MURDER STORIES

a collection of weird stories related to death and violence

Attila the Hun died in 453 AD. The ruthless conqueror bled to death from a nosebleed on his wedding night.

Al Capone the infamous Chicago gangster died in 1947 of syphilis.

Charles de Gaulle was the target of a record 31 assassination attempts.

Harry Houdini (Erich Weiss) – magician suffered a ruptured appendix in late October 1926. He died on Halloween.

Pope Johann XII was beaten to death in 963AD at the age of 18. His murderer was the husband of a woman he was having an affair with.

Italian mathematician Geronimo Cardano published the laws of chance governing card & dice games. But he became most famous for his accurate horoscope predictions. He even predicted his own death in 1576 - even down to the exact hour. When the time came he was still healthy, so he killed himself rather than being proved wrong!

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England and scourge of the monarchists died peacefully on 3rd September 1658. 18 months later the monarchy had been restored and the royalists wanted revenge for the regicide of King Charles I. Cromwell's corpse was exhumed from his tomb in Westminster Abbey and dragged through the streets of London to Tyburn. He was then given a symbolic hanging. 6 hours later his corpse was taken down from the gallows and beheaded by an executioner. His head was then paraded through the streets before being stuck on an iron spike and displayed atop Westminster Hall.

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In July 1981, a tortoise was sentenced to death for murder. Tribal leaders in an eastern Kenyan village formally condemned the tortoise because they suspected it of causing the deaths of six people by magic. However, because none of the villagers was prepared to face the tortoise's wrath by carrying out the execution, it was chained to a tree instead. The tortoise was later freed after the government promised an inquiry into the six deaths.

In 1994 Los Angeles police arrested a man for dressing as the Grim Reaper - complete with scythe - and standing outside the windows of old people's homes, staring in.

Detroit, Oregon - A hunter thought he had found a severed human head in an abandoned mining shed and called the police. Deputy Larry Taylor realized it was just the head of a mannequin when he noticed a price sticker on the forehead.

Australia - The Australian Police Journal reported that an elderly woman had already used about half of the powder in a custard packet when she discovered an object that appeared to be a large dead cockroach. However, when she brought it to the Health Department, food analysts determined it to be a dried-up human finger. The following investigation revealed that a factory worker had lost two fingers in a machine with rotating blades. One finger had been found. The other had made its way into the custard packet the woman had bought.

Sacramento, California - An elderly gentleman walked into a police station and reported that he thought he had robbed a Wells Fargo Bank a few days earlier. The police officers didn't take his confession too seriously because he was very old, suffered from obvious physical ailments, carried a white hospital bag, and admitted that he wanted to go back into Kaiser Hospital's psychiatric ward. He also couldn't remember the exact day, time, location of the bank, or the nearest cross street. However, after an intensive interrogation, FBI agents found out that the senior citizen had indeed robbed the bank and was responsible for three other bank robberies.

San Francisco, California - Dan White, a city supervisor, killed Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, another supervisor. White's lawyers said that eating a Twinkie had made his blood sugar level rise so high, it caused his psychotic episode. this resulted in the charges against White being dropped from murder one to involuntary manslaughter.

Boynton, Florida - For their attempt to raise money to attend the police academy, Michael Harrison and Kevin Carter were arrested and charged with armed robbery and murder.

Pikeville, Kentucky - After a fight with his girlfriend's 16-year-old son over rent money, Jesse James Taylor drove himself to the emergency room of the Methodist Hospital with part of a butcher knife in his back and a meat cleaver stuck in his head. After successful surgery, he was released the very next day.

Key West, Florida - A restaurant worker killed another as the result of a heated argument over how to put silverware into a dishwasher.

St. Peters, Missouri - A gunman robbed a 711 store, but returned the money minutes later because his car wouldn't start. Amazingly, the store clerks came out to the parking lot and gave the robber's car a jump start. Police Officer David Kuppler commented: "We have a very friendly town out here."

Vanuatu, South Pacific - The entire 300-men-strong police force of the island nation was arrested after kidnapping a visiting politician from Australia and attempting to use the hostage as leverage in a dispute with the government concerning overtime pay.

