RenegadeStyle1 posted:

One serial killer story that I always found fascinating. I can't remember who it was but I saw this on like a special or something. The guy was a serial killer, living at home, and his father found a locked box under his bed or something. He said he waited for his son to come home and he was going to confront him with the box, thinking it was like drugs or something. The guy came home, and knew immediately that it was some severed body part in the box and refused to open it. His father said that he just got really mad and took the box and left. When he came back the son apologized and I think admitted that it was drugs or something in the box and the father never thought anything about it until after his son was found and I think his son finally told him what was in that box. The father seemed so distraught over the fact that he could have found out early on what was really going on and it was so close but he never saw what was in the box.

quote:

Wuornos was born Aileen Carol Pittman in Rochester, Michigan, on February 29, 1956.[2] Her mother, Diane Wuornos (born 1939), was 14 years old when she married Aileen's father, Leo Dale Pittman (born circa 1937), on June 3, 1954. Less than two years later, and two months before Aileen was born, Diane filed for divorce. Aileen's older brother Keith was born on March 14, 1955.[3]

Wuornos never met her father; he was incarcerated at the time of her birth.[2] Pittman was diagnosed with schizophrenia, later convicted of sex crimes against children,[4] and eventually hanged himself in prison on January 30, 1969.[1][5] In January 1960, when Wuornos was almost four years old, Diane abandoned her children, leaving them with their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, who legally adopted Keith and Aileen on March 18, 1960.[5]

By the age 11, Wuornos began engaging in sexual activities in school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food.[6] She had also engaged in sexual activities with her brother.[4] Wuornos claimed that her alcoholic grandfather had sexually assaulted and beaten her when she was a child; before beating her, he would force her to strip out of her clothes.[4] In 1970, at age 14, she became pregnant,[7] having been raped by a friend of her grandfather's.[4] Wuornos gave birth to boy at a home for unwed mothers on March 23, 1971, and the child was placed for adoption.[5] A few months after her baby was born, she dropped out of school[4] at about the time that her grandmother died of liver failure. When Wuornos was 15, her grandfather threw her out of the house, and she began supporting herself as a prostitute and living in the woods near her old home.[5]

quote:

Three days later, on January 16, 1991, Wuornos confessed to the murders. She claimed the men had tried to rape her and she killed them in self-defense.[20][21]

On January 14, 1992, Wuornos went to trial for the murder of Richard Mallory; although previous convictions are normally inadmissible in criminal trials, under Florida's Williams Rule the prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence related to her other crimes to show a pattern of illegal activity.[1] On January 27, 1992, Wuornos was convicted of Mallory's murder with help from Moore's testimony. At her sentencing, psychiatrists for the defense testified that Wuornos was mentally unstable and had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.[22] Four days later, she was sentenced to death.[21][23]

On March 31, 1992, Wuornos pleaded no contest to the murders of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, saying she wanted to "get right with God".[1] In her statement to the court, she said, in part: "I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me as I've told you; but these others did not. [They] only began to start to."[1] On May 15, 1992, Wuornos was given three more death sentences.[1]

In June 1992, Wuornos pleaded guilty to the murder of Charles Carskaddon; in November 1992, she received her fifth death sentence.[1] The defense made efforts during the trial to introduce evidence that Mallory had been tried for intent to commit rape in Maryland and that he had been committed to a maximum security correctional facility in Maryland that provided remediation to sexual offenders.[24] Records obtained from that institution reflected that, from 1958 to 1962, Mallory was committed for treatment and observation resulting from a criminal charge of assault with intent to rape and received an over-all eight years of treatment from the facility. In 1961, "it was observed of Mr. Mallory that he possessed strong sociopathic trends".[24] The judge refused to allow this to be admitted in court as evidence and denied Wuornos' request for a retrial.[21][24][25]

In February 1993, Wuornos pleaded guilty to the murder of Walter Jeno Antonio and was sentenced to death again. No charges were brought against her for the murder of Peter Siems, as his body was never found. In all, she received six death sentences.[1]

Wuornos told several inconsistent stories about the killings. She claimed initially that all seven men had raped her while she was working as a prostitute but later recanted the claim of self-defense, citing robbery and a desire to leave no witnesses as the reason for murder. During an interview with filmmaker Nick Broomfield, when she thought the cameras were off, she told him that it was, in fact, self-defense, but she could not stand being on death row—where she had been for 10 years at that point—and wanted to die.[26]

quote:

The woman said that she had been preparing a long time for that split second where she saved her own life and possibly stopped a serial killer.

