EDITOR’S NOTE: Watch the premiere of the CNN Films documentary”Salisbury poisonings: a spy next door» Sunday at 8:00 pm ET/PT on CNN.
Charlie Rowley’s nightmare began the day he picked up what looked like an ordinary bottle of perfume.
It was a summer afternoon in Amesbury, England. While searching through the charity bin, he noticed a small cardboard box. Inside was a plastic-wrapped container labeled “Nina Ricci.” Convinced that someone had thrown out a bottle of expensive French perfume, he took it home to surprise his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess.
Finding treasures among discarded things was one of his favorite pastimes. Over the years, he has rescued televisions and other household items. But on that day in June 2018, he hoped someone had thrown away a ring he could use to propose. “She often made comments about giving 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 operatives used three months ago 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 that included the attempted murder of a double agent.
“I thought it was a real, nice gift, and she was happy to receive it. But everything went so tragically and so quickly,” he recalled. “She sprayed it, sniffed it, and applied it to her wrist. And shortly after that, she said she felt weird. She complained of a headache… (then) she didn’t react at all. I tried to revive her. Everything was going in slow motion.”
Later that day, Rowley was drenched in sweat, rocking back and forth and muttering incoherently as the poison, later identified as Novichok, a Russian nerve agent, took its toll on him. He fell into a coma and was hospitalized for several weeks, at first with little memory of what happened, he said. After being discharged, he suffered a stroke which sent him back to hospital for another long period.
The ordeal drew an unsuspecting Rowley into a battle between Russian and British intelligence agencies.
“Who knew there was a spy living in Salisbury? It was a shock,” Rowley said. “Who would have thought that it (poison) would appear in a bottle again?”
Eight years later, he is still trying to put into words what happened. In a new CNN Films documentary, “The Salisbury Poisonings: The Spy Next Door,” airing Sunday, Rowley shares her story along with others whose lives were forever changed by the attacks. He often pauses mid-sentence, his eyes filling with tears.
“I tried to forget about it. I didn’t expect this to happen to me or to Dawn,” he told CNN. “And everything has changed since then.”
The couple dated for about a year after meeting at the homeless shelter where Sturgess lived. Rowley had just moved into a new place and was preparing for her to join him. Their lives revolved around simple pleasures, including treasures that Rowley received from charity bins near public places.
“Being seen in a trash can really was a bit of a stigma,” he said. “But most of the time it reaped rewards. I was always coming up with something, big or small. Any good things I found, they went straight to… Dawn. I always dug to the bottom, just in case I found that ring.”
In their free time, the couple listened to music and watched movies. Sturgess was into Bob Marley and action films. “She didn’t really like girls’ movies,” Rowley said. “Sometimes if there was a fun fair in town, we’d go there and walk around the stalls and giggle.”
Then one thoughtful gesture set them on an unimaginable path. On June 28, two days after Rowley found the box in the bin, he gave it to Sturgess. It was Saturday, around noon, and they were watching TV after spending the previous day in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, a leafy riverside park overlooking Salisbury Cathedral, which has the tallest spire in Britain, rising above the trees.
She immediately recognized the brand and seemed excited, he said.
He remembers thinking it was strange that the attachment came separately and was not attached to the bottle, and that he had to remove the cap and attach it himself.
Sturgess sprayed it, sniffed it, and applied a little to her wrist. It had an oily texture and no odor. “It’s very strange – perfume without smell,” he recalled his thoughts.
Soon after, she told him she wasn’t feeling well and went to the bathroom, where he heard knocking. He found her unconscious in the bathtub and called 911.
“One minute I was talking to Dawn, and the next minute she was out of it, not responding. I just panicked,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Emergency services rushed Sturgess to hospital. Unaware that she had been poisoned and that it was connected to Russian espionage, Rowley decided to run a few errands before joining her there.
“I would have liked to go with her. I was planning to pack her a small bag, some trinkets, clothes, cosmetics or something to take her to the hospital. But everything happened so quickly,” he said.
He never saw Sturgess again. Five hours after she collapsed, the ambulance returned to the same address for Rowley, who had also become unwell after returning home from running errands.
Sturgess died 10 days later while Rowley was in a coma. She was 44.
The small bottle contained enough poison to kill 10,000 people, Neil Basu, the former head of Britain’s counter-terrorism police, says in the film.
The charming, picturesque city of Salisbury, with a population of about 44,000, looks more like a postcard than the center of an international spy scandal.
The case unfolded like a spy novel. On a cold day in March 2018, two people were found lying on a bench in an outdoor shopping complex in the city center.
Investigators identified them as Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer accused of spying for Britain’s MI6, and his daughter Yulia, visiting from Moscow. The police officer who first discovered them was also hospitalized.
“We had a spy in Salisbury,” Rowley said, as if eight years later he still could hardly believe it. “Salisbury had secrets.”
Within days, British investigators determined that the couple had been poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union.
Investigators said two Russian soldiers arrived in the UK under aliases, smeared poison on the front door of Skripal’s home and boarded a plane back to Moscow.
Forensic experts in hazmat suits swarmed the medieval streets of Salisbury. Police cordoned off parks, pubs and restaurants as teams searched for traces of the deadly nerve agent. Every time someone got sick, panic spread that Novichok would strike again. A church leader cleansed the city with holy water to calm the shocked community.
After weeks in critical condition, father and daughter survived the attack.
“It was clear to me from the very beginning that this was not just a poisoning, but an attempted murder,” Mark Sedwill, then Britain’s national security adviser, told CNN.
Three months later, the city began to return to normal. Then, about eight miles north of Salisbury, Rowley unknowingly picked up a discarded bottle containing poison.
And the nightmare began again.
Amber Rudd, Britain’s then home secretary, said the poisonings raised worrying questions.
“The public doesn’t want to hear that we’re not really sure what it is, where it came from, or what else it could be,” she says in the film. “They want to know that their government… is going to keep them safe.”
The failed attempt on Skripal’s life was seen by some as an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin, who dismissed claims that Russia was behind the poisoning as “nonsense.”
A year later, after extensive decontamination efforts, authorities declared Salisbury free of the nerve agent. Skripal and his daughter are reported to be in hiding and living under new identities to ensure their safety.
But for Rowley, the ordeal was far from over. He woke up from his coma with little memory of what happened. The doctor said that the poison killed his girlfriend.
“I was shocked because that was the bottle I gave to Dawn,” he said. “I felt terribly, terribly guilty about it… and it’s still hard to deal with today.”
Rowley still lives near Salisbury and is reminded of the poison. Following the attack, he had problems with his balance and vision and lost the use of his left arm. Years later, he says, his memory has never fully recovered.
“I associate it with Novichok,” he said, “but I don’t know if it will cause any long-term harm.”
Russian agents were identified but never arrested. They insisted that they had come to Salisbury as tourists to admire its famous cathedral.
A year after the attack, Rowley met with the Russian ambassador in London, hoping to clear the air.
“I actually wanted to hear it from the source … and get an answer,” he said. “I didn’t really get any response, it seemed like an excuse, a passing of the buck.”
He said he was no longer waiting for justice for the woman he lost.
“It’s out of my control,” he said. “I can’t do anything.”