larsson is arresting
Neal St John at his home
No,no,I'm not gonna press charges
I just
I can't be angry at a man who just lost his son
I could use a drink
Want to join me?
Sure
Lizzie?
Huh?
Do you always wear these gloves?
Whenever I'm handling poisonous plants
Poison? You mean,like Digitalis purpurea?
I didn't see it in your garden
Well,I don't grow it here
There's no need
It grows wild all over the fields
How did you know?
Purple petals
Can you show us where?
There they are
Digitalis purpurea
Mm-hmm
Foxglove
Incredibly toxic plant
Several medicinal properties
Primarily,uh,heart medication
Mm-hmm
Why is it called foxglove?
Well,it's an old wife's tale from medieval days
They believed that
the foxes would put their paws in the flowers
to cover the sound of them creeping up on the chickens
Quite deadly,though,you get the dosage wrong
I know what you're thinking,but you're wasting your time
After the first boy died,
I contacted the hospital and suggested Digitalis
Oh,yeah?
It didn't show up in the blood test
of any of the victims
Hmm
Well,
that's our mystery then,isn't it?
Just to satisfy my curiosity,
do you use foxglove to make heart medication?
- That's right - And for?
Anyone in town?
There's one person Sam Tewsbury
The school math teacher
Well,according to Larsson,
Tewsbury is well-liked in the town,
and the kids love him as a teacher,
but that wasn't always the case
Oh Explain
Well,back in the day,he was the first
African-American teacher at the school
The grandparents of at least one
of the victims wanted him
kicked out of town
Right
He took a lot of abuse
Could be motive
Avenging the sins of the father
Why do it now,after all these years?
He's old
and sick
He's looking to settle the score before he dies
Hmm
People get a little crazy
in their old age sometimes
Sometimes at a slightly younger age
It's called dementia
And I could go at any time
Sorry this is all I can offer you
this time of evening
Homemade lemonade
Thank you
Please
You have an impressive collection of early
math and philosophy editions,Mr Tewsbury
Avicenna
Descartes Rules For the Direction Of the Mind
Rene Descartes
Oh,he was an innovator
Hmm "Accept nothing
as true that is "
Not self-evident "
"And always recheck the reasoning
behind every problem "
You have congestive heart disease?
Something tells me that
you know that I do
You also use a
homeopathic medicine
that Lizzie Summers makes from
Digitalis purpurea
Thought we were here
to talk about the children I teach,Dr Hood
Yup
The dead ones
Who all died from heart attacks
Several witnesses place you at the hospital
after each of the students' deaths
I was concerned about my students
They've been having a hell of a time
And now,
I'm going to ask both of you to leave my house
right now
Thank you for your time
All right,I want you all to copy these down
and turn them in tomorrow
Quit it!
You suck!
Hey! Hey!
I'm gonna kick your ass!
Hey,break it up!
Fight! Fight!
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fight! Fight! Fight!
What's gotten
into you boys?! Hey!
Hey! That's it! Quiet!
Now,what's gotten into you two?
He started it! He was kicking the back of my chair
No,I wasn't,you liar!
Quiet! You know,I'm really disappointed
in both of you
I wish you were dead like the others
What are you saying?
You kids know something about these deaths?
If you do,tell me!
You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves
Come on Get out of here
Get your stuff
We've retested Jesse Freeman's blood twice
for every variation on Digitalis
Negative all the way
Are you sure?
Twice
"Best teacher in school "
Well,we'll check that out
Thank you
That was Lizzie Summers
Sam Tewsbury ordered more
heart medication from her,but he didn't pick it up
She's been calling him all day No answer
Mr Tewsbury?!
Sam?!
Mr Tewsbury?
He's dead
"Thus Spake?"
Zarathustra
Don't touch it
What is it?
Foxglove
Somebody
went to a lot of time,and a lot of patience
into sticking these pages together with it
How are sticky pages gonna kill somebody?
Well,it depends how you read
But if you lick your fingers to turn the pages,
you'll probably end up ingesting the poison that way
Catherine De Medici,
16th century France,she used this method
to kill most of her enemies
I need to see everything the victims were wearing
or carrying at the time of their deaths
I'm gonna call this in I'll get right on it
Thank you
Nietzsche?
Someone around here is killing off the weak
Clearing a path for the Ubermensch
The Over-Man
Rachel
I'm going to need some
buff-tailed bumblebees
In the bathroom
Here you go
Why are we in the bathroom,Hood?
