November, 2005
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November 2, 2005 Today's Frothy Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Suicide
by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge is gruesome, and death is almost
certain. People have survived the fall, but not many. You might survive
if you hit the water feet first and come in at a slight angle. The impact
is tremendous. The body goes from roughly 75 to 80 mph to nearly zero
in a nanosecond. The physics of inertia being what they are, internal
organs tend to keep going. The force of impact causes them to tear loose.
Autopsy reports typically indicate that the jumpers have lacerated aortas,
livers, spleens and hearts. Ribs are often broken, and the impact shoves
them into the heart or lungs. Jumpers have broken sternums, clavicles,
pelvises and necks. Skull fractures are common. Which means you die
one of two ways, or a combination of both. One, you hit the water and
the impact kills you. Sometimes the jumper is knocked unconscious. Other
times, the jumper survives for a time. The person can be seen flailing
about in the water, trying to stay afloat, only to succumb to the extensive
internal bleeding. Death can take seconds or minutes. Two, you drown.
You hit the water going fast, and your body plunges in deep. Conscious
or otherwise, you breathe in saltwater and asphyxiate. You can usually
tell which bridge jumpers drowned: Frothy mucus bubbles from the nose.
********************************************************************** This fact is culled from a fascinating series called "Lethal Beauty" that is running in the SF Chronicle currently. Other articles in the series discuss a survivor who now advocates for a suicide barrier and the stories of many who did not survive the fall. Fascinating stuff. The articles can all be accessed here: http://www.sfgate.com/lethalbeauty/ ******* "My Brush With Morbidity" by Liz "My brush with morbidity resulted in my becoming part of a gruesome story -- about the lady that died in an accident. "I was in the car with my 4 month old daughter and (now ex) husband. My daughter was in her car seat, in the middle of the back seat, and I was sitting next to her, in the back passenger-side seat, not strapped in; my ex was strapped into his seat belt in the driver's seat. I remember leaning over to put my hand on her forehead as we turned into my grandmother's driveway, since I knew there was a bump and I didn't want her head to be flopping around, as small children's heads tend to do. "The
next thing I remember is staring up at my ex's father -- he had been
visiting my grandmother -- and he and my ex were crouched over me in
the back seat, calling my name. I promptly passed out again. This happened
several times, and it took me quite a while to come around enough to
comprehend that we'd been in an accident. A man, drunk and without his
lights on in the dim, rainy daylight, had swerved off the narrow country
road and plowed through the ditch, "Our
car had been spun around, and had landed facing back toward the street,
on the other side of the driveway. I, not being seat-belted, had been
flung into the back passenger-side window and then back into the car,
unconscious. My family had piled out of the house and taken my daughter,
who was uninjured but screaming lustily, out of the car. When I fuzzily
came around, for perhaps the third or fourth time, I looked around and
saw that my daughter's car seat "This is where the rumor comes in -- every time I would attain consciousness, I would scream because I thought my daughter was dead; they would show her to me; I would stop screaming; and then I would pass out. It took nearly 15 minutes for the police and ambulance to reach the accident, since we were pretty far out in the country, so this sequence of events was replayed over and over. Shampoo; rinse; repeat. "The
story that became legend around the neighborhood was that a woman had
been horribly mangled in the accident, as evidenced by her bloodcurdling
screams. I heard, variously, that I had been cut in half; disemboweled;
and had my face ripped off. Every telling of it seemed to embellish
it more, and no matter how many times I tried to clear it up and assert
that it was me, and that I had escaped with a slight concussion and
some cuts from the glass, people were It's not often that you can claim to being the originator of an urban legend. Well done, Liz! ******* Morbid Read Du Jour! Kezia has a recommendation for us: "I don't know if you've come across this little book or not, but if you haven't you'll definitely have to check it out!! It's called Death: A User's Guide and you can find it on Amazon." Here's the link. Thanks for the tip, Kezia! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385337051/theasylumeclecti |
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Today's Severe Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In his book "The History of Women" (1779), W. Alexander wrote of the Egyptians: "The
chastity of virgins was protected by a law of the severest nature; he
who had committed a rape on a free woman had his privities cut off,
that it might be out of his power to ever perpetrate the like crime,
and that others might be terrified by so dreadful a punishment."
