February, 2011
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February 1, 2011 And the final episode of the death of Caroline of Anspach: Today’s Inconsolable Yet Truly Morbid Fact! As Caroline of Anspach lay dying from ruptured bowels, her son, Frederick, was refused admittance to tender his goodbyes. Initially Caroline had wondered whether she would be “fool enough to let him come and give him the pleasure of seeing my last breath go out of my body”, but ultimately she decided against the idea. “At least,” she said of her son, “I shall have one comfort in having my eyes eternally closed – I shall never see that monster again.” At Caroline’s passing, the widower, King George II, loudly lamented his loss. One morning he called for a portrait of Caroline to be propped on a chair at the foot of his bed. For two hours he gazed on the features of the dead queen. But mere likenesses in oils failed to expiate his grief. For almost a month Caroline lay unburied in her coffin at St. James’s Place, visited frequently by her inconsolable husband. Even after she had been deposited in the vaults of Westminster Abbey, the king could not bear to be parted from her – as was attested to in a letter written by Lord Wenwoth: “Saturday night, between one and two o’clock, the King waked out of a dream very uneasy, and ordered the vault, where the Queen is, to be broken open immediately, and have the coffin also opened; and went in a hackney chair through the Horse Guards to Westminster Abbey, and back again to bed.” After George II’s own death, caused by a head injury suffered by falling into a bureau in his bathroom, his final wish that his coffin be laid next to that of his wife and the adjacent panels be removed in order that their bones might lie together, was carried out. Culled from: Death: A History Of Man’s Obsessions and Fears |
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February 2, 2011 Today’s Repetitive Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Gravestone from Cunwallow, near Helstone, Cornwall: SHALL WEE
ALL DIE? Culled from: Eccentric Epitaphs Kinda catchy, innit? I think I’m going to make a shirt with that on it… |
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February 4, 2011 Today’s Alkaline Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The deadly form of cyanide is hydrogen cyanide (HCN) which requires acid for its formation. It is believed that infamous Russian monk Rasputin survived an attempted potassium cyanide poisoning in 1916 because his stomach was not acidic, a rare, but not unknown, condition. Culled from: The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison |
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February 5, 2011 Today's Dreadfully Lacerated Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Throughout the 18th century, floggings could be ordered for quite trivial offenses: one soldier at Gilbraltar, sentenced for being dirty on parade, was beaten so severely that he died a few days later. A court martial had the power to order as many as 1000 lashes, and sentences of 500 to 800 were common. This form of punishment continued into the 19th century, as was reported by Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1833: A soldier of the First Regiment of Grenadier Guards, of which the Duke of Wellington is Colonel, having been convicted of insubordination, intoxication on duty, and of refusal to deliver up his arms when ordered by his officer, was sentenced to receive 500 lashes. After receiving 200 lashes, the surgeon of the regiment interfered, and put a stop to the brutal punishment, in consequence of the life of the soldier being in danger. The soldier was then removed to the military hospital in a hackney coach, his back being dreadfully lacerated. As a sort of refinement in cruelty, and to increase the severity of a punishment which could not be inflicted to the full extent without depriving the unfortunate culprit of his life, a fresh hand was procured at every 20 lashes. Culled from: The History Of Torture |
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February 6, 2011 Today’s Cowardly Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In 1961, two American pyschologists, Samual Yochelson and Stanton D. Samenow, began a programme to study criminals in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington DC. Both were liberals who believed that criminals were really “victims” of society, people with “deep psychological problems”. The conclusions they reached dismayed them both. In their book The Criminal Personality, they admit that they found that the chief characteristics of the criminal are weakness, immaturity, vanity and self-delusion. Criminals lacked self-discipline and were often cowards. For example, they preferred to let their teeth go rotten rather than face a dentist’s drill. They also say that the greatest fear of these criminals was that others would see some weakness in them. They were hypersensitive to what was said to them and reacted angrily to being put down. The book, written a decade before Ted Bundy was caught, gives a disturbingly accurate picture of Bundy’s personality. He found himself unable to cope with the normal challenges of life. Rejection and humiliation led to obsession. Culled from: Crimes and Punishment: The Illustrated Crime Encyclopedia, Volume I |
