Strange Deaths

[Mal_Adjusted]

Woman dies after opening pasta sauce

Greets

this is very sad.

not sure if it belongs here so if there's a better place....

Woman dies after opening pasta sauce

Sam Jones
Thursday December 23, 2004
The Guardian

A woman with a severe allergy to tomatoes died after opening a tin of spaghetti bolognese, it emerged yesterday.

Raya French, 37, a part-time receptionist from Tankerton in Kent, was preparing dinner for her four children two weeks ago when the tomato sauce in the can sent her into anaphylactic shock.

She was taken to hospital, but never regained consciousness. She was allowed to die four days later after her family decided that she had no chance of survival.

Mrs French developed an allergy to raw tomatoes three years ago, and would come out in hives and suffer asthma attacks. Recently the reactions had become more severe.

Her husband, Stephen, said yesterday that despite what had happened, his wife would still want their children - Alexandra, 15, Tom, 10, Maddison, six, and Louis, four - to enjoy the festive season.

"It's been a very difficult time, but we're working towards Christmas," he said.

Canon Patrick Sales, the vicar of All Saints church in nearby Whitstable, said that more than 300 people had attended her funeral last Wednesday.

"She was a governor at the local school where her children were pupils.

"She knew a lot of people in the community and there was a big response to her death."

Mr Sales said of Mrs French's husband and children: "They have been very brave and positive about all this."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1379099,00.html

mal

 

[escargot]

What a horrible, random death, of a pillar of the community, a respectable wife and mother, just two weeks before xmas. Don't expect me at Midnight Mass this year.

 

[Mal_Adjusted]

Mother tells of horror at finding twin toddlers crushed to d

Greets

another tragic story

(perhaps cross-ref to twins?)

The Scotsman
Wed 22 Dec 2004

Mother tells of horror at finding twin toddlers crushed to death

RHIANNON EDWARD

A MILLIONAIRE’S daughter told yesterday of the heartbreaking discovery that her two-year-old twins had been crushed by a chest of drawers.

Louise Woodbridge, 33, said she lost control after the freak accident which killed Betsy and William in their bedroom.

Mrs Woodbridge, who was heavily pregnant at the time, told an inquest that she shouted hysterically, pleading with family and workmen battling to save the twins "not to give up on my children".

The inquest heard that Betsy appeared to have emptied the clothes out of the drawers before climbing inside, causing them to topple over. William seemed to have been "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and was found with the drawers on top of him.

The tragedy unfolded on 27 September after the twins had been put to bed for a nap at their home in Winkfield, Berkshire. They had recently moved to a new bedroom from their nursery, and the inquest was told that, two days before the tragedy, they had surprised their mother by climbing out of their cots, getting dressed and running downstairs.

On the afternoon of the tragedy, Mrs Woodbridge was relaxing downstairs with her mother, Frances Grundon, the wife of Norman, who runs Grundon Waste Management and is worth an estimated £44 million. The family nanny, Jennifer Williams, 36, was also there.

At about 2:30pm, Mrs Woodbridge and the other women decided to go upstairs to wake the children but had difficulty opening the door. They forced their way in to find Betsy lying inside the drawer second from the bottom, with clothes strewn around the room, and William crushed on the floor.

"I immediately saw the chest of drawers had fallen and then saw just Betsy’s face, her eyes were closed," Mrs Woodbridge told Windsor Coroner’s Court in a statement. "I don’t know why, I just had this terrifying thought that she was dead."

She went on: "I think they got out of their cots and were just playing and Betsy’s just into climbing, just emptied the drawers for fun."

While the emergency services were called, two workmen, helping to install a new kitchen at the house, rushed in and tried to revive William as Ms Williams battled to save Betsy.

Mrs Woodbridge said: "I was running around, shouting hysterically to everyone not to give up on my children."

The twins were then taken to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough - William by air ambulance and Betsy by road. It was the same hospital in which they had spent time in a special-care baby unit because they had been born prematurely.

Dr Steven Gould, a paediatric pathologist at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, said the children had suffered haemorrhages to their face and eyes.

They died of asphyxia due to chest compressions and the deaths would have been "almost instantaneous".

Recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner, Peter Bedford, said: "I have no way of understanding or knowing how a family could react or cope with a situation like this. To lose one child is awful, but to lose two in such a way is beyond comprehension, and my heart goes out to the Woodbridge family."

He urged the family not to feel guilty about the incident, saying: "There is nothing that anybody could realistically have done, or foreseen, to prevent such an incident happening."

However, he called on all families with young children to review safety arrangements in the wake of the tragedy.

"If any lesson can be learned, and any child saved from injury, that’s something good that could come out of this," Mr Bedford said.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1456342004

mal

 

[NilesCalder]

Re: Woman dies after opening pasta sauce

Woman dies after opening pasta sauce

:shock: :cross eye

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

DECEMBER 24 - 30, 2004

The List 2004

Mike Davis’ 6 Remarkable Ways To Die

by Mike Davis


1. Breathe. If you are unlucky, you will inhale some spores of Coddidioides immitis. It is endemic in our soil. An ordinary case of resulting Valley Fever is not much worse than the flu, but the disseminated form is catastrophic. It causes meningitis as well as gruesome symptoms reminiscent of tertiary syphilis. A Valley Fever epidemic in the aftermath of landslides and dust clouds caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake led to several deaths in Ventura County.

2. Write a dissertation on sodomy in the Mexican Mafia. Those ultimate "values voters" — the EME — took profound umbrage at homosexual-rape scenes in Edward James Olmos’ 1992 movie, American Me. Two of the film’s Eastside consultants were punctually murdered, and Olmos sweated out several years as the target of angry veteranos. According to Hollywood gossip, the actor-director ultimately mollified his critics with handsome contributions to the cause of traditional values.

3. Succumb to the "Mothman Curse." But the Mexican Mafia aren’t the only pissed-off moviegoers. Paranormal researchers claim that Mothman — the weird winged demon from West Virginia — is now stalking Hollywood. Since the release of The Mothman Prophecies in 2002, several film associates have perished under strange circumstances. One fell off the stage at the Burning Man festival, another died of food poisoning at a Mexican restaurant, and a third was killed in a plane crash. According to knowledgeable occultists, the film’s stars — Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Debra Messing — may be in mortal danger.

4. Drown in the desert. The late-summer monsoon dumps 2 inches of rain on the flanks of Mount San Gorgonio. Two hours later a 4-foot-high wall of water drowns an unwary camper in the "dry" bed of the Mojave River near Victorville. Alternately, a dying Mexican hurricane or El Niño–driven superstorm briefly refills the high desert’s Pleistocene lakes. In August 2003, such flash floods washed away part of I-15 near Baker and drowned three people near Twentynine Palms. True desert rats wear life preservers.

5. Challenge the LAPD to a nude wrestling contest. Over the years, the LAPD has killed several nude people. The most notorious case was the shooting of Echo Park resident Ron Burkholder in August 1977. Ramparts Division officers encountered the naked, unarmed and clearly hallucinating chemist raving on a street corner one morning. After a brief scuffle, Sergeant Kurt Barz ended Burkholder’s PCP trip with six bullets. As usual, the department ruled the shooting "justified."

