Novichok in Perfume Bottle Killed 44-Year-Old Dawn Sturgess, Hospitalized Charlie Rowley
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jul 11
Novichok in Perfume Bottle Killed 44-Year-Old Dawn Sturgess, Hospitalized Charlie Rowley
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jul 11
Summary
June 28, 2018 exposure to a discarded Nina Ricci perfume bottle left Dawn Sturgess dead 10 days later and Charlie Rowley in a coma after he brought the package home from a charity bin in Amesbury.
Rowley said the bottle looked genuine but had a separate nozzle, an oily liquid and no scent; investigators later identified it as Novichok, the same Soviet-developed nerve agent used three months earlier in Salisbury.
Five hours after Sturgess collapsed, Rowley also fell ill and was hospitalized for weeks, later suffering a stroke; he says he still has memory, balance and vision problems and has lost use of his left arm.
British investigators said Russian operatives had used the poison in the attempted assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who survived after being found critically ill in Salisbury in March 2018.
Eight years on, Rowley says he has stopped expecting justice because the identified Russian agents were never arrested, a story revisited in CNN's documentary 'The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door.'
Eight years after the attack, what invisible chemical threats from modern spy games could still be lingering in public spaces?
A spy's decontaminated house is for sale, but what is the true cost civilians pay for espionage on their doorsteps?
Novichok in Salisbury and Amesbury: The 2025 Inquiry’s Conclusions, Victims’ Stories, and the UK’s Response to Russian Aggression
Overview
The report traces the chain of events from Russian agents placing Novichok on Sergei Skripal’s door handle, leading to the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter, and the agents discarding the nerve agent bottle. Charlie Rowley later found this bottle and gave it to Dawn Sturgess, who unknowingly applied the substance and quickly fell ill. Despite medical efforts, she tragically died. The Public Inquiry in December 2025 confirmed these links, directly attributing Dawn Sturgess’s death to the Russian agents’ actions. This sequence highlights how a targeted attack resulted in unintended, fatal consequences for an innocent victim.