Another con talk: Sex and Death
Jan. 26th, 2004 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenThis one is from Damn Fine Convention and is largely filched - as opposed to felched - from the files of the Fortean Times.
Sex and Death
Well, what more is there?
When you get right down to it, they’re the two most important things in most people’s lives.
The French even call orgasm le petit mort – “the little death”, that moment when we all – well, OK, almost all – feel, for a moment, transcendence – it may be all too brief, but at least this is one we come back from.
Well, most of us do.
A few achieve the little death and the big one at the same time. It’s probably the way most people would want to go, in fact - with a big smile. As so many men have said – I know I have - “I want to die at 115 years old, of sexual exhaustion, in the company of a gorgeous young woman, or better still, a small group of them.”
Not much fun for her (or him), though.
Like Jimmy “the Beard” Ferrozzo, who went the way he probably wanted to, more or less, although at 40 years old probably rather sooner than he planned. He was assistant manager of the Condor Club in North Beach, San Francisco, where for 20 years the star act had been Carol Doda, who appeared for her acts on top of a Steinway baby grand piano which descended out of her dressing room into the club.
Jimmy had been a bad lad. He’d be working a little bit too closely with his staff – specifically, Teresa Hill, a 23-year-old topless dancer.
On the 23rd November 1983, the caretaker came into work to discover Jimmy dead on top of the piano – crushed to death against the 12 foot ceiling. Underneath him, naked and hysterical, was Teresa.
Apparently, the night before, they’d decided to make love on top of the piano, and presumably, during the throes of passion, one of them tripped the power switch. Jimmy was asphyxiated by crushing; Teresa was saved by the cushioning effect of his body.
At least, that’s what the police thought must have happened: Teresa couldn’t say. She’d been so drunk she couldn’t even remember getting on the piano.
A similar calamity occurred in West Akron, Ohio, to Daisy Gladden, 20, and her lover James Daniels Jr., 26. On the 17th January 1988, after indulging in drugs and alcohol, they decided to make love in a car, hidden from prying eyes inside an abandoned garage. It was all too much for 12 stone Daniels, who died in the act, trapping Daisy underneath him. With only a thin raincoat to cover her and suffering from hypothermia, she was discovered 4 days later when a tow-truck driver heard her screams. She was still wedged underneath the decomposing body of her naked lover.
Carried off in the act, but this time both together, were married couple Sachi and Tomio Hidaka of Chiba, Japan. Both 34, the shy couple had waited 14 years to consummating their marriage - in 1992. It proved to be too much for them; both died of heart attacks, although neither had any history of heart trouble.
Sometimes, it takes less than that – such as the sad case of Min Chou Lin, who reportedly kissed his wife to death at their wedding reception in Beijing, China, in 1987. They were found unconscious on a sofa, locked in one another’s arms, and rushed to hospital, but his bride died of heart palpitations brought on by the excitement.
It’s not always natural causes, though. Teenager Jochen had grown up together with three girls, Dunja, Petra and Christina, in a special home for deaf-mutes in Heilsbronn, Germany. In 1980, Dunja fell in love with Jochen, and one day they walked to an old deserted bomb shelter. There they made love for the first time, and Dunja cried with happiness; after which Jochen murdered her. It appears that the romance hadn't gone down well with the other two girls who, using sign language, threatened suicide if the affair continued, but offered love if it didn't. Numbers seem to have counted, and as Dunja lay with her eyes closed, Jochen hit her on the head with a bottle before stabbing her several times with a pair of scissors. All three conspirators were found guilty of murder, but only given two-year suspended sentences.
Dennis Keoghoe, 72, of Minehead, Somerset, wanted to make up to his wife for all the money he'd spent on prostitutes when he was yonger, so he did nine paper-rounds a week. Eventually he became so exhausted that he killed himself by drinking a bottle of whisky and taking 100 painkillers.
Circus midget Martha Farrand, 3ft 9in, professionally known as the Vest Pocket Venus, was loved by both her partners in a high-wire act. Jealousy eventually overcame caution, and one night a fight broke out high above the audience, with both men plunging to their death in the ring.
Perhaps circuses are hot-beds of curious passion. Marian Paler, 36, caught her trapeze-artist husband in a compromising position, in Resita, Romania. A few hours later, Marian guffawed loudly at a critical point in the performance when her husband required total concentration, and he fell to his death from the flying trapeze: murdered by laughter.
Or perhaps the cruical factor is that they should be East European circuses. In 1993, Bucharest-based horse trainer Hanibal Cantori went to the stable to give his stallion Galbenus some sugar, and discovered his wife Laura having intercourse with the animal. When she confessed to regularly seeking satisfaction with Galbenus, Cantori strangled her with a silk scarf, before committing suicide.