6. Have unsafe sex with an alien in the Valley. As famously chronicled in The Tujunga Canyon Contacts (1980), the Valley has long been the epicenter of extraterrestrial lust. And the saucers keep coming. Here’s where the $105 million that the Bush administration is spending on "abstinence education" might make some sense. After all, you never know where that Thing has had its dirty thang.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Weird an outbreak of chainsaw suicides - two different reports:

Web-Posted Dec 23, 2004

G.I. man kills himself in standoff

SWAT team called in after man barricades himself inside business on Old Highway 30

By Sarah Schulz
[email protected].


A Grand Island man killed himself with a chain saw early Wednesday morning during a standoff with law enforcement, the Nebraska State Patrol reported.

Paul E. Smidt Jr., 40, died at the scene, State Patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins said.

Grand Island police Capt. Robert Falldorf said the incident began about 5 p.m. when members of the Police Department attempted to serve a federal arrest warrant on Smidt for being a felon in possession of a shotgun. The officers contacted Smidt at his business, Smidt Lawn Care, 2816 W. Old Highway 30.

Officers called the State Patrol's SWAT team just before 9 p.m. Tuesday, patrol Capt. Fred Ruiz said. The 10-member SWAT team arrived at the scene around midnight.

Police had phone contact with Smidt and continued to negotiate with him in the three hours it took for the SWAT team members, many of whom live outside Grand Island, to assemble, Ruiz said.

Smidt refused to allow officers to enter the building and barricaded himself inside the business. Negotiations continued until after midnight, when the SWAT team entered the business, according to a State Patrol press release.

Ruiz said Smidt, who was armed with a chain saw, fled to a back bathroom and barricaded himself inside. The SWAT team was able to enter the bathroom, and when Smidt refused orders to drop the chain saw, a non-lethal beanbag round was fired at him.

Ruiz described the beanbag as approximately 1 inch square. He said the device is used to try to gain compliance from a person without causing serious injury.

According to the patrol's press release, Smidt "then lowered himself over the chain saw, taking his own life."

Ruiz said Smidt's neck came into contact with the chain saw.

Several members of the SWAT team witnessed the death, but no one else was injured in the standoff. Ruiz wouldn't comment on whether the chain saw was running prior to Smidt entering the bathroom.

The captain did say this was the only time he could remember an incident such as this occurring. Counseling services will be available for the law enforcement agents involved in the death, he said.

A special prosecutor will be named in the case. Nebraska law requires a grand jury to be convened anytime a person dies while in police custody or while being detained by law enforcement.

The standoff and death are being investigated by the South Central Alliance of Law Enforcement Services, a group made up of investigators from the police departments in Hastings, Kearney and Grand Island and sheriff's departments from Adams, Buffalo and Hall counties, Ruiz said.

This is the second grand jury to be called in Hall County in the last two months concerning men who have died while being detained by local law enforcement.

A grand jury is schedule to meet on Dec. 29 concerning the Nov. 24 suicide of Shaun Moreland, 19, of Wood River. He was being detained by two Hall County sheriff's deputies when he died of a self-inflicted wound.

The federal warrant the police were attempting to serve on Smidt on Tuesday stemmed from an Oct. 29 standoff, Falldorf said.

On that date, Smidt used a shotgun to take his estranged wife, Lois Smidt, hostage in her home at 1007 W. 13th St. After releasing her, Smidt engaged law enforcement in a standoff for several hours. He was taken into custody after a State Patrol police dog bit him on the leg.

Lois Smidt filed for divorce in July. The couple married in July 1990, and the marriage was marred by domestic abuse. Lois Smidt had filed for a protection order in Hall County District Court on Aug. 11, detailing several incidents in which Paul Smidt was verbally and physically abusive toward her and their two young sons.

As a result of that standoff, Smidt was charged with seven felonies and two misdemeanors. A motion to dismiss the charges was filed in district court on Monday, but a judge hadn't signed the document as of Wednesday afternoon.

Falldorf said the local charges were being dismissed in favor of pursuing the federal case.

According to court documents, Smidt had been released from the Hall County Jail on Nov. 9 on a 10 percent of $100,000 bond, which was posted by his mother. As part of his release, he was ordered not to have any contact with his estranged wife and was supposed to reside with his mother.

Source

--------------------------
And now in Wales:

Man sliced own neck with chainsaw

Dec 22 2004

By Carl Butler, Daily Post


A PENSIONER found her cancer-stricken husband dead - with a chainsaw embedded in his neck.

Retired businessman John Lloyd Jones was fighting tumours, pathologist Mark Atkinson told an inquest yesterday.

Depressed by ill-health, the 77-year-old killed himself with an electric chainsaw at his Flintshire home. His wife Norma, who realised he was missing from bed, discovered him lying on a workshop floor on September 16, after a search.

A policeman found the machine embedded in his neck.

Mr Atkinson said the wound to Mr Jones' neck severed the major blood vessels but not the cervical vertebra.

Earlier, the pathologist told the Flint inquest Mr Jones of T£ Fry, Llanasa, had two cancerous tumours, one of which was probably inoperable.

One was on his lungs, the other - on his colon - had spread into the abdomen.

They were "two significant malignancies" although there would have been no obvious symptoms other than Mr Jones feeling run down and tired.

North east Wales coroner John Hughes, recording a verdict of suicide, said: "I am satisfied this was a deliberate act.

"From the details of what he did, it cannot have been an accident."

Source

 

[MrRING]

Man killed by gang for target practice:

Barbarity beyond belief
Toree Donaldson was an easy target. His killers chased him for blocks, riddling his body with bullets from an assault rifle. And no one answered his cries for help.

By Tara Young

Murder is always an act of depravity, but the circumstances coming into focus as police probe the death of Toree Donaldson suggest barbarity almost beyond belief. Apparently his killers had nothing more in mind than target practice last month as they trained an assault rifle on the 19-year-old and chased him screaming through the streets of the Lower 9th Ward.

That residents failed to respond either to the booming assault rifle or to Donaldson's cries for help as he banged on their doors only deepens the sense of shock among those investigating the crime. Donaldson's bullet-riddled body was found facedown Nov. 23 near Joseph Hardin Elementary School, the school where as a mentally challenged child he had once struggled to keep up academically, his family said.

In the moments before his death, members of the New Orleans Police Department's 5th District have learned, the 19-year-old, who was studying hard to pass the LEAP test so he could graduate from Sarah T. Reed High School in May, ran for his life for about five city blocks, beating on doors and begging for help. Ammunition from his attackers' high-powered assault rifle repeatedly ripped through his head and body shortly after 11 a.m. just two days before Thanksgiving near the intersection of St. Maurice Avenue and North Tonti Street.

