Decidedly Grim

Can you believe this isn’t a headline from The Onion?

Jimi Heselden, Owner Of Segway Inc., Dies In Segway Accident

News

So I just stumbled across a handgun lying in the grass. I was super-excited for a second!!! I thought, “Wow!!! A MURDER WEAPON!!!!” and I was all ready to call 911. Then I examined it closer and found that it was a BB gun… and a broken one, at that. Figures. Will nothing exciting EVER happen in my life? I took it home – it could come in handy if I ever want to commit suicide-by-cop.

Sundry

Today’s Torturous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Houston serial killer Dean Corll subjected his young male victims, ranging in age from nine to twenty-one, to sexual tortures, which included plucking their pubic hairs one by one, shoving glass rods up their penises and then crushing them, and shoving large bullet-like objects in victims’ rectums. A sheet of plastic was placed under the plywood torture board to catch the excreta, blood and vomit that would invariably be discharged during the abuse, and the radio would be cranked up full blast to drown out the victim’s screams. Occasionally he’d castrate his victims, often their severed genitals would be buried next to the bodies in small plastic bags. At least one boy’s corpse was found with his penis gnawed nearly in two. He was shot and killed by a teenage accomplice, who he had paid $200 per head to procure victims, in 1973.

Culled from: Wikipedia
Generously submitted by: Pamazon

How have I never heard of this monster, Dean Corll, before? I simply must get a copy of this book about him:

The Man With The Candy: The Story Of The Houston Mass Murders
by Jack Olsen

Facts, Library

Since I mentioned the museum with the gangrenous elbow post the other day, I thought I’d repost a link to my travelogue to the marvelous National Museum of Health and Medicine which I visited way back in 2001. I’m due for a return visit!

American Freaks!

Sightseer

My family (Mom, me, two younger sisters and an older brother) often spent weekends at my Aunt’s house in Raiford, Florida. The roads in Raiford and the tiny towns nearby are dark, narrow, winding, no streetlights, deserted with an almost non-existent amount of traffic. When I was seven years old late one pitch black night we were driving back from a high school basketball game. As we rounded a bend we suddenly stopped as we came upon a horrible and deadly car wreck. A white male in his early 20s was in the middle of the road screaming, begging, ‘Please! Somebody tell me what happened! What happened?’ A huge unscathed dark car with an older black couple was parked on the opposite side of the road pointed in the right direction, faces contorted with shock and horror. Off the road to the right of us sat a white Corvair in freshly churned dirt. The front was crushed into the dashboard. The roof was partially caved in and the only glass left was a small piece of the rear windshield. That’s where I noticed the contorted and mangled body. It was smashed between what was left of the front seats and what little was left of the back windshield. I watched it for what seemed like a long time. It did not move. It was covered in so much blood that it was almost hard to tell that it was a white male. I stood mesmerized and captivated by its sight. I could not make myself look away. That is when I walked over and lightly stroked its skin oblivious to the blood on it. It was like it beckoned to me to come over to it, to touch it and stroke it; like I was giving it the last bit of gentleness and comfort that it would ever have. I wasn’t scared at all. It was something that I had to do. Like it wanted me to touch it and it felt so natural to do so.

Okay, I don’t know about you guys, but I really don’t think my Mom would have let me touch a mangled body when I was 7.

Brush

Today’s Well-Hung Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Gibbeting was the practice of hanging the body of an executed prisoner in an iron cage in a public place. We picture this practice as something out of medieval Europe, some grisly sight that Robin Hood might pass. Think again. Gibbeting occured in the American colonies. Two slaves were convicted of poisoning their master, Captain John Codman of Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1755. After a speedy trial, the female, Phyllis, was burned at the stake and Mark was hung at the gallows, then put up in a cage in the center of town, in Charlestown Commons. An army surgeon, Dr. Cabel Ray, passing by in 1758 noted in his diary: “His skin was but very little broken, altho he had hung there over three or four years.” When Paul Revere took his famous ride on April 18, 1775, he mentioned racing past the spot “where Mark was hung in chains.”

