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?)
Facts
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
Facts
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
Facts
I simply MUST get one of these before I perish from bloodthirst!!!
Available at Think Geek.
Thanks to Abby for the suggestion.
Trinkets
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
Facts
A police car runs into a crowd in Egypt. Sickening.
Ghastly!
Today’s Repetitive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Gravestone from Cunwallow, near Helstone, Cornwall:
SHALL WEE ALL DIE?
WEE SHALL DIE ALL.
ALL DIE SHALL WE?
DIE ALL WE SHALL.
Culled from: Eccentric Epitaphs
Kinda catchy, innit? I think I’m going to make a shirt with that on it…
Facts
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
Facts