"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." "==ÆÆÀÃÐÜ×ÖÄ"×é==- Ê±¼äÖá£ºÂ¬ ±ó" "How y'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 'em 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." "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." "JESSE 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 y'all for coming tonight." "We're not interested in thanks." "We want to know if our kids are safe!" "Y'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?" "Hood." "They're waiting for us back in the auditorium." "No drugs or viruses." "No poisons." "No visible signs of bruising, trauma, or stress." "Common denominators:" "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!" "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." "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." "WOMAN ..." "Could you get there right away?" "Word travels fast." "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!" "CHILDREN 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?" "!" "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?" "'Cause 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 y'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 the victims' belongings:" "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." "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, s 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."