Inside the evil mind of the daughter who poisoned mom’s drink in a Breaking Bad-style plot
As she slipped the poison into her mother’s glass, Kuntal Patel thought this was the start of a new life with the man she loved – but it was a chilling and twisted plan that was about to backfire.
She had paid to have the substance smuggled into Britain in a candle and now used it to try to kill domineering mother Meena, 60, who was determined to get her married.
4
4
But things didn’t go according to plan and Meena survived, leaving Kuntal behind bars and separated from her American fiancé, Niraj Kakad.
After the couple met on a dating website and got engaged, it quickly became clear that Meena did not approve of the romance.
She allegedly hit 37-year-old Kuntal, stopped her from going out and demanded she dump him.
Meena also allegedly sent her daughter vicious emails and text messages attacking her, her friends and her lover.
Undeterred, it was a year after her engagement when Kuntal started searching online for “untraceable toxins” and “how to kill someone and get away with it”.
She then made contact with an American dealer named Jesse Korff, who advertised toxins on the dark web under the pseudonym ‘Snowman840’.
In a post shared online, he allegedly offered to provide “Breaking Bad-style ricin” with an ad that read: “This is a listing for the extremely toxic protein Ricin, seen on Breaking Bad.”
Just three days after discovering the site, Kuntal, a graphic designer from Plaistow, East London, is said to have created an account on Korff’s website and nicknamed him Heisenberg.
The name was a nod to Walter White, Bryan Cranston’s teacher and drug dealer in the hit series Breaking Bad, who went by the alias Heisenberg.
They began exchanging emails and in one to Korff, Kuntal reportedly wrote, “Hello Heisenberg,” adding, “I’ve been watching too much Breaking Bad.”
She also described Meena’s disapproval of her relationship, saying, “I can’t be with the man I love because my mother doesn’t like him.
“I can only be with him when she’s out of the way.”
Kuntal was raised in a strict Hindu-Gujarati upbringing with her younger sister, and she had never had a boyfriend or received a Valentine’s Day card.
When she met her fiancé Niraj, who lived in Arizona, USA, she felt like she had struck gold – and that she would do whatever it took to be with him.
Who are Britain’s worst serial killers?
Britain’s most prolific serial killer was actually a doctor.
Here’s a look at the worst offenders in Britain.
- British GP Harold Shipman is one of the most prolific serial killers in history. He was found guilty of murdering fifteen patients in 2000, but the Shipman Inquiry investigated his crimes and identified 218 victims, 80 percent of whom were older women.
- After his death, Jonathan Balls was accused of poisoning at least 22 people between 1824 and 1845.
- Mary Ann Cotton is suspected of murdering 21 people, including spouses, lovers and children. She is Britain’s most prolific female serial killer. Her crimes were committed between 1852 and 1872, and she was hanged in March 1873.
- Amelia Sach and Annie Walters became known as the Finchley Baby Farmers after killing at least twenty babies between 1900 and 1902. The couple became the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison on February 3, 1903.
- William Burke and William Hare killed sixteen people and sold their bodies.
- Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty in 1981 of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980.
- Dennis Nilsen was imprisoned for life in 1983 after killing fifteen men while grabbing them off the street. He was found guilty of six murders and two attempted murders and was sentenced to life in prison.
- Fred West was found guilty of the murders of twelve people, but it is believed he was responsible for many more deaths.
In a plot that mirrored how drug lord Walter White murdered an enemy with ricin tea in Breaking Bad, Kuntal then paid £950 in bitcoins for a deadly poison called abrin, a chemical similar to ricin.
Both chemicals work by seeping into cells and preventing them from making the proteins our bodies need, leading to death.
After handing over the money, Kuntal’s poison arrived in Britain, hidden in a red scented candle which she later dropped into Meena’s glass of Diet Coke.
A court later heard how Kuntal had tricked her close friend Julie Wong into having the parcel containing the deadly poison delivered to her home in Streatham, south London, by saying her partner was sending her a gift.
I can’t be with the man I love because my mother doesn’t like him. I can only be with him when she’s out of the way
Kuntal Patel
But there was one major flaw in Kuntal’s cunning plan.
Abrin, for which there is no known antidote, is most poisonous when injected or inhaled, but less potent when swallowed – and Meena survived.
Kuntal was furious and in another message to Korff she allegedly wrote: “Something must have gone wrong somewhere, because everything is normal.
“Yes, the target drank it all. I made sure I saw her drink it all.”
But unbeknownst to Kuntal, the FBI was investigating Korff and during his arrest, American agents passed on the information they found about Kuntal to Scotland Yard.
4
4
In January 2014, British police raided the £450,000 home Kuntal shared with her mother and sister Poonam, then 33, and after searches she was arrested.
They had earlier raided Ms Wong’s home and stormed the home of Ms Wong’s neighbor James Sutcliffe – the son of Foreign Office diplomat Nicholas Sutcliffe – after he innocently received the package.
Details emerged during the trial at Southwark Crown Court, including how Kuntal contacted a dealer in the US via the ‘dark web’ saying she needed a ‘tasteless’ and deadly poison to get her mother ‘out of the way’ clearing’.
She is said to have developed a murder plot after becoming “addicted” to the American TV series.
If it were the plot of a Hollywood or Bollywood movie, you’d say it was far-fetched
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay
Kuntal was acquitted of attempted murder, but convicted of acquiring a biological poison and sentenced to three years in prison in November 2014.
It was the first time that someone was prosecuted under the Biological Weapons Act.
During sentencing, Judge Rabinder Singh described how Kuntal had endured “a prolonged period of severe stress” and committed the offenses after seeing “no way out”.
And while Kuntal admitted she fantasized about her mother’s death, she denied trying to kill her.
Meena would try to control every aspect of her daughters’ lives. And worst of all, she forbade Kuntal from marrying the man she loved.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay
She claimed that the plot was “purely a fantasy” and that she planned to use the poison to kill herself instead.
Meena was absent from court and did not cooperate with investigators, but the court heard of a reconciliation between mother and daughter during tearful phone calls to prison, where Kuntal is said to have taken the blame.
During the trial, prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said: “If it were the plot of a Hollywood or Bollywood film, you would say it was far-fetched.”
Polnay said this was typical of Meena’s controlling and often violent relationship with her daughters.
She was very manipulative and controlling; she tried to control every aspect of her daughters’ lives
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay
He added: ‘Privately, Meena Patel, a magistrate who dealt with domestic violence and race relations, was not a nice woman.
‘She regularly used abusive and insulting language, including very racist language. She was sometimes violent.
‘She was very manipulative and controlling – she tried to control every aspect of her daughters’ lives.
‘And worst of all, she forbade Kuntal from marrying the man she loved.
“Kuntal was determined in her desire to marry Niraj and have children.
“Meena’s attitude was ‘over my dead body’.”