But the circus may not be so important afer all: perhaps it's simply that Romania is a place of peculiar romances. We are told that beauty queen Helene Momescu, of Cetatea, had even more lovers on a string than the heroes and heroines of our previous tales: five in all. Eventually they decided on a drastic solution. the five arrived at a deserted house one night in 1978, each armed with a revolver, a bottle of liquor, a candle, and a signed letter explaining their intentions. Drinking steadily, they lit the candles and waited for them to go out; after which they would begin shooting and the survivor would claim the girl. the last candle sputtered, the shots duly rang out... and in the morning all five were found dead. Helene was run out of town and forbidden to return.
But of course, as everyone knows, we always hurt the ones we love…
Redundant oil broker Sophia Kneen, 30, was hugged to death by her spurned lover. She and commodities dealer Tim Brockman, 32, had shared a £100 000 flat in Fulham, but she had wanted to end their eight-year relationship after a series of tempestuous rows. In October 1992, after drinking with a friend and apparently joking that his plans for the evening was "murder, then suicide", Brockman returned to the flat. In what investigators suggested may have begun as a show of affection, Brockman squeezed the life out of Sophia. Bruising to her shoulders and back suggested that she had died of "crush" asphyxiation, a method of murder popularised by the 19th century body-snatchers Burke and Hare. Brockman then laid her on the bed, wreathed her head with flowers and, some hours later, slashed his throat, chest and wrists before hanging himself from a beam a few feet away.
Egyptian-born prostitute and rape crisis counsellor Omaima Nelson, of Santa Ana, California, clubbed her husband William to death with a lamp. They had argued about money. She then tied him to a mattress before dressing up in red shoes, a red hat and blood-red lipstick. After that she hacked her 16-stone husband to pieces and skinned him, barbecued then ate his ribs, and ground up the rest of the body in the garbage disposal. Jailed for 27 years, she told the judge she was "a warm person who wouldn't harm a mosquito".
Beatriz Robeldo, 47, became so annoyed with her husband's hiccups as he was settling down for a nap that she tried to scare him. The plan went horribly wrong. Nestor Lutz, 48, was so shocked when he opened his eyes and saw a figure crouching over him wearing a spooky carnival mask that he grabbed a knife and stabbed his wife to death. He then panicked and threw the body into a septic tank before turning himself in to police. The tragedy happened in the provincial Argentinian town of Ituzaingo on 12 January 1997. Similarily unfortunate was Siek Phan, 62, a Vietnamese woman from the Cambodian province of Kompong Speu, who was cutting firewood when her husband, Nou Meas, 65, sneaked up and tickled her. She instinctively threw her axe, killing him instantly. When she turned round she found she had nearly decapitated him. "I hate being tickled," she told the authorities.
Patricia Orionno of Doubs, France, became completely fed up with her husband Jean-Louis demanding too much sex. In 1988, she tried giving him an overdose of sleeping tablets, but he merely took a protracted nap. She then slashed his wrists and gassed him, but neither of those methods worked either. Then she tried smothering him, but he merely woke up. Finally, on the fifth attempt, she stabbed him eight times, and at last he died. French courts make allowances for crimes of passion, however, and she was freed.
Dionicio Vela didn't trust his 22-year old wife Rosa to behave when he was away from his village in Peru, so he made a chastity belt out of coarse rawhide and a padlock, for when he was away on business trips. Unfortunately the padlock was rusty, and in 1987 Rosa's skin became infected with septicaemic poisoning which eventually killed her.
Carlos Jiminez was freed by a court in Coro, Venezuela, after killing his wife Maria when he rolled over in bed and hit her with his elbow.
Rock musician David Alexander Richmond, 28, from Sanford, Florida, had been missing for over a year when his former girlfriend Michele Roger, 27, made the mistake of telling friends she had killed him. The topless dancer had stabbed him during an argument. She called her family for help and the took the corpse to a field to burn. They then mulched the skeleton in a Richmond's own tree chipper, mixed the remains with concrete and drove towards Miami on Interstate 95 throwing small chunks out the window as they went.
Of course, it may not be deliberate…
According to the News of the World, a middle-aged, one-legged Frenchman, interrupted in flagrante, collapsed and died after a one-mile hop to escape a cuckolded husband. Hmm. In Bogota, Columbia, however, Emilio Garcia, 23, jumped naked out of the second-floor window of his mistress' house after her husband arrived home unexpectedly... and impaled himself on the handlebars of his motorbike. Police said he had apparently forgotten that he had parked the bike below. He died in hospital during an operation to remove the machine from his groin.
When Italian two-timer Paolo Fusari's jealous wife shot him, the bullet missed and went into a tree. But it 'fired' and killed him 13 years later when he used explosives to fell the oak. Also jealous was a man aged 100, from Medan in Indonesia, who believed his 75-year-old wife was having an affair. He killed her by cutting her throat after she refused to have sex with him.
