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This was one of my favorate conundrums from the past so I hope all you newbies like it:
The inhabitants of an isolated village in the United States (I mean isolated from everyone) called on a witchdoctor/medicine man to help them find out why so many children born in recent months had died soon after birth. The medicine man decided to organize a trial by ordeal to discover whether there were any witches in the village in question who might be responsibe for the early deaths of the children. 16 individuals VOLUNTEERED for the trial by ordeal of the medicineman. The trial was a mild one as ordeal tests went. All the participants who VOLUNTEERED were required to do was drink a certain magic potion called LOGAN. LOGAN it was believed , would kill any witch who drank it but would not harm the innocent individual. The medicineman, from now on called KennKong, prepared the LOGAN and handed it out to the sixteen individuals who VOLUNTEERED for the trial by ordeal. These individuals were in no way forced into this trial, no peer pressure of any sort. After a few minutes after drinking the LOGAN, four of the sixteen individuals, Chumby, MikesFan, Ben'sGirl, and JaneDoe, died instantly once the LOGAN had set in. Several others, including joystar, Napolean, and Vmore, became violently ill soon after consuming the LOGAN but did not die from the potion. After word of this trial got out of the isolated village and got to the "real" world, the government sent in agents and took samples of the LOGAN for study. A governmental analysis resulted and after some time it was concluded that the LOGAN contained no immediate poisoness substances which would kill an individual by itself. The substance was given to guinea pigs and none showed harmful affects from the ingestion of the LOGAN. (NOTE: I am nether promoting nor am I showing hate for the use of animals in testing procedures.) The pathologist who examined the deceased found no cause of death related to a certain known poison. Later after further analysis, the pathologist found out what had happened in this witch trial. The conclusion of their study was that Logan was normally not harmful to humans at all in regular conditions; however, when LOGAN was introduced into a human's system when there were large doses of adreniline in the system at the same time, the LOGAN with the adreniline would become a poisoness substance and kill the individual in question. Adreniline is released in ones system when we are frightened or scared of something>>>Such as being on trial for witch craft. Thus the fears of the individual were creating large doses of adreniline and with its combination with the LOGAN the people were in affect POISONING THEMSELVES because they were scared! Kenn Kong was not aware of this chemical process, he had learned the procedures of making LOGAN from his mentor and never asked how it worked, he was just following an ancient custom. Knowing the Facts as they are : Should KennKong be convicted for the murder of the four dead individuals in this case? Remember that the people who died VOLUNTEERED to take part in this trial and there own bodies were the reason they died. However, their family's want something to be done! You are the prosecutor, What are you going to do? Note: In no way do I want the individuals listed above dead, I just wanted to spice up the conundrum by using names of people on the Forum.