Judging by the casings found at the scene, police have determined a .223-caliber assault rifle was used to end Donaldson's life. "It's the same caliber used by our soldiers in Iraq right now," said Lt. Bruce Adams, a veteran officer who has seen his share of brutal slayings this year but said he was taken aback by the overkill in the Donaldson attack. "It's made for doing extreme damage to flesh. His body was riddled with bullets."

So ripped up was Donaldson's body that morticians would not allow his mother to cornrow her son's hair one last time. They also asked the family not to touch the victim's body at the funeral, fearing any bump would disturb his sieve-like flesh.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1103788559311510.xml

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Former kickboxing champ hacked to death

December 27, 2004 - 7:20AM


A gang of youths used a samurai sword to hack to death a former French kickboxing champion on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean yesterday, police in the French territory said.

Johnny Catherine, 34, was killed when about 20 youths set upon him with the sword and a baseball bat.

They sliced into his body until they finally chopped off his leg below the knee and carried it away "like a trophy", one police officer said.

The motive behind the attack on Catherine, who was the world's top lightweight kickboxer in 1997, was not immediately known.

Seven youths had been arrested over the murder, police said.

Source

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Mother tells of horror at finding twin toddlers crushed

Mother tells of horror at finding twin toddlers crushed to death

My Great-Grandmother had twin boys who were crushed by a beer-barrel at about the same age.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Man tries to kill 'daughter', hangs self

'Daughter' forced to drink poison

By Darryl Heeralal

Monday, January 3rd 2005



THE plan was to kill -and Siridath Narinedath gave his wife and son-in-law an invitation to witness the murder.

The 59-year-old father forced his "adopted" daughter to drink poison and then hanged himself on New Year's Day.

The woman, 28-year-old Dianne Stella Seepersad, survived and is now in stable condition at hospital.

From her hospital bed yesterday, Seepersad said Narinedath, who was like a "father" to her, was depressed over persistent rumours that they were having an affair.

Police have unconfirmed reports that Narinedath was also depressed over the news that Seepersad was sharing a close relationship with a male companion.

Narinedath had telephoned his wife, Kamaldaye Narinedath, who was at a relative's house and told her that he was going to kill Seepersad and himself and that he wanted her and their son-in-law to come to the house.

The failed attempt to kill Seepersad and Narinedath's eventual death occurred at his Narinedath Trace, Las Lomas No 1, home sometime between 5.30 and 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Police found Seepersad lying in the front yard, frothing at the mouth and Narinedath hanging from a rafter in the garage at the back of the house.

Narinedath, a farmer and labourer with the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation, was said to be a devout Hindu, whose father and brother are both pundits.

Seepersad has been living with Narinedath and his wife for the past five years.

She was hired as a live-in maid to care for Narinedath's aunt who lived with the family.

When the aunt died six months ago, Seepersad stayed.

On Saturday, Narinedath reportedly threatened his wife of 36 years with a cutlass and she left the house and went to her sister's place at Munroe Road, Cunupia.

They were arguing about two concrete building blocks.

Yesterday Seepersad said that Narinedath was having "family problems" and the wife would often spend long periods of time with the couple's son in Florida.

Seepersad said between Saturday and the time he killed himself he kept shouting that he would kill everyone.

Around 4.30 p.m. on Sunday, Narinedath called his wife and told her that he was going to kill himself and Seepersad.

He requested that she and their son-in-law from Penal come up to the house.

About an hour later they went to the concrete flats on Narinedath Trace and met the front gate and back door open, according to police reports.

They called out and no one answered.

Kamaldaye told police they were afraid to go into the house.

She and the son-in-law left and tried calling the police from his cellphone but could not get through .

They drove down and eventually got in touch with the police when he got reception on the cellphone.

The police, including investigator Constable Jitindra Toolaram and two other officers, responded within minutes but when they got to the house the front gate was locked.

They jumped over and found Seepersad in the front yard and Narinedath in the back.

He had forced her to drink poison inside the house as there was vomit in the hallway and Narinedath jumped off the back step and hanged himself.

"What wrong I do for this?" Seepersad asked.

There were visible blisters on her lips and mouth from the poison.

Seepersad said that she was not involved with Narinedath, but she believes that rumours of an affair triggered his murderous behaviour.

She said after being forced to drink the poison she ran out of the house to escape, but fell in the yard.

Yesterday Seepersad said she was trying to deal with her "stress", while unaware that the man who tried to kill her was himself dead.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Suicide jumper kills man on ground


A man has died in bizarre circumstances after a suicidal woman jumped from a 12-story building and landed on top of him, killing them both, police said.

Koichi Sato, 54, was walking past the 12-story apartment on the last day of 2004 when the woman jumped. He was killed as a result of the impact as she landed on top of him.

The 43-year-old woman from Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture, also died from the impact of her landing.

Police said they do not believe the woman deliberately landed on Sato.

The woman's parents lived in the apartment in the Tokyo suburb of Musashimurayama from where she jumped, according to police. She did not leave a suicide note. Police have not released the woman's name. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Jan. 1, 2005)

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Police detail bizarre shooting

By Dana Yates Daily Journal Staff

A machete-wielding man withstood 15 non-lethal bullets, Taser guns and pepper spray before being shot to death during an eight-hour standoff in Redwood City Sunday.

He is one of two men killed by police in San Mateo County this weekend. The other happened Sunday night in Pacifica when police used a Taser gun on Greg Saulsbury, 30, who became combative when police responded to a 911 call from a residence on Inverness Drive.

Pacifica police shot a Taser gun at Saulsbury to subdue him and he died shortly after. However, Redwood City police attempted to use three forms of non-lethal force and negotiators before shooting two M-4 rifles and a handgun at the machete-wielding man.

The identity of the man is being withheld pending positive identification by Mexican authorities, said San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault.

As first reported in the Daily Journal yesterday, police responded to a disturbance call at a duplex on the 1200 block of Valota Road Sunday at 12:20 p.m. When police responded, they found out the man was visiting the residence where his mother, cousin and nephew were. Police believe he may have assaulted his nephew.

The 35-year-old, 200-pound man, believed to be a Mexican national living in Newark, had no previous drug or alcohol problems. However, in recent months he’d been complaining that he couldn’t sleep and family members described a bizarre “caveman” behavior where the man would look at the ground and grunt. He was even seen eating grass in the yard, family members told police.

The man waved a machete at police officers and barricaded himself in a front bedroom. Officers evacuated the residence, cordoned off the street and contacted the man through a front bedroom window.

During the eight-hour stand off, he was hit with 15 non-lethal pellets, three Taser shots and at least six doses of pepper spay, but never relinquished the knife. He even used it to carve a spear out of a wooden closet rod.

“It was very frightening for everyone there who saw it,” said Redwood City police Capt. Scott Warner.

When the man rushed at the officers with his machete, a supervisor at the scene fired a Sage SL-6 projectile launcher at the man. The Sage SL-6 is a 37mm projectile launcher that fires small, hard batons.

“It hurts a lot and you fall or drop what you’re holding,” Warner said.