“I fought men my whole life,” she said. “I guess I had to be ready for that guy.”

quote:

Broomfield later speculated on Wuornos' motive and state of mind:

I think this anger developed inside her. And she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads. And I think this anger just spilled out from inside her. And finally exploded. Into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving. I think Aileen really believed that she had killed in self-defense. I think someone who's deeply psychotic can't really tell the difference between something that is life threatening and something that is a minor disagreement, that you could say something that she didn't agree with. She would get into a screaming black temper about it. And I think that's what had caused these things to happen. And at the same time, when she wasn't in those extreme moods, there was an incredible humanity to her.[40]

Whiz Palace posted:

And he had a part on the show (not as Landsman, but Lt. Mello)!

quote:

"New York Times" for July 28, 1856:

On Saturday night last, a man who resided in Twenty-ninth-street was killed in a most singular manner. The following are the peculiar circumstances, as far as our reporter has been able to learn them--for, in consequence of the opinion entertained concerning his relatives by the deceased, who was a man of considerable wealth and respectability, they have made great effort to keep the particulars from the public ear. It appears that nearly a year ago the deceased, who was fifty-three years of age, became strongly impressed with an idea that, when he should die, the parsimonious disposition of his relatives would lead them to put him in a cheap coffin, while he had a strong desire to be buried in one of polished rosewood, lined with white satin and trimmed with silver. Soon after this strange idea got possession of his mind, he discovered an elegant coffin in one of the principal warehouses, which suited him. He purchased it for $75; had it sent to his residence at nightfall, and stowed it away in a small closet adjoining his bed-room, where it remained until the time of the accident. How it occurred is not known to a certainty, for the first intimation the family had of the lamentable occurrence was from a servant, who, on going to call him to breakfast, found the door wide open and the deceased lying upon the floor, dead, with his coffin at his side. She screamed, which soon brought the family, and on raising the body the skull was found crushed in upon the brain. He was discovered about 8 o'clock yesterday morning, when, to all appearance, he had been dead several hours. On examining the closet, a bottle containing a quantity of sherry wine was found, and as Saturday night was excessively warm, he is supposed to have gone to the closet in order to procure the wine to use with some ice-water he had on a small table by his bedside. It is thought that he must have sought for it in the dark, and by some mistake upset the coffin, which stood nearly upright. Becoming sensible that it was falling, he probably made an effort to get away, when he fell, and the outer end struck his head with sufficient force to fracture his skull and cause almost immediate death. The inquest will be held with all possible secrecy. The unfortunate impression of the deceased concerning his relatives is a sufficient reason for withholding the names of the parties.

quote:

"Sheffield Independent," August 15, 1874:

An accident at a wake in Dublin again demonstrates the dangerous folly of these grim festivities, which are still popular among the lower classes in Ireland. The floor of a room fell, in which thirty persons were assembled round the body of a child only two months old, and ten persons were so seriously injured in consequence that they were removed to the hospital, where they lie, some with broken legs and arms. There has been no death.

Rabbit Hill posted:

Aileen Wuornos is another serial killer who I feel nothing but sad for. Her life was over before it began.


Then in the year between 1989-1990, she shot and killed seven men.


I mean, gently caress. She wasn't like all the thousands of serial killers who stalk, rape, and kill their victims just to get off, because what is the value of a woman's life when compared to their right to an orgasm? She herself had been treated like that since she a child, and continued to be treated like poo poo as a prostitute. Like that woman I quoted upthread, who said
x 7.

Even if she was in fact lying about killing in self-defense, but had murdered her johns simply to rob them without leaving a witness, her story is still incredibly sad.

Nckdictator posted:

Dick Trauma posted:

And yet more evidence to support clown-fear. They will literally kill you.

Literally Kermit posted:

That clown probably was mortified and never clowned again.

RenegadeStyle1 posted:

One serial killer story that I always found fascinating. I can't remember who it was but I saw this on like a special or something. The guy was a serial killer, living at home, and his father found a locked box under his bed or something. He said he waited for his son to come home and he was going to confront him with the box, thinking it was like drugs or something. The guy came home, and knew immediately that it was some severed body part in the box and refused to open it. His father said that he just got really mad and took the box and left. When he came back the son apologized and I think admitted that it was drugs or something in the box and the father never thought anything about it until after his son was found and I think his son finally told him what was in that box. The father seemed so distraught over the fact that he could have found out early on what was really going on and it was so close but he never saw what was in the box.

