Today’s Shocking Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On October 17, 1951, the St. Paul Dispatch, then a flourishing afternoon daily with decidedly tabloid tastes, reported the startling news that a woman had been whipped to death in the small suburban community of Lauderdale. The details were horrifying. Anna Halvorson, 64, was “found in a pool of blood in a bed” at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Marie and Patrick Doyle. Numerous lashes from a brown leather whip had caused her to die of shock and internal injuries, or so it appeared. Another woman, 35-year-old Ardith Lennander, whose husband Curtis had wielded the whip as part of a cult ritual designed to cleanse the devil from sinners, was also discovered in the modest home on Carl Street. Severely injured from a brutal flogging, she would die the next day at Ancker Hospital in St. Paul.
The saga of the “whipping cult,” as it became known in the newspaper shorthand of the day, produced an outpouring of stories in the Dispatch and its morning twin, thePioneer Press, all accompanied by photographs remarkable for their intimacy and their unflinching realism. The most graphic and disturbing picture, taken by staff photographer Jack Loveland, shows Ardith Lennander lying in bed in an apparent state of shock, her eyes open and her lips scarred by bloody cuts.
Culled from: Murder Has a Public Face
A little research online shows that Curtis Lennander pled guilty to two charges of third degree murder and was sentenced to 14-60 years in prison.
Morbid Auction Du Jour!
Ed Gein’s cauldron is going up for auction tomorrow. Okay, there’s no way to validate this – but someone says this is a cauldron that once contained Gein gore. However, since there’s no DNA test or certificate of authenticity, I’d be a little wary…
Ed Gein Cauldron Up For Auction In Wisconsin
Thanks to Katchaya for the link.
Ghastly! – Chicago Edition
One of my favorite books is Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook. It is exactly what it says it is: a bizarre and oft-disturbing scrapbook collected over the years by Los Angeles area police detective Jack Huddleston, whose career spanned from 1921 to the early 1950’s. Here’s a particularly grim entry. (Thanks to Anna for the image.)
“They cut his tongue off”
Reminds me of the scrapbook of murders Jack Torrance found under the stairs in Stephen King’s “The Shining”: “THEY TOOK HIS BALLS ALONG WITH THEM.” (Also written in crude handwriting). Makes you wonder if King somehow had access to this very photo.