The man surprised police and didn’t drop the knife, but instead took cover in the bedroom closet.

Over the next several hours, Spanish speaking negotiators and the man’s mother attempted to talk the man out of the residence, but the man was uncommunicative — repeating that he just wanted the police officers to leave, according to a statement released by police yesterday.

When negotiations didn’t work, officers deployed pepper spray six to eight separate times, but the man never dropped his weapon, police said.

During the course of the afternoon, the man periodically stepped out of the closet clinging to his machete. He was hit with about six Sage rounds, but none caused him to drop his weapon.

When he made another attempt to charge at police near the bedroom window, he was hit with a Sage round and a Taser at the same time. He pulled the Taser from his chest and retreated to the closet. He was hit again with a Taser and cut the wires with his knife.

After two hours and additional attempts to negotiate, the San Mateo County SWAT team used a long hook to remove some of barricades the man fashioned out of closet shelves. A SWAT team member was able to fire two more Sage rounds into the closet, but he did not drop the weapon.

Instead, at 8:10 p.m., he charged at the window with the machete over his head. As he ran across the room, one officer fired six Sage rounds at him and another fire a Taser gun. The man didn’t lose a step, and continued to charge the officers.

As he leaped through the window, three officers fired two M-4 rifles and a Glock .40 caliber pistol at the man. He was transferred to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Warner said there was no indication he was on drugs and family members also said he was not on drugs. The coroner will conduct a complete autopsy.

The last time Redwood City police had a person die due to less-than lethal weapons was in Nov. 2002. Ricardo Escobedo died after police used pepper spray, physical force and a device called a “wrap” to subdue him. He died at the scene. An investigation by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office cleared the officers of any wrongdoing and the coroner said he died of a heart attack caused by an enlarged heart, traces of methamphetamine, and various officer restraints.

Redwood City police don’t normally use Taser guns. The guns actually belonged to and were fired by another agency, Warner said.

Warner said he can’t remember the last time a Redwood City police officer had to shoot someone and said the department uses the Sage guns once or twice a year.

As part of the standard investigative procedures, the five police officers who fired the less than lethal and deadly weapons at the man during his final charge have been placed on paid administrative leave. The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office and the Redwood City Police Department are investigating the incident.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Intruder Calling Himself 'The Devil' Dies After Arrest

Homeowner Called Police

POSTED: 1:19 pm EST January 5, 2005

AKRON, Ohio -- A 50-year-old Akron resident called police at about 6 a.m. Wednesday after an intruder broke into her home. The Triplett Boulevard homeowner told officials that she yelled, "Who is it?" and the intruder responded, "the devil."

When police arrived they followed a trail of blood to the basement, where the intruder was found hiding behind the furnace. The man did not surrender and repeatedly told police that he had a gun, officials said.

The man was able to pull out the probes on the officers' Tasers and fight off the effects, but he was finally subdued and handcuffed.

He reportedly had a deep laceration on his wrist from breaking a window in the home to get in.

The man was taken by ambulance to an area hospital, where he later died. Police were not injured but they were exposed to the intruder's blood.

Officials are investigating.

-----------------------
Copyright 2005 by NewsNet5.

Source

Well he isn't so tough - I'm not sure what people have been worried about all these years

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Weird an outbreak of chainsaw suicides - two different reports:

Web-Posted Dec 23, 2004

G.I. man kills himself in standoff

SWAT team called in after man barricades himself inside business on Old Highway 30

By Sarah Schulz
[email protected].


A Grand Island man killed himself with a chain saw early Wednesday morning during a standoff with law enforcement, the Nebraska State Patrol reported.

.........

Source

--------------------------
And now in Wales:

Man sliced own neck with chainsaw

Dec 22 2004

By Carl Butler, Daily Post


A PENSIONER found her cancer-stricken husband dead - with a chainsaw embedded in his neck.

Retired businessman John Lloyd Jones was fighting tumours, pathologist Mark Atkinson told an inquest yesterday.

Depressed by ill-health, the 77-year-old killed himself with an electric chainsaw at his Flintshire home. His wife Norma, who realised he was missing from bed, discovered him lying on a workshop floor on September 16, after a search.

..........

Source

I thought I'd drop this in as, even thouh it wasn't a death, it follows the above pattern:

Chain saw suicide goes wrong

05/01/2005 21:34 - (SA)

Prague - A 32-year-old Czech tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a chain saw but survived after the machine missed his jugular artery and got stuck in his spine, a report said on Wednesday.

This was his second suicide attempt, CTK news agency reported. He had earlier tried to hang himself from a tree branch but the branch snapped and he broke both legs in the fall, it said.

The man was taken to a Prague hospital and was recovering in an intensive care unit, hospital officials said.

Family problems were the likely reason for his suicide attempts, CTK reported. His first suicide attempt came after his wife threatened to divorce him and take their daughter with her.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

And we think such things as orbs are harmless:

It doesn't get mentioned in these reports on the same crime:

Report

Report

but this longer report (which requires free registration) covers it:

Posted on Sun, Jan. 09, 2005

Driver who killed three gets jail term

Frank Nastasi was sentenced to seven years for driving his car into a McDonald's in '02.

By Troy Graham

Inquirer Staff Writer

Before he was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison and led away in handcuffs, the Haddon Heights man who crashed his car into a Mount Ephraim McDonald's in 2002, killing three women, apologized for the first time.

"I never meant to harm anybody," Frank Nastasi said. "If I could reverse time, I would have never made the decision to do this."

Nastasi, 54, said he was suffering from mental illness when he drove through the McDonald's restaurant, killing Joanne Bowen, 52, Nancy King, 49, and Cynthia Molino, 45, all employees. Investigators said he was traveling more than 100 m.p.h., although Nastasi estimated he was doing half that speed.

Nastasi pleaded guilty in September to three counts of vehicular homicide, which carried a maximum of 10 years in prison.

In emotional pleas, several members of the victims' families said they wanted Nastasi to spend the rest of his life in prison.

"This is tough. I just can't see 10 years for all three," Wayne Bowen told the judge while holding a photograph of his wife, Joanne. "I have a hard time with that."

Camden County Superior Court Judge Samuel D. Natal sentenced Nastasi to seven years after weighing several factors, such as Nastasi's previously clean record. Addressing the family members, Natal said he was bound by the plea agreement and told them, "There's nothing I can do to bring your loved ones back."

Nastasi will have to serve nearly six years before becoming eligible for parole.

Nastasi's attorney, Charles Nugent, had argued for a four-year sentence, describing his client as the kind of "gentle soul" who would take spiders caught in his house outside rather than stomp on them.

He said several doctors had diagnosed Nastasi as suffering from "major depression with psychotic features," and that Nastasi had talked of "paranormal activity" and getting energy from "orbs of light in his house."

Authorities initially charged Nastasi with aggravated manslaughter because they believed he was trying to kill himself when he drove through the McDonald's around 4 a.m. on May 15, 2002. He told detectives that he thought the restaurant would have been empty at that hour.