********************************************************************** "Privities". I'll have to add that to my arcane expression collection! ******* Morbid
Film Du Jour! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002XL1NU/theasylumeclecti For more information, please see the website: http://www.hhholmesthefilm.com/ And for more excellent information on H. H. Holmes, I recommend the following books: And it looks like we can look forward to another murderous documentary from John Borowski in the near future: http://www.albertfishfilm.com/ Jolly good fun! ******* Morbid Mirth Du Jour! Sara shares an amusing tale: "This isn't really morbid, but it was fairly disturbing to my friend and kind of funny... "I'll call him 'Goat' (his nickname). Goat did an internship with a coroner's office in Kentucky when he was eighteen. The guys working there let him help out with all the body gathering and such and Goat got to do some pretty disgusting things. Anyway, The head guy was fairly strange. He would eat while doing work on the bodies, sometimes laying sandwiches down on the body while working (and sometimes forgetting where he had put it :/). He would also play practical jokes on the other guys. "One day Goat was down in the autopsy room cleaning up a bit. A body was lying on a table across the room from him. The head guy had been acting strangely and said that he needed to take a bit of a break, so he headed out for a smoke break. Goat didn't think anything of it really, but he was a little concerned about the guy's behavior. Goat goes back to his work. "A few minutes later the guy comes down the stairs with a really freaky look on his face, his eye muscles twitching, his hair in disarray. Suddenly the guy runs to the corpse screaming, and plummets his head into the body's open stomach! Goat's eyes widen and he just stands there. The guy lifts his head up, covered in blood and chunks of who knows what and keeps screaming, rubbing his hands over his face.... Goat leaves...quickly. "What Goat didn't know at the time, and found out later was that there was a bowl of corn syrup and food coloring and ripped up tissue paper on the table beside the corpse. Goat was not amused." Ah, now that's what I call a fun boss!!
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November 14, 2005 Today's
Burning Yet Truly Morbid Fact! ********************************************************************** "Ship Ablaze" is an excellent book that I read on the plane during my last work excursion in September. It details the extraordinarily tragic fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum that killed over 1,000 people in 1904, the worst tragedy in New York City history until 9/11. I'll be providing a few more excerpts from this well-written and captivating book in the next few days. ******* Morbid
Trinket Du Jour! Thanks to Tracy for the link. ******* Morbid Site Du Jour! Diana sends a link to a fun-filled site: "I came across this site and it's so addictive. It's 911 feeds. You can click on a city and location and read about the latest reports. Occasionally you'll come across something particularly juicy. Enjoy." Unfortunately, neither my current city nor my previous hamlet are on the site just yet, but I'm hoping they will be one day. Check it out - you might be luckier than me!
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Today's
Burning Yet Truly Morbid Fact! ********************************************************************** "Ship Ablaze" is an excellent book that I read on the plane during my last work excursion in September. It details the extraordinarily tragic fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum that killed over 1,000 people in 1904, the worst tragedy in New York City history until 9/11. I'll be providing a few more excerpts from this well-written and captivating book in the next few days. ******* "My
Brush With MOrbidity" by LeAnn ******* Tidings Of Discomfort and Gloom! I figured that with the holiday season fast approaching, it might be fun to begin featuring some gift ideas for the morbidites in your midst. We start today with something that is perfect for the morbid role playing geek (and I KNOW you're out there!). Daniel tells us about it: "Here's another little morbid game that you can feature. It's called All Fall Down, and it's a storytelling game where the players are children in a village in the grips of the Black Death. Every day the kids can choose to stay indoor and perhaps die of despair, or go outside and play and die to the plague. It's very simple, and cheap ($2.00 for a PDF download), and very much up the Morbid Fact alley." http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4731&src=HMPMorbidFact Thanks for the suggestion, Daniel!
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November 17, 2005 Today's
Infamous Yet Truly Morbid Fact! ********************************************************************** Oops, seems I used the same fact two days in a row. I apologize for the creeping senility. It is worse than I feared.
