CAUGHT on Film: Michael Marin (Millionaire), USA

Michael Marin – a millionaire convicted of burning down his $3.5million mansion for insurance money – seemingly poisoned himself in court.

As the guilty verdict was read out, Michael Marin closed his eyes and held his head in his hands before appearing to slip something into his mouth.  Minutes later, the 53-year-old collapsed to the floor in convulsions and died.  The shocking scenes were caught on camera in Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona, where Marin had been on trial since May.

The father-of-four torched his mansion in Phoenix on July 5, 2009, because, prosecutors claimed, he could no longer afford the mortgage.  Fire Department investigators concluded that the blaze was started deliberately after finding several points of origin throughout the sprawling 6,600 sq ft home, which boasted four garages.

Marin was found outside the burning property after climbing from a second floor bedroom using a rope ladder and wearing scuba diving gear, according to Fox News.  Marin faced 16 years in prison as the charge of committing arson in an occupied structure holds the same sentence as second-degree murder in Arizona.

Footage from the courtroom yesterday shows a shocked Marin covering his face with his hands before appearing to place something into his mouth.  The grandfather-of-two appears to swallow a number of times before taking a drink from the water bottle on the table in front of him.

Minutes later he appears to be struggling to breathe before collapsing to the ground as others in the court rush over to help.  Marin was taken to a hospital in Arizona where he was pronounced dead.

Toxicology tests will be carried out on the former Wall Street trader’s body and the water bottle he drank from.  MCSO spokesman Jeff Sprong told Fox: “Obviously if you watch the video it looks like he does put something in his mouth.  “We cannot verify that at this point and we’re not going to be able to until the toxicology report comes back.

“We will obviously contact family to see if this is something he hinted at doing, maybe he left a note you know, it just needs to be thoroughly investigated then hopefully we’ll find out why he did it and what he did.”

Did You Know?…

Cyanide salts are sometimes used as fast-acting suicide devices. Cyanide works better with higher stomach acidity.

• In February 1937, the Uruguayan short story writer Horacio Quiroga committed suicide by drinking cyanide in a hospital at Buenos Aires.
• In 1937, the famous polymer chemist, Wallace Carothers, committed suicide by cyanide.
• In the 1943 Operation Gunnerside, to destroy the Vemork Heavy Water Plant in World War II (an attempt to stop/slow German atomic bomb progress), the commandos were given cyanide tablets (cyanide enclosed in rubber) kept in the mouth and were instructed to bite into them in case of German capture. The tablets ensured death within three minutes.
• Cyanide, in the form of pure liquid prussic acid (a historical name for hydrogen cyanide), was the favored suicide agent of the Third Reich. It was used to commit suicide by Erwin Rommel (1944), after being accused of conspiring against Hitler; Adolf Hitler’s wife, Eva Braun (1945); and by Nazi leaders Heinrich Himmler (1945), possibly Martin Bormann (1945), and Hermann Göring (1946).
• It is speculated that, in 1954, Alan Turing used an apple that had been injected with a solution of cyanide to commit suicide after being convicted of having a homosexual relationship—illegal at the time in the UK—and forced to undergo hormonal castration.
• Jonestown, Guyana, was the site of a large mass suicide/murder, in which over 900 members of the Peoples Temple drank potassium cyanide–laced ‘Flavor Aid’ in 1978.
• Members of the Sri Lankan LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose insurgency lasted from 1983 to 2009), used to wear cyanide vials around their necks with the intention of committing suicide if captured by the government forces.
• On June 27, 2013, after being found guilty of statutory sodomy of a 14-year-old female, 48-year-old Steve Parsons ingested a cyanide pill and died shortly after in Maryville, MO.