February, 2007
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February 1, 2007 Today's Half-Nude Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The Ayatollah Khomeini died at the age of 89 from heart failure twelve days after intestinal surgery on June 3, 1989. On June 6, in front of a crowd of an estimated three million mourners, the Ayatollah was given funeral rites, but not before his anguished followers wreaked havoc over the twelve-mile processional route. Crowds surged in order to glimpse the religious leader's body. Several mourners died in the crush and journalists reported that at least 11,000 people were injured during the funeral. The Ayatollah's coffin was ultimately transferred to an army helicopter for transport. When the helicopter landed at the burial site, members of the Revolutionary Guards, on duty to maintain order, paraded the coffin high overhead. Mourners grabbed wildly at Khomeini's coffin, pulling it open and exposing the Ayatollah, rending his shroud and pulling their beloved patriarch to the ground. Broadcast live on television, the vision of Iran's most revered cleric toppling half-nude into a sea of frenetic mourners shocked the watching world. Soldiers quickly recovered the body to the safety of a helicopter and finally, nine hours behind schedule, the Ayatollah Rhollah Khomeini was buried, without a coffin in a shallow grave, in keeping with Muslim custom. Culled
from: What
A Way To Go ********************************************************************** The Comtesse Reviews... What
a Way To Go: Fabulous Funerals of the Famous and Infamous I just finished reading the book that the above fact was culled from. It's an analysis of some of the most lavish funerals in history. Although the book had some interesting biographical notes, I actually found it to be a pretty boring read. The problem is that I don't actually find funerals all that interesting. Autopsies, embalming, gravestones, cemeteries - yes. Funeral processions and eulogies, no. I mean, those things are interesting if you're taking part in them, but they make for dull reading material. I'd suggest skipping this one if you stumble across it. Morbid-O-Meter: 2/5 skulls ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! DAYtheELF has a morbid trinket for us: "This is a must-have accessory for any morbid bathroom! When I ordered it I was expecting it to be kinda cheesy, but when it came in the mail I was very pleasantly surprised. The skull is in very nice, realistic detail and a bit larger than an average person's head. I was sorely tempted to put it on my bookcase, not next to my toilet! It makes my bathroom so much more fun!" http://budk.com/product.asp?pn=YT4934******* Morbid Sightseeing! The Whitakers send a morbid sightseeing recommendation: "Have you ever done 'The Thing'?" http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/AZCOCthing.html "I grew up near here and would highly recommend that any of your readers that are traveling in the southern Arizona area stop in. Located 50 miles east of Tucson on I-10. Even without its main attraction, a very well preserved mummified Indian woman with her infant, its worth the entry price. The priceless matchlock rifle is worth admission alone." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 2, 2007 Today's Celebratory Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A rugby fan who cut out his testicles with wire cutters to mark a Wales victory is at a loss to explain why he did it. Geoffrey Huish, 31, performed the impromptu self-surgery in February when his beloved Wales beat world champions England. After performing the deed, Mr Huish put his severed anatomy in a bag and took them to his local social club to show fellow fans. He collapsed with blood loss and was rushed to hospital but surgeons could not reattach his missing parts. He was put in a psychiatric ward but has no history of mental illness and was at a loss to explain why he did it. "I'd told my pal Gethin Probert before the game that Wales didn't stand a chance," Mr Huish told The Sun. "It wasn't a bet but I said I'd cut my b*lls off if we won. I listened to the game on the radio at home by myself. After the match I got up for a pee and saw the cutters in the bathroom. Gethin had left them after repairing the chain on my toilet. I remembered what I'd said and thought he had left them for me. I thought 'Oh no, I haven't got to do anything like that have I' and then I thought 'You can do it'. So I started hacking away at my tackle. It took about 10 minutes and there was quite a bit of pain but I just kept going. The cutters were blunt so I had to keep snipping." After picking his testicles from the toilet bowl, he went to the social club. "I went in and shouted out 'I've done it!'," Mr Huish said. "I took my b*lls out and passed them in the bag to a friend. "Some people then laid me on the floor." Mr Huish continues to see a psychiatrist. "I think about what happened every day and still haven't come up with a good reason why," he said. "I'd had a lot going on and felt a bit down. I can't have kids now but still want a family - maybe I'll adopt." Culled
from: The Sydney Morning Herald ********************************************************************** Okay, Bears fans... you know what to do on Sunday should your team buck the odds. I will just sit back and enjoy the post-game festivities! ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! Now here's a Jewish gift that even a Comtesse could love! A Plush Plagues Bag! http://www.judaism.com/display.asp?nt=ajao&etn=IIBHH Thanks
to Joe for the link. ******* Morbid Mirth Du Jour! Two women in the afterlife: 1st woman: "Hi! My name is Wanda." 2nd woman: "Hi! I'm Sylvia. How'd you die?" 1st woman: "I froze to death." 2nd woman: "How horrible!" 1st woman: "It wasn't so bad. After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get warm & sleepy, and finally died a peaceful death. What about you?" 2nd woman: "I died of a massive heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating, so I came home early to catch him in the act. But instead, I found him all by himself in the den watching TV." 1st woman: "So, what happened?" 2nd woman: "I was so sure there was another woman there somewhere that I started running all over the house looking. I ran up into the attic and searched, and down into the basement. Then I went through every closet and checked under all the beds. I kept this up until I had looked everywhere, and finally I became so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died." 1st woman: "Too bad you didn't look in the freezer---we'd both still be alive." ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win!
