{"id":4859,"date":"2014-04-20T21:19:27","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T02:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2014-04-20T21:19:27","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T02:19:27","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-april-20-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=4859","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour for April 20, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Today&#8217;s Eerily Well-Preserved Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From the poisoner&#8217;s perspective, arsenic became a risky choice when forensic examiners\u00a0began to look directly at the body. With the stubborn, solid constitution of any metallic element, it breaks down extremely slowly compared to organic poisons and can be detected decades after death in a victim&#8217;s hair and fingernails. \u00a0Even worse for those who hope to avoid detection, arsenic tends to slow down the natural decomposition of human tissue, often creating eerily well-preserved corpses. \u00a0Toxicologists refer to this effect as arsenic &#8220;mummification.&#8221; \u00a0Forensic chemist Rudolph Witthaus reported that one body, exhumed after fifty-four weeks in the ground, &#8220;did not differ from a living person&#8221; in appearance except for the patches of mold growing on his face. \u00a0&#8220;The growth of molds is not interfered with by arsenic,&#8221; he added austerely.<\/p>\n<p>Culled from:\u00a0<a style=\"color: #bb0000;\" href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/theasylumeclecti\/detail\/014311882X\">The Poisoner\u2019s Handbook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hmmmmm&#8230; I wonder if <a href=\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=4344\">Julia Buccola Petta<\/a>, the &#8220;Incorruptible Bride,&#8221; was murdered with arsenic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s Eerily Well-Preserved Yet Truly Morbid Fact! From the poisoner&#8217;s perspective, arsenic became a risky choice when forensic examiners\u00a0began to look directly at the body. With the stubborn, solid constitution of any metallic element, it breaks down extremely slowly compared to organic poisons and can be detected decades after death in a victim&#8217;s hair and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4860,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions\/4860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}