Lye has a sordid history of being used for murder and dissolving corpses

Lye is a corrosive alkali, commonly found in household cleaners. While acids are generally known to be corrosive, their chemical opposites, alkalies, can be just as destructive. Deadly Doses- A Writer’s Guide to Poisons rates lye’s toxicity at the highest as super toxic.

It takes less than seven drops in an oral dose, a mere taste, for it to be lethal to a 68 kilogram (150 pound) human being. A single taste of lye would cause third-degree burns on the mouth and the esophagus, the muscular tube that connects the throat to the stomach. If a sufficiently large dose of lye is swallowed, the alkali can cause perforations in the esophagus and stomach, which can lead to death in fatal cases.

In August 2014, large quantities of lye was accidentally mixed into iced tea at a restaurant after an employee mistook lye cleaner for sugar.

67-year-old Jan Harding was the first customer to fill her cup with the toxic mixture at the self-serve beverage station. She took a sip from her cup and felt her mouth and throat burning immediately. She spat the liquid out and frantically tried to throw up the rest of the swallowed drink into a trash bin.

“I think I just drank acid,” she told her husband.