Dead Bodies Under The Mattress

This one involves someone checking into a hotel room and noticing that something smells rotten. Eventually, they realize it’s coming from under the bed. So they move the mattress and discover a dead body. This story has been going around forever and has even been featured in movies like Four Rooms. It seems like this story is pretty unlikely, particularly given that you’d at least think a hotel maid would notice the smell of a rotting body before a hotel guest enters the room, but if you believe that, you’re giving hotel staff too much credit. In fact, the most disturbing thing about this story is how often it actually happens.

In 1982, a few auto thieves killed an accomplice and left him under the bed of their hotel in New Jersey. Four days later, someone discovered the corpse, but the room had been rented three different times in the meanwhile and no one noticed they were sleeping above a dead body. In 1987, a drug user overdosed and his high friend stuffed him under the bed and then ran away. Three days later, a family reported a nasty odor in their room, prompting the hotel staff to discover the body.

In New York 1988, a murderer was clever enough to actually put the body inside the box spring. Even so, the smell still gave away the body’s hiding place only a few days later. This time, at least two guests slept on top of the mattress, not knowing what was below.

There are tons more stories like this. Apparently hotel workers often shrug off these types of odors and go on with their business until a guest complains or even refuses to stay in the room thanks to the smell. If there’s anything to be learned here, it’s that you should never stay in a hotel room with a funky smell. And, if you do notice something off, check under your bed or mattress…or you might not want to, that is, if you’d rather not know what’s below.

Source: Snopes

Image Via neekatnite [Flickr]

Spooky Acts Resulting In Death

Whether it involves a trained escape artist failing in his act or a Halloween stunt that goes awry, this tale revolves around someone dying while an audience watches, often thinking it is all part of the act. Eventually, everyone is shocked when they learn the performer has really passed away.

While it’s a chilling story that has been told over and over, even used in an episode of Tales From The Crypt, it is far from fiction. In fact, it happens more often then you would think. In 1984, magician/comedian Tommy Cooper had a heart attack while performing on a variety show. Unfortunately, because one of the staples of his act was his inept magic skills that resulted in things going terribly wrong, everyone assumed it was part of the act until it was too late.

October 1990 was a particularly bad month for these kinds of stunts. It started when teen Brian Jewell died while performing a hanging stunt meant to entertain guests on a haunted hayride. Only six days later, another teen, William Anthony Odom, died while performing a gallows scene at a Halloween party and the noose tightened around his neck, choking him to death. Days later, Joseph Burrus performed an act that involved him having to break free from a plastic coffin buried underground and covered in concrete. As spectators watched the concrete being poured into the hole, everyone noticed when the wet concrete level suddenly dropped two feet down –the coffin had been crushed. By the time they got Burrus out of the coffin, he was dead.

In 2001, haunted hayride worker Caleb Rebh died when he decided to take the place of a skeleton placed in a noose on a tree. When he struggled with the rope, guests and fellow workers thought he was acting and left him alone until he suffocated.

A good take away from these stories is to make sure your kids never think to do tricks that involve nooses. Also, don’t raise your kid to be an escape artist.

Sources: Snopes #1, #2

Image Via Sospitis [Flickr]

Dead Bodies Mistaken For Spooky Decorations

On a similar note, there have been many of occasions where someone thought something was a Halloween decoration, but it was really a dead body. Heck, this one even served as the basic plot for the Vincent Price classic House of Wax.

In at least two cases, one in 2005 and one in 2009, a suicide victim has killed themselves in October and been left for hours, even days, because people mistook the real corpse for a Halloween decoration.

One of the more interesting, slightly less gruesome stories in this vein involves the corpse of Elmer McCurdy. The outlaw was killed in a 1911 shoot-out. Afterwards, his undertaker went ahead and embalmed him, dressed him up, and started to charge locals $.05 to take a look at the bandit. Eventually, two men claimed McCurdy as their brother in 1915, but the men were actually carnival promoters who wanted the corpse for themselves. The body toured with his “brothers” for a few years and after a few stops at various other side shows it ended up in a Los Angeles wax museum, where those operating the attraction believed it was just another wax creation. It wasn’t until the Six Million Dollar Man filmed at the wax museum and a worker accidentally broke off McCurdy’s arm that people realized it wasn’t just a creepy prop. Finally, in 1977, McCurdy was given a proper burial. To ensure he would stay buried, the medical examiner ordered that two yards of cement were laid over the body.

