[NYPost] The British man exposed to a deadly nerve agent that killed his girlfriend said he is guilt-ridden because he gave it to her as a present – thinking it was a discarded bottle of perfume, according to a report.
"I'm feeling very low about Dawn," Charlie Rowley, 45, told the UK's Sun newspaper about his partner Dawn Sturgess, 44, who died July 8, eight days after exposure to Novichok.
The poison was contained in a bottle thrown away by Russian hitmen who had used it in the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, 67, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, the outlet reported.
It is believed Rowley found the bottle in Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury, close to where the Skripals were found slumped on a park bench after being poisoned. He then took it to his home in Amesbury.
"I remember finding a cosmetic bottle which I had picked up and gave it to Dawn as a present," he told the paper weakly after being released from a hospital on Friday.
Sturgess, who is thought to have sprayed the nerve agent on her wrists, was rushed to a hospital after collapsing in Rowley's apartment.