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February 3, 2007 Today's Angry Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Arthur Roberts lost his temper when he accidentally wiped his firm's sales figures off his computer. He threw the machine out of his window in Brisbane, Australia... and killed pedestrian Peter Mullins. He was charged with manslaughter. Culled
from: Strange
Deaths ********************************************************************** Which is why one should always walk briskly when passing by a highrise office building. (This Helpful Hint For Avoiding Death was brought to you by DeSpair.) Oh, okay, I guess I should show some civic pride for my adopted home and say it, although it's quite UnComtesseLike... Ahem... Go Bears! (I just wish the game were being held here tomorrow. The high is supposed to be 0, with a wind chill of something like -420. Imagine the fun we'd have watching frozen body parts breaking off. There would be a glass-breaking sound as the ball shatters a receiver's hands; fingers would fly in all directions. Now, *that* would be a SUPER Bowl!) ******* Update Du Jour! Tracy wrote to let me know that Genarlow Wilson - the 17-year-old boy who was jailed for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl in Georgia - has a My Space page. This is a good way to get the word out about this insane case of injustice: http://www.myspace.com/freegenarlowwilson ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! For those of us who have long pined for a Haunted Memories portrait to hang on our castle walls, but who are unwilling (or unable) to shell out the cash required for a large version of the portraits, there is good news. The portraits are now available as 5" x 7" collector's cards for only $14.99 (plus shipping and handling). http://www.hauntedmemories.com/5x7_cards.htm ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! Old anatomical illustrations are brilliant morbid works of art, and the collection of anatomical plates at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is truly impressive. And best of all, you can browse these elegant masterpieces online! http://link.library.utoronto.ca/anatomia/application/index.cfm Thanks to Michael for the link. ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 4, 2007 Today's Compulsive Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Meet Sean Kobin. The Wisconsin man, a freak if ever there was one, will be spending Thanksgiving (2005) in a Milwaukee jail due to his toxic sexual compulsion. Kobin, you see, gets off by watching women vomit, a process he helps along by feeding them caustic liquid substances. The 20-year-old was charged earlier this month with felony reckless injury when a woman suffered serious chemical burns after drinking a solution containing sodium hydroxide, a bleach-like substance that Kobin told cops he used at his job to strip aluminum from copper. When Chrystal Kolinski fell to the ground and began vomiting blood, Kobin captured her agony with a camcorder, according to a Circuit Court criminal complaint. Kolinski, 33, told investigators that Kobin had pestered her for days to drink an "unknown liquid" which, she thought, "just tasted gross and would not hurt her." Instead, Kobin's brew nearly killed her, causing severe burns to the single mother's esophagus and stomach. Kolinski, who remains hospitalized, just filed a lawsuit against Kobin over the November 8 incident, charging that he "intentionally induced" her to ingest "concentrated drain cleaner in order to videotape her vomiting for his own sexual gratification." Kobin told cops that he asked Kolinski to drink the solution "because he needed to get a rush," according to the complaint. He also acknowledged asking girls to "drink things in the past, that it does get him excited," but added that guys drinking Drano did not deliver such thrills. Additional felony charges are expected since Kobin's video camera contained footage of other women, some juveniles, getting ill after drinking his potions. Kobin was convicted last year of talking a 13-year-old girl into drinking bleach, an act termed a sex crime and which landed him on Wisconsin's sex offender list. Culled
from: The Smoking Gun ********************************************************************** To see this charmer's mug shot, go here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1123052drink1.html ******* Desensitize Yourself Merchandise I've added a new design to the Cafe Press shop - "Desensitize Yourself". To see this charming design, please check out A Plethora Of Viscera's Cafe Press shop: http://www.cafepress.com/plethoraviscera ******* Morbidity Now Showing! Da Gallo's writes to give us a heads-up on a great stage show that will soon be leaving NYC to go on the road! "Got taken to see Evil Dead the Musical for my birthday, and since it was the most well choreographed blood splatter to music scene I have ever experienced (thanks to Tony Award winner Hinton Battle) I will be seeing it again before it goes on the road (closing night no less). That’s right EVERYONE will have a chance to experience the joy. And I suggest that EVERYONE should." http://www.evildeadthemusical.com/ Watch for it in a town near you! And morbid New Yorkers, you have until February 17th to see a showing. ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! Oh, if only my delicate palate could handle hot sauce - I would definitely have to purchase some Haunted Hot Sauce ASAP. Unfortunately, it would lie neglected on the shelf... although in a coffin container, and with such nifty packaging, it would actually make a charming addition to the Castle DeSpair's pantry. Hmmmm... I may need to reconsider... http://www.hauntedhotsauce.com/ ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 5, 2007 Today's Decreed Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In 789, Charlemagne decreed punishment by death for anyone found practising cremation. Culled