Strangely, House of Wax was based on a Charles Belden’s story The Wax Works written in 1933. Both of these were made long before any of these stories hit the news, so either earlier news stories like this are now buried or else this one was an urban legend that eventually came true rather than a true story that became an urban legend.

Sources: Snopes #1, #2

Kidney Thieves

Just about everyone has heard the story of the person waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a note telling them to go to a hospital if they want to live. While the bathtub of ice  and note parts may be fiction, this kind of this has been known to happen in India, where a 1995 law requires organ donations to come only from closely related family members, creating a thriving black market for organs.

In 1998, three surgeons and seven accomplices were arrested after being accused of tricking people into having their kidneys removed without permission. The criminals would tell the impoverished victims they could get a good job, but first they had to undergo a medical exam. The exam would then reveal the “applicant” needed a small surgery. During the procedure, the doctor would remove one of the unconscious victim’s kidneys and then the victim would hear nothing more about a job offer. In 2008, a similar racket was discovered by authorities.

Like the wax museum stories, the interesting thing about these cases is the fact that the urban legend was around long before the true stories. In this case, the legend has been spread around since at least the eighties, but the problem in India did not start until after the 1995 law was passed.

Sources: Snopes, Washington Post

Image Via The Doctr [Flickr]

Intentionally Infected With AIDS

The most common version of this story involves a young girl dancing at a club when she feels a small prick on her arm or leg. Then she hears someone whisper “welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS,” before they escape unseen. At her feet, she discovers a blood-filled needle and when she visits the hospital, they confirm that she now has HIV. Another version involves a girl going to the movies and discovering a note informing her of her new status before she leaves.

The earliest version of this story has actually been traced back to the mid-80’s, when a man sleeps with a woman he’s only just met at a bar and then wakes up seeing the words “welcome to the world of AIDS” scrawled on the mirror in lipstick.

While the story of an anonymous stranger injecting someone at a club and the “welcome to the world of AIDS” line are both urban legends, the truth is that there are many stories of people who have intentionally been given HIV. In 2006, a woman in England was arrested for intentionally having unprotected sex with men in an act of revenge after she became infected with the disease.

Some people have even been intentionally injected with the virus, but not by random strangers like the victims in the legends. AIDS activist Brryan Jackson was infected as an 11 month-old baby by his father, who did not want to have to pay child support. By the time he was five, his infection was discovered and his father was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Fortunately, the nineteen year-old activist is still doing fine despite his condition.

Another person intentionally infected was Janice Trahan, who was given the virus, along with Hepatitis C, by her ex-lover Doctor Richard J. Schmidt who collected a samples from some of his patients and gave it to Trahan by claiming it was a vitamin B injection. Dr. Schmidt was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 50 years. It is unknown how Trahan is doing because the case was so long ago and there are no follow up new stories on her since 2000. This case was the first of its kind to hit the court system and it eventually inspired a similar Law & Order episode.

Sources: About.com, BBC, ABC News, Wikipedia

Image Via cooling [Flickr]

I know people always claim that urban legends are true and often claim that they know someone that was really involved with the story, but do any of you know any true urban legends that you can actually prove? Try to leave links to the news stories or other sources that prove your tale if you really want any of us to believe you.

The Euthanasia Coaster, designed by London's Royal College of Art's student Julijonas Urbonas, lets you ride the last ride of your life. Literally.

The three-minute ride involves a long, slow, climb -- nearly a third of a mile long -- that lifts one up to a height of more than 1,600 feet, followed by a massive fall and seven strategically sized and placed loops. The final descent and series of loops take all of one minute. But the gravitational force -- 10 Gs -- from the spinning loops at 223 miles per hour in that single minute is lethal.

According to Urbonas, the "Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely -- with elegance and euphoria -- take the life of a human being." [...]

Euthanasia Coaster isn't simply meant to be about death. Urbonas sees it as both an intellectual and artful departure from the world, one that isn't about the paperwork and medical issues of the current euthanasia system. The few places where voluntary euthanasia is legal include: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington.

"There is no special ritual, nor is death given special meaning except that of the legal procedures and psychological preparation. It is like death is divorced from our cultural life…" Urbonas writes. "…But if it is already legal, why not to make it more meaningful?"

