Murdered Scientist and its conspiracy theory

In 2010, a remote-controlled bomb detonated next to Dr. Massoud Ali Mohammadi's car, killing him instantly. He is but one of a half-dozen Iranian scientists who have been killed in the past few years, allegedly for their involvement in the country's budding nuclear program. Though Mohammadi's work was more theoretical, he attended a high profile conference in Jordan in the year leading up to his death. Though the U.S. and Israel seem to think that Mohammadi's death had to do with his reformist politics, Iran has claimed that he was murdered by an Iranian terrorist cell funded and trained by the Mossad, Israel's secret service.




In November 2001, the body of noted biologist Don C. Wiley was discovered in the murky waters of the Mississippi. His car was found abandoned on a nearby bridge. As there was no evidence of either suicide or murder, the local authorities, along with the FBI, eventually ruled his death an accident. Wiley had apparently exited his car on a bridge to examine a dent. When a semi-truck passed by, the wind gust pushed Wiley over the bridge's railing and to his death.

But conspiracy theories developed the moment the public learned that Wiley's work with viruses and human cells was being used to determine the sender of anthrax mailings plaguing Washington.




John Mullen, a nuclear physicist working for a subsidiary of Boeing, died suddenly in 2004 at the age of 67. It took six months for the police to rule his death a homicide by arsenic poisoning, a very rare instance in the modern world. Between the choice of murder weapon and Mullen's mundane home life, the police have investigated his work as a possible motivation for his death. Mullen remains part of a long series of noted physicists to have died under suspicious circumstances in the past decade.




In an under-reported and troubling scientist slaying, Dr. Vladimir "Victor" Korshunov was one of six microbiologists to die under suspicious circumstances in early 2002. The head of the Russian State Medical Unversity's microbiology facility was found in the street, the victim of blunt force trauma. Russian newspaper Pravda reported on his untimely and conspiracy-ridden death, saying that there were no leads in the case. Korshunov was rumored to have created a vaccine to protect a person from all biological harm, essentially making humans immune to most diseases and making biological warfare a thing of the past.




Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a molecular geneticist in training, was shot in the head while driving to her Houston home in January 2012. She was on the phone with her boyfriend, who didn't hear the shot that killed her. Furthermore, local surveillance footage gives no indication that a murder even took place. Even more baffling than Bagherzadeh's death is the motivation behind it. Nothing was stolen, for example.

The Houston police aren't against ruling out her death as part of a larger conspiracy. Like so many Iranian students, Bagherzadeh had protested the Iranian regime. Eeriest of all, Bagherzadeh's boyfriend's twin brother was found dead in late 2012, inside his own home, also a victim of gunshot wounds. Both killings remain unsolved.




Microbiologist Dr. David Kelly was involved in several projects for the British government, included an ethnic germ warfare program to be used in South Africa. Shortly before his death, Kelly leaked information regarding Saddham Hussein's WMDs to the BBC. He was questioned by British intelligence. Two days later, he was found dead with a slash on his wrist and painkillers in his bloodstream.

The British government maintains that Kelly's death was a suicide while The Daily Mail reports that 13 doctors signed a petition stating it was physically impossible for Kelly to kill himself in that manner. Meanwhile, Kelly's autopsy records have been sealed for 70 years.




When MIT and Harvard graduate Eugene F. Mallove published Fire from Ice, which declared that a table-top cold fusion experiment not only worked but produced replicable results, the mainstream science community (and government funders) shunned his work. Shortly before his death, Mallove published an open letter about the imminent creation of cold fusion machines, an invention which would render fossil fuels obsolete. Mallove was beaten to death in his home by a disgruntled ex-tenant (who plead guilty to first degree murder), although conspiracy theorists suspect that the U.S. government or Big Oil was behind the attack.




It was supposed to be a serene weekend getaway, but Fanjun Meng and Chunyang Zhang's trip to Branson, Missouri ended morbidly when the two were found drowned in their hotel pool. According to friends, Meng couldn't swim, although his wife could. The county coroner reported that there was no evidence of drugs or alcohol in the bodies but never performed an autopsy.

Internet alarmists point to a covert operation due to Meng's research at Columbia University. Meng sought to determine if pesticide use and Parkinson's disease were related. If his work was successful, Big Ag companies would stand to lose millions.




Timothy Hampton, a nuclear expert working for the UN, had no discernible reason to end his life when he plunged from his work building in Vienna. The Austrian police ruled Hampton's death a suicide despite the fact that there was bruising around Hampton's neck and that Hampton worked on the 6th floor but fell from the 17th. Family members are convinced that Hampton was murdered.

One possible reason for his death was his work for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO). Hampton is rumored to have been involved in secret talks regarding Iran's nuclear program, though the UN denies these claims.




As chief of nuclear medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, Dr. Robert J. Lull was a widely respected scientist. Lull was researching the effects of radiation on viruses, hoping to create a virus that would destroy cancer cells, thus ending the need for chemotherapy and other costly treatments. But at the height of his career, Lull was found stabbed to death in his home. Police reports show that there were no signs of forced entry or struggle. Ellison Millare, the son of a woman who was laid off from Lull's hospital due to budget cuts, was charged with Lull's murder and pleaded not guilty.




The Singapore government ruled that Shane Todd's death was a suicide but his family is convinced he was murdered. The American scientist was working in Singapore as an electronics researcher when his girlfriend discovered that he had hung himself in their bathroom. Police findings stated that it was a clear-cut suicide, further supported by suicide notes found on his computer, but his family is not convinced. Calling an inquest into his death a sham, they said there was a larger motive for murder.

Before his death, Todd mentioned that he was worried that his secret work project might be compromising U.S. national security. Both companies working on the mystery project deny this and say they had only held a few meetings regarding a commercial venture that later fell through.




In 1953, microbiologist Frank Olson was given a dose of LSD by his CIA roommate and, shortly thereafter, plunged out of a New York hotel window, falling to his death. For twenty years, the CIA maintained that Olson's death was an accident, but in the early 70s, it admitted to his family that Olson had been drugged and committed suicide. In the 90s, the family had Olson's body exhumed because they suspected foul play. (They sued the government but the case was dismissed due to the statute of limitations.)

Whether he was pushed or jumped, Olson's death was undoubtedly tied to his research in biological weapons and countermeasures. According to the lawsuit, in the weeks before Olson's death, he had "witnessed extreme interrogations in which the CIA committed murder using biological agents that [he] Dr. Olson had developed."