Kimmalah posted:

Not quite the same, but sounds a little like John Smith. He kept his wife's body in a box in the garage at his grandfather's house, until it was found by his brother. John of course freaked out, took it away and dumped the body in another state.

His brother actually did open it though, but didn't report it to anyone. Which he probably regrets since John most likely went on to murder his second wife too (though her body hasn't been found).

manderson posted:

Thanks thread, I just had to start looking up gas Gangrene and all the poo poo surrounding it. What the gently caress.

Seriously interesting stuff though.

nockturne posted:

Don't look up Fournier's Gangrene then!

Turns out it really WILL fall off!

quote:

Fournier's gangrene is a rare and often fulminant necrotizing fasciitis of the perineum and genital region frequently due to a synergistic polymicrobial infection. This truly emergent condition is typically seen in elderly, diabetic, or otherwise immune-compromised individuals. Here, we report an unusual case of Fournier's gangrene due to excessive masturbation in an otherwise healthy 29-year-old male who presented to the emergency department complaining of two days of fever, vomiting, and diffuse myalgias. Upon further questioning, he also endorsed severe scrotal pain and swelling and frequent masturbation with soap as a lubricant resulting in recurrent penile erythema and minor skin abrasions. Examination of the patient's perineum was consistent with Fournier's gangrene and included significant erythema, edema, and calor of the penis and scrotum with a large malodorous eschar. He was given intravenous antibiotics and immunoglobulin and promptly underwent three surgical debridements of the scrotum and penis with split-thickness skin grafting. Complications from excessive masturbation are exceedingly rare, but as this case illustrates, they can be life threatening.

nockturne posted:

Don't look up Fournier's Gangrene then!

Turns out it really WILL fall off!

amityville anus posted:

https://youtu.be/kNF8HxrEB8Y

JacquelineDempsey posted:

Not unnerving or scary: if you lived near Fulton, NY, home of the US's oldest chocolate plant, it smelled like chocolate when it rained.

Unnerving and scary:

...and then when the plant closed, the new owners were busted for using unlicensed workers and unsafe, illegal asbestos removal.

Segmentation Fox posted:

Haha oh man that is a stench that just does not leave your memory. I kept hearing rumors about cleanup operations going on but I lived in B'ville until around 2005 and couldn't remember ever actually seeing anything happening.

I do distinctly remember it always being worse on the south side, along hwy 690, and how if the wind shifted just right (just wrong?) during the state fair you'd get a nasty whiff of it. Good times.

I'm sure the 'unnerving' part will come when they determine anyone exposed to the lake winds up with some uniquely horrible form of cancer or something.

Centripetal Horse posted:

I wonder how much masturbation is "excessive masturbation." If I didn't do it enough to get gangrene when I was a teenager, I can't even imagine how much it actually takes.

Minarchist posted:

The guy was using soap for lube but they didn't specify what kind

Nckdictator posted:

Theoretically, is there anything that could've been done to save the poor guy?

Raskolnikov38 posted:

The treatment for gas gangrene is amputation of the affected appendage. Amputation of the head has a uh less than stellar survival rate.

Jose posted:

I feel like surely there should be a period between your dick being fine and having gangrene which might make you question what you're doing and stop

Jose posted:

...might make you question what you're doing...

Dick Trauma posted:

Most people lack the ability to do that, no matter the circumstances. There's a curious confidence that comes from being dumb as a box of goddamn rocks.

Nouvelle Vague posted:

See also: the girl who didn't clean or change her contacts for six months and went blind when an amoeba ate her eyes.

I, as a wearer of contacts, have to think that there were warning signs.

quote:

A strange story of a Chinese curse which laid a hoodoo on a ship, culminating in the mysterious disappearance of a French millionaire banker, was told at Plymouth yesterday by members of the crew of the 10,500 tons Glen Line steamer Samwater, which arrived from Vancouver.

For six months the Samwater had crossed and recrossed the Pacific, taking cargoes of wheat from Canada to China without incident, until on her last trip M. Henri Bar, 60-years-old president of the Franco-Chinoise Bank in Shanghai, embarked to return to Paris.