Link

In what could be considered a mock protest to the end of the Space Shuttle program photographer Neil DaCosta and art director Sara Philips have posted a gallery of astronauts suicide photos. Apparently this is the only thing an astronaut has to look forward to these days.   Dubbed the Dark Comedy Project the photos depict a person in a full astronaut suit posing in different positions as if they have just committed suicide . Some of these photos some people may find grotesque,  inappropriate and offensive,  and some people may find them darkly humorous. You be the judge.

Link

A man jumps out a fifth-story window. A woman marches into oncoming traffic. Another woman loads a gun and shoots herself. All appear to be open-and-shut cases of suicide, but, then again, maybe not. In rare cases, such deaths could be caused by something called parasomnia pseudo-suicide, experts say.

In other words: It’s possible to kill yourself in your sleep.

Melissa Dahl of The Body Odd blog has more: Link

More: NY Times article about the case of Tobias Wong, a promising designer who inexplicably hanged himself in the middle of the night

In those bleak moments when the lost souls stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, the sound of the wind and the waves was broken by a soft voice. “Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea?” the stranger would ask. And when they turned to him, his smile was often their salvation.[...]

In his younger years, he would occasionally climb the fence to hold people back while Moya called the police. He would help rescue crews haul up the bodies of those who couldn’t be saved. And he would invite the rescuers back to his house afterward for a comforting drink.

It all nearly cost him his life once. A chilling picture captured decades ago by a local news photographer shows Ritchie struggling with a woman, inches from the edge. The woman is seen trying to launch herself over the side — with Ritchie the only thing between her and the abyss. Had she been successful, he would have gone over, too.

These days, he keeps a safer distance. The council installed security cameras this year and the invention of mobile phones means someone often calls for help before he crosses the street.

But he remains available to lend an ear, though he never tries to counsel, advise or pry. He just gives them a warm smile, asks if they’d like to talk and invites them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.

Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: AP/Jeremy Piper

When an anonymous postcard was delivered to PostSecret from an illegal immigrant in San Francisco contemplating jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, the PostSecret community sprang to action: a Facebook group called "Please Don’t Jump" was made by sympathetic fans in the virtual effort to save a life.

PostSecret, a blog that weekly displays anonymously mailed-in secrets on postcards from across the country, has long been known for revealing suicidal secrets, and has set up a phone hotline in response since the blog began in 2004. Yesterday, a postcard read, “I have lived in San Francisco since I was young … I am illegal … I am not wanted here. I don’t belong anywhere. This summer I plan to jump off the Golden Gate.”

Within 24 hours, nearly 20,000 people had signed up for a Facebook group titled “please don’t jump,” which was later linked beneath the secret on the Post Secret blog, linking in thousands of supportive comments. On the group’s page, sympathetic users posted comments ranging from simply “I want you here” to “If I knew when you’d be at the bridge, I’d drive all the way from Ohio to meet you there, and hold you until you changed your mind.”

Link | The Post Card on PostSecret | The Facebook Group "Please Don’t Jump" – Thanks Frank!

While her mother and three siblings were in another part of the house, the authorities said, Samantha got inside an unused crib that had no mattress or box spring. She placed a child’s belt around her neck and tied it to the upper railing of the crib, hanging herself. The first-grader died at a hospital after the family and paramedics tried to save her.

Dr. Clifford Nelson, the deputy state medical examiner, ruled the death a suicide, a conclusion police did not support.

“The disagreement is a little more philosophical than it is material to the case,” McMinnville police Capt. Dennis Marks said prior to the public records request. “It’s not that we disagree with the mechanics of what happened. It’s the finding that a 6-year-old could form that kind of intent.”

Nelson said it’s a disturbing case, but he couldn’t “fudge the facts to make people feel better.”

For now, her death is listed as the youngest suicide on record in Oregon. This classification will likely have both legal and societal implications.

As a side note: this obviously falls under the “orama” part of neatorama.  As a parent I  personally found the article incredibly disturbing on many levels.

Link

Government officials in south-east China have ordered workers to cover a 1,000 ft long steel bridge in butter to prevent citizens from using it to attempt suicide.

All the climbable surfaces on the structure in Guangzhou have been covered in greasy fat to put an end to the spate of people threatening to jump from it, The Sun reports.

Government spokesman Shiu Liang said: "We tried employing guards at both ends but that didn’t work – and we put up special fences and notices asking people not to commit suicide here.

"None of it worked – and so now we have put butter over the bridge and it has worked very well. Nobody can get up there and nobody who tries ever falls."

Link

The artist, Austrian Ronald Kodritsch, says the piece — called “Reason to Believe” — is not necessarily about suicide.

