Today’s Outrageous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Given their bizarre psychological makeup, it’s no wonder that when serial killers are brought to trial, they sometimes create outrageous scenes. After spending their lives in the shadows, like bugs under a rock, they suddenly find themselves thrust onto center stage, with an audience that (in the media age) can number in the millions. With the whole world watching, some of these psychos proceed to put on quite a show.
During his 1924 trial, Fritz Haarmann – the infamous “Vampire of Hanover,” who murdered at least twenty-eight young boys by chewing through their throats – carried on like a talk show host. Puffing on a fat cigar, he heckled the witnesses and made frequent quips about his appalling crimes.
Fritz Haarman: The Entertainer
Haarmann’s countryman, the German sex-murderer Rudolph Pleil, used his trial as a platform for establishing his lethal pre-eminence. Pleil was charged with the rape-murder of nine women. Possessed of a perverse vanity, Pleil was indignant at these accusations, insisting that he was actually responsible for twenty-eight homicides. At his trial, he demanded that the official transcript refer to him as “der beste Totmacher” – “the best death-maker”.
Rudolph “I’m Number One!” Pleil
At roughly the same time in America, the “Lonely Hearts Killers,” Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, were on trial for a trio of killings, including the murder of a two-year-old child. At one point, the mountainous Beck – determined to demonstrate her undying love – detoured on her way to the witness stand to hurl herself into the arms of her skinny Latin lover (a scene not unlike the one in Walt Disney’s Fantasia when the hippo ballerina dives into the arms of her reptilian dance partner).
Love is a many-splendored thing!
Few trials, however, have been as outrageous aw that of Charles Mansion and his “family” of drug-crazed hippie assassins. Manson began the proceedings by marching into the courtroom with a big X carved into his forehead. “I have X-ed myself out of your world,” was his lucid explanation for this bizarre self-mutilation. At the height of the trial’s madness, Manson lunged at the judge and tried to assault him.
X marks the spot!
Culled from: The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
Arcane Excerpts!
Here’s an excerpt from the fabulous Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle (1896) which begs the question: why would any woman ever choose to have children???
Combined Intrauterine and Extrauterine Gestation.—Many well-authenticated cases of combined pregnancy, in which one of the products of conception was intrauterine and the other of extrauterine gestation, have been recorded. Clark and Ramsbotham report instances of double conception, one fetus being born alive in the ordinary manner and the other located extrauterine. Chasser speaks of a case in which there was concurrent pregnancy in both the uterus and the Fallopian tube. Smith cites an instance of a woman of twenty-three who became pregnant in August, 1870. In the following December she passed fetal bones from the rectum, and a month later gave birth to an intrauterine fetus of six months’ growth. McGee mentions the case of a woman of twenty-eight who became pregnant in July, 1872, and on October 20th and 21st passed several fetal bones by the rectum, and about four months later expelled some from the uterus. From this time she rapidly recovered her strength and health. Devergie quotes an instance of a woman of thirty who had several children, but who died suddenly, and being pregnant was opened. In the right iliac fossa was found a male child weighting 5 pounds and 5 ounces, 8 1/2 inches long, and of about five months’ growth. The uterus also contained am ale fetus of about three months’ gestation. Figure 4 shows combined intrauterine and extrauterine gestation. Hodgen speaks of a woman of twenty-seven, who was regular until November, 1872; early in January, 1873, she had an attack of pain with peritonitis, shortly after which what was apparently an extra-uterine pregnancy gradually diminished. On August 17, 1873, after a labor of eight hours, she gave birth to a healthy fetus. The hand in the uterus detected a tumor to the left, which was reduced to about one-fourth the former size. In April, 1874, the woman still suffered pain and tenderness in the tumor. Hodgen believed this to have been originally a tubal pregnancy, which burst, causing much hemorrhage and the death of the fetus, together with a limited peritonitis. Beach has seen a twin compound pregnancy in which after connection there was a miscarriage in six weeks and four years after delivery of an extrauterine fetus through the abdominal walls. Cooke cites an example of intrauterine and extrauterine pregnancy progressing simultaneously to full period of gestation, with resultant death. Rosset reports the case of a woman of twenty-seven, who menstruated last in November, 1878, and on August 5, 1879, was delivered of a well-developed dead female child weighing seven pounds. The uterine contractions were feeble, and the attached placenta was removed only with difficulty; there was considerable hemorrhage. The hemorrhage continued to occur at intervals of two weeks, and an extrauterine tumor remained. Two weeks later septicemia supervened and life was despaired of. On the 15th of October a portion of a fetus of five months’ growth in an advanced stage of decomposition protruded from the vulva. After the escape of this putrid mass her health returned, and in four months she was again robust and healthy. Whinery speaks of a young woman who at the time of her second child-birth observed a tumor in the abdomen on her right side and felt motion in it. In about a month she was seized with severe pain which continued a week and the woman afterward gave birth to a third child; subsequently she noticed that the tumor had enlarged since the first birth, and had a recurrence of pain and slight hemorrhage every three weeks, and distinctly felt motion in the tumor. This continued for eighteen months, when, after a most violent attack of pain, all movement ceased, and, as she expressed it, she knew the moment the child died. The tumor lost its natural consistence and felt flabby and dead. An incision was made through the linea alba, and the knife came in contact with a hard gritty substance, three or four lines thick. The escape of several quarters of dark brown fluid followed the incision, and the operation had to be discontinued on account of the ensuing syncope. About six weeks afterward a bone presented at the orifice, which the woman extracted, and this was soon followed by a mass of bones, hair and putrid matter. The discharge was small, and gradually grew less in quantity and offensiveness, soon ceasing altogether, and the wound closed. By December health was good, and the menses had returned.