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February 7, 2011 Today’s Unrehabilitated Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The story of Joseph Cannon is a prime example of why a person should never take their work home with them. In an effort to keep the troubled 17-year-old out of jail for a charge of burglary, Cannon’s court-appointed attorney asked his sister if Cannon could live with her and do odd jobs around the house to earn his keep, believing that the boy could be rehabilitated. Cannon repaid this act of kindness by shooting the woman to death, attempting to have sex with her, then loading her car up with watches, Russian and Mexican coins, guns and a tennis racket he found in the house. Driving erratically in the stolen car brought him to the attention of local law enforcement officers who captured Cannon after a half-hearted chase. When the body of the murdered woman was discovered shortly afterwards, the teenaged killer was arrested without a struggle. Cannon, who probably looked more like a cannon ball after his calorie-laden last meal, cried as he was strapped to the lethal injection table for his date with death in Texas on April 22, 1998. He was given a temporary reprieve, however, when one of the needles used to give the injection popped out of his arm, causing officials to clear the execution chamber for a brief recess while another attempt was made to locate a suitable vein. Seventeen minutes later the witnesses were brought back inside and this time the execution was successful. His last meal consisted of fried chicken, barbequed ribs, baked potato, salad with Italian dressing, chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, a chocolate milkshake and iced tea. Culled from: Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row So how many of you think about what your last meal would consist of? I know I do… I think mine would mostly be sweets – ice cream, cheesecake, something loaded with whipped cream – and I shudder at what arseholes like us would say about me. “Bet they had to cram her in the electric chair… har har!” (Why, yes, I do worry about my post-mortem reputation. Doesn’t everyone?) |
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February 8, 2011 Today’s Karmic Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A California man attending a cockfight has died after being stabbed in the leg by a bird that had a knife attached to its own limb. The Kern County coroner says 35-year-old Jose Luis Ochoa was declared dead at a hospital about two hours after he suffered the injury in neighboring Tulare County on Jan. 30, 2011. An autopsy concluded Ochoa died of an accidental “sharp force injury” to his right calf. Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt says it’s unclear if a delay in seeking medical attention contributed to Ochoa’s death. Tulare officials are investigating, and no arrests were made at the cockfight. Cockfighting is a sport, illegal in the United States, in which specially bred roosters are put into a ring and encouraged to fight until one is incapacitated or killed. Culled from: The Huffington Post Now, that’s what I call poetic justice! Too bad the knife didn’t land somewhere else more deserving towards the kind of idiot who attends “cockfights” though. Can you imagine the headline? |
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February 10, 2011 Today’s Vigilant Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In 1856, King James of William, the founder and editor of San Francisco’s stinging newspaper the San Francisco Bulletin, was shot on Montgomery Street by crooked city supervisor James P. Casey. Casey, a longtime fixer of elections, had won his board of supervisors seat with more votes than there were registered voters. The Bulletin exposed the crime and also pointed out that Casey had once been an inmate at New York state’s notorious Sing Sing correctional facility. San Francisco police took Casey into custody, but the public distrusted the police department, knowing that cronyism would soon allow Casey back on the streets or, worse, allow him to skip town. Days before the King James of William assassination, gambler Charles Cora shot down unarmed United States Marshal William Richardson in cold blood. The good working people of San Francisco had had enough of the chaos caused by a protected class of criminals and a Second Committee of Vigilance was formed after King James of William passed away as a result of his gunshot wound. On May 18, 1956, over 3,000 volunteers marched in military formation to the city jail and demanded the surrender of Cora and Casey