“It’s not interesting whether he will jump or not. It’s all about having a different perspective on things and about what might cross his mind,” Kodritsch told Reuters. “Hyperrealism is boring!”

Link

(image credit: Reuters/Heinz-Peter Bader)

Several attempts to coax Mr Hu into putting the girl down failed, until Chen Long, a 22-year-old fireman dressed in army uniform, dropped down from a window on the floor above and grabbed the child away from her parent.

As Mr Chen intervened, Mr Hu tried again to snatch the girl back, eventually falling back into his apartment.

He was arrested by the police after the incident on Tuesday, but subsequently attacked by a crowd of onlookers for threatening the life of the girl.

The daughter was found to have no serious injuries. Link -via Arbroath

It’s a relatively new theory in the world of psychology – in 2001, James Kaufman conducted a study that showed creative writers, especially female poets, are more susceptible to mental illness than other types of professions.

Being a female writer (not a poet, though), I was understandably interested in this theory. There really is a disproportionate amount of writers who have committed suicide over the years, so to brighten your day I thought I’d look at a few of them here.

Sylvia Plath

It makes sense to start with the theory’s namesake, I think. For those of you who haven’t read The Bell Jar, it’s a thinly disguised autobiography about one girl’s spiral into depression including suicide attempts, hospital stays and shock treatment therapy.

The bell jar is used as a metaphor for the feeling the main character has when she’s going through her depression – she feels like she’s trapped under a bell jar, stifled and numb. Sylvia predicted her own future when she wrote from the perspective of her protagonist – “How did I know that someday – at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere – the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?”

Despite marriage, children, a successful career as a poet and a promising one as a novelist, Sylvia’s own bell jar did descend again. On February 11, 1963, she killed herself by putting her head in the oven with the gas on. (Photo from A.J. Marik via Find a Grave)

Virginia Woolf

Poor Virginia Woolf seemed doomed from the start. She suffered a nervous breakdown when her mother died when Virginia was just 13. Her father died just nine years later, causing another breakdown which resulted in a brief period of institutionalization. She and her sister were subjected to sexual abuse by their half brothers, which certainly did not help her state of mind.

On March 28, 1941, Virginia decided she had had enough, loaded up her pockets with heavy rocks and walked into the River Ouse near her home. Judging by her symptoms and behavior, modern-day doctors think she probably suffered from bipolar disorder.

Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale was a talented poet, which, according to James Kaufman, put her at a serious disadvantage when it came to battling depression. In 1918, she won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize, which was the precursor to the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Toward the end of the 1920s, though, things headed downhill for Sara. The Great Depression hit the same year she decided to divorce her husband.
Plagued by financial problems, her close friend and former suitor Vachel Lindsay killed himself by drinking Lysol in 1931. Vachel was a poet, so you could say his suicide contributes to Kaufman’s theory that creative writers are more susceptible to mental illness.
In 1933, Sara reunited with Vachel when she took an overdose of sleeping pills in her apartment in New York City, drew herself a warm bath and never got out of it. (Photo from quebecoise via Find a Grave)

Anne Sexton

Anne was never shy about admitting to her mental health problems and openly talked about her lifelong battle with bipolar disorder. She was somewhat of an instant success in her poetic career – after attending a workshop taught by poet John Holmes, she immediately had poems published in The New Yorker, Harper’s and the Saturday Review. By attending workshops and adopting a writing mentor, Anne became friends with poets such as Maxine Kumin, W.D. Snodgrass and none other than Sylvia Plath. She was such close friends with Sylvia, in fact, that she wrote a poem entitled Sylvia’s Death about, well, Sylvia’s death. She outlived Sylvia by 11 years, though – on October 4, 1974, Anne had lunch with Maxine, returned home and killed herself by sitting in her garage with the door down and the gas running.

Sarah Kane

Kaufman’s theory holds up even with contemporary writers. Sarah Kane was a playwright and screenwriter who suffered from severe depression. She was voluntarily admitted twice to the Maudsley psychiatric hospital in London. She channeled her depression into plays which were performed by the Royal Court. Critics weren’t too impressed when the plays debuted which may have lead to her suicide in 1999. After an overdose of prescription medication landed her in King’s College Hospital but failed to kill her, she ended up hanging herself in a hospital bathroom. (Photo from IainFisher.com)

So, that was morbid. But it does provide some supporting evidence for