It could even be coincidence…
A devoted couple, married for 44 years, died within seconds of each other at their home in Huyton, Merseyside. Margaret Connell, 63, collapsed after seeing her husband Pat, 66, suffer a heart attack. They were childhood sweethearts and left 11 children and 26 grandchildren. Also going together were Catherine Whisker (Cat Whisker?) and her husband Leslie. Mrs Whisker was in a car following the ambulance carrying Leslie to hospital when she turned to her son Paul and said she was feeling unwell; she too collapsed with a heart attack. The couple was admitted to the emergency unit and died within five minutes of each other. The Whiskers had been inseparable since childhood.
Sometimes it could be an accident.
Health officials in Istanbul, Turkey, were forced to issue a warning in 1990 about people making love on the roof during sultry summer evenings. At least a dozen people were said to die each year when, after a night on the tiles, they contentedly fell asleep... and rolled over.
Jazz trumpeter Joe 'Pootie' Newman, who played with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, was destroyed by his sexual appetite. Described as having "a masterly control of his instrument, a uniquely rhytmic way with the valves, a remarkably potency", he was also a keen ladies' man. In 1989 he had an unsuccessful penile implant. A build-up of pressure brought about a series of embarassing explosions, including one in a restaurant, and internal bleeding followed. In July 1992 he eventually died of a blood clot on the brain. His last album was called Hangin' Out.
Joe Brayboy's taste for the ladies brought trouble too, but this time the hand of death settled on another. Suspecting that he was visiting a lover, his wife Patricia set off with a girlfriend to find him. Driving down a street in Houston, she spotted what she mistakenly took to be Joe's grey Volvo parked in a driveway. She pounded on the house door and began to force her way inside. Hearing the commotion, a resident grabbed his shotgun and shot her dead. As her friend fled screaming down the road, she noticed Joe Brayboy's grey Volvo parked in another driveway, a few houses away.
Rock-climbing Lothario Claudio Fortunati fell 242 feet to his death from the top of a cliff on the holiday island of Ponza when his safety rope gave way. It had been severed with pliers or a similar tool, though the police were unsure whether by a dumped girlfriend or a jealous boyfriend.
An unnamed 25-year-old Argentinian man pushed his wife out of the window of their eight floor Buenos Aires apartment. As she fell, she got tangled in the power cables. He plummeted to his death when he tried to free her and his wife managed to pull herself up onto a balcony.
A Vietnamese man who intervened in a row between his married neigbours and pacified them, helped himself to a drink. Unfortunately, the bottle of water had been poisoned by the husband, who had earlier intended committing suicide. He died an hour later.
Kevin Murray, 20, from Edinburgh, hanged himself from a 'Way Out' road sign at Wester Hailes railway station after a row with his girlfriend. He was discovered on 7 July 1996.
Christopher Sean Payne, 34, and an un-named woman of 25 drank 11 bottles of beer on 11 October 1996 and then went on a sexual romp in the sea off Pee Wee Camp beach near Darwin in Australia. They had intercourse in "a number of positions" before the woman went underwater to perform fellatio. Payne became excited, put his hands on her head and kept her submerged. Michael Carey, prosecuting at Payne's trial in the Northern Territories Supreme Court a year later, said Payne told the police that when the woman stopped sucking he wondered what was going on, so he let her up. She had not tried to get up and wasn't kicking or splashing. When he realised she was dead, he 'freaked out', dressed and drove away. he was arrested two days later. During his year in prison, he had constant nightmares and was treated 12 times for outbreaks of boils. Payne's counsel pointed out that the woman might have passed out from drink; she had consumed six times the legal driving limit.
While it may not be the best idea to have oral sex under water, doing it while driving is possibly even less wise, as Malcolm Whitham, 41, and Susan Charman, 37, found out. When police reached the wreck of their car, which had slammed into a pub at high speed, they found Whitham drunk at the wheel with his trousers and underpants round his knees and Charman, naked from the waist up, draped across his lap. She had died instantly from a broken neck; Whitham died later from multiple injuries. Police seargant Roy Simpson told the inquest: "It's my view that Mr Whitham's attention was not committed 100 per cent to having control of the vehicle."
Reminiscent of Jimmy the Beard, a lustful encounter also saw off Ralf and Pia Broom, who died during a passionate interlude on a dining-room table; both died when a massive chandelier fell from the ceiling and crushed them. A romantic crush also ended a Zambian couple's erotic episode, this time in a church. They were making love frenziedly when a wall fell on top of them, killing the man and leaving the woman injured beneath him.
In Los Angeles, Robert Salazar was arrested after Sandra Orellana, one of his employees, fell to her death from the terrace of her room at the Industry Hills Sheraton Resort and Conference Centre. He had failed to report her death, which occurred as they were making love on the eight-floor terrace. She toppled over the rail while changing position and crashed to her death 50ft below. Investigating officer Deputy Elsa Mangana said "I can't recall anything like this occurring. It takes your breath away."
