Toxicological results in a fatal and two non-fatal cases of scopolamine-facilitated robberies

- Scopolamine was found unexpectedly in a series of cases of scopolamine-facilitated robberies, by non-targeted analysis.
- Scopolamine blood concentrations and amounts are presented and compared to the (scarce) data in literature.
- In a fatal case, the heart blood concentration was raised considerably postmortem by diffusion from the stomach.
- Obtaining timely samples for toxicology may be a problem in drug-facilitated crimes.

The use of scopolamine as an incapacitating drug, in sexual crimes and robberies, has been known for many decades. However, blood concentrations and doses of scopolamine in those cases are largely unknown. Here we present the toxicological results of one fatal and two non-fatal cases in a series of scopolamine-facilitated robberies. In the fatal case, the concentration of scopolamine in heart blood was 0.30 mg/L, about 3000 times higher than the average therapeutic level of 0.0001 mg/L (for one dermal patch). In femoral blood, the concentration of scopolamine was much lower (0.0048 mg/L), but still 50 times higher than therapeutic levels. The scopolamine concentration in the stomach was very high (20 mg/kg) as compared to the heart blood and femoral blood, which explains the very high concentration in heart blood by postmortem leakage from the stomach. In the non-fatal case, the scopolamine concentration in serum, obtained 23 h after the incident, was 0.00035 mg/L. The estimated concentration of scopolamine at the time of the incident is 0.0035 mg/L. In the other non-fatal case, scopolamine was detected in urine and in hair.