Culled from: An Underground Education

Isn’t it sweet that they burned women at the stake to “protect their modesty”? (Because, you know, if you hung them… men could see up their skirts!!!!) But burning their clothes off keeps them modest. Have I mentioned lately that I hate people?

Facts

Rock n Roll Librarian sent me a book recommendation that has immediately been added to the ol’ Wish List:

The Last Face You’ll Ever See
by Ivan Solotaroff

Here’s the description from Amazon:

In fascinating detail, Ivan Solotaroff introduces us to the men who carry out executions. Although the emphasis is on the personal lives of these men and of those they have to put to death, The Last Face You’ll Ever See also addresses some of the deeper issues of the death penalty and connects the veiled, elusive figure of the executioner to the vast majority of Americans who, since 1977, have claimed to support executions. Why do we do it? Or, more exactly, why do we want to?

The Last Face You’ll Ever See is not about the polarizing issues of the death penalty — it is a firsthand report about the culture of executions: the executioners, the death-row inmates, and everyone involved in the act. An engrossing, unsettling, and provocative book, this work will forever affect anyone who reads it.

Sounds like a must-read to me!

More books about Execution and Torture can be perused at The Library Eclectica.

Library

Gangrenous Elbow. (Another band name perhaps?) From the magnificent Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health and Medicine Flickr page.

Ghastly!

Today’s Strongly Caustic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

During the 1882 murder trial of Dr. George Henry Lamson, accused of fatally poisoning his disabled brother-in-law with aconitine so his wife could collect the insurance money, one of the key pieces of expert testimony was given by Dr. Thomas Stevenson, a poison analyst. At that date it was impossible to detect vegetable poisons by any chemical test, and the only analytical experiment which could be undertaken was that of tasting extracts from the various organs. The following is Stevenson’s testimony of the result of his analysis:

[Specimen] No. 3, the contents of the stomach, contained about 3 ounces of fluid… The fluid contained a raisin and a piece of pulp of some fruit, which agreed in microscopic appearance with that of an apple. From that fluid I obtained from Stass’s process an extract which, when tasted, produced a very faint sensation like that of aconitia. Though placed upon the tongue, there was a sensation of a burning of the lip, although the extract had not touched the lip. The sensation was a burning tingling, a kind of numbness difficult to define, salivation or a desire to expectorate, and a sensation of swelling at the back of the throat, followed by a peculiar seared sensation at the back of the tongue, as if a hot iron had been passed over it or some strong caustic applied.

Stevenson identified this peculiar sensation as being unique to the poison aconitine. Lamson was convicted of the murder and hanged in London in 1882.

Culled from: The Trial of George Henry Lamson

And you thought YOUR job left a bad taste in your mouth?

By the way, I tried to find out exactly what “Stass’s Process” entailed but I haven’t been able to locate that exact process explained in detail anywhere. It’s also referred to as the “Otto-Stass” method of chemical extraction, and I think it’s similar to the following method I found described in an 1893 State Agriculture College textbook:

One kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of the dried and finely ground powder was extracted with strong alcohol for 5 days. The alcohol was pressed out with a filter press. The alcoholic extract was distilled in a Remington still to recover the alcohol; the concentrated residue was treated with water and a little acetic acid to precipitate the resin.

I suppose that’s a little bit more appetizing than just mushing up some stomach juice and tasting it…

Facts

Today’s Completely Fabricated Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

There are few greater ignominies that can be perpetrated upon the corpse of a king than to cast it into the sea in an effort to lighten a ship’s load. King Henry IV (1367-1413), first Lancastrian king of England, elected to be buried at Canterbury and was transported from London down the Thames to Feversham. En route the wind freshened and the ship got into difficulties. It was then that, allegedly, the crew jettisoned their royal cargo. Alas, the story proved to be complete fabrication. In 1832 Henry’s tomb at Canterbury was opened and ‘… to the astonishment of all present, the face of the deceased king was seen in complete preservation.’

Culled from: Death: A History Of Man’s Obsessions and Fears

“Feversham”. What a fabulous name. I love the English.

Facts