Autopsy May Support Theory That Plants Poisoned 2 Boys

One of the two El Segundo toddlers found dead in their beds last month had “a plant substance” in his stomach, an autopsy discovery that may support suggestions that he and his brother were fatally poisoned by eating oleander leaves, a police investigator said.

Authorities on Tuesday stressed, however, that they will not be able to identify the plant in the boy’s stomach or whether it killed Alexei and Peter Wiltsey, ages 2 and 3, until toxicology tests are completed, which could take several weeks.

“We have not concluded what caused these children’s deaths,” said Scott Carrier, spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner. “We have to wait for the results to come back.”

The bodies of the two boys, adopted through a Russian orphanage in September, were found in their cribs on the morning of May 4, three days after their mother reportedly noticed them with leaves in their mouths while they were playing in the frontyard, according to police. The mother, Shirley Wiltsey, told investigators that she was unable to identify what plant was being eaten.

El Segundo Police Det. Ken Mulroney, who is leading the investigation of the deaths, said a preliminary coroner’s report noted the plant material in the stomach and intestines of one of the boys. That strengthens Mulroney’s initial suspicions that the boys died as a result of eating poisonous plants such as oleander.

“Everything points to it,” Mulroney said Tuesday. “We’re hoping that’s what it is. It would make it no more than a tragic accident.”

Mulroney said he did not know which boy had the half-inch of plant in his stomach.

Carrier, of the coroner’s office, said he could not confirm any details from the autopsy results and declined to speculate about the cause of the deaths.

The boys, who were not biological brothers, were vomiting and lethargic in the days before their deaths.

But the parents had been in telephone contact with their pediatrician and the boys had appeared to be improving, detectives said.

After their deaths, a botanist from the Los Angeles County Department of Agriculture spent hours picking through vegetation in and around the family’s yard.

The botanist, Jerry Turney, said that a few toxic plants were found growing on the Wiltseys’ property but that a big oleander bush two doors down was the most likely suspect because oleander is the most poisonous of the plants found in the neighborhood.

But Turney also said that death by oleander poisoning is extremely rare.

It usually takes a massive amount of the plant to cause death, and most people, particularly children, simply could not eat that much because the leaves are so bitter, experts said.