Poisoning victim in Britain dies

A 44-year-old British woman who was exposed to a deadly nerve agent died Sunday night, adding a homicide investigation to a tense diplomatic dispute between Britain and Russia.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, had been hospitalized in critical condition for a week after she and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, 45, were exposed to Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed in the last years of the Soviet Union.

The same nerve agent was used in March to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, and his daughter in Salisbury, England. British officials declared confidently that Russia was at fault, but tight-lipped investigators have shared little of the evidence they have gathered.

The poisoning of two more people, apparently by accident, might provide a new data point about how the plot worked.

Sturgess was a mother of three from Durrington, England. Her partner, Rowley, remains hospitalized in critical condition in a coma. They fell ill after being exposed to the nerve agent in Amesbury, a town close to the cathedral city of Salisbury.

On Thursday, Russia denied any involvement in the poisoning of the couple, as it did in the case of the Skripals. Instead, Russia suggested alternative possible explanations — including a claim that the British themselves could have planted the nerve agent.