from: Death:
A History of Man's Obsessions and Fears ********************************************************************** Good for him! That will teach those people for being so boring! ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! Bernard sends a link to the perfect site for the morbid voyeur in all of us: a page of allegedly real suicide notes. As Bernard says, lord knows we've all written a few in our time. http://www.well.com/~art/suicidenotes.html ******* Morbid Song Du Jour! Cathy sends "The Morbid Song" - which the Comtesse can especially relate to! The Morbid Song If
you're "MONSTROUS" and you know it CLAP YOUR HANDS! If
you're "DISMAL" and you know it STOMP YOUR FEET!
******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 6, 2007 Today's Sentenced Yet Truly Morbid Fact! On 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg delivered its verdicts, after 216 court sessions. Of the original twenty-four Nazi defendants, twelve (including Martin Bormann, tried in absentia) were sentenced to death by hanging. Hermann Wilhelm Goering cheated the gallows of Allied justice by committing suicide in his prison cell shortly before the ten other condemned Nazi leaders were hanged in Nuremberg gaol. He swallowed cyanide he had concealed in a copper cartridge shell, while lying on a cot in his cell. The one-time Number Two man in the Nazi hierarchy was dead two hours before he was scheduled to have been dropped through the trap door of a gallows erected in a small, brightly lighted gymnasium in the gaol yard, 35 yards from the cell block where he spent his last days of ignominy. Culled
from: The Execution of Nazi War
Criminals ********************************************************************** Ignominy! Now *there's* a word with which to impress your friends! ig·no·min·y ******* Wretched Recommendations! PandaThief has a film recommendation for us: Dreamcatcher
(2003) "Dreamcatcher is a pretty weird movie. Stephen King has been writing for longer than I’ve been alive, and I think his works fall into three categories: stuff he was getting started with, stuff he wrote after he first got popular, and stuff he wrote after he didn’t really have to care what people thought about it any longer. "Rather than distract by digging into my own inner weirdness, I’ll tender a simple explanation of what I think I mean. When SK was getting started, he published a lot of short stories that had a certain thematic appeal to them. I’m not exactly a student of literature, but I think that he was writing very cerebral and visceral horror in a time when society was trying to cling to its happy thoughts, and he had to be really damn good to get anyone to take him seriously. "After he got popular, he as able to rely on his image to get people to sit through what he had to tell them, and this—in my humble opinion—is when his works settled firmly into our culture. This period is when most of his popular works came out. People started falling into two categories: those who loved his stuff, and those who hated it. SK doesn’t give you a thumbnail sketch; he starts setting up a scene, and then he takes the reader back to a particular time in each character’s past where a pivotal event happened, something that shaped who and what they are. He then draws us back to the present scenario, and we suddenly understand why this person does this thing, and that person does that. If you can sit through hundreds of pages of background story, it makes for a good read: there is no such thing as a two-dimensional character in SK’s work. "Then we enter the latter stage, where SK is too rich and well-established to need to care what people think. I don’t mean to cheapen him in any way—hell, I’ve never met him; who am I to judge?