When Sharon R Lopatka left her home in Hampstead, Maryland on 13 October, she wrote a note for her husband saying she was going to visit friends in Georgia and would not be coming back. "If my body is never retrieved, don't worry: know that I'm at peace," she wrote. She also asked him not to go after her attacker. In the event, Lopatka took a 300-mile bus ride to North Carolina, where the expected to be sexually tortured and killed by a man she had corresponded with over the Internet. Apparently, she got her wish. Her body was found in a shallow grave in late October behind a mobile home in Collettsville belonging to Robert Glass, who was charged with first-degree murder. The autopsy showed she had been strangled about 16 October. Messages from Glass, recovered from Lopatka's home computer, indicate that she travelled to North Carolina knowing what awaited her. Lopatka, 35, operated three World Wide Web pages. One offered to write classified advertisements, while the other two, advertising psychic hot lines, were entitled 'Psychics Know All' and 'Dionne Enterprises.' A friend describes her as happily married and sensible. Glass, 45, a father of three who separated from his wife earlier this year, had worked as a computer programmer for the county for nearly 16 years. The two first came in contact over the Internet. Lopatka's husband reported her missing on 20 October and police discovered the e-mail messages from Glass, despite his attempt to have her erase the files. Messages from 'Slowhand' - Glass' apparent Internet alias - "described in detail how he was going to sexually torture... and ultimately kill her," an affidavit said.
In Ireland, Fr Liam Cosgrave, a Roman Catholic priest, died of a heart attack in a gay sauna and was given last rites there by two other priests. Staff at the Incognito sauna said Fr Cosgrave was a regular.
'Mad bomber' Erwin Mikolajczyk shot six people dead in March 1994, including the judge and his ex-girlfriend, then blew up himself and the courtroom in bonn, Germany, with a home-made bomb strapped to his body. He had been fined £3000 for beating his former lover, but police couldn't figure out why he was wearing wellington boots at the time of his demise. Then they visited his home and discovered another 140 pairs of wellingtons hidden in the cellar. All were in bright colours - pink, green, violet, yellow - and each pair was a carefully labelled record of his sexual conquests, with a different woman's name and date attached. It seemed that the 39-year old boilerman had bought a new pair for every new woman he pursued, wore them during lovemaking, and lined up the boots in his living room so he could imagine naked women wearing them. There was also a collection of shiny black rubber mackintoshes in a bedroom.
It could even be a total stranger.
Panic swept through Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, in October and November 1990. Men going about their usual business were stopping to look anxiously into their pants or feel their crotch, and keeping an eye out for mysterious strangers who were said to be roaming the bustling streets and markets. The strangers were thought to be evil wizards who could instantly dematerialise a man's private parts, usually after shaking hands or some other slight bodily contact when they asked for directions. The missing items were said to turn up in a thriving witchcraft market, where they sold for hundreds of pounds.
Within a week of the rumours starting , the nation was in the grip of hysteria. A riot broke out in Enugu when a man boarding a bus shouted that his penis has vanished. The man in front of him was dragged off the bus and beaten. Fearing a lynching, a policeman fired warning shots, but only made matters worse by killing the bus driver and badly injuring a woman and her child. During this period, four suspected sorcerers were beaten to death, and stories circulated that women's breasts were being stolen too. Yet although dozens of suspected organ thieves were attacked, no one was actually to found to have lost his tackle, nor did any of the missing goods actually turn up in the markets.
A fatal attraction occurred in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1992. An adulterous couple was found locked together and dead on the floor of the husband's battery-charging shop. Police believed that during the lovemaking the woman had accidentally touched a live wire, fatally electrocuting them both; but more informed opinion (or rumour) spoke of blood and a worm oozing from her lover's mouth, the sure sign of a magum spell that fatally locks unfaithful lovers together.
Or it could be worse. Like the vast majority of orgasms, you might not be having this one in company.
In which case… someone’s going to find you.
You might not be present to care any more, but you’re not going to be remembered for your life’s work – they’re gonna talk about what you were doing that one last time.
Firefighters were called to a house in Knoxville, Tennessee, in April 1995 when neighbours smelled something burning. There they found the nude body of a 16-year old boy and called in police. Confronted with posters of heavy-metal rock groups and a cow's heart attached to the boy's genitals, they at first thought they were dealing with a ritual murder. However, they then found several underground pornographic magazines under they boy's bed, one of which, Ovid Now, described a 'sex-toy' that could be made from the fresh heart of a cow, a simple electrical circuit and some batteries. The dead heart is made to beat, and then used sexually in a perversion which is apparently gaining popularity in the South. The trouble was, the boy had wired up the heart and plugged it into the wall-socket. He died of electrocution, and the electricity had then cooked his remains.
Two unusual cases of auto-erotic fatalities using power hydraulics appear in FT’s files: in both cases the men were using the hydraulic shovels on tractors to suspend themselves for sexual stimulation. First we have the 42-year-old who was obsessed with his tractor to the point of calling it 'Stone' and having Christmas cards made up with a picture of himself and Stone upon it. While suspended upside down from the shovel, he accidentally hanged himself.
The other case concerns a 62-year-old who would hang upside down suspended by his feet from a backhoe, wearing only stockings and six-inch high heels. One day the support broke and the bucket dropped, crushing him to the ground and suffocating him.