"There's really no dispute, judge, that Mr. Nastasi functioned on that day and at that time under substantial mental illness," Nugent said in court. "He led an exemplary and law-abiding life for the entire time prior to that incident."

Family members of Molino and King wrote letters to the judge, which were read by a victim counselor from the Prosecutor's Office.

Christina Molino said she tried to remember the good times with her mother, such as when she attended her induction into the National Honor Society during her junior year in high school. That was eight days before her mother's death.

"Right now I can only think of the bad [memories] about her death," she wrote.

Cathy Molino, Cynthia's sister, said she believed Nastasi should serve a life sentence.

"I can no longer pick up the phone, day or night, to talk to my big sister," she wrote. "There was no chance to say, 'Goodbye,' or, 'I love you,' one more time."

Dorothy Wallace, Nancy King's mother, said she would never fully recover from her daughter's death.

"The wounds will heal, but the scars will always be there," she said in her letter.

After the letters were read, Nugent reminded the judge that the sentence must be "governed by law and not emotions."

"If your honor's decision was ruled by emotion, I'm sure it would be greatly in excess of the plea agreement," Nugent said.

Source

 

[Vitrius]

Bizarre, random civillian shooting by state trooper

From the Shelby County Reporter.

"Alabaster man shot by trooper
By Fred Guarino/Reporter Staff Writer

A fatal Friday night shooting south of Alabaster(Alabama) on U.S. Highway 31 involving a State Trooper and a Saginaw resident, who was pronounced dead at the scene, is being investigated.

According to information provided by Alabama Department of Public Safety Police Communications Officer Brenda Darby, the incident occurred at 11:45 p.m. on Dec. 17.

According to the information, an Alabama state trooper on routine patrol stopped after seeing a black Ford pickup truck stopped on a set of railroad tracks south of Alabaster on U.S. Highway 31.

The trooper tried to arrest the driver of the vehicle, "and an altercation occurred, during which shots were fired," she said.

The driver of the truck, Christopher Lindley, 29, of Alabaster, was declared dead at the scene.

Investigating the incident for the Alabama Department of Public Safety are the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the department's Standards and Integrity Unit."

I assume this the same story I saw on the news tonight, but the details on TV were far more inexplicable. To summarise the broadcast story, a 29 year-old man was driving home through Alabaster when his car slipped off the road and got stuck in a dicth. He called his brother to come help him pull it out. As he waited, local police asked if he needed help and he explained that his brother was on his way. The police saw no reason to check any further and left. Some time later, witnesses see a state trooper arive and suddenly begin to beat the man with a flashlight, after which he shot the man three times. Medics arrive, but the trooper "does not allow" them to access the dying man. Finally, the brother gets there and the man is dead. No drugs were involved and the deceased was described(and looked from a photo) as a normal guy from the country with no past legal or social problems. No racial motivations appear to be in play since all involved were white. Strange, but maybe local news boshed it all up, or the initial report was a soft version to protect the trooper.

 

[rynner2]

Weird!

Keep us posted.

 

[Beakmoo]

Re: Bizarre, random civillian shooting by state trooper

"Alabaster man shot by trooper

Surely a candidate for next months "Extra extra" fortean headlines.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Girl died after mother forced her to drink bleach

Woman made 9-year-old son watch attack, authorities say

Friday, January 14, 2005 Posted: 2221 GMT (0621 HKT)


BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) -- A woman angry with her 12-year-old daughter for having sex forced the girl to drink bleach and sat on her until the child died, a police detective said.

The girl's 9-year-old brother was forced to watch the attack, Detective Warren Cotton testified Thursday in a preliminary hearing for Tunisia Archie, 31.

Archie is charged with capital murder in the asphyxiation death of her daughter Jasmine. If convicted, she could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Cotton said Archie, who has been jailed without bond since shortly after her daughter's Nov. 26 death, told authorities she was disturbed because "her daughter told her that she was no longer a virgin."

She said she poured bleach into Jasmine's mouth and the child vomited, he said, then sat on her until she stopped breathing, Cotton testified.

Archie forced Jasmine's 9-year-old brother Jacorey to watch the attack and "told him that if he shed a tear that she was going to kill him, too," Cotton testified.

---------------------------
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Brazilian man threw mother to pit bulls - police

14 Jan 2005 18:49:45 GMT

Source: Reuters

SAO PAULO, Brazil, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A Brazilian man arguing with his 88-year-old mother threw her into a neighbors' yard where two pit bulls mauled her to death, police said on Friday.

Painter Luiz Polidoro, 48, picked up his mother Maria and pitched her over the yard wall during an argument on Thursday afternoon at her house. Two pit bulls tied up in the neighboring yard then savaged her and she died later in hospital, a police spokesman said.

"He is an alcoholic. He was robbing his mother's pension money so he could drink," the dogs' owner, Helder Bento Rodrigues, told O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Polidoro told police his mother had jumped over the wall on her own.

The newspaper said he had tried to rescue her. When police arrived, he was cradling the blood-soaked woman.

Polidoro has been jailed in Sao Paulo and charged with murder.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Very reminiscent of the guy who commited suicide over the tsunami (and a number of other similar ones):

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 104#487104

Driver in grisly suicide

A suicidal New Jersey man set a new standard for self-inflicted brutality when he decapitated himself by driving away from a light post with a rope tied around his neck.

Wolfgang Persieck, 50, of Union Beach, died when the rope, which he had attached to the post, jerked his head off as he stepped on the gas Saturday night.

His body was found inside the car, along with several suicide notes, behind the Hazlet Multiplex movie theater, Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye said.

Two teenagers found the car as they walked through an isolated area behind the theater on Route 35.

The pair stopped a passing police officer, who discovered Persieck's body. Interviews with relatives and the notes pointed to a suicide, Kaye said.


--------------------
Originally published on January 18, 2005

Source

Decapitated man found behind Hazlet theater

BY DAN NEWMAN
Staff Writer

HAZLET — Two juveniles came upon a gruesome discovery Saturday night when they saw a man who had apparently committed suicide and, in the process, was decapitated.

The body of Wolfgang Persieck, 50, of Union Beach, was spotted by the two teens, ages 14 and 17, as they rode through the back parking lot of the Hazlet Multiplex Cinemas theater around 10:30 p.m.

“The two juveniles were riding around when they saw a decapitated body hanging over the back seat of a vehicle,” Hazlet Detective Sgt. Howard Nuss said. “At this point, they flagged down Holmdel Officer David D’Arcy, who was in the area investigating a separate incident.”

According to Nuss, Persieck decapitated himself by using three separate ropes, tying one end of each around a light post in the back parking lot of the theater located on the northbound side of Route 35, and the other around his neck.

Once the ropes were secure, Persieck got into his 2004 Ford Explorer and started to drive. His head was found approximately 100 feet from his body, Nuss said.

“There were no skid marks, so we don’t believe that he was going at a high rate of speed. He had about a 40-foot run-up so we figure at best he was doing 30 mph at the moment of decapitation,” Nuss said.

