Story Stories of Weird Deaths

[fadinggirl]

I work on an ambulance. The first time I ever saw a dead body was in a playground.

We were called out for "suspected death" - essentially meaning someone found a body that has probably been dead for a while. It was a weekday morning, probably 5 AM. No kids out yet (thank god), but the city cleaners were starting to come through and one of them spotted it and then called us.

I walk up, feel he's stone cold. His joints were stiff (rigor mortis), and he had blood pooling due to the effects of gravity (dependent lividity). Essentially, he had been dead for a few hours at least and there was no point in trying. Me and my partner estimated he probably died between midnight and 2 AM. It honestly felt sort of peaceful to me as messed up as that is. It was still definitely eerie due to it being in a playground and that whole aspect just feeling wrong. But looking at him you could tell he was exhausted and tired of life. He escaped.

do you know what the cause was?

 

[maniac116]

The Unfortunate Victims Of The London Beer Flood

Death by beer may sound like a desirable way to go. For the inhabitants of Tottenham Court Road in 1814, though, it didn't seem quite so appealing.

Men were working at the Horse Shoe Brewery when a huge vat, holding up to 9,000 barrels of beer, burst open, sending a "tsunami" of porter 4.6 meters (15 ft) high sweeping through the streets. It flooded the nearby slums, quickly filling up cellars where whole families lived crammed together.

Eight people died in the flood, including at least one child. The basements were filled with the strong, black beer, and the cleanup took the rescuers an unusually long time. The brewery wasn't fined for causing the disaster, which was deemed to be "an unavoidable act of God," and was even given a tax break to help it recover. The poor victims, however, received nothing.

 

[maniac116]

Armin Meiwes:
'The flesh tastes like pork but stronger,' killer explains.

Roisin O'Connor
Tuesday 09 February 2016 18:28 GMT

German cannibal Armin Meiwes - YouTube

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In March 2001, Armin Meiwes posted an advert on the internet. He was looking for a "young, well-built man who wanted to be eaten".
The 42-year-old computer engineer from Rotenburg, Germany, became known as Der Metzgermeister (the Master Butcher) in one of the most famous cases of cannibalism in history.

Now, a new documentary titled Docs: Interview with a Cannibal has been granted unique access to the man who became the first person in Germany to be charged with "murder for sexual satisfaction", or "love cannibalism".
It tells how Meiwes agreed to meet a man who responded to his advertisement, brought him to the farmhouse he owned, and eventually killed and ate him - filming much of it.
The footage of the act itself, which was shown in a closed room during the trial, is described in the documentary as "too disturbing to show", and so shocking that only 19 minutes of the four-hour video was shown.
In the documentary, Meiwes's behaviour as a child is described as "like most other children his age – he loved animals and found country life idyllic".

But Meiwes describes the traumatic experience - at the age of 5 - of watching his father abandoning his family, shortly followed by his two half-brothers; making him "the man of the house".

After the death of his mother, Meiwes said he began a "second life" on the internet and stumbled upon chatrooms about cannibalism where there were people offering themselves to be eaten.
Meiwes met others in hotel rooms, where they role-played cannibalistic acts - but no one was willing to actually go through with it.
Then Meiwes met his lover and victim Bernd Brandes, 43, after he replied to an ad Brandes placed on the internet, titled "Dinner – or your dinner" and offering "the chance to eat me alive".
He was Meiwes' ideal victim, the documentary explains.
"He wanted to sacrifice himself," the killed says.
In an interview from prison Meiwes describes the moment Brandes stepped off the train.
"I was nervous and excited," he says.
The two had sex at Meiwes' home but he said Brandes was not satisfied, adding: "He wanted to be eaten alive."
Brandes swallowed 20 sleeping tablets and half a bottle of schnapps before Meiwes cut off his penis, "with his agreement", and fried it for them both to eat.

Meiwes then ran a bath for Brandes and checked on him every 15 minutes, reading a Star Trek novel during this time.
In the early hours of the morning, Meiwes killed Brandes by stabbing him in the neck. He then chopped Brandes into pieces, put parts of him in the freezer, and buried the skull in his garden.
"I decorated the table with nice candles," he said.
"I took out my best dinner service, and fried a piece of rump steak – a piece from his back – made what I call princess potatoes, and sprouts. After I prepared my meal, I ate it.
"The first bite was, of course, very strange. It was a feeling I can't really describe. I'd spent over 40 years longing for it, dreaming about it. And now I was getting the feeling that I was actually achieving this perfect inner connection through his flesh. The flesh tastes like pork but stronger."

On the morning of 10 December 2002, police made a visit to the isolated farmhouse, acting on a tip-off from a young Austrian student who believed the man living there had killed and eaten someone.
Police found a kitchen in the freezer with a false bottom, containing what Meiwes claimed was wild pig.
During the trial, German prosecutors described how Meiwes had fantasised about killing and devouring someone – including his classmates – from the age of eight.
Professor Michael Baber, director of the Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine, suggests that Meiwes displays a "highly specific form of fetishism, where his desire for attachment and comfort is achieved by contact to the fetish. In the case of Armin Meiwes, the fetish is male flesh from a person he knows and likes, and who voluntarily wants to be eaten by him".

