Monthly Archives: August 2011

Today’s Unsavory Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Harry Charles Moore was executed on May 16, 1997 in Oregon by lethal injection. He was convicted of murdering his half-sister and his brother-in-law because he thought they were planning to take his ex-wife and daughter and move to Las Vegas. Moore feared that his daughter, two years old at the time of the murders, would turn to a life of prostitution if exposed to such an unsavory environment. His last meal consisted of two green apples, two red apples, a tray of fresh fruit and two 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola. A practical joker to the end, just prior to the execution Moore asked the warden if he could borrow the keys to the prison, promising to “bring them right back.” The request was denied. Part of his last words were, “Now I know how Jesus felt before he got smoked.”

Culled from: Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row

A couple more tidbits I found on the net: Harry had married two of his nieces before he had this sudden attack of morality. Supposedly his last words while he lay dying were in tribute to his daughter: “I want the last word I say to be Jennifer; j e n n i f e r”.

Today’s Perfectly Composed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In 1587, after Mary Queen of Scots had been nearly twenty years in prison, Elizabeth I was finally persuaded to execute her. The sentence was carried out in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle before an audience of 300 knights and gentlemen. Mary entered the hall, her tall, majestic figure dressed in a black robe and white veil, a gold crucifix hanging from her neck. She mounted the scaffold and sat down to listen to her death sentence being proclaimed by Lord Shrewsbury. She appeared perfectly composed and looked around, smiling at those she recognized. The dean of Peterborough, officiating on behalf of the Church of England, was told, “I am a Catholic and shall die a Catholic. Your prayers will avail me little.” There then followed a contest not without humour, as Mary and the dean vied with each other in the volume and intensity of their prayers, until the exasperated dean gave up in despair.

When she had finished praying, Mary was helped to disrobe. The black cloak was shed to reveal crimson undergarments. Standing on the black scaffold, she was crimson from head to feet. Slowly she knelt and, still smiling, wished her ladies, “Adieu! Au revoir.” What followed evokes chills even today. The first blow missed the neck and cut into the back of the head. Mary remained perfectly still and was heard to whisper, “Sweet Jesus”. The second stroke severed the neck except for a small sinew which was cut by using the axe as a saw. The executioner held up the severed head, grasping it by the hair. At that instant the head separated from an unsuspected wig and fell to the floor. The audience gasped at the gruesome spectacle of a bald, wrinkled, care-worn old woman. It was claimed that her lips still moved and continued to do so for a quarter of an hour after her death. As the executioner was about to remove Mary’s stockings, her little Skye terrier scurried from under her discarded robe. After “… being put from hence [the dog] went and laid himself down betwixt her head and body, and being besmeared with her blood, was caused to be washed.”

Culled from: Death: A History Of Man’s Obsessions and Fears

Today’s Impatient Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The final words of Henri de Talleyrand de Chalais (1599-1626), convicted of treason and sentenced to death, as he encouraged his executioner to expedite his task:

“Do not leave me in suspense!”

Culled from: Weird Wills & Eccentric Last Wishes by Michelle Lovric

Today’s Blasphemous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Future saint, Pope Pius V (1504-1572) had an elaborate new lavatory installed at the Vatican in 1570. At the time, even the slightest building project rated a formal dedication and Latin inscription. So, with mock solemnity, one Nicolo Franco scrawled the following bit of graffiti on the walls there: “Papa Pius Quintus, ventres miseratus onustos / Hocce cacatorum nobile fecit opus.” Which translates: “Pope Pius V, filled with compassion for our full bellies, has erected this noble monument of caca seats.” According to scholar Gustave Witkowski, Nicolo Franco was hanged for his blasphemy.

Culled from: An Underground Education

What a sourpuss. Then again, popes aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor, are they?

Today’s Resentful Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

At midday on April 20, 1999, students at the Columbine High School at Littleton, near Denver, Colorado, heard sounds like the explosion of firecrackers. But many recognized them for what they were – gunshots. In the library, which was full of students, two black clad youths walked in and began shooting, using automatic weapons. Sutdents dived under tables, but many were shot – one girl nine times. Strangely enough, the gunmen did not look grim – they were laughing as they fired and reloaded their weapons, or tossed home-made bombs. (Both also had bombs strapped to them.) One student, a girl named Janine, recognized them as two teenage students named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And as one of them pointed his gun at her, she begged for her life. He seemed to be in no hurry, for he listened to her pleas, and told her that he was killing people “because people had been mean to me last year”. And he ended by sparing her life. When the massacre was over, half an hour later, fifteen students lay dead, and forty were injured. The dead included the two killers, who had turned their guns on themselves.