The vehicle coasted to a stop about 200 feet later, after it hopped a curb and hit a small tree. Nuss said that it was evident after talking to family members and discovering other supporting materials, that it was a suicide.

“Apparently, he [Persieck] had been having problems recently in his life. He left six pages of notes in the vehicle, which we found afterward,” Nuss said. “The kids who found the victim were definitely shaken up.”

He also said that grief counselors would be available to the teens if needed.

“This is certainly a unique case. I’ve been an officer for 24 years and this was not a common thing at all. I’ve come across my fair share of suicides, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this,” Nuss said.

Source

 

[escargot]

How people kill themselves tells a lot about how they feel about themselves in the time immediately before their deaths.

For example, a person who believes in God and salvation might hope to fall quietly asleep after an overdose of sleeping tablets, whereas a person who feels enormous guilt or self-hatred might try to obliterate or mutilate themselves beyond recognition. The soldier who recently set himself on fire and jumped from a window might have been acting in this way.

I've read about the car-decapitation happening before. As I understand it, the person isn't expecting their head to come off, they are aiming to die painlessly by breaking their neck.
People have actually built guillotines to commit suicide on so it's not unheard-of.

Very sad for all involved.

Incidentally, the British suicide rate is falling and the rate for young British men is at its lowest for years.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

escargot: Very interesting points.

I had heard soldiers were most likely to commit suicide in ways that required discipline - like slitting your own throat.

---------------
And something straight out of the storybooks:

Italian Duo's Fate Like Romeo and Juliet


Jan 21, 4:01 PM (ET)

ROME (AP) - Evoking comparisons to "Romeo and Juliet," a husband in northern Italy killed himself out of grief for his ailing wife, hours before she came out of a coma, Italian state TV reported Friday.

RAI state TV said the husband visited his 67-year-old wife daily, sometimes coming to the hospital in Padua as much as four times a day, after she went into a coma after a stroke in September.

On Wednesday, the 71-year-old man committed suicide at the couple's Padua-area home, according to RAI and the Italian news agency ANSA. About 12 hours later, the wife emerged from the coma and asked for her husband, ANSA said.

ANSA quoted their pastor as saying the husband had told him he was very pessimistic about prospects for his wife's recovery.

The husband and wife, who were not identified, had no children.

Source

 

[Timble2]

This is reminiscent of "Lord Of The Flies". One of those sudden bursts of group madness, that may have started out as a joke or something minor and escalated.

Three teenagers admit killing friend with scythes during camping trip

Martin Wainwright
Wednesday January 26, 2005
The Guardian

Two teenage boys and a girl who turned on a friend during a moorland camping weekend and butchered him with scythes were remanded in custody and local authority care yesterday after admitting their part in the killing.
The three will be sentenced later.

Detectives said they were still baffled by the savagery of the attack and the motives which drove the trio to steal the scythes from a churchyard, where they were used to mow the grass, and slash more than 60 cuts in 17-year-old Terry Lee Hurst.

No details of the murder were given during a two-day hearing in Sheffield, which was held under rules brought in after the murder of James Bulger by two boys in Liverpool.

Lawyers including the judge, Mr Justice Smith, who described the hearing as "a desperately sad case," dispensed with robes and wigs and the three defendants sat with their lawyers in the well of Sheffield crown court rather than the dock.

Two 17-year-old boys and a 16-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted murdering Terry. One of the boys was unemployed, the other on a vocational course, and the girl was 15 and at school at the time of the killing last July.

At some stage, one of them had indicated during questioning, there had been a disagreement but not over anything likely to provoke a violent response.

But the three killers had left the woodland campsite without Terry and gone to the village of Bolsterstone, where they stole the scythes. On their return to the camp, the attack had involved three separate phases in which Terry tried to get away but they caught up with him.

Mr Whiteley said he did not want to give any further details of the attack itself for the sake of the victim's family.

He said all three defendants were known to police over minor matters, but there had been nothing to suggest they were capable of such violence.

The Guardian

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

1 bullet 2 deaths:

January 25, 2005

Husband and wife's mysterious deaths puzzling to police


Tualatin, Ore. - Police say they are baffled by the mysterious deaths of a Tualatin couple, after a preliminary investigation finds that the same bullet killed both of them.

The couple, 63-year-old Leonard Smith and his wife, 57-year-old Anita, appeared to be planning for their future.

They had recently moved to Tualatin just a couple of months ago and told neighbors they had bought the home for their retirement.

"She brought over some candy and she was real friendly for the kids and said anytime they wanted to come over they could," neighbor Jeff Pigg told KATU News. "She seemed very nice to me."

However, a puzzling discovery was made at the couple's home over the weekend after worried friends and co-workers called police.

Leonard and Anita were found dead inside the home, both with bullet wounds to the head. The strange thing was that there was only one bullet, but two victims and police believe Leonard pulled the trigger.

"The question that we can't answer is, what was the intent?" said Lt. Jeff Groth with the Tualatin Police Department. "Was this a murder-suicide, a double suicide or was it a suicide accident? This is an out-of-the-norm situation."

"It's pretty shocking," neighbor Jan Davis told KATU News. "It's not what usually happens in Tualatin and certainly not on this little street."

Anita was ill, telling a neighbor she suffered from Lupus, but police say they have no way of knowing whether her death was a mercy killing or a murder.

------------------
(From KATU & AP reports)

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Nicaraguan Dies After Eating Live Fish


Jan 27, 10:49 PM (ET)

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - A man who joked to friends that he would eat a fish live choked to death when the creature squirmed and lodged in his throat, police and coroner's officials said Thursday.

Police said the incident occurred when 22-year-old Jose Angel Torres Padilla was fishing with friends on Monday in the municipality of Dario, about 40 miles north of the capital.

Police said the man's friends told them he had put the fish in his mouth, joking that he was going to eat it live. But the fish squirmed and slipped down his throat.

Benito Lindo, coroner for the provincial capital of Matagalpa, told The Associated Press by telephone that doctors conducting an autopsy had found a fish in the man's throat.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Man convicted in mom's death

Deliberating for 90 minutes, jurors reject insanity plea

By Neal Falgoust Caller-Times
January 28, 2005

A Nueces County jury found Enrique "Henry" Garza guilty Thursday of stabbing his mother and then leaving her to die on her apartment floor.

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before rejecting a defense claim that Garza, 30, was mentally ill and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Defense attorney Fred Jimenez said prosecutors had no other evidence other than Garza's taped confession to police and that confession was unreliable because Garza suffered from schizophrenia at the time of the killing.

"Maybe none of this is true," Jimenez said of Garza's confession.

Garza's mother, Gloria Garcia, 53, was found dead in her apartment on Oct. 25, 2003. A blood-soaked knife was lying beside her body about 6 feet inside her apartment door at SunChase Apartment Homes, 5400 S. Alameda St.

Garza, who was living with his mother at the time, was detained in her 1995 Isuzu Rodeo in the 5500 block of Everhart Road near Cain Drive after a dispatcher broadcast a description of the vehicle, which had been taken from the apartment. Clothes believed to belong to Garza were found at the apartment.

