EDITOR’S NOTE: Watch the premiere of the CNN Films documentary, “The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door,” Sunday at 8pm ET/PT on CNN.
Charlie Rowley’s nightmare started the day he picked up what appeared to be an ordinary bottle of perfume.
It was a summer afternoon in Amesbury, England. While searching through a charity bin, he spotted a small cardboard box. Inside was a container, wrapped in plastic, labeled Nina Ricci. Convinced someone had tossed out a bottle of expensive French fragrance, he took it home to surprise his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess.
Finding treasures among discarded items was one of his favorite pastimes. Over the years, he’d salvaged televisions and other household goods. But on that day in June 2018, he was hoping someone had thrown out a ring he could use to propose. “She often made comments about getting her an engagement ring … a sapphire ring,” he told CNN in a recent interview.
Unbeknownst to him, the bottle contained the same nerve agent investigators believe Russian operatives had used three months earlier to poison a former spy in nearby Salisbury. What followed was a devastating chain of events that left Sturgess dead and Rowley hospitalized, collateral victims of an international espionage saga involving the attempted assassination of a double agent.