—but he certainly passed the “authorial success event horizon,” where it’s obvious that the writer is more concerned with what he thinks than how his or her work will be accepted. Herein we see such books as the Gunslinger series, where the story—at least for me—stays hot, but the timeline starts slowing down to a gradual crawl. The first book wrapped up 20+ years of the protagonist’s life; the second book was set more in the present, and took on an “everyday” speed; the third book started picking apart daily events; the fourth book kind of sat down and gave you an exhaustive seminar on the how and the why. I guess it was dynamic in the sense that things happened, but it would make for a better A&E documentary than a Spike TV one-shot. "But it was still pretty damn good, if you ask me. "Anyway, Dreamcatcher. In order to watch this movie, you kind of have to know ahead of time what you’re getting into. SK once said that he keeps his fingers out of the pies that moviemakers build from his stories: he understands that it is a separate art, and he feels he put enough work into the written story, that he is exempt from putting forth any more effort. He’s already said what he has to say. I think this is why SK movies are kind of 50/50: half of them are good, half of them are rotten pieces of stuff. The Shining: classic. The Mangler: I want my five dollars back. (Yeah, back then, a movie ticket cost five dollars. Why you need a mortgage to go to the movies these days is beyond my understanding. Then again, our society pays people millions a year to play sports, and then sits back and takes it when they go on strike for more money.) "So, Dreamcatcher is pretty strange. All five of the main characters are psychic, and rather than spelling it out, you’re expected to pick up on it. That’s because there’s too much else going on to waste time with details. For example, the sixth main character is a mentally retarded super-psychic who knew at the age of maybe 15 that in twenty years, the earth will be invaded by alien psychic vampires—and not for the first time—and this time, there is an excellent chance our species won’t survive. So, he sets up the other five with psychic powers, and later tricks one guy into walking out in front of traffic because the guy needs to have his heart stop twice so the Evil Boss Alien (Mr. Gray) can inhabit him without fully possessing him. "I said it was a weird movie. "I can’t really describe the movie any further without trying to write it out, but if you are “in to” SK and you like taking chances with movie rentals, this one’s a good bet. "'I… DUDDITS!'" ******* Morbid Sightseeing! Trixie has a morbid sightseeing suggestion: "Another key sightseeing spot in Atlanta, Georgia has to be the Oakland Cemetary. http://www.inusa.com/tour/ga/atlanta/hoc.htm "Oakland Cemetary is rather expansive with incredibly mausoleums, statues, and landscape (especially in the middle of the night). There is a vast amount of ghostly activity and definately casts an air of foreboding. A must see for nocturnal troopers!" ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 7, 2007 Today's First-Degree Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A mother was booked on a charge of first-degree murder for allegedly placing her 3-month-old son in a clothes dryer and turning it on. The infant had third-degree burns over 50 percent of his body and suffered blunt-force trauma to the head. Lakeisha Adams, 18, called police to her home on Monday to report that someone had killed her child. When officers arrived, they found Jailand Adams on a sofa. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Adams admitted during questioning to putting the infant in the dryer and turning it on, but did not say why. Adams also has a 1-year-old child who was placed in state custody. If convicted, Adams faces death by injection or a life sentence. The first-degree murder charge is mandatory under Louisiana law because the victim was under age 12. Culled
from: Associated Press ********************************************************************** As
Paradox says, "You don't often see that sort of behavior in a major
appliance." ******* Morbid Mirth Du Jour! Q: How do you get 100 babies into a bucket? .
. A: With tortilla chips!!! [no] Thanks to Evonne for that one. ******* Ghastly! The National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland is currently showing an exhibition entitled Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body. I need hardly mention that this sounds like a briliant exhibit. Better still, the website has some video footage of an actual autopsy for us to gawk over. I get a particular kick out of how they slice up the brain like a head of lettuce. Ah, a head's a head, I suppose... http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/media/autopsy/index.html Thanks
to m3m3s3 for the link. ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 8, 2007 Today's Dark Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A Massachusetts native and popular captain of a sightseeing riverboat in Tuscaloosa fell to his death from an interstate bridge following a traffic crash. Michael Medeiros, 59, originally from Fall River, Mass., was driving behind his wife, Nikki, in the southbound lane of Interstate 20/59 when several 18-foot flatbed trailers fell off a truck onto the roadway. Nikki Medeiros and the driver of another vehicle, Angelina Spyre, 26, of Eutaw, crashed into each other while trying to avoid the spilled trailers. When Michael Medeiros stopped his car on the bridge after the crash to check on his wife, Sartain said he stepped over a barrier rail in the darkness and fell 70 feet. Sartain said Medeiros apparently didn't realize he was on a bridge. His wife was not injured in the accident. Spyre was taken to a local hospital with injuries. Culled
from: The Tuscaloosa News ********************************************************************** You
know, I can completely understand how this could happen to the guy.