A man sued his doctor because he survived his cancer longer than the doctor predicted.

Two robbers were in the process of their crime when one changed his mind and arrested the other.

A woman had her husband's ashes made into an egg timer when he died so he could still "help" in the kitchen.

A 22-year-old Reston man was found dead yesterday after he tried to use ockie straps (the stretchy little ropes with hooks on each end) to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle, police said. Fairfax County police said Eric A. Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped ... and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the ground," Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "major trauma."

Three young men visiting Oklahoma were enjoying the coming Fourth of July holiday and wanted to apparently test fire some fireworks. Their only real problem was that their launch pad and seating arrangements were atop a several hundred thousand gallon fuel distillation storage tank. Oddly enough, some fumes were ignited, producing a fireball seen for miles and miles. They were launched, no doubt, countless thousands of feet into the air and were found dead 50 yards from their respective seats.

A lawyer and two of his buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas. A lightning storm hit the lake and most of the fisherman immediately headed for the shore. But not our friend the lawyer. He was alone on the rear of his aluminium bass boat and his buddies were in the front. This gentleman stood up, spread his arms wide (crucifixion style) and shouted: "HERE I AM LORD, LET ME HAVE IT! Needless to say, God delivered [well, you would, wouldn't you?]. The other two passengers on the boat survived and are said to have immediately joined the Ministry.

A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. Big deal you may say, but there's a twist here. It seems he and a friend were playing catch with a rattlesnake. You can guess what happened from here.

Not much was given to me on this unlucky fellow, but he qualifies nonetheless. You see, there was a gentleman from Korea who was killed by his cell phone ..more or less. He was doing the usual "walking and talking" when he walked into a tree and managed to somehow break his neck. Keep that in mind the next time you decide to drive and dial at the same time.

For the most interactive Murder Mystery Parties available visit Murder Mystery Party Games.

GIMME A LIGHT!
In a west Texas town, employees in a medium-sized warehouse noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential sources of ignition-lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the vision of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket, and retrieving an object that resembled a lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician that was suspected of causing the explosion had never been thought of as "bright" by his peers.

A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise's car into a river near Naples, Italy in 1983. He managed to break out a window, climb out, and swim to shore where a tree blew over and killed him.

Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas was filming a public service movie in 1983 on "The Dangers of Low-Level Bridges" when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge-killing him.

Walter Hallas, a 26-year-old store clerk in Leeds, England was so afraid of dentists that in 1979 he asked a fellow worker to try to cure his toothache by punching him in the jaw. The punch caused Hallas to fall down, hitting his head, and he died of a fractured skull.

George Schwartz, owner of a factory in Providence, R.I. narrowly escaped death when a 1983 blast flattened his factory except for one wall. After treatment for minor injuries, he returned to the scene to search for his files. The remaining wall then collapsed on him, killing him instantly.

Depressed since he couldn't find a job, 42-year-old Romolo Ribolla sat in his kitchen near Pisa, Italy with a gun in his hand, threatening to kill himself in 1981. His wife pleaded for him not to do it, and after about an hour, he burst into tears and threw the gun to the floor. It went off and killed his wife.

In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, N.Y. was laid out in her coffin, presumed dead of heart disease. As mourners watched, she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead of fright.

A man hit by a car in New York City in 1977 got up uninjured, but laid back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car then rolled forward and crushed him to death.

Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down, and found himself in the city prison.

Two German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. Each was guiding his car over the middle of the road. At the moment of impact, their heads were both out of the windows where they smacked together. Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't even scratched.

For the most interactive Murder Mystery Parties available visit Murder Mystery Party Games.

Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him, she fainted. Hearing a disturbance, a neighbour came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr. Fen was acquitted of manslaughter, and he and his wife were reconciled.

Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

In June 1994 in London, lawyers for convicted murderer Stephen Young filed an appeal after learning from one juror that three other jurors had conducted a Ouija board séance during jury deliberations and "contacted" the dead man, who named Young as the killer.

In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length.

More interesting trivia can be found here.