He took with him 25 crates containing Chinese antiques and treasures which he had collected during his 30 years in the Far East and told fellow passengers and ship's officers that among them were agate drinking cups looted during the Boxer riots from the Imperial Palace at Pekin, which carried a curse threatening disaster to anyone taking them out of the country.

Then began a series of mishaps. First of all. while the crates were being loaded into the ship's hold, one of them struck and seriously injured a Chinese coolie. Three days later one of the British members of the crew began to suffer from delusions and, acting on instructions from a warship, the Samwater put back to Yokohama, where the man was taken ashore for hospital treatment.

For sixteen days after leaving Shanghai on her way to Vancouver, the Samwater had to battle with heavy seas and fierce gales until one day the weather suddenly moderated. Then it was discovered that M. Bar had mysteriously disappeared. During the nine months we were away from England we had bad weather only on those 16 days during which M. Bar was on board." one of the crew told the "Western Morning News." "Apart from those 16 days we had a particularly lucky voyage."

Capt. F. Howe, master of the ship, whose home is at Middlesbrough, said: "The ship never stopped rolling after we left Shanghai until M. Bar disappeared. He left the saloon as usual that night announcing that he was going to retire.

"When it was found that his bed had not been slept in we made a thorough search of the ship, but there was no trace of him. It was a dark and windy night and we could only assume that while walking along the deck a heavy wave had washed him overboard.

"His luggage, including the treasures, which he told me were worth £50,000, were put ashore at Vancouver. From then until we reached Plymouth we had a pleasant and uneventful voyage, and apart from those 16 days I should call it a very lucky commission."

During one trip across the Pacific the Samwater came across the British steamer Empire Ouse which, with 10,000 tons of wheat on board, was lying disabled with a propeller missing.

The Samwater took her in tow and in 17 days brought her 3,200 miles across the ocean without mishap to Hong-kong, a feat of salvage which should bring rewards of thousands of pounds to owners and crew.

quote:

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,
Yo-ho! and a bottle of rum.
Drink and the devil had done for the rest.
Yo-ho! and a bottle of rum.

Since Andrew Lundberg signed as able seaman aboard the two-master schooner Sarah and Lucy in Bridgeport last Friday he dinned the words of Stevenson's pirates song in "Treasure Island" into the ears of his shipmates until they drove him from their quarters in the fo'castle, and made him share the ice-covered deck with a big black cat that went aboard before the schooner left Bridgeport for this port.

Early yesterday morning Lundberg, in a tipsy frenzy, lay on the deck, the cat on his shoulder and an empty bottle in his hand, mumbling the same old chorus while the schooner rolled at her anchorage off Red Hook. His shipmates were asleep, and the watch had curled himself up in a warm corner.

Two hours later Lundberg was found dead, hanging by a halyard from the foremast. The empty bottle was frozen to his fingers, and perched on his shoulder, as it swung like a pendulum in the breeze, was the hoodoo cat.

Lundberg lived at 1 Seeley street, Bridgeport. He told his mates the cat had followed him for miles, and that it meant his death. At times he cursed it, and once tried to kill it. The other seamen aboard prevented him, and for a time it looked as though Lundberg was going to start a killing on board.

A few hours sleep cleared his mind a little from the effects of the drink he had been swallowing, but he was not long awake before he found a bottle again, and once more he started raving and hunting for the cat. He found it and kicked it half the length of the schooner. The thought that he had killed it seemed to pacify him for a time, and he began to sing again.

The schooner dropped anchor off Red Hook on Tuesday, waiting for a tow to Perth Amboy. Then the cat, minus its tail, appeared on deck from nowhere and sat and blinked at Lundberg. With a curse the sailor tried to get on his feet, but the deck was like glass and he slipped down again. For an hour he lay, singing and cursing until he dozed off.

There his mates left him, with the black cat alongside, and went below to sleep. The man on watch gave him a glance of disgust, tossed a piece of bread to the cat, buttoned his coat, and sought out a corner where he would escape the sting of the icy northwester that blew steadily all night.

Lundberg cut a halyard, tied a hangman's noose, and slipped it around his neck. Then he climbed the rigging high enough to be sure the drop would break his neck. Whether the cat went with him or climbed on his shoulder after he had hanged himself is not known.

When the body was found it was shrouded in frozen spray; the fingers of the left hand showed they had been badly cut, and the sailor's coat was missing. The cat was dead.