Once upon a time I was doing my customary 3-hour-drive home from a concert
and started getting sleepy and swerving around the road at 3 a.m. Seeing
the cop lights in my rear view mirror woke me up and I immediately pulled
over. The cop told me to go to the mini mart down the street and get
out and walk around to wake myself up. And he left me with, "Next
time, don't pull over on a bridge." I didn't even realize I was
on a bridge. So, see, if it can happen to me, it can happen to Michael... ******* Ghastly! Rob stumbled across an amazing photograph at the World War II National Archives. It is the execution of a French Resistance fighter by the Nazis in 1944. Taken the instant the bullets hit his body, you can see the rope he was tied with being severed and the wood stake splintering. http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/images/ww2-188.jpg Here's a link to the full site: http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/ ******* Wretched Recommendations! Black-Haired-Lass has a fiction recommendation for us: A
Fine & Private Place "A beautifully-written novel about two spirits, trapped in the graveyard in which their bodies are buried, who fall in love, aided by a man living in a mausoleum and a talking raven. It's truly engrossing and not schmaltzy!" ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 9, 2007 Today's Sacrificial Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Age "bog bodies" which were found in the Republic of Ireland. The bodies, which are both male and have been dated to more than 2,000 years old, probably belong to the victims of a ritual sacrifice. In common with other bog bodies, they show signs of having been tortured before their deaths. The first body dropped off a peat cutting machine in February 2003 in Clonycavan, near Dublin. The forearms, hands and lower abdomen are missing, believed to have been hacked off by the machine. The second was found in May the same year in Croghan, just 25 miles (40km) from Clonycavan. Old Croghan Man, as it has become known, was missing a head and lower limbs. It was discovered by workmen clearing a drainage ditch through a peat bog. Clonycavan man was a young male no more than 5ft 2in tall (1.6m). Beneath his hair, which retains its unusual "raised" style, was a massive wound caused by heavy cutting object that smashed open his skull. Old Croghan man was also young - probably in his early to mid 20s - but much taller than his counterpart from 25 miles away. Scientists worked out from the length of his arms that he would have stood around 6ft 6in tall (2.0m). He had been horrifically tortured before death. His nipples had been cut and he had been stabbed in the ribs. A cut on his arm suggested he had tried to defend himself during the attack that ended his life. The young man was later beheaded and dismembered. Hazel ropes were passed through his arms before he was buried in the bog. Culled
from: BBC
News ********************************************************************** Check
out the link for some lovely pics of the corpses! ******* Clarification Du Jour! Regarding yesterday's photograph of the Frenchman being executed, apparently I had the description wrong, per RAS: "I noted your picture of a Frenchman at the moment bullets hit him on todays entry. Actually that is a picture of a French collaborator with the Nazis, not a French Resistance fighter." http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/images/ww2-188.jpg Sorry for the flub! I need to remember to check these things before I send them out! ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! Here's the perfect site for the morbid voyeur in all of us: My Death Space. It contains links to deceased My Space members, along with details of how they died. Compelling stuff. I am completely addicted. http://www.mydeathspace.comThanks to Dave for the link. ******* Ghastly! Brian Peppers is definitely the creepiest sex offender on the face of the earth. No, make that in the entire universe!!! http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/peppers.asp <Shudder!!!> Thanks to Dave for the link. ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 10, 2007 Today's Dangling Yet Truly Morbid Fact! On 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg delivered its verdicts, after 216 court sessions. Of the original twenty-four Nazi defendants, twelve (including Martin Bormann, tried in absentia) were sentenced to death by hanging. Three black-painted wooden scaffolds stood inside the gymnasium, a room approximately 33 feet wide by 80 feet long with plaster walls in which cracks showed. The gymnasium had been used only three days before by the American security guards for a basketball game. Two gallows were used alternately. The third was a spare for use if needed. The men were hanged one at a time, but to get the executions over with quickly, the military police would bring in the man while the prisoner who proceeded him still was dangling at the end of the rope. The ten once great men in Hitler's Reich that was to have lasted for a thousand years walked up thirteen wooden steps to a platform eight feet high which also was eight square feet. Ropes were suspended from a crossbeam supported on two posts. A new one was used for each man. When the trap was sprung, the victim dropped from sight in the interior of the scaffolding. The bottom of it was boarded up with wood on three sides and shielded by a dark canvas curtain on the fourth, so that no one saw the death struggles of the men dangling with broken necks. Culled
