Help! Need inspiration on how to kill someone ;-)

[megrunning]

In my novel I need to kill off one of the characters and can't figure out how. She needs to be murdered by someone else, but its a mercy killing (sort of) and the death needs to be quite peaceful and needs to look like an accident or a natural death with no clues it was murder/suicide.

Other background is she's in her mid 40s, middle class and its summer. the death needs to take place at her home.

Carbon monoxide seems the best but not sure what appliance could be used and "faulty" in the summer.....Any ideas?!

Why are you clutching your pearls helpfulchap ?? You made your own suggestion upthread!

I used to think about that every time I loaded the dishwasher for about a year after I read about it.

Grapefruit juice and prescription medication interaction - though possibly not the "peaceful" death you're after... www.cbsnews.com/news/drinking-grapefruit-juice-with-some-medications-can-be-deadly-study-warns/

Injection of insulin between the toes or in the bum hole so they never find the site of entry. So I've heard. Never fantasised thought of murdering
my husband's ex wife anyone.

Oh if you are the new Archers Editor please don't kill anyone, just induce paralysis so Helen can get her revenge

I think we have enough ingredients now for a very middle class game of Cluedo.
Was it Miss Bouquet, in the yurt, with the digitalis salad?
Or Nigel Smith-Jones, in the conservatory, with the barbecued Death Caps?

Afraid I can't give the answer away yet as my precious writing day was sabotaged by a child with conjunctivitis!!

How about electrocution? She could be doing the washing/making a cup of tea, easy for the kettle handle to snap and water to go everywhere.....

Could she be in the potting shed and faint, and land face down in the potting compost, and suffocate in it??

But that's just an accident, CocktailQueen.

Syringe full of air between the toes into a vein. Heart attack. Allegedly.

Yup od with insulin......

But it has to look like an accident and surely some force would be involved, unless the killer was a nurse and lied about what he/she was doing.

As far as I know (csi) an insulin overdose is hard to detect because is occurs naturally in the body..... fine needle whilst someone is sleeping?? And the body would metabolise the insulin for some time after.... hmmmm

Was going to suggest insulin.

But an 'invisible' suffocating gas like nitrogen, CO2 or helium would work too.

[Chemist and CSI fan, not serial killer in waiting. Honest.]

Ooh death by helium sounds fun...... describing the victims voice pitching higher and higher.....

Boulevard are you me? I'm also a chemist and a CSI fan I mostly enjoy watching it so I can annoy DH by pointing out all the bad science in it though.

Point of information: carbon dioxide overdose hurts (because that's how your lungs assess when to breathe) whereas nitrogen or helium just make you drift off.

Carbon monoxide would show up in a PM, so would need a cover story.

StylishDuck I also like to make sarcastic comments about full DNA profiles coming back in five minutes.
Oh, and women who are finely searching a piece of clothing for trace evidence, while dangling their flowing hair all over it is a big bugbear of mine too.

Could she be in the potting shed and faint, and land face down in the potting compost, and suffocate in it?

I meant someone would push her face into the compost and suffocate her, but it would LOOK like an accident... obviously.

Boulevard yes! And I would dearly love one of those mass spectrometers that not only tells you the mass of the compound but also the chemical name, what its used for, what household substance it's commonly found in and what shops sell it within a 20 mile radius!

Nicholas Evans famously almost killed himself and his friends when he mixed up ceps mushrooms with webcaps on a foraging trip. It's terrifyingly easy to do - they look very very similar and even an experienced forager can make a mistake.

Not painless or peaceful. But a horribly plausible accident.

Couple of bees in a jam jar or her clothing and an allergic reaction?

Shellfish allergy and an accidental potted crab sandwich mix up?

Asthmatic with a cat allergy and an inquisitive stray tom cat joining her for a nap in the conservatory?

gas leak
foxglove leaves in the salad
very thin wire threaded into brain via tear duct
insulin overdose injected in hard-to-detect area (inside of cheek, existing wound, ?
fatal bacteria in existing wound?

the other "locked room" method is to somehow scare them to death, I think Agatha Christie used that at least once.

Put deadly insect in the bed with the victim? Or use venom to mimic a spider, scorpion or snake bite?

Taser? What about one of those defibrillators - can they be used to reverse effect?

somehow make her slip and fall. could someone put liquid down so shed fall and bash head?
she could be cooking,sneak in turn oven up it explodes.
shes lit candles and someone comes and knocks it to the ground