The New York police were notified, and Lieut. Dwyer, of Harbor Squadron A., went out to the patrol and brought the body to the Battery. There it was taken to the morgue and information sent to Bridgeport.

quote:

On July 20, 1852, the "Elyria Courier" reprinted an item from the "Boston Atlas":

"Wonders will never cease--On the 5th inst., as a gentleman of this city was looking out of a window, he saw a black kitten fall past him, apparently from the top of a house, and expected to see it dashed dead upon the sidewalk; but contrary to his expectations when it reached the ground it began to walk. Some children supposing it to be injured, took it in and gave it some milk, when it lapped in the usual style. The next morning the lady of the house went into the cellar to give it some more milk, when strange to relate, it darted past her a distance of 20 feet, without touching the ground, and when out of the house, ascended upwards into the air more rapidly than it had fallen down the day before, and was soon lost to view among the clouds.--Improbable as these statements may appear they were made to us by a medical gentleman of whose sanity and love of truth we do not entertain a doubt. We recommend this singular phenomenon to the attention of the editor of the Spiritual Telegraph."

Nckdictator posted:

http://strangeco.blogspot.com/2014/03/newspaper-clipping-of-day_19.html


I'm going to guess that was probably a..bat? I don't know.

flosofl posted:

It is to Be Considered an Angel which had been subject to the Cruel and Deplorable Depredations of Satan's Foul Imps. Wounded and Unable to mount an Ascent to the Golden City, it was Nursed with Great Care and Gentleness of a Pious Family. Upon Recovery the Angel, heretofore injured in a manner Most Grave, Ascended to rejoin the Legions of the Heavenly Host.

flosofl posted:

It is to Be Considered an Angel which had been subject to the Cruel and Deplorable Depredations of Satan's Foul Imps. Wounded and Unable to mount an Ascent to the Golden City, it was Nursed with Great Care and Gentleness of a Pious Family. Upon Recovery the Angel, heretofore injured in a manner Most Grave, Ascended to rejoin the Legions of the Heavenly Host.

Captain Monkey posted:

2/10 Otterguy roleplay, use more bolding.

Robert Johnson, Come In On My Kitchen posted:

COME ON IN MY KITCHEN (take 1)
Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
mmm mmm mmm mmm
You better come on
in my kitchen
babe, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors

Oh-ah, she's gone
I know she won't come back
I've taken the last nickel
out of her nation sack
You better come on
in my kitchen
babe, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors

Nouvelle Vague posted:

See also: the girl who didn't clean or change her contacts for six months and went blind when an amoeba ate her eyes.

I, as a wearer of contacts, have to think that there were warning signs.

The BBC posted:

The last confirmed sighting of Derek Serpell-Morris, also known as DJ Derek, was over three weeks ago in the city.
Jennifer Griffiths, his great niece, said she was losing hope of finding him alive.
Police have released further CCTV footage, showing DJ Derek in The Criterion pub, at about 23:30 BST on 10 July - his last confirmed sighting.
On Monday, Avon and Somerset Police said they were re-focusing search efforts in the Yate area, after a "credible" sighting of him at Yate bus station on 16 or 17 July

The Indy posted:

The search for the missing Bristol musician known as DJ Derek took a new twist on 4 August with police suddenly changing the focus of their search for the 73-year-old after “credible” reports he was spotted 11 miles from the area he was previously thought to have vanished from.

Avon and Somerset detectives said they had witness accounts from old neighbours of Derek Serpell-Morris that he was seen at a bus top in the south Gloucestershire town of Yate at around midday on either 16 or 17 July.

Snoop Radley posted:

Even the comments has some guy calling the whole story bullshit cos he's worn his for 8 months without problems. Oh, okay, dude.

If there are known risks to something and certain precautions you can take to lessen said risks, why wouldn't you take them? For instance I'm terrified of toxic shock syndrome, which is why I avoid using tampons, yet you hear stories of women leaving them in overnight despite the big honking warning labels on the package.

Nckdictator posted:

No idea, but hey, if you can't trust "Eight trustworthy citizens" (and Google isn't much help) then who can you trust?

packetmantis posted:

What exactly is 'unnerving' about this?

Snoop Radley posted:

Even the comments has some guy calling the whole story bullshit cos he's worn his for 8 months without problems. Oh, okay, dude.

If there are known risks to something and certain precautions you can take to lessen said risks, why wouldn't you take them? For instance I'm terrified of toxic shock syndrome, which is why I avoid using tampons, yet you hear stories of women leaving them in overnight despite the big honking warning labels on the package.