Sex and Death
Well, what more is there?
When you get right down to it, they’re the two most important things in most people’s lives.
The French even call orgasm le petit mort – “the little death”, that moment when we all – well, OK, almost all – feel, for a moment, transcendence – it may be all too brief, but at least this is one we come back from.
Well, most of us do.
A few achieve the little death and the big one at the same time. It’s probably the way most people would want to go, in fact - with a big smile. As so many men have said – I know I have - “I want to die at 115 years old, of sexual exhaustion, in the company of a gorgeous young woman, or better still, a small group of them.”
Not much fun for her (or him), though.
Like Jimmy “the Beard” Ferrozzo, who went the way he probably wanted to, more or less, although at 40 years old probably rather sooner than he planned. He was assistant manager of the Condor Club in North Beach, San Francisco, where for 20 years the star act had been Carol Doda, who appeared for her acts on top of a Steinway baby grand piano which descended out of her dressing room into the club.
Jimmy had been a bad lad. He’d be working a little bit too closely with his staff – specifically, Teresa Hill, a 23-year-old topless dancer.
On the 23rd November 1983, the caretaker came into work to discover Jimmy dead on top of the piano – crushed to death against the 12 foot ceiling. Underneath him, naked and hysterical, was Teresa.
Apparently, the night before, they’d decided to make love on top of the piano, and presumably, during the throes of passion, one of them tripped the power switch. Jimmy was asphyxiated by crushing; Teresa was saved by the cushioning effect of his body.
At least, that’s what the police thought must have happened: Teresa couldn’t say. She’d been so drunk she couldn’t even remember getting on the piano.
A similar calamity occurred in West Akron, Ohio, to Daisy Gladden, 20, and her lover James Daniels Jr., 26. On the 17th January 1988, after indulging in drugs and alcohol, they decided to make love in a car, hidden from prying eyes inside an abandoned garage. It was all too much for 12 stone Daniels, who died in the act, trapping Daisy underneath him. With only a thin raincoat to cover her and suffering from hypothermia, she was discovered 4 days later when a tow-truck driver heard her screams. She was still wedged underneath the decomposing body of her naked lover.
Carried off in the act, but this time both together, were married couple Sachi and Tomio Hidaka of Chiba, Japan. Both 34, the shy couple had waited 14 years to consummating their marriage - in 1992. It proved to be too much for them; both died of heart attacks, although neither had any history of heart trouble.
Sometimes, it takes less than that – such as the sad case of Min Chou Lin, who reportedly kissed his wife to death at their wedding reception in Beijing, China, in 1987. They were found unconscious on a sofa, locked in one another’s arms, and rushed to hospital, but his bride died of heart palpitations brought on by the excitement.
It’s not always natural causes, though. Teenager Jochen had grown up together with three girls, Dunja, Petra and Christina, in a special home for deaf-mutes in Heilsbronn, Germany. In 1980, Dunja fell in love with Jochen, and one day they walked to an old deserted bomb shelter. There they made love for the first time, and Dunja cried with happiness; after which Jochen murdered her. It appears that the romance hadn't gone down well with the other two girls who, using sign language, threatened suicide if the affair continued, but offered love if it didn't. Numbers seem to have counted, and as Dunja lay with her eyes closed, Jochen hit her on the head with a bottle before stabbing her several times with a pair of scissors. All three conspirators were found guilty of murder, but only given two-year suspended sentences.
Dennis Keoghoe, 72, of Minehead, Somerset, wanted to make up to his wife for all the money he'd spent on prostitutes when he was yonger, so he did nine paper-rounds a week. Eventually he became so exhausted that he killed himself by drinking a bottle of whisky and taking 100 painkillers.
Circus midget Martha Farrand, 3ft 9in, professionally known as the Vest Pocket Venus, was loved by both her partners in a high-wire act. Jealousy eventually overcame caution, and one night a fight broke out high above the audience, with both men plunging to their death in the ring.
Perhaps circuses are hot-beds of curious passion. Marian Paler, 36, caught her trapeze-artist husband in a compromising position, in Resita, Romania. A few hours later, Marian guffawed loudly at a critical point in the performance when her husband required total concentration, and he fell to his death from the flying trapeze: murdered by laughter.
Or perhaps the cruical factor is that they should be East European circuses. In 1993, Bucharest-based horse trainer Hanibal Cantori went to the stable to give his stallion Galbenus some sugar, and discovered his wife Laura having intercourse with the animal. When she confessed to regularly seeking satisfaction with Galbenus, Cantori strangled her with a silk scarf, before committing suicide.
