‘James Bond’ Book on Poisons Getting Attention in Sconce Case : Comes to Light As Result of Sconce Case

Oleander is a familiar sight to Southern Californians. A dark green shrub with pink, red or white flowers, it brightens up freeway landscapes and sprouts gaily in suburban back yards.

What’s lesser known is that every inch of this photogenic plant harbors a hard-to-detect and potentially fatal poison for which there is no sure antidote.

Kurt Saxon knows. He wrote about the lethal properties of oleander in a sinister 1971 book called “The Poor Man’s James Bond.” The self-published text, which law enforcement officials have long deplored, tells readers how to kill people, commit arson and build bombs.

Natural Causes

Earlier this year, both the ancient plant and the atomic-age book came under new scrutiny after witnesses at a preliminary hearing testified that Pasadena funeral home operator David Sconce said he poisoned Burbank mortician Timothy Waters.

Until May, when toxicological tests turned up traces of oleander in Waters’ blood and tissue, it had been thought that the 24-year-old mortician--who weighed more than 300 pounds and died April 8, 1985, at Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Hospital--perished of natural causes brought on by obesity.

The Ventura County district attorney’s office is reviewing the new evidence but has not determined whether to charge the 32-year-old Sconce in Waters’ death. Sconce is awaiting trial in Pasadena Superior Court along with his parents, Jerry and Laurieanne Lamb Sconce, on 67 felony and misdemeanor charges regarding operation of Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena.

Rush for Information

The charges range from mutilating corpses to selling body parts. David Sconce also faces charges of soliciting the murders of his grandparents and of a deputy district attorney who was the prosecutor in the preliminary hearing. The Sconces have denied all the charges against them.

Nonetheless, the revelation of death by poisoning sent coroners, prosecutors and police investigators scurrying to learn more about the 12 or so known cases of oleander poisoning and to obtain copies of “The Poor Man’s James Bond,” which is not widely available in Los Angeles area libraries or bookstores but is stocked in some survivalist shops.

It also raised concerns that texts such as Saxon’s could prove dangerous in the hands of violent, mentally unstable individuals, and it sparked debate about censorship versus freedom of the press.

Neil Livingstone, a Georgetown University professor who wrote “The War Against Terrorism,” called Saxon’s book “an atrocious piece of literature that serves no public interest.” He wants it banned.

‘Mayhem Manuals’

Law enforcement officials dub books such as Saxon’s “mayhem manuals” and say they often find such texts when they raid illegal explosives labs, drug labs and terrorist hide-outs. Although it is difficult to tie violent incidents directly to the books, police psychologists say the manuals are dangerous because they encourage disturbed people to act out paranoid fantasies of rage and murder.

Lt. Don Beasley, who heads the Los Angeles Police Department’s explosives squad, says criminals often photocopy and pass around pages of “The Poor Man’s James Bond” and “The Anarchist Cookbook,” another such tome that was popular in the 1960s.

The police say danger also arises because the books occasionally print inaccurate chemical formulas or do not indicate proper safety procedures. Livingstone said this is especially true of “The Poor Man’s James Bond.”

“We get an average of six kids a year who blow themselves up, and when we get to their house, we always find these manuals,” said San Diego County Sheriff’s Sgt. Conrad Grayson of the bomb and arson squad.

Recoil at Aspects

Even those most staunchly committed to press freedom and the public’s right to bear arms recoil at some aspects of Saxon’s book, which includes a chatty section on how to test homemade poison concoctions on homeless winos.

“That’s pretty sick,” said Jim Graves, managing editor of Soldier of Fortune, the guns-and-adventure magazine.

Saxon claims that his book has sold 60,000 copies, many of them via mail order. Few mainstream bookstores stock “The Poor Man’s James Bond”; some bookshop owners interviewed say they don’t want it on their shelves.

Saxon, a folksy 56-year-old who lives in Harrison, Ark., and publishes survivalist books under his Atlan Formularies label, says with glee that his book will come in handy “when the Russians and Martians invade.”