Garza took the witness stand Thursday morning and told jurors that he did stab his mother with a knife.

"I stuck it in her neck and slid it across," he said. "I knew it was completely wrong."

He also said that a ghost had entered his body and made him do it.

Dr. Joel Kutnick, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that he had evaluated Garza's mental health several months after the stabbing and found him to be suffering from schizophrenia. He has since changed his diagnosis and believes Garza suffers from a milder anti-social disorder.

The jury of seven men and five women determined that the disorder did not rise to the standard of a severe mental illness required for a finding of not guilty.

Kutnick said Thursday was the first time he had heard Garza say he was possessed by a ghost and believed Garza was saying that because he was afraid to admit in public that he willingly killed his mother.

The punishment phase of the trial will begin at 9 a.m. today in the 148th District Court. Garza faces five to 99 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

Source (requires free registration)

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Published Saturday
January 22, 2005

911 recordings reveal the final confusing hours

BY CHRISTOPHER BURBACH


Recordings of the lost couple's calls to 911 emergency dispatchers weave a heartbreaking trail through fear, delusion, agony, frustration and desperation.

The trail that ultimately failed to bring help to the two as they struggled to survive in the snow and the dark began in the first call, when Janelle Hornickel asserted that the two were near their central Omaha apartment. That was at 12:28 a.m. Jan. 5.

Over the next four hours, she and Michael Wamsley never gave up telling 911 dispatchers they were near the Mandalay Apartments, 75th Street and Poppleton Avenue, regardless of how illogical that was shown to be.

And dispatchers never could pin down the couple's precise location, despite promising threads of conversation that suggested Platte River sites maddeningly close to where Wamsley and Hornickel actually were.

A deputy acting on those prompts actually found footprints in the quarry near where their bodies were eventually found. But the officer was called off when the search focused elsewhere.

The couple cried for help in the calls. Dispatchers worked them for any shred of information - mostly pushing calmly for details, occasionally barking for clarity and sometimes making emotional appeals to keep the couple going.

The tapes reveal moments of lucidity, sandwiched between tales so incredible that they must have been hallucinations.

Wamsley gave clues that proved true. He saw a gravel pit. A sand pile. A crane. A window-wrapped shack containing a blue book.

He also reported seeing 200 people on a pond. He called out to them for help but told a dispatcher they wouldn't help because they didn't speak English.

And Hornickel told Douglas County 911 that she was above her apartment in the trees, "and there's a lot of Mexicans and African-Americans and they're all dressed up in like these cult outfits, and they're moving all the vehicles."

They were, she said, taking cars apart and putting the parts in trees.

In the end, the conversations, like a person lost in a blizzard, wandered only in circles, and led nowhere.

"Hi, um, I'm here to report, um, I feel very threatened . . . hello, hello, can you hear me?" Hornickel said in her first call to 911. "I'm at the Mandalay apartment complexes."

"Are you in Omaha?" the Sarpy County dispatcher asked.

"Yes."

"OK," the dispatcher said. "Let me transfer you. Stay on the line."

About a half-hour later, Wamsley called back, reaching Sarpy County 911 again.

"My girlfriend placed a call earlier, out by an old sandpit," he said. "Out by a sandpit, oh, probably around 75th and Poppleton."

He said somebody had taken his truck, and the couple went out to look for it and became lost. Another time, he told a dispatcher they were following people to a party along some winding trails.

The one constant was they were near their apartment. The couple told dispatchers that no fewer than 22 times. They continued to insist so despite all evidence to the contrary.

"Did you get off a highway to get into the sandpit?" a Sarpy dispatcher asked.

"No, it's just off of 75th, far as I understand," Wamsley said.

Dispatcher: "75th Street?"

Wamsley: "Yes, it's like you take 75th straight back here far as I understand."

Dispatcher: "You understand, the only thing we do know, is that you're hitting off a cell tower at 216th Street. So can you do the math? 216th minus 75 is. . ."

Wamsley: "I understand the math, ma'am, but . . ."

Dispatcher: "So, let's try to forget the 75th Street, because that just doesn't kind of make sense. OK? So let's try to rethink it here, OK?"

Wamsley: "OK, my apartment number is 7524 Poppleton Plaza, Apartment 2. You can call Kristi and tell her that Mike Wamsley and Janelle Hornickel and that we need to be assisted. . . ."

Dispatcher: "Does she know where you're at?"

Wamsley (crying): "No, I doubt it . . ."

Wamsley went on in that call or others to say they were near a pond or a lake. He described the site as an old pit where gravel was pumped from the ground. He described a toll-booth-like shack the couple had taken shelter in, and what they could see from it.

The threads were strong and specific enough that a Sarpy dispatcher placed them near the Platte River in western Sarpy County.

"Are you near Iske, or are you near the river?" the dispatcher asked.

"I'm guessing it's . . . um, probably it's . . . (crying) oh, I don't know for sure . . .," Wamsley replied.

Dispatcher: "OK, well, I can't trace where you're at, do you understand where I'm coming from?"

Wamsley: "I, I understand where you're coming from."

Dispatcher, "OK, are you near the Platte River? Are you near Gretna, Bellevue?"

Wamsley: "Are we near Gretna or Bellevue? Gretna."

Dispatcher: "OK, good, that's a help . . . Did you pass Linoma Beach on Highway 6?"

Wamsley: "Ma'am, I don't think so."

He hadn't seen the Linoma Beach lighthouse, he told her. So it went with nearly all of the dispatchers' delving for landmarks. No street signs. No businesses. No road name anywhere near where they were.

The one business the couple referred to by name was Dr. John's - which is within blocks of their Omaha apartment.

Always confused, the couple occasionally reported seeing outlandish things.

There was a shack, they said, but they couldn't get to it because it was surrounded by dogs.

Wamsley and Hornickel later took shelter in the shack. Wamsley accurately described it and its contents.

As the night wore on and the frustration mounted, the couple's directions grew increasingly garbled and desperate.

In an early call to Douglas County 911, Hornickel sounded plaintive as she tried to give directions.

In the background, she asked Wamsley if they were "east or west of the apartments, would you say?" Then she tells the dispatcher, "Straight south. Go down 75th, go straight into them. Yeah, I think I'm just going to have to start running and get out of here. I don't know who else to call. OK, thank you."

Dispatcher: All right.

Hornickel: OK, bye.

Dispatcher: You going to stay on the phone with me?

Hornickel: I don't know what else to do . . . I can.

Dispatcher: Up to you.

Hornickel: I just don't know what else to do. I hope we have enough gas to keep moving around until we find a way out.

Dispatcher: OK. Help's on the way, OK?

Hornickel: OK. How long do you think it will be?

Dispatcher: It takes time to get out there because of the snowy conditions.

Hornickel: Can the helicopter go over the trees?

Dispatcher: The helicopter cannot fly in this kind of weather.

Hornickel began crying.