Meiwes was deemed fit to stand trial and convicted of manslaughter in 2004 but was re-tried for murder a year later. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006.

 

[maniac116]

A founding member of ELO, "The Electric Light Orchestra" has been killed in a freak accident when a giant hay bale rolled out of a field and landed on his van.
Cellist Mike Edwards died instantly when the 50-stone cylindrical bale careened down a slope, flipped 15ft over a hedge and smashed on to the roof of his van.

Mr Edwards, 62, was known for unconventional cello playing including plucking the strings with an orange or grapefruit and his bizarre customs which became a major ingredient of ELO,
"The Electric Light Orchestra".

Police say the accident happened at around 12.30pm on Friday on the A381 between Harbetonford and Halwell in Devon.

The victim was driving a white transit-type van towards Kinsgbridge when the bale of hay smashed into the front cab.

The van swerved after it was hit and then collided with another smaller van coming the other way - but the second driver was unhurt.

The accident caused long tailbacks and police diverted hundreds of vehicles through country lanes.

Police identified Mr Edwards with the use of photographs and YouTube footage and have appealed for help in contacting his family for formal identification.

The accident happened at around 12.30pm on Friday on the A381 between Harbertonford and Halwell in Devon.

It is believed a farmer was working on a tractor in the field shortly before the incident.

Inspector Andy Hamilton said his officers were investigating the cause of the tragedy.

He said: 'We are liaising with the heath and safety people and gathering evidence from the scene of the accident and the field. 'The van came into contact with a very large bale of hay.'

He added that officers had spoken to the farmer who owns the field and will be talking to him again shortly.

Mr Edwards played cello with ELO, a seven-piece band led by Jeff Lynne, from their first live gig in 1972 until he left in January 1975.

He performed on albums Electric Light Orchestra II, On the Third Day, The Night The Lights Went On (In Long ) and Eldorado.

A tribute to Edwards was today posted on the Face The Music website, described as an 'official information service for ELO and related artists'.

It said the cellist attracted fans with a unique solo turn - playing his instrument with a grapefruit.

The tribute said: 'He played in ELO's first ever live concert (Croydon, 16 April 1972) and over the next three years toured with them as the band strove to develop and establish their distinctive sound.


'Mike quickly became a crowd favourite with his exploding cello and rather unique solo party piece that involved playing the cello with a grapefruit!

'He will be sadly missed by all.'

 

[maniac116]

Death by Dancing

Wikimedia Commons
In 1518, an incredibly strange affliction descended upon the people of Strausbourg, France: They couldn't stop dancing. It started with Frau Troffea; one day in July, she started cutting a rug in the middle of the street — sans music — and kept going at it for a week without stopping. By the end of that week, she had been joined by 34 others; by August, the numbers had risen to 400.
When I say "without stopping," by the way, I mean it — which, ultimately, is what was responsible for all the deaths that occurred that summer: The nonstop exertion, day in, day out, resulted in an average of 15 people a day collapsing from heart attacks, strokes, and exhaustion when the Dancing Plague of 1518 was at its height.
We still don't totally know what triggered the whole thing, but we have theories. It's possible, for example, that Catholic superstition surrounding St. Vitus — who was said to be able to curse people with a dancing plague — combined with conditions of disease and famine may have put the people of Strasbourg under so much stress that it prompted an instance of mass hysteria; or, it could have been the resulted of ergot poisoning, which we also now believe was responsible for the Salem Witch Trials. You be the judge.

 

[maniac116]

Death By Circus Clown

Wikimedia Commons
No, not Pennywise; technically, It's not a clown (It's an eldritch being that often takes the form of a clown). But in 1854, 13-year-old William Snyder was — I kid you not — "killed by being swung around by the heels by a circus clown," according to the boy's official record of death. Reported the Sacramento Daily Union on Jan. 13, 1854, "A post-mortem examination was held upon the body, the result of which proved to be that death was caused by a rupture of the left pulmonary artery. The Coroner's Jury returned a verdict of death being produced by accident."
Although William was born in Cincinnati, the accident occurred in San Francisco; he was originally buried in Yerba Buena Cemetery, but was later moved to Cypress Lawn Cemetery in San Matero after Yerba Buena ceased operations.

 

[maniac116]

"Innocent people have gone to jail for murder because the real explanation for why someone died was so rare and infrequent that courts didn't believe those explanations as plausible. Two cases off the top of my head: Lindy Chamberlain (a dingo actually did eat her baby) and Kathleen Folbigg (had four children die from a rare genetic mutation).

Fairfax Media / Fairfax Media via Getty Images

—badgersprite
Similarly, "Patricia Stallings was wrongfully convicted of murder after the death of her son in 1989. Because testing seemed to indicate an elevated level of ethylene glycol in Ryan's blood, authorities suspected antifreeze poisoning, and they arrested Stallings the next day.
She was convicted in 1991. In jail, she had another baby, diagnosed with methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), a rare genetic disorder that can mimic antifreeze poisoning."
–tmink0220