But the circus may not be so important afer all: perhaps it's simply that Romania is a place of peculiar romances. We are told that beauty queen Helene Momescu, of Cetatea, had even more lovers on a string than the heroes and heroines of our previous tales: five in all. Eventually they decided on a drastic solution. the five arrived at a deserted house one night in 1978, each armed with a revolver, a bottle of liquor, a candle, and a signed letter explaining their intentions. Drinking steadily, they lit the candles and waited for them to go out; after which they would begin shooting and the survivor would claim the girl. the last candle sputtered, the shots duly rang out... and in the morning all five were found dead. Helene was run out of town and forbidden to return.
But of course, as everyone knows, we always hurt the ones we love…
Redundant oil broker Sophia Kneen, 30, was hugged to death by her spurned lover. She and commodities dealer Tim Brockman, 32, had shared a £100 000 flat in Fulham, but she had wanted to end their eight-year relationship after a series of tempestuous rows. In October 1992, after drinking with a friend and apparently joking that his plans for the evening was "murder, then suicide", Brockman returned to the flat. In what investigators suggested may have begun as a show of affection, Brockman squeezed the life out of Sophia. Bruising to her shoulders and back suggested that she had died of "crush" asphyxiation, a method of murder popularised by the 19th century body-snatchers Burke and Hare. Brockman then laid her on the bed, wreathed her head with flowers and, some hours later, slashed his throat, chest and wrists before hanging himself from a beam a few feet away.
Egyptian-born prostitute and rape crisis counsellor Omaima Nelson, of Santa Ana, California, clubbed her husband William to death with a lamp. They had argued about money. She then tied him to a mattress before dressing up in red shoes, a red hat and blood-red lipstick. After that she hacked her 16-stone husband to pieces and skinned him, barbecued then ate his ribs, and ground up the rest of the body in the garbage disposal. Jailed for 27 years, she told the judge she was "a warm person who wouldn't harm a mosquito".
Beatriz Robeldo, 47, became so annoyed with her husband's hiccups as he was settling down for a nap that she tried to scare him. The plan went horribly wrong. Nestor Lutz, 48, was so shocked when he opened his eyes and saw a figure crouching over him wearing a spooky carnival mask that he grabbed a knife and stabbed his wife to death. He then panicked and threw the body into a septic tank before turning himself in to police. The tragedy happened in the provincial Argentinian town of Ituzaingo on 12 January 1997. Similarily unfortunate was Siek Phan, 62, a Vietnamese woman from the Cambodian province of Kompong Speu, who was cutting firewood when her husband, Nou Meas, 65, sneaked up and tickled her. She instinctively threw her axe, killing him instantly. When she turned round she found she had nearly decapitated him. "I hate being tickled," she told the authorities.
Patricia Orionno of Doubs, France, became completely fed up with her husband Jean-Louis demanding too much sex. In 1988, she tried giving him an overdose of sleeping tablets, but he merely took a protracted nap. She then slashed his wrists and gassed him, but neither of those methods worked either. Then she tried smothering him, but he merely woke up. Finally, on the fifth attempt, she stabbed him eight times, and at last he died. French courts make allowances for crimes of passion, however, and she was freed.
Dionicio Vela didn't trust his 22-year old wife Rosa to behave when he was away from his village in Peru, so he made a chastity belt out of coarse rawhide and a padlock, for when he was away on business trips. Unfortunately the padlock was rusty, and in 1987 Rosa's skin became infected with septicaemic poisoning which eventually killed her.
Carlos Jiminez was freed by a court in Coro, Venezuela, after killing his wife Maria when he rolled over in bed and hit her with his elbow.
Rock musician David Alexander Richmond, 28, from Sanford, Florida, had been missing for over a year when his former girlfriend Michele Roger, 27, made the mistake of telling friends she had killed him. The topless dancer had stabbed him during an argument. She called her family for help and the took the corpse to a field to burn. They then mulched the skeleton in a Richmond's own tree chipper, mixed the remains with concrete and drove towards Miami on Interstate 95 throwing small chunks out the window as they went.
Of course, it may not be deliberate…
According to the News of the World, a middle-aged, one-legged Frenchman, interrupted in flagrante, collapsed and died after a one-mile hop to escape a cuckolded husband. Hmm. In Bogota, Columbia, however, Emilio Garcia, 23, jumped naked out of the second-floor window of his mistress' house after her husband arrived home unexpectedly... and impaled himself on the handlebars of his motorbike. Police said he had apparently forgotten that he had parked the bike below. He died in hospital during an operation to remove the machine from his groin.
When Italian two-timer Paolo Fusari's jealous wife shot him, the bullet missed and went into a tree. But it 'fired' and killed him 13 years later when he used explosives to fell the oak. Also jealous was a man aged 100, from Medan in Indonesia, who believed his 75-year-old wife was having an affair. He killed her by cutting her throat after she refused to have sex with him.
It could even be coincidence…
A devoted couple, married for 44 years, died within seconds of each other at their home in Huyton, Merseyside. Margaret Connell, 63, collapsed after seeing her husband Pat, 66, suffer a heart attack. They were childhood sweethearts and left 11 children and 26 grandchildren. Also going together were Catherine Whisker (Cat Whisker?) and her husband Leslie. Mrs Whisker was in a car following the ambulance carrying Leslie to hospital when she turned to her son Paul and said she was feeling unwell; she too collapsed with a heart attack. The couple was admitted to the emergency unit and died within five minutes of each other. The Whiskers had been inseparable since childhood.