Harris and Klebold belonged to a group of ten or so students who called themselves “the Trenchcoat Mafia,” and who (so its members claimed) were shunned by the rest of the student body – hence their resentment. Why two students from comfortable middle class backgrounds should decide to embark on mass murder was hard to determine. But an analysis in Time magazine pointed out that many students of the same generation spent their spare time playing video games which involved shooting large members of “the enemy” at top speed, and that as a consequence, they were deadly shots.

Culled from: The Mammoth Book of the History of Murder by Colin Wilson

Today’s Telling Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Alfred H. Maurer was the first American painter to be recognized in Paris for his Fauvist landscapes. He studied with Matisse, and seemed to have a bright future. When he went broke, he left France and retreated to his father’s house in New York. What resentment lurked behind his stifled genius remains unknown, though Maurer chose a telling place to hang himself. He was found dangling in the doorway to his father’s bedroom in 1932.

Culled from: Genius and Heroin

Today’s Unqualified Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Prior to the development of modern forensic science procedures, New York City required no medical background or training for coroners, even though they were charged with determining the cause of death. The list of New York City coroners, from 1898 to 1915, included eight undertakers, seven politicians, six real estate dealers, two saloonkeepers, two plumbers, a lawyer, a printer, an auctioneer, a wood carver, a carpenter, a painter, a butcher, a marble cutter, a milkman, an insurance agent, a labor leader, and a musician. It also included 17 physicians, but these were men like Patrick Riordan, doctors who had lost their practice and turned to a political position. None of them were asked to pass a test in order to hold office, or exhibit any knowledge of the profession. As a result, death certificates were filled out with no effort at determining cause. Among the entries were “could be suicide or murder,” and “either assault or diabetes.” In one instance a coroner had attributed a death to “diabetes, tuberculosis or nervous indigestion.” A few death certificates simply read “act of God”.

Culled from: The Poisoner’s Handbook

Today’s Gently Roused Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The French appear to have been unique in keeping the condemned from knowing the exact date of execution. Very early on the morning of execution, he was gently roused by two guards, who did not wear shoes and went in for him at the last minute. One sees this quite clearly in gruesome footage, shot clandestinely from an atelier window, of the last guillotining in France, included in the A&E documentary The Executioners. The condemned, who is quickly led out a doorway and up three stairs, is rumpled from a night’s sleep and only gradually conscious of his impending execution, which is conducted with extreme haste.

Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See

So, what do you think? Is it more humane to allow someone to know their date of execution – and anticipate it as it approaches – or to surprise them?

Today’s Hungry Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

A distraught mother listened on a mobile phone as her teenage daughter was eaten alive by a brown bear and its three cubs. Olga Moskalyova, 19, gave an horrific hour-long running commentary on her own death in three separate calls as the wild animals mauled her. She screamed: ‘Mum, the bear is eating me! Mum, it’s such agony. Mum, help!’ Her mother Tatiana said that at first she thought she was joking. ‘But then I heard the real horror and pain in Olga’s voice, and the sounds of a bear growling and chewing,’ she added. ‘I could have died then and there from shock.’ Unknown to Tatiana, the bear had already killed her husband Igor Tsyganenkov – Olga’s stepfather – by overpowering him, breaking his neck and smashing his skull. Olga, a trainee psychologist, saw the ­attack on her stepfather in tall grass and reeds by a river in Russia and fled for 70 yards before the mother bear grabbed her leg. As the creature toyed with her, she managed to call Tatiana several times during the prolonged attack. Tatiana rang her husband – not knowing he was ­already dead – but got no answer. She alerted the police and relatives in the village of Termalniy, near Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy, in the extreme east of Siberia. She begged them to rush to the river where the pair had gone to retrieve a fishing rod that Igor had left. In a second call, a weak Olga gasped: ‘Mum, the bears are back. She came back and brought her three babies. They’re… eating me.’ Finally, in her last call – almost an hour after the first – Olga sensed she was on the verge of death. With the bears having apparently left her to die, she said: ‘Mum, it’s not hurting any more. I don’t feel the pain. Forgive me for everything, I love you so much.’ Half an hour later, Igor’s brother Andrei arrived with police to find the mother bear still devouring his body. Badly mauled Olga was also dead. Six hunters were sent in by the emergency services to kill the mother bear and her three cubs. The double killing is the latest in a spate of bear attacks across ­Russia, as the hungry animals seek food in areas where people have ­encroached and settled on their former habitat. A weeping Tatiana said that Olga had everything to look forward to, and was happy with her life and boyfriend Stepan. ‘My daughter was such fun. She was so cheerful, friendly, and warm,’ said Tatiana. ‘She had graduated from music school, and just days before the bear attack she got her driving ­licence.’ Her husband and daughter are due to be buried today (August 18, 2011).

Culled from: The Daily Telegraph
Generously submitted by: Axollot

So it’s come to this with the cell phone generation? You can’t even die without being on the phone? I’m surprised she didn’t post about it on Facebook, complete with photographs. If she was American, I’m sure she would have…