Throughout the calls, the couple could be heard breathing hard as they walked through the blowing snow or huddled for shelter. Wamsley on several occasions encouraged Hornickel.

Dispatchers tried to encourage both of them.

At one point, a Sarpy dispatcher butted in when Wamsley suggested sending rescuers to 75th Street and West Center Road.

"Mike, Mike?" she said.

"That's the best I can give you," he said. "That's all I've got.

Dispatcher: "OK, do you want to give it up then, because that doesn't make sense."

Wamsley: "I don't know, I don't know."

Dispatcher: "You don't want to give it up, do you?"

Wamsley: "No, I don't."

Dispatcher: "Yeah, I don't either."

Wamsley: "But I'm freezing, and my girlfriend is freezing, and . . ."

Dispatcher: "That's why we want to help you, Mike."

Wamsley: "Help then, please."

Dispatcher: "That's why I'm saying, please, please, please Mike, I need you to think about it, OK?"

As the night went on and help could not find them, the couple's calls became increasingly frantic and decreasingly lucid. Wamsley could barely be understood in a call to Saunders County 911 at 4:20 a.m. But he could be heard saying he was at a horseshoe-shaped gate.

"It's OK," he said.

Dispatchers and operators continued talking to each other. Twilla Hornickel, Janelle's mother, called Saunders County 911.

But the call from the gate was the couple's last.



---------------
Copyright ©2005 Omaha World-Herald®.

Source

Disturbingly you can listen to clips of their 911 phone calls from the above page.

 

[rynner2]

A disturbing story.

When I was in the Coastguard, it was usually assumed that the distress position given was wrong - either because being lost led to the distress in the first place, or because the trauma of the distress got people confused.

I had a similar case once, which happily ended without loss of life: a yacht thought it was off south Wales, but we knew from the aerial we received their signals on that they were somewhere in the Irish Sea - the boat was eventually found off the Irish coast.

Perhaps things are a bit better now, at sea anyway, with the increasing use of GPS.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Seems they were also off their heads at the time which might explain a few things:

Published Saturday
January 22, 2005

Couple that died in snow were steps ahead of rescue

BY JOE DEJKA AND RICK RUGGLES


WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS

Sometime the night of Jan. 5 as Janelle Hornickel and Michael Wamsley made call after call to 911, a Sarpy County sheriff's deputy discovered footprints in the snow.

The footprints were near the gate to the old Lyman-Richey gravel pit in western Sarpy County.

The deputy followed the tracks, which were filling with snow, onto the gravel pit property until they disappeared near a frozen pond, said Sarpy County Chief Deputy Jeff Davis.

The deputy walked a quarter of a mile around a machine shed on the property and around a trailer. But he found no sign of the couple, who authorities said Friday were under the influence of methamphetamine when they froze to death in the snow.

Deputies even positioned cars at either end of the gravel pit and turned on emergency lights and sirens, hoping that if Wamsley and Hornickel were there they would hear the noise or see the lights.

"There's four different sand pits, they were just guessing on the one they might have been at," Davis said. "And that's only at Sarpy County."

Douglas, Saunders and Cass Counties have sand pits as well, he said.

After about 20 minutes at the gravel pit, the deputy returned empty-handed and the search was focused elsewhere, he said.

Sarpy County deputies would learn later how close they had come to the couple.

Discovery of the footprints is noted by dispatchers on 911 tapes that were made public Friday, along with the toxicology tests that indicated the presence of meth in Wamsley and Hornickel.

During their ordeal, the couple took refuge in the cab of a dredge at the gravel pit. Their bodies were discovered within three-quarters of a mile of the cab.

Meantime, after conducting dozens of interviews over the past week, investigators served a search warrant Friday in Kearney, Neb., and arrested two people whom authorities link to the lost couple.

According to Davis, the night before Wamsley and Hornickel got lost, they stayed at the Kearney home of Judith Morel, 48, and her son, Mica Morel, 19. The Morels were arrested on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine and appeared Friday in Buffalo County Court on charges of felony possession of meth.

Davis declined to say whether investigators believe the Morels supplied Wamsley and Hornickel with the potent illegal stimulant.

Kearney Police Chief Dan Lynch said the Morels had been under investigation but police hadn't had enough information before Friday to make an arrest. Information that Sarpy officers provided to Kearney police allowed them to obtain and serve the warrant.

Mica Morel is involved in two other pending felony drug cases.

Also, Wamsley was in a traffic accident Jan. 3 near Kearney while driving Hornickel's black 2000 Ford Ranger pickup.

Wamsley was alone in the pickup about 6 p.m. when he swerved in front of another pickup as the two vehicles were headed west on Highway 30 about 11/2 miles east of Kearney, according to the accident report.

The driver of the second pickup slammed on his brakes but struck the left rear of Hornickel's pickup, which then hit a sign post. Damage was most severe at the left rear of her pickup. No tickets were issued.

Wamsley and Hornickel, both 20, froze to death Jan. 5 in rural Sarpy County after her pickup got stuck in snow.

Hornickel was found wearing high-heeled boots, blue jeans and a hooded T-shirt. Wamsley was wearing blue jeans and a hooded sweat shirt. Temperatures that night dropped to 4 degrees below zero.

Urine tests performed by the Creighton University Medical Center revealed that methamphetamine, amphetamine and marijuana were in their systems.

Authorities also confirmed the discovery of meth in Hornickel's stranded truck. The meth found, 0.3 of a gram, is high-powered crystal meth, also called ice.

The results, along with recordings of the couple's 911 calls, help provide an explanation for Hornickel and Wamsley's disoriented phone calls as they wandered lost in rural Sarpy County.

Henry Nipper, director of toxicology at Creighton Medical Laboratories, said the two young people were impaired by the levels of meth, which can cause confusion, anxiety and hallucinations. It also might explain why they wore only light clothing despite bitter cold, he said.

"Mentally, it's understood that an individual would exhibit irrational behavior," Nipper said.

Hornickel, a student at Creighton University, had known Wamsley since both attended high school in Ord, Neb. Wamsley and Hornickel shared an apartment in Omaha.

Hornickel's family released a statement: "Janelle had a beautiful life. She touched many lives in her short time here. Her death is a tragic loss to us. We want to thank all of those who helped in the search and gave up their time so our daughter could come home. We want to use our experiences from this tragedy in a positive way to help benefit others."

Sarpy County Sheriff Pat Thomas appealed to the community for assistance with the fight against illegal drugs.

"There's going to be a big emphasis on technological improvements with the cellular telephone, and we encourage that," he said. "But if people could come forward and help us with this war on drugs, we may be able to win.

"As it is now, we're losing."

Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said he could not pin down the times of death for Hornickel or Wamsley, but Thomas said he believes it was shortly after their last 911 call at 4:20 that morning.

According to toxicology tests, Hornickel had 495 nanograms per milliliter of meth in her system. Wamsley had 127 nanograms.

"So she did have a lot more in her system," Nipper said.

He said the tests don't show when the meth was taken, the frequency with which it was taken or how it was ingested.

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