to the Committee of Vigilance, which had a total membership of over 8,000 armed men. The sheriff, knowing that he was vastly outnumbered, submitted to their demands and released Cora and Casey into the custody of the committee members. The men were taken to a building that the committee had commandeered at Sacramento Street near Montgomery and there they were put on trial. Cora and Casey were deprived of outside counsel, but were assigned committee-appointed attorneys to represent them. The men made fruitless defense claims, but they were quickly found guilty and were hanged later that day on makeshift gallows built onto the front of the jail. After relieving the community of a handful of criminals, the Vigilance Committee of 1856 turned its policing duties back over to the elected officials. Culled from: California Justice: Shootouts, Lynchings and Assassinations in the Golden State by David Kulczyk |
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February
11, 2011 One of fiercest and most famed rivals in sports history was between Glasgow, Scotland’s football clubs Celtic F.C. and the Rangers (collectively known as Old Firm). At an Old Firm game at Ibrox Stadium on September 5, 1931, early in the second half of a scoreless draw, a Ranger forward streaked towards a ball in front of the goal. The only player between him and a sure score was Celtic goalkeeper John Thomson. At 22, Thomson was already a star, the beloved “Prince of Goalkeepers” and the goalie for the Scottish national team. He raced out from the goal mouth to intercept the Ranger forward. With a casual disregard for his own safety, he dived directly at the ball, intent on snatching it away. As his brother later recalled, Thomson had been so injured in this way before. He would be so focused he only saw the ball. Thomson probably never even saw the knee swinging straight at his head. Even as Thomson collapsed on the pitch with blood pouring from his head, the ball sailed safely out of bounds. After having treatment from the St Andrew’s Ambulance Association, he was taken to a stretcher. According to The Scotsman he was “seen to rise on the stretcher and look towards the goal and the spot where the accident happened”. Thomson was taken to the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow. He had a lacerated wound over the right parietal bones of the skull, which meant that there was a depression in his skull of 2 inches in diameter. At 5pm he suffered a major convulsion. Dr Norman Davidson carried out an emergency operation to try and lower the amount of pressure caused by the swelling brain, but the operation was unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 9:25 pm. Culled from: Murder Can Be Fun #18 by John Marr and Wikipedia |
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February 12, 2011 Today’s Taut Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Emma Rumball was the quintessential evil stepmother. Her husband, William, suddenly died of unknown causes in September 1910, and left joint ownership of his 30-acre farm and orchard near the Butte County town of Gridley to his 13-year-old daughter, Helen. It was well-known to the people of Gridley that 24-year-old Emma and her brother, 25-year-old Arthur Lewis, often brutalized the young teenager. Her schoolteacher once asked Helen about a black eye that she had; Helen told the teacher that her step-uncle Arthur Lewis had punched her in the face. In those days, before child protection agencies and laws against domestic violence, nothing was done for the poor girl. Things finally came to a head on June 26, 1911, when Emma angrily alleged that Helen had milked only two of their three cows that morning and lied about it. Emma struck Helen until she became unconscious and then carried her up to the attic of her home. In the sweltering attic, Emma hogtied and hung the young girl from the rafters. To make sure that Helen would suffer, Emma also put a noose around her neck and pulled it taut. It was one of the hottest days on 1911, and a simmering egg incubator in the attic made it even more uncomfortable. When Helen’s sister, Francis, became upset about Helen’s cries of pain, Emma chastised the girl and sent her to bed. Later that day, Emma’s brother Arthur came over to the house and when told about the milking incident, he went up to the attic to taunt her. Nobody really knows what he did to the poor girl, but by 8:00 that night, Helen was dead. Emma told the neighbors that Helen had committed suicide, but they had heard her cries and did not believe her. The police were called, and Arthur and Emma were arrested. At Arthur Lewis’ trial in Oroville, witnesses testified that Lewis loved to show off his ability to break a steer’s neck with a single twist. Lewis claimed that Helen had strangled herself while trying to free herself from the ropes that bound her. The coroner’s report stated that Helen died from a double dislocation of vertebrae in her neck. The injury could not have happened by hanging. Lewis was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison. Emm Rumball was sentenced to two years in prison. Helen was laid to rest beside her father. Culled from: Death In California by David Kulczyk |