Sometimes it could be an accident.
Health officials in Istanbul, Turkey, were forced to issue a warning in 1990 about people making love on the roof during sultry summer evenings. At least a dozen people were said to die each year when, after a night on the tiles, they contentedly fell asleep... and rolled over.
Jazz trumpeter Joe 'Pootie' Newman, who played with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, was destroyed by his sexual appetite. Described as having "a masterly control of his instrument, a uniquely rhytmic way with the valves, a remarkably potency", he was also a keen ladies' man. In 1989 he had an unsuccessful penile implant. A build-up of pressure brought about a series of embarassing explosions, including one in a restaurant, and internal bleeding followed. In July 1992 he eventually died of a blood clot on the brain. His last album was called Hangin' Out.
Joe Brayboy's taste for the ladies brought trouble too, but this time the hand of death settled on another. Suspecting that he was visiting a lover, his wife Patricia set off with a girlfriend to find him. Driving down a street in Houston, she spotted what she mistakenly took to be Joe's grey Volvo parked in a driveway. She pounded on the house door and began to force her way inside. Hearing the commotion, a resident grabbed his shotgun and shot her dead. As her friend fled screaming down the road, she noticed Joe Brayboy's grey Volvo parked in another driveway, a few houses away.
Rock-climbing Lothario Claudio Fortunati fell 242 feet to his death from the top of a cliff on the holiday island of Ponza when his safety rope gave way. It had been severed with pliers or a similar tool, though the police were unsure whether by a dumped girlfriend or a jealous boyfriend.
An unnamed 25-year-old Argentinian man pushed his wife out of the window of their eight floor Buenos Aires apartment. As she fell, she got tangled in the power cables. He plummeted to his death when he tried to free her and his wife managed to pull herself up onto a balcony.
A Vietnamese man who intervened in a row between his married neigbours and pacified them, helped himself to a drink. Unfortunately, the bottle of water had been poisoned by the husband, who had earlier intended committing suicide. He died an hour later.
Kevin Murray, 20, from Edinburgh, hanged himself from a 'Way Out' road sign at Wester Hailes railway station after a row with his girlfriend. He was discovered on 7 July 1996.
Christopher Sean Payne, 34, and an un-named woman of 25 drank 11 bottles of beer on 11 October 1996 and then went on a sexual romp in the sea off Pee Wee Camp beach near Darwin in Australia. They had intercourse in "a number of positions" before the woman went underwater to perform fellatio. Payne became excited, put his hands on her head and kept her submerged. Michael Carey, prosecuting at Payne's trial in the Northern Territories Supreme Court a year later, said Payne told the police that when the woman stopped sucking he wondered what was going on, so he let her up. She had not tried to get up and wasn't kicking or splashing. When he realised she was dead, he 'freaked out', dressed and drove away. he was arrested two days later. During his year in prison, he had constant nightmares and was treated 12 times for outbreaks of boils. Payne's counsel pointed out that the woman might have passed out from drink; she had consumed six times the legal driving limit.
While it may not be the best idea to have oral sex under water, doing it while driving is possibly even less wise, as Malcolm Whitham, 41, and Susan Charman, 37, found out. When police reached the wreck of their car, which had slammed into a pub at high speed, they found Whitham drunk at the wheel with his trousers and underpants round his knees and Charman, naked from the waist up, draped across his lap. She had died instantly from a broken neck; Whitham died later from multiple injuries. Police seargant Roy Simpson told the inquest: "It's my view that Mr Whitham's attention was not committed 100 per cent to having control of the vehicle."
Reminiscent of Jimmy the Beard, a lustful encounter also saw off Ralf and Pia Broom, who died during a passionate interlude on a dining-room table; both died when a massive chandelier fell from the ceiling and crushed them. A romantic crush also ended a Zambian couple's erotic episode, this time in a church. They were making love frenziedly when a wall fell on top of them, killing the man and leaving the woman injured beneath him.
In Los Angeles, Robert Salazar was arrested after Sandra Orellana, one of his employees, fell to her death from the terrace of her room at the Industry Hills Sheraton Resort and Conference Centre. He had failed to report her death, which occurred as they were making love on the eight-floor terrace. She toppled over the rail while changing position and crashed to her death 50ft below. Investigating officer Deputy Elsa Mangana said "I can't recall anything like this occurring. It takes your breath away."