from: The Execution of Nazi War
Criminals ********************************************************************** Alas,
no camera phones were able to videotape these proceedings. Such primitive
times... ******* Morbid Mirth Du Jour! Here's a fun-sounding video game: Super Columbine Massacre!! Thanks to Steve O' for the link. ******* Ghastly! Here's another of those grim websites that contain photographs of unidentified bodies. In thise case, from the province of Ontario. http://www.opp.ca/Investigative/UnidentifiedRemains/uclist/index.htm Thanks to Evonne for the link. ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 11, 2007 Today's Ice-Cold Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A common torture technique in American prisons in the 19th century was to lock troublesome prisoners into a shower cubicle under a spray of ice-cold water. Such a punishment could prove fatal - in 1858 Simon Moore, an inmate of Auburn prison, New York State, collapsed and died after half an hour in these conditions, and in 1882 all cold water torture was abolished in American prisons. Culled
from: The
History of Torture ********************************************************************** ... until 2003 when I'm sure it was brought back into vogue in those top-secret Eastern European CIA prisons. That's just a hunch, of course... I don't know for sure... yet. I'm sure my time will come. ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! MFDJ's good friend Adi has written to let me know that he has finished updating his wonderfully disturbing sites: "All three sites (the fabulously queasotic 'Adipocere'; the lunch-dropping 'Mausoleum Problems'; and the strangely soothing 'Cemetery Monuments') have had their respective links pages completely updated. All links working have been verified; dead links have been either reconnected, or dropped if truly gone. Many new links, especially on the Adipocere site, have been added. "In addition, 'Adipocere' has a smart new index page, replacing the Rube Goldberg-like nightmare that it had become." Please pay a visit - you'll be glad (or, perhaps, sorry) you did! http://www.adipocere.homestead.com http://www.mausoleumproblems.homestead.com http://www.cemeterymonuments.homestead.com ******* "My Brush With Morbidity" by Drew "I
live in a smaller city, around 30,000 people, in Canada. I was walking
home from school in the winter months following a trail beside the railroad
tracks like I did everyday, when I finally came to where the tracks
met the road I found police tape encircling my neighborhood. My first
thought was that of murder. I
can definitely see why! ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! |
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February 12, 2007 Today's Mummified Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A dead woman dressed in white was positioned in a chair in front of a television set for 2 1/2 years because she told her caregiver that she didn't want to be buried and planned to return, the coroner said. "Don't show my body when I'm dead," Hamilton County Coroner Dr. O'dell Owens said Monday in describing Johannas Pope's wishes. "Don't bury me. I'm coming back." Pope, 61, died Aug. 29, 2003. Her caretaker and friend, whose name has not been released, left the woman upstairs in the home with the television and air conditioning on while the body slowly decayed and mummified. Some family members continued to live downstairs in the house since her death. Police went to the house after a relative who hadn't seen Pope in 2 1/2 years called them. They found a staircase behind a door blocked by a basket and climbed to the second floor where they found the body. "Standing outside, one could smell death," Owens said. Owens said he had not determined the cause of death but found no signs of abuse or foul play. Culled
from: Boston.Com ********************************************************************** "Standing outside, one could smell death" - you don't hear poetry like that coming from most coroners! ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! The Adipocere shop now has some black t-shirts! A great way to shock and horrify your non-morbid friends and family! http://www.cafepress.com/adipocere ******* Morbid Sightseeing! Bluemeanie42 has a tragic recommendation for us the next time we're meandering our way through New Zealand: "I wanted to let you know about the Asylum Lodge hostel, 36 Russell Road, Seacliff (tel: 03 4658123). Designed by Robert Lawson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lawson_%28architect%29), it used to be the biggest building in NZ and possibly the largest in the Southern hemisphere. It was demolished in the 1950s because of 'dangerous instability' (very appropriate for a lunatic asylum) but in its heyday in the late ninetheenth century, it housed over 1,400 patients. The pictures of the intact buildings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2-002563seacliff.jpg) are very impressive: it's really a massive castle-like edifice with turrets and towers. "And the whole damn thing is almost totally gone! There're just a few buildings, crumbling and stuffed with rotting old cars and furniture, and a sheep paddock. We went for a stroll on the old grounds--just