Editor’s note: Watch CNN Movies’ documentary “The Salisbury Addiction: The Spy Next Door” premiere on CNN Sunday at 8pm ET/PT.
Charlie Rowley’s nightmare began the day he picked up what looked like an ordinary perfume bottle.
It was a summer afternoon in Amesbury, England. While searching through the charity’s bins, he found a small cardboard box. Inside was a container wrapped in plastic with “Nina Ricci” written on it. Convinced that someone had thrown away an expensive bottle of French perfume, he took it home to surprise his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess.
Finding treasure among discarded items was one of his favorite pastimes. He has spent years salvaging televisions and other household items. But on that day in June 2018, he was hoping someone would throw away a ring he could use to propose. “She often commented about having her buy her an engagement ring, a sapphire ring,” he told CNN in a recent interview.
Unbeknownst to him, the bottle contained the same nerve agent that investigators believe Russian agents had used to poison a former spy near Salisbury three months earlier. The catastrophic chain of events that follows leaves Sturges dead, Rory hospitalized, and a collateral threat to an international espionage case involving a double agent assassination attempt.
“I thought it was a genuine and nice gift, and she was happy to accept it. But it all too quickly went tragically wrong,” he recalled. “She sprayed it, sniffed it, applied it to her wrist. And after a while she said she felt weird. She complained of a headache…[Then]she didn’t react at all. I tried to resuscitate her. Everything was happening in slow motion.”
Later that day, Rory was also injected with the poison (later determined to be the Russian nerve agent Novichok) and was sweating, rocking back and forth and muttering incoherently. He fell into a coma and was hospitalized for several weeks, but at first he had little memory of what happened. After being discharged from the hospital, he suffered a stroke and returned to the hospital for a long stay.
This ordeal unknowingly draws Rowley into a battle between Russian and British intelligence.
“Who knew there was a spy living in Salisbury? It was shocking,” said Laurie. “Who would have thought that it (poison) would reappear in the bottle?”
Eight years later, I still struggle to put into words what happened. In CNN Films’ new documentary, “The Salisbury Poisoning: The Spy Next Door,” airing Sunday, Rowley shares her story along with others whose lives were forever changed by the attack. He often stopped mid-sentence, tears filling his eyes.
“I’ve been trying to keep it in the back of my mind. I never expected something like this to happen to me or Dawn,” he told CNN. “And things haven’t changed since then.”
The two met at a home for unhoused people where Sturgess lived and had been dating for about a year. Laurie had just moved to a new place and was preparing to welcome her. Their lives revolved around simple pleasures, including treasures that Laurie obtained from charity bins outside public places.
“There was some stigma attached to being seen in the trash,” he says. “But most of the time it paid off. I always came up with something, big or small. Anything good I found was sent right away…at dawn. I was always digging to the bottom, thinking I might find that ring.”
In their free time, the couple listened to music and watched movies. Sturges was obsessed with Bob Marley and action movies. “She wasn’t really into chick flicks,” Laurie said. “Sometimes, if there was a fun fair in town, we would go together and wander around the stalls and giggle.”
And one thoughtful move led them down an unimaginable path. He gave it to Sturgess on June 28, two days after Ms Rowley found the box in the bin. It was around noon on a Saturday, and they were watching TV after spending the previous day at Queen Elizabeth Gardens. Queen Elizabeth Gardens is a lush riverside park with views of Salisbury Cathedral, the UK’s tallest spire, towering above the trees.
She immediately recognized the brand and seemed excited, he said.
I remember thinking it was odd that the nozzle didn’t come with the bottle, but separately, and I had to remove the cap and install it myself.
Ms Sturgess sprayed it on, sniffed it and applied it to her wrist. It had an oily texture and no scent. “It’s so strange. It’s a scentless perfume,” he recalled thinking.
Shortly after, she told him she didn’t feel well and went to the bathroom, where she heard a thud. He found her unresponsive in the bathtub and called emergency services.