Beause we want a clean environment
with no pollen distractions
If there's foxglove on any of the victims' possessions,
it's gonna be the first thing our little friends are gonna be
attracted to
Here we go
I think I'll wait out on the porch
If you all don't mind
Yeah,that's a lot of bees
Here's your gloves
Oh,thank you Put your helmet on
There they go
They're going right
for the foxglove in
tote container,
asthma inhaler,
lunch box,
and Freddy St John's bicycle
Foxglove was on all
the victims' belongings
So now we know what caused their heart attacks
Digitalis purpurea didn't show in any of the autopsies
Why?
I want to do DNA tests on all the victims and their parents
But don't have the hospital lab do it
Get your boys at Quantico to take care of it
Okay,sweetie
Bye
DNA results Get this
According to the blood samples
this hospital gave Quantico,
none of the dead boys are related to their parents
That's ridiculous
I've known those families for a long time
Seen most of them get brought home
- from the hospital - I'm with the sheriff
Somebody must've switched the blood samples
No
Hold on
What'd you find?
According to these DNA markers,
all the blood must come from
one pubescent boy
Maybe the school is the source of our deaths
Not the environment
A student
Do you have a plan?
More like a hypothesis
Care to let me in on it?
Trust me
Does he actually know what he's doing?
Most of the time
All right,settle down
Settle down Everybody pay attention
Up here Settle down
All right All ready for you
Thank you
I'm Jacob Hood
I'm a scientist,
and I work with the,uh,FBI
Now,uh
I met your math teacher,
Sam Tewsbury,before he died
As you know,Sam,
he gave his life to this school
Before he died,he asked me
to come up with a math problem for you
as a sort of challenge
He said some of you were
getting too smart for him
Even though he's not here,
I'd like to
give you a chance to solve my problem for him
Oh,and the winner
gets a genuine pair of FBI handcuffs
Pay attention
Good
So the first stage "F"
of a rocket burns 25 seconds
longer than the second stage,which we'll call "S"
Now,if the total burning time for both stages
is 145 seconds,
so each stage burn?
Anybody?
Anyone?
No?
Okay
Tell you what I'll do
I will leave this on the board
till tomorrow
We'll just have
to wait and see what you can do
Thank you very much
Back to you
It's purple,Stephen
But it's not foxglove
Actually,it¡¯s a dye
from a Japanese indigo
Just a little taste
of your own medicine
Except this plant won't kill you
We need to talk about why you killed your classmates,Stephen
He didn't kill those little bastards
I did
- Mom - Shut up,Stephen!
Mrs Brown,please step back
I killed them
I had access
to the toxicology lab at the hospital
I used Stephen's blood I switched the samples
Every one of those kids was nothing but trouble
They had my son drinking beer,getting high
Your mom's trying
to protect you,Stephen
She obviously
loves you very much
But we know,though,
she wouldn't be able to whip up Digitalis
from foxglove plants
You could¡¯ve,though
Couldn't you?
Incidentally,uh,the deputies,
they found your,um,chemistry kit
It was covered in foxglove
No,it's not his It's mine!
- No! - Stop!
Mrs Brown,the serial numbers
on the lab equipment are from the school
For God's sake,he¡¯s only 11 years old!
He's all I have left
- Do you understand that? - Stop it,Mom
You shouldn't get in trouble for what I did
I had to kill them
They were holding me back
They were holding the whole school back
The whole school was suffering
because of those stupid kids
Because of how bad
our overall grades and test scores were
Even some of the teachers
were leaving for other schools
Somebody had to do something
Why Sam Tewsbury?
I saw Mr Tewsbury in the classroom
I heard him question the kids
I was certain he suspected a kid was behind all the deaths
It was only a matter of time
before he figured everything out
He was a smart man
Almost as smart as me
So you sent him Nietzsche's book?
My mom's copy,actually
It's her code to live by
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger "
You took quite a risk,licking the toad venom
Why?
To blend in with the others
Throw suspicion off myself
You drew your own blood,switched the samples
and you made your mom believe you were terrified of needles
I made her believe a lot of things
When was it going to end?
When someone was smart enough to stop me,I guess
Did you know that the comic book,
Superman,was actually based on Nietzsche's philosophy?
"Up,up and away "
How'd you like to be the court-appointed psychiatrist
whose full-time job is observing
little Stephen Brown for a decade or two?
I can think of worse things to do for a day
So,Hood
what were you like as an 11-year-old boy?
I was kind of like
Stephen,I guess
I wanted to compete with the best
But it's hard to know how good you are,
if you kill off the competition
Well,I for one am relieved
that you used that brain of yours for good
Thank you
Maybe I just never got caught