a sweeping drive up through what used to be massive cultivated formal gardens and now is wild forest and then a blank grassy field with here or there a bit of brick or a cracked wall or a bit of mossy cement floor. With the wind whistling along the plain and the ducks calling plaintively and the grey drizzle, it was satisfyingly eerie. "Apparently, it was once featured on a television show about ghost hauntings and there is a ghost called 'The Eye.' One of the biggest fires in NZ history happened here, in a women's wing -- 37 of 39 patients died (http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Kids/NZDisasters/Seacliff.asp). I found a random on a hostel ranking site intoning 'It was colder inside the hostel than outside. Bodies buried outside bedroom windows,' but it was quite toasty even in the winter and I don't know how they'd know, really, without a good spade. "I am amazed at how little information there is on this place -- for such a young country with very little history, it seems a little silly to take something like this, raze most of it to the ground, and pass the remnants along to a couple of uninterested hostel owners. The hostel itself is set in the administration buildings, which still stand. There are also the boiler house (now a weekend home) and the workshops. It was worthwhile to stay at the hostel for the location, but we didn't care hugely for the owners--though they did give us some good advice about sightseeing in the area, generally we found them to be surprisingly suspicious and unfriendly (if they wanted to go out, all the guests had to leave the hostel so it could be locked, and campers--paying $15 a night for use of facilities--weren't allowed in to use the bathroom between about 11PM and 8AM). "We were also depressed to see the buildings boarded up and used as storehouses for garbage--it doesn't have to be Disneyland, people, but it would have been nice to have a bit more information provided and to be able to walk through the rooms that are left. "Here are our holiday pictures (there are seven of the buildings and grounds--unfortunately we didn't have the film to really go crazy, and a lot of the buildings are boarded up)" http://www.flickr.com/photos/annushka42/135648352/in/set-72057594118024883/ ******* Morbid Valentine Contest - Last Day! The idea is to make an image to front a morbid Valentine's card. Whoever creates the best morbid Valentine card (as subjectively chosen by The Comtesse) will win a copy of Van Cosel, the story of one of the great romantics of our times: Count Von Cosel, who loved Elena Hoyos so much he dug her corpse up and took it home with him. Van
Cosel Send your creations to valentine@asylumeclectica.com. Contest closes on February 12th with the results announced in the Valentine's Day edition of MFDJ. May the most morbid Valentine win! ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." |
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February 13, 2007 Today's Cluttered Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A Shelton woman who was first reported missing and was later found dead suffocated under a pile of debris in her homn. Officers found the body of Marie Rose, 62, buried under clothes Thursday, January 5, 2006. Her husband reported her missing after he couldn't find her early Thursday morning. Officers found clothing, dishes and boxes crammed from floor to ceiling in every room of the couple's house. "In some areas, clothes, and debris were piled 6 feet high," said Police Chief Terry Davenport of the Shelton Police Department. "Officers were having to climb over the top on their hands and knees, in some areas their heads were touching the ceiling while they were standing on top of piles of debris." After 10 hours of searching, officers discovered the woman's body. Investigators Friday said she was smothered under the clutter. Fire and city code inspectors have released the home back the family after an inspection. Culled
from: KiroTV.Com ********************************************************************** Of course I'm going to keep this handy for certain people who like to call me a pack rat. See, it could be worse! ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! The Honest Poet writes to tell me about his/her new website: "Blood, Guts and Gore concerns itself with the, well, blood, gore, extreme violence and disturbing images rampant in horror and sci-fi fare. It tells readers exactly where their favorite gore scenes are in almost 300 films and gives them a fearlessly detailed recap of the sequence and a rating from one blood drop to five and a special rating: off the scale. These are then tallied and divided by 5 for the AR (Average Rating) which quantifies the gore factor from one drop (dry) to ten (blood-soaked) and a special rating: naturally, off the scale - these are pictures that are for the truly sick, loaded with guts and gore and quite gruesome." Sounds like the ideal site for cinematic goremongers the world over! http://www.bloodgutsandgore.com/ ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! Now here's a magazine just for people like us! Epitaph Magazine - The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers by Cemetery Lovers http://www.thecemeteryclub.com/magazine.html Thanks to Evonne for the link. ******* Morbid Valentine Contest! The Morbid Valentine Contest has closed and I will be announcing the results in tomorrow's St. Valentine's Day (Massacre) edition of MFDJ. Thank you to everyone who entered - there are some excellent creations to choose from! ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." |