Although his book advocates violence, Saxon says he is not responsible for those who choose to act out violent fantasies after reading his book.

When asked about the Camarillo death, Saxon responded: “It’s not my fault. Open any book on poison and you’ll find the same thing.”

Saxon has deleted the oleander poison entry in his “New Improved Poor Man’s James Bond” because, he said, “it wasn’t fanciful enough.” But he points out that, in any case, the entry failed to say how to concoct a lethal dose.

The section originally read: “Oleanders are common flowers but are about as poisonous as any plant. The heart is affected very quickly and severely. Both the branches and the leaves are lethal.”

Few Reported

Experts say only a fraction of oleander poisonings, whether accidental or intentional homicides, are reported. Dr. Fredric Rieders, a forensic toxicologist with National Medical Services in Philadelphia, said children, in particular, are susceptible to oleander poisoning because they put things in their mouths.

Rieders said symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, indigestion and a contracting of the heart until the muscle cramps cause the blood to stop flowing, which can result in death.

“Once the poisoning has occurred, it is extremely difficult to counteract it. It is mostly in God’s hands,” Rieders said.

A minuscule amount of the plant is enough to be fatal if ingested, experts said.

Waters, who ran the Burbank-based Alpha Society, a cremation service, died an agonizing death in 1985 after suffering two days of bloody vomiting and diarrhea at the Camarillo house of his mother, Mary Lou Waters. An autopsy performed by the Ventura County coroner’s office said Waters died of natural causes, compounded by his extreme obesity and fatty deposits in his liver.

Autopsy Questioned

Some authorities today question that conclusion and say the coroner should have carried out toxicological tests.

“The autopsy looked real funny to me,” said Walt Lewis, the deputy district attorney in Pasadena who initially handled the Sconce case but was removed after Sconce was accused of soliciting his slaying.

“Here’s a guy who’s 24 and weighs 300 pounds, and he died of fatty deposits in the liver?” Lewis asked rhetorically.

Dr. F. Warren Lovell, who became Ventura County coroner in late 1985, said the previous coroner indicated that he planned to perform toxicological tests. But Lovell said he left the post in July, 1985, without doing so.

Both Lovell and others point out that standard toxicological tests would not have turned up the presence of oleander, however, because it requires a specific test.

“If you don’t suspect oleander, it would be way down on your list of things to look for,” Rieders said. “It’s certainly not something that happens a lot.”

It wasn’t until this year that the authorities began to suspect foul play. During an eight-month hearing in Pasadena Superior Court, witnesses testified that Sconce hired two men to beat up Waters on Feb. 12, 1985.

David Edwards, a former Lamb employee, testified that Sconce borrowed the Saxon book to learn how to poison a neighbor’s dog. He said the book was never returned.

Witnesses said that in March, Sconce went to a Simi Valley restaurant where Waters was eating and told witnesses that he dropped poison into Waters’ mixed drink when he left the table.

The motive, according to witnesses, was that Sconce wanted to silence Waters because the Burbank mortician suspected that Lamb Funeral Home was conducting illegal multiple cremations.

One cellmate testified that the poison was not strong enough, so Sconce poisoned Waters again, causing the victim to suffer a heart attack. Cellmates also testified that Sconce bragged about poisoning Waters.

The Ventura County district attorney’s office said it probably will not decide whether to file murder charges against Sconce until September because the prosecutor reviewing the evidence is on vacation.

Meanwhile, the Simi Valley Police Department also is investigating the accusations of poisoning at the restaurant. A spokesman there declined comment.

But Dr. Martin Reiser, a psychologist who is director of behavioral science services for the Los Angeles Police Department, said he believes the “The Poor Man’s James Bond” could influence a person who was already predisposed to commit a violent act.

“Obviously, there doesn’t seem to be a constructive or pro-social application to this book. It’s destructively intended,” Reiser said.