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February 13, 2011 Today’s Misappropriated Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Before he died, über-genius Albert Einstein considered donating his body to science. Unfortunately, he never put his wishes in writing. When he passed away in 1955, Einstein’s family and friends made plans to cremate him, but the pathologist who performed the autopsy, Dr. Thomas Harvey, had a different idea. Instead, he opted to remove the math man’s brain and then tell the family about it. For 30-some years, Harvey had Al’s gray matter tucked away in his Wichita home in two Mason jars. Naturally, Einstein’s loved ones weren’t thrilled when they found out, but they eventually allowed the misappropriated mind to be sliced into 240 sections and disbursed to researchers for examination. Today, many of the cerebral sections remain in scientific institutions, with the bulk held at Princeton Hospital. As for Einstein’s body, that was cremated and scattered in a secret location. Culled
from: Neatorama Don’t you think it would be kinda nifty to have your brain sliced up into pieces and distributed to your loved ones after you die? Or maybe that’s just me… |
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February 16, 2011 Today’s Slumped Over Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A Los Angeles County employee lay dead and slumped over her desk in an office cubicle for what could have been as long as a day before anybody noticed. Rebecca Wells, a 51-year-old auditor who had recently become a grandmother, was found by a security guard Saturday afternoon (02/12/11). She had last been seen alive at 9am Friday morning, say detectives, who suspect she died from a stroke or heart attack. Culled
from: Newser.Com And to think, I work from home. It could literally be MONTHS before my office figured out I was dead… Hmmmmm… come to think of it, that could come in handy… |
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February 18, 2011 Today’s Low-Lying Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The Vistula River, clogged by vast chunks of snow and ice, ripped apart dikes near Danzig (Gdansk), Poland on April 9, 1829. Floodwaters poured into the low-lying city and surrounding pastureland. Within hours houses were flooded to their roofs as waters rose five feet above the top of the dike. A great wave of water broke through the dike and rushed through the poorest section of Danzig, crushing everything in its path and carrying away entire houses. Hundreds of survivors in Danzig managed to climb to roofs or onto church steeples, where they clung desperately for days, without food, waiting for rescue boats to arrive. As waters began subsiding by the 14th, a heavy snowstorm hampered rescue efforts. About 4,000 houses were flooded and 10,000 cattle drowned. Some 1,200 people died in the floods. Culled from: The Pessimist’s Guide To History Kinda sounds like recent headlines, doesn’t it? |
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February 19, 2011 Today’s Uncomposed Yet Truly Morbid Fact! George Henry Lamson (1852-1882) was an American doctor and murderer. In his early career he had been a volunteer surgeon in Romania and Serbia, and decorated for his work. He returned to England and practised in Bournemouth. He became addicted to morphia and his financial situation grew desperate. In 1881 he visited his 18-year-old brother-in-law Percy John, a hemiplegic, at his boarding school and gave him a slice of Dundee cake. He also gave him a capsule from a batch that were later tested and found to contain the poison aconitine. Lamson was tried in March 1882 and found guilty of murdering Percy in order to secure a share of the family inheritance. He had poisoned his victim with aconitine in the cake, a substance which Lamson had learnt about from Professor Robert Christison in university. Christison had taught that aconitine was undetectable but forensic science had improved since Lamson’s student days. Lamson’s execution was ultimately fixed for Friday, April 28, nearly six weeks after the conviction, and the well-meant efforts of his friends to win a reprieve served only to aggravate the prisoner’s anguish. Fear rather than remorse dominated him, and his mental agony must have been in proportion to the physical suffering he had inflicted upon his victim. It was not to be expected that he would meet his end with fortitude. Here was no stoic, but a poor, weak soul, appalled at the prospect of death. Realising upon that fatal morning that his time had come, he abandoned all effort at composure and was helped, almost unconscious, to the scaffold. There, unable to stand, he was held upon the drop by two warders. Even as the hangman was pulling the lever, he tried to snatch another minute of life by begging the chaplain to recite just one more prayer. Culled from: Wikipedia and Medical Murders |
