I'm working on a story and trying to figure out how to kill my character. My criteria are 1. Has to look like an accidental/natural death 2. Has to happen inside the character's brain 3. Cannot destroy/damage any brain cells that are linked to memory 4. Clean, not messy Are there any ideas you might have out there, I'm kind of at the end of my rope here.
Aneurysm. They don't always have to cause severe brain damage, just enough of a neural disturbance to mess with major organs etc.
Possibly flouts the second law, but how about (and maybe I shouldn't be telling you this! ), feeding him some oxalic acid (ethan-1,2-dioic acid)? It's the chemical in rhubarb leaves that will make you ill if you eat them. It has an LD50 of 25 grammes (1 oz) where it would kill 50% of humans who imbibed the stuff. Now, if your character require any other ailments such as kidney stones, this would suit as kidney stones result from its salts. It's "clean" in that post-mortem examinations might struggle to trace it. In the body, it breaks down in the liver first to ethanoic acid and then to alcohol - so it'd look like your victim drank himself to death!
There's also a type of menengitis that eats at the brain. (Menencochal? Sp is totally wrong there lol) But that would seem more of a mad scientist way of killing off a character. If the person who is trying to kill them has access to bacteria and whatnot then it could work.
ricin? can be relatively easily be concocted from a common weed. Apparently becomes undetectable without a specific autopsy after a period of time.
Has to "look like" a natural death or accident? As in, it isn't natural or an accident? How advanced is forensic investigation in this story? How messy is "messy"? Death is always messy to some degree, as bodily fluids are expelled even if there are no skin breakages (saliva, vomit, fecal matter, urine, sweat) I'd say go with ricin, if it is a murder. It's basically perfect for your situation based on my understanding of it.
As an alternative to aneurysm, you could use an air embolism. Basically, an air bubble in the blood stream reaches the brain. The bubble blocks blood flow to the brain and it appears as if the patient has suffered a stroke. A bubble could be injected into teh bloodstream through a vein or artery with a syringe. Saw this done on an episode of Law and Order: SVU.
It really depends which area it reaches first. If the bubble reaches the heart, it will appear to be a heart attack. If it reaches the brain, it will appear to be a stroke.
The easiest would be to trip him, so he falls down and hit his head on the ground. It will look like an accident and can be fatal. Just be sure he hits his head hard enough. Since you say 'look like an accident', I assume another person kills him? In that case, the fall can be 'helped' a bit.
Yeah, it's a murder, it's set to happen in 1990 according to my timeline, and by messy I mean basically that it looks accidental (no blood anywhere, etc.)
What about slipping the person an overdose? Poisioning by something like arsenic will scream foulplay to medical examiners, but if the villain puts an excessive amount of crack/heroine/meth/etc in the victim's food/drink without his/her knowledge, it'll just look like yet another tragic accident or partying that went too far.