******* Morbid
Link Du Jour! Thanks to Remo for the link. ******* Tidings Of Discomfort and Gloom! Here's the perfect gift for your morbid model car enthusiast! "A highly detailed 1/18th scale die-cast metal 1938 Packard Cadillac Hearse with opening door, detailed interior, rubber tires, high gloss black paint, removable woodgrain casket with chrome plated handles, separate Church truck for setting removable casket on, opening rear door for removing casket, custom flocked drapes and windows, and much more." I am, of course, deliriously excited about the removable casket!! |
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Today's Freaky Yet Truly Morbid Fact! On July
13, 2005 the body of a Louisiana man strapped to a gurney fell from
the back of a pickup truck Tuesday onto a south Dallas highway and into
the path of oncoming traffic. "I didn't think it was possible for
that to happen," said Mary Ellen Douglas, who was driving to work
when she saw what she initially thought was a package that had fallen
from a truck. "I wanted to get out of there. It was too freaky
for me," she said. Authorities said the driver was carrying the
body to a Shreveport, La., funeral home after the man died Monday at
a Mesquite hospital. "The driver of the truck was not aware that
he had lost the body," Dallas police Lt. Rick Andrews said. "He
saw the open door. He stopped and looked. He turned around, went back
and retraced his steps and found the body." Drivers swerved to
avoid the corpse and gurney. Dallas police Senior Cpl. Max Geron said
no charges are expected to be filed. ********************************************************************** Why doesn't
this sort of thing ever happen to those of us who WOULDN'T find it too
"freaky"??? Life is so unfair... "My Brush With Morbidity" by Lenny "When I was a fireman I heard the call for a car accident on a backroad in town. I wasn't a member of the rescue company, so it wasn't my job to respond. But since it was just a few blocks away, I decided to help out anyway. The road is one of those long, winding ones where the speed limit is 30 MPH but everyone goes 40 (or faster, if you're familiar with the twists and turns.) Well, the accident occured at the sharpest turn in the road. You really do have to slow down to make that turn safely. "It
was a head-on collision. A late-model Mercedes vs. a 1980 (give or take
a couple of years) Honda Civic. No contest there - those old Civics
were the size of matchbox cars! Both cars were badly damaged. It was
obvious the Civic had taken the turn at too high a speed and had crossed
the double-yellow line. The Mercedes had deployed its airbags, so the
elderly couple who owned it were bruised but ended up OK. When I got
there they were laying on the sidewalk, moaning, but under medical care.
I went over to the Civic, which was much more mangled, and saw a solitary
driver, no passengers. He must have been in his early 20's. Muscular,
good-looking guy. But his body was wrapped around the steering column.
His arms and legs were twisted at weird angles, and bones stuck out
here and there. Surprisingly, there wasn't much blood though. There
was also a case of beer next to him, and several empty cans as well.
I had never seen a dead body in person up to that point, and I was so
shaken (I was only 19 at the time) that I backed away from the car and
spent the rest of the time there stringing up the yellow tape and exercising
crowd control. I never even looked back at the body - and that was the
LAST time I responded to a car accident. Like I said, my job wasn't
in rescue. I ran in to numerous burning buildings over my career as
a fireman, but I never ever was as shaken as when I saw that body."
Tidings of Discomfort and Gloom! A t-shirt from Gravestone Artwear is always an excellent morbid shopping option. (I have several of them myself.) I'm particularly fond of this design: http://www.gravestoneartwear.com/t9.html But they are all quite lovely. Why not have a browse?
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November 21, 2005 Today's Dreadful Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Ishii Shiro, M.D., Ph.D. and his team of Japanese physician-researchers, carried out a gruesome, state-sanctioned killing of tens of thousands of people in the name of science. Here is an excerpt from the book "Demon Doctors" regarding some of his "experiments" in infamous Unit 731: Manchuria,
1941: Lin Minga and Tamara Kazursky shrank back in fear, petrified by
the sight before them. They stood at the entrance to an operating room
with two tables, wearing only flimsy gowns. But neither of them needed
an operation. Petite, 17-year-old Lin Minga had been living with her
parents and working in the local factory when the dreaded kenpeitai,
the Japanese military police, had taken her to their headquarters for
interrogation. Her brother was in the communist-led anti-Japanese resistance,
but she did not know anything about it. Yet, after three days of torture,
she was bound hand and foot to another woman, put in the back of a closed
van, and driven to a prison. A virgin, she had been forced to have sex
with numerous men, all of whom, she later discovered, had venereal diseases.
Not surprisingly, she became pregnant. During her pregnancy, the Japanese
doctors repeatedly examined her and took blood, urine, and vaginal tests.
She had given birth to a beautiful son two days ago. Now she had been
dragged to this death laboratory. Nineteen-year-old Tamara Kazursky,
a beautiful White Russian girl whose family had lived in Harbin for
more than 20 years, worked at her parents' bakery and was engaged to
be married. She had been walking home when she was caught in a "sweep"
by the local militia. The soldiers had been told to get subjects for
experiments, and she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Quickly bundled into a tight "package," she was thrown onto
a sealed boxcar and taken to this chamber of horrors. She, too, had
been forced to have sex with numerous men, contracting a venereal disease
that was causing her severe lower abdominal pain. The Japanese doctors
seemed to take a special interest in her once the pain developed. "Get
up on the table and take off your gowns," said the Japanese nurse
in broken Chinese. "This is a medical procedure, and won't hurt
a bit." Orderlies and doctors quickly stripped the young women
and pushed them onto the tables, securing their arms, legs, and torsos.