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February 14, 2007 Today's Exotic Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A young doctor in New Jersey has pleaded guilty to stealing a hand from a cadaver when he was a medical student and giving it to a stripper. The prosecutor said the 26-year-old doctor was a first-year medical student when he befriended the exotic dancer. Authorities said she asked for a hand and he came through. The hand was found in a jar on the woman's dresser. Friends said she called it "Freddy." The doctor's attorney said his client meant no disrespect, and removed the hand from a fully-dissected cadaver at med school. The lawyer said he had no idea what he did was illegal. Culled
from: WSBTV.Com ********************************************************************** Of course, I had to save this one for Valentine's Day because this is surely one of the most romantic gestures I have ever seen. It's a crime that someone would be arrested for such an act of selflessness! ******* Morbid Valentine Contest Results! I know you've been waiting to see the results of the Morbid Valentine Contest, haven't you? It was another excellent turn-out but in the end twistedprincess69 out-disturbed the competition to win a copy of Van Cosel. Congratulations! Now, for your viewing pleasure, here are the top five entries: http://asylumeclectica.com/asylum/morbid/vdcard/ And to everyone who entered and didn't win, thank you very much for participating. Better luck with next month's contest! ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! For Valentine's Day, I thought I would share this morbid skeleton who has a lot of heart, courtesy of Bonnie: "To
enhance the experience, have the sound on while you make Mr. Bones dance
to the music of 'That’s Amore'. You even get to choose whether
you want him to have a normal appearance, be an X-ray, or even be a
mutant. Enjoy! ******* Morbid Trinket Du Jour! Lisa writes with some excellent news: "Apparently Costco has an overnight casket service. I’m rather partial to the 'Continental Silver Casket' for the budget price of $1699.99 myself. I may have to buy it and somehow turn it into a sofa." ******* February T-Shirt Deal! Jen from Juror2.Net has an exciting announcement! "For the month of Feburary, Juror2.net is having a buy 2 get 1 free deal on t-shirts. This INCLUDES all the Morbid Fact Du Jour T-shirts designed by the Comtesse herself! "To get the discount, buy any 3 shirts then type 'MFDJ-FEB' in the Notes section during PayPal checkout to get the third shirt free (either a refund via PayPal or a check mailed with your shirts, your choice)." |
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February 15, 2007 Today's Cooked Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A man from the Russian internal republic Buryatia in eastern Siberia has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for cooking the flesh of his friend after killing him during a quarrel. He will serve his sentence at a maximum security prison camp. Chingis Bubeev killed a man who had visited him, cut his body into pieces and used his flesh to cook pelmeni, a Siberian dish resembling ravioli. Bubeev could not consume all the meat and sold some to his neighbors saying it was horse meat. The rest of the victim’s remains were thrown out near the killer’s house, where local residents found them the next day. Culled
from: Mosnews.Com ********************************************************************** Well, isn't it obvious what sort of meat goes in pel-MEN-i? ******* Morbid Link Du Jour! Here's a site that the world was screaming out for: Deathslang.com - a list of Death Euthemisms. Definitely a site to visit before you're cooking for the Kennedys! Thanks
to Freaky Kittie for the link. ******* "My Brush With Morbidity" by Starla "I've meant to send this story in for some time, but kept managing to not get around to it, so I finally have bitten the bullet and here goes. A little background: I was born in Oklahoma dn lived there till I was almost fourteen, when my mother Lorraine married my stepdad Larry and we all moved to Southern Delaware where he is from, this would be in early summer 1994. "Shortly after we arrived, we went to Ocean City, Maryland, about an hour and change from our home. I had never seen the ocean before so it was a real big treat for me, and I really took to the water and salt air and sand. "On the second day down there, the waves were kind of rough but lots of people were in the water. I was fooling around in water maybe four and a half feet deep, which is pretty deep when you consider that my final adult height is four feet ten. There was a black lady next to me who was pulling a little boy around in an inflatable boat. I wasn't paying much attention to them, but suddenly I saw the lady quickly turn the boat back and start pushing it toward shore. She gestured at me to follow her, but since I didn't know her and didn't really understand what she meant, I hesitated, and that's when I felt something bump against me. "I glanced down and saw a woman who I thought was swimming underwater. I stepped aside, thinking to give her room to pass me, but she bumped |