When Sharon R Lopatka left her home in Hampstead, Maryland on 13 October, she wrote a note for her husband saying she was going to visit friends in Georgia and would not be coming back. "If my body is never retrieved, don't worry: know that I'm at peace," she wrote. She also asked him not to go after her attacker. In the event, Lopatka took a 300-mile bus ride to North Carolina, where the expected to be sexually tortured and killed by a man she had corresponded with over the Internet. Apparently, she got her wish. Her body was found in a shallow grave in late October behind a mobile home in Collettsville belonging to Robert Glass, who was charged with first-degree murder. The autopsy showed she had been strangled about 16 October. Messages from Glass, recovered from Lopatka's home computer, indicate that she travelled to North Carolina knowing what awaited her. Lopatka, 35, operated three World Wide Web pages. One offered to write classified advertisements, while the other two, advertising psychic hot lines, were entitled 'Psychics Know All' and 'Dionne Enterprises.' A friend describes her as happily married and sensible. Glass, 45, a father of three who separated from his wife earlier this year, had worked as a computer programmer for the county for nearly 16 years. The two first came in contact over the Internet. Lopatka's husband reported her missing on 20 October and police discovered the e-mail messages from Glass, despite his attempt to have her erase the files. Messages from 'Slowhand' - Glass' apparent Internet alias - "described in detail how he was going to sexually torture... and ultimately kill her," an affidavit said.
In Ireland, Fr Liam Cosgrave, a Roman Catholic priest, died of a heart attack in a gay sauna and was given last rites there by two other priests. Staff at the Incognito sauna said Fr Cosgrave was a regular.
'Mad bomber' Erwin Mikolajczyk shot six people dead in March 1994, including the judge and his ex-girlfriend, then blew up himself and the courtroom in bonn, Germany, with a home-made bomb strapped to his body. He had been fined £3000 for beating his former lover, but police couldn't figure out why he was wearing wellington boots at the time of his demise. Then they visited his home and discovered another 140 pairs of wellingtons hidden in the cellar. All were in bright colours - pink, green, violet, yellow - and each pair was a carefully labelled record of his sexual conquests, with a different woman's name and date attached. It seemed that the 39-year old boilerman had bought a new pair for every new woman he pursued, wore them during lovemaking, and lined up the boots in his living room so he could imagine naked women wearing them. There was also a collection of shiny black rubber mackintoshes in a bedroom.
It could even be a total stranger.
Panic swept through Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, in October and November 1990. Men going about their usual business were stopping to look anxiously into their pants or feel their crotch, and keeping an eye out for mysterious strangers who were said to be roaming the bustling streets and markets. The strangers were thought to be evil wizards who could instantly dematerialise a man's private parts, usually after shaking hands or some other slight bodily contact when they asked for directions. The missing items were said to turn up in a thriving witchcraft market, where they sold for hundreds of pounds.
Within a week of the rumours starting , the nation was in the grip of hysteria. A riot broke out in Enugu when a man boarding a bus shouted that his penis has vanished. The man in front of him was dragged off the bus and beaten. Fearing a lynching, a policeman fired warning shots, but only made matters worse by killing the bus driver and badly injuring a woman and her child. During this period, four suspected sorcerers were beaten to death, and stories circulated that women's breasts were being stolen too. Yet although dozens of suspected organ thieves were attacked, no one was actually to found to have lost his tackle, nor did any of the missing goods actually turn up in the markets.
A fatal attraction occurred in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1992. An adulterous couple was found locked together and dead on the floor of the husband's battery-charging shop. Police believed that during the lovemaking the woman had accidentally touched a live wire, fatally electrocuting them both; but more informed opinion (or rumour) spoke of blood and a worm oozing from her lover's mouth, the sure sign of a magum spell that fatally locks unfaithful lovers together.
Or it could be worse. Like the vast majority of orgasms, you might not be having this one in company.
In which case… someone’s going to find you.
You might not be present to care any more, but you’re not going to be remembered for your life’s work – they’re gonna talk about what you were doing that one last time.
Firefighters were called to a house in Knoxville, Tennessee, in April 1995 when neighbours smelled something burning. There they found the nude body of a 16-year old boy and called in police. Confronted with posters of heavy-metal rock groups and a cow's heart attached to the boy's genitals, they at first thought they were dealing with a ritual murder. However, they then found several underground pornographic magazines under they boy's bed, one of which, Ovid Now, described a 'sex-toy' that could be made from the fresh heart of a cow, a simple electrical circuit and some batteries. The dead heart is made to beat, and then used sexually in a perversion which is apparently gaining popularity in the South. The trouble was, the boy had wired up the heart and plugged it into the wall-socket. He died of electrocution, and the electricity had then cooked his remains.
Two unusual cases of auto-erotic fatalities using power hydraulics appear in FT’s files: in both cases the men were using the hydraulic shovels on tractors to suspend themselves for sexual stimulation. First we have the 42-year-old who was obsessed with his tractor to the point of calling it 'Stone' and having Christmas cards made up with a picture of himself and Stone upon it. While suspended upside down from the shovel, he accidentally hanged himself.
The other case concerns a 62-year-old who would hang upside down suspended by his feet from a backhoe, wearing only stockings and six-inch high heels. One day the support broke and the bucket dropped, crushing him to the ground and suffocating him.