As the two women stared up in horror, eight men in white clustered around
the table. One doctor, seemingly in charge, said "No anesthesia;
it might compromise our findings." At each table, a doctor took
a scalpel and quickly cut open the women's abdomens. The girls let out
nightmarish screams as their bellies were ripped open and their entrails
exposed. Lin Minga had enough composure to yell, "Kill me, but
not my baby," before she lapsed into unconsciousness. Tamara's
body continued to twitch as her uterus and ovaries were removed and
blood sprayed the ceiling. Unnoticed by the doctors, their hearts eventually
stopped and their agony ended. The doctors had the samples they wanted.
Their bodies were dragged to the incinerators and their identities lost
forever. None of the doctors felt any guilt. They had done this numerous
times and anyway, these were only worthless maruta [logs]. ********************************************************************** Horrendous! Although, I wonder if the details above are entirely fictionalized since, if their identities were lost forever, how would he know the names? But still, I'm sure that the deeds are accurate. I just watched an infamous 1989 Chinese film entitled "Men Behind The Sun" that is about Unit 731. It was a very good film, although there were parts that weren't explained particularly well. I think it would do you well to do some research on Unit 731 before watching the film. However, some of the depictions of cruelty displayed in the movie are truly horrifying. Oh, and if you abhor animal cruelty, as I do, you might find the scene with the cat and the rats more horrifying than anything else in the film. Still, it was definitely worth watching. Men
Behind The Sun Tidings of Discomfort and Gloom! What could
be more soothing over Yule than a hot toddy sipped from one of these
ever-so-charming Black Dahlia mugs? "My Brush With Morbidity" by Narkitten "I deliver meals to homebound elderly. I was making a delivery after a Memorial Day weekend. Because of the condition of most of my clients, I have a habit of knocking on the door and entering, announcing myself. I took one look and knew this guy was gone. He had been sitting there long enough that the blood had drained from his upper body into his legs and lower belly. What made it worse was that this gentleman had a breathing problem and used oxygen assistance. The machine was still running, giving the illusion that the body still breathed. The only phone was right by the body. So I tried to use it to call for assistance. It was broken and missing several numbers. I had the creeps so bad by now I went to the nearest business to call. Didn't even stop at a neighbor's. The post office was within walking distance, so ended up there. After the EMTs arrived it occurred to me that the full case of beer sitting by this guy's chair was looking awfully good. I couldn't wait to get out of there."
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Today's
Clumsy Yet Truly Morbid Fact! ********************************************************************** I must sadly inform you that Morbid Fact Du Jour will be on hiatus until Monday, November 28th while The Comtesse is off visiting relatives in Catatonia. Enjoy your holidays! ******* Morbid Mirth Du Jour! Two friends are walking in the jungle. Suddenly a tiger appears in the distance running toward them. One friend pulls a pair of Nikes out of his bag and quickly puts them on. With a surprised look, the other friend says, "You don't really think you can outrun that tiger with those?" "I don't need to out run the tiger", his friend replies, "I just need to run faster than you". Thanks to Betty for this chestnut! ******* Tidings Of Discomfort and Gloom! For a romantic gift, why not look to the folks at Alchemy Gothic? You can purchase their wonderful jewelry at Gorey Details. I'm particularly fond of this creepy memorial photo locket: http://www.goreydetails.net/show.php?alpha=3995
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November 28, 2005 Today's Deliberate Yet Truly Morbid Fact! A new study
indicates that 11 of 26 Norwegian traffic accidents involving front
to front collisions between cars and large freight trucks are suicides.
Truck drivers believe the real numbers are even higher and Norway's
Minister of Transport and Communication has called an emergency meeting.
"Now we must take these accidents seriously. Not least because
this is also serious for the professional truck drivers who are affected,"
Transport and Communication Minister Torild Skogsholm said. Skogsholm
will be meeting representatives of the truckers union, the Public Roads
Administration and other business groups to discuss the situation. The
SINTEF (The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the
Norwegian Institute of Technology) study claimed that 11 out of 26 front
to front collisions involved conscious attempts at suicide, with the
car seeking the truck. Professional truckers said the collisions often
leave drivers with psychological problems, with many haunted by the
incidents. "For truckers it is a macabre sight when suicidal types
wave and smile as they drive into the front of a rig," said Alf
Ragnar Karlsen of the Norwegian Transport Worker Union. ********************************************************************** Well, would they prefer that the suicidal types scream, cry, or make hysterical faces as they drive in front of the rig? There's just no pleasing some people! ******* Morbid Recommendations Du Jour! Hagondes is most displeased with the Comtesse! "I'm surprised that in your section on killers you left out both 'Killer Fiction' by Sandra London and Gerard Schaefer and the cornerstone of any serial killer compendium, 'Final Truth,' by Donald Pee Wee Gaskins. I'm sure that I'm not the first person to recomend it but I'll vouch for the fact that it is by far the most disturbing thing you will ever read in terms of serial homocide, because it's an autobiography, written in the whole redneck dialect of Gaskins. As well as the fact that he stands out as one of the most insanely sadistic monster created by the prison systems of South Carolina." ******* Tidings
Of Discomfort and Gloom! Or, if you're more attuned to Dark Angels?