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February 20, 2011 Today’s Devastating Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In World War I various chemical agents were used in an effort to break through the lines of trenches that stretched for hundreds of miles along the Western Front. The Germans used chlorine gas on April 22, 1915 and this had a devastating effect on the unprotected British soldiers as it rolled over no-man’s-land and into their trenches. 5,000 men died and more than 15,000 were permanently lung-damaged. Culled from: The Elements Of Murder |
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February 21, 2011 Today’s Unwary Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Using classifieds as a way of snaring potential victims is a ploy that dates back at least as far as the early 1900s. That’s when the infamous American Black Widow, Belle Gunness, lured a string of unwary bachelors into her clutches by placing matrimonial ads in newspapers across the country: “Rich, good-looking widow, young, owner of large farm, wishes to get in touch with a gentleman of wealth and cultured tastes.” There was a certain amount of misrepresentation in this classified, since Gunness was actually fat, fiftyish, and bulldog ugly. She wasn’t lying about being a rich widow, though, since she had murdered at least fourteen husbands after separating them from their life savings. Culled from: The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers |
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February 23, 2011 Today’s Quick Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Epitaph from the gravestone of Mary Richards (1740-71) in St. Mary, Doddington, England: All ye
who stop to read this stone Culled from: Eccentric Epitaphs by Michelle Lovric This epitaph makes me wonder how she died? “Be careful how you live”? I’m thinking she must have died during sex. Your theory? |
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February 24, 2011 Today’s Conducive To Insomnia Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In 1700's England, different prisons used different methods of restraint. In Ely Gaol in Norfolk, England, felons were pinned to the floor by iron bars which were chained to staples, and in Worcester Castle the sleeping arrangements were similarly conducive to insomnia, its inmates being chained together at night, the chain passing through their fetters and its ends then padlocked to rings set in the floor. Culled from: Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers |
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February 26, 2011 Today’s Disgusted Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Suicide note left by the French surrealist poet René Crevel (1901-35): "I am disgusted with everything." Culled from: Weird Wills & Eccentric Last Wishes I like it. I think I’m going to make a t-shirt with that phrase on it. It really kind of sums up my mood as of late. |
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February 27, 2011 Today’s Wildly Popular Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Francis Xavier was a saint with a few too many fans. In the early 16th century, the Spanish missionary was sent to Asia by the king of Portugal to convert as many souls to Christianity as possible. Turns out, he was pretty good at the job. Francis Xavier became wildly popular, and after his death in 1552, so did his relics. In fact, demand out-fueled supply. Throughout several years and multiple exhumations, his body was whittled away. Today, half his left hand is in Cochin, India, while the other half is in Malacca, Malaysia. One of his arms resides in Rome, and various other cities lay claim to his internal organs. The leftovers? They went to Goa, India. Culled
from: Neatorama |
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February 28, 2011 Today’s Resentful Yet Truly Morbid Fact! On March 13, 1996, a social misfit named Thomas Hamilton walked into the primary school in Dunblane, near Edinburgh, Scotland, and opened fire in the mroning assembly, killing 16 children and a teacher, and wounding 14 others before killing himself. The cause seems to have been resentment (as it is in the majority of such cases). Hamilton was a gun fanatic who had run a local boys’ club until parents intervened because he was subjecting their children to what they regarded as physical ordeals. (One child on a boating trip was made to sleep on deck all night in only his shorts.) He was widely suspected of being a homosexual paedophile, although this was never proved. The massacre was his way of lashing back at the community. Later that year, as a consequence of the massacre, the British government banned all handguns, to the fury of hundreds of legitimate gun clubs. Culled from: The Mammoth Book Of The History Of Murder |