“One minute I was talking to Dawn and the next minute she wasn’t me and she wasn’t responding. I just panicked,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
First responders rushed Sturgess to the hospital. Unaware that she had been poisoned or that it was related to Russian espionage, Lowry decides to run some errands before joining up with her.
“I wish I had gone with her. I had planned to pack something for her to take to the hospital: small bags, accessories, clothes, cosmetics. But everything happened so quickly,” he said.
He never saw Sturges again. Five hours after she collapsed, an ambulance returned to the same address for Laurie. Laurie also became ill after returning home from an errand.
Mr Sturgess died 10 days later and Mr Laurie was put into a coma. She was 44 years old.
Neil Bass, Britain’s former head of anti-terrorism police, said in the film that the small vial contained enough poison to kill 10,000 people.
The charming and picturesque city of Salisbury, with a population of about 44,000, is more like a postcard than the epicenter of an international spy scandal.
The incident unfolded like a spy novel. On a chilly afternoon in March 2018, two people were found collapsed on a bench in an outdoor shopping complex in the city centre.
Investigators identified them as Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer accused of spying for Britain’s MI6, and his daughter Yulia, who was visiting from Moscow. The first police officer who discovered it was also hospitalized.
“There was a spy in Salisbury,” Laurie said, as if he still couldn’t believe it eight years later. “Salisbury had a secret.”
Within days, British investigators determined that the two men had been poisoned with the Soviet-developed nerve agent Novichok.
Investigators said two Russian military operatives traveled to Britain using false names, painted poison on the front door of Skripal’s home, and boarded a plane to Moscow.
Forensic investigators in hazmat suits flooded the medieval streets of Salisbury. Police sealed off parks, pubs and restaurants as teams searched for traces of the deadly nerve agent. Every time someone got sick, there was panic that another Novichok attack was coming. Church leaders cleansed the city with holy water to reassure the shaken community.
Father and daughter survived the attack, although they remained in critical condition for several weeks.
Mark Sedwill, Britain’s national security adviser at the time, told CNN: “It was clear from the beginning that this was not just a poisoning, but an assassination attempt.”
After three months, the city began to return to some kind of normalcy. Later, about eight miles north of Salisbury, Lowry unwittingly picked up a discarded bottle used to transport the poison.
And the nightmare began again.
Amber Rudd, the UK home secretary at the time, said the poisoning incident raised troubling questions.
“The public doesn’t want to hear that we don’t really know what this is or where it came from or what else is out there,” she says in the film. “They want to know that the government will keep them safe.”
The failed attempt to assassinate the Skripals was seen as an embarrassment by some for President Vladimir Putin, who rejected claims that Russia was involved in the poisoning as “nonsense”.
After a major cleanup, authorities declared Salisbury free of nerve agents a year later. Skripal and his daughter are reportedly in hiding and living under new identities for their own safety.
But for Laurie, the ordeal wasn’t over yet. He woke up from his coma with little memory of what happened. Doctors announced the news that the girlfriend had died due to poison.
“I was shocked because it was the bottle I had given Dawn,” he said. “I felt terribly guilty about it…and it’s still hard for me to deal with it.”
Laurie, who still lives near Salisbury, was reminded of the poison. After the attack, he suffered balance and vision problems and lost the use of his left arm. Even after many years, his memory has not fully recovered, he said.
“I think it’s because of the Novichok, but I don’t know if there’s any lasting damage,” he said.
Russian agents were identified but not arrested. They claimed to have visited Salisbury as tourists to admire the famous cathedral.
A year after the attack, Mr Rowley met with the Russian ambassador in London and wanted to clarify what had happened.
“I wanted to hear it from the source, really … and get the answer,” he said. “It seemed like they weren’t really getting any answers and were just making excuses and shifting blame.”
He said he has given up hope of justice for the woman he lost.
“It’s out of my hands,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do.”