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Today's Olden Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In the
19th century, Charles Kennedy, a big, husky full-bearded man, owned
a traveler's rest on the road between Elizabethtown and Taos, New Mexico.
After travelers would register at the rest stop, some would disappear
never to be heard from again. These traveling strangers were rarely
missed in the highly transient settlement. Evidently, when travelers
stopped for a bed and a meal, Charles killed them, stole their valuables
and either burned or buried their bodies. These events might never have
been known, except for his wife's confession, when she fled from him
in terror in the fall of 1870. The bleeding Ute Indian woman burst into
John Pearson's saloon, where Clay Allison, Davy Crockett (a nephew of
the American frontiersman) and others were whiling away the hours. Helping
her to a chair, she told the story of how her husband had killed a traveler
and their young son. Hysterical, she continued the shocking story telling
of how her husband had been luring travelers, perhaps as many as 14,
into their cabin and then murdering them. On the day that she fled,
she had witnessed another traveler who her husband had enticed inside
by offering supper. During the meal, the passerby asked his hosts if
there were many Indians around. Her unfortunate son made the fatal mistake
of responding, "Can't you smell the one Papa put under the floor?"
At this, Kennedy went into a fury, shot his guest and bashed his son's
head against the fireplace. He then threw both bodies into the cellar,
locked his wife in the house and drank himself into a stupor. Terrified,
the woman waited until her husband passed out, then climbed up through
the chimney and escaped to tell her story. Clay Allison, a local rancher,
who was known for his gun-fighting skills, and almost always around
when anything violent happened, led a group in search of Kennedy, while
others were sent to search the house for evidence to support the woman's
story. The search provided a number of partially charred human bones
still burning in the fire, and two skeletons beneath the house. Later,
another skull was found nearby and a witness to one of the murders came
forth. Kennedy, still drunk, was quickly found and taken into custody.
He was given a pre-trial on October 3, 1870, where the witness appeared,
testifying that he had seen Kennedy shoot one of the travelers. The
court ordered that Kennedy be held for action by the grand jury, but
rumors began circulating that Kennedy's lawyer was going to buy his
freedom. Three days later, Allison and his companions snatched Kennedy
from the jail, threw a rope around his neck and dragged him by a horse
up and down Main Street until long after he was dead. His body was not
allowed by the townspeople to be buried in the Catholic cemetery and
was interred outside the cemetery boundaries. ********************************************************************** Hmmm, methinks that H.H. Holmes does not have such a firm claim to the "America's First Serial Killer" title after all...
******* "My Brush With Morbidity" by mizp "In the early 1980's, I was attending college at a branch of the University of Virginia, in southwest Virginia. One day, a young man, foolishly riding his motorcycle without a helmet, ran head on into the front of a large dump truck hauling coal on the road that ran by the campus. I was on my way to a nearby shop to pick up lunch for the secretaries of the office I was working part-time in, when I passed the crash site. Emergency workers waved my car by quickly, so I only caught sight of a draped figure on a still upright cycle at the front grill of the truck. The next day, the local paper featured a front page photograph of the accident--showing the cyclist, still astride the upright bike, with his head completely buried in the front grill work of the truck. All I could think of was how horrified his family members must have felt to open their papers that morning and see their loved one in such a horrific pose of death." All I can think of is... Why don't they show pictures like that on the front page of any of the newspapers I read???? ******* Tidings
Of Discomfort and Gloom! "If you have a purple thumb, here’s the garden for you! The Graveyard Gothic Garden™ grows black dragon coleus, moonflowers, dragon tree dracaena, aloe, and a mysterious climbing plant that actually moves when it’s touched. They sprout in about five days in their domed plastic terrarium and only need watering every two months. Kit has everything you’ll need: seeds, planting soil, blood rock (don’t ask!), tombstone plant stakes, terrarium decals, and an assortment of spooky skulls and spiders. (Feeding tips, too!)" http://www.pyramidcollection.com/itemdy00.asp?c=h&T1=P22690&GEN1=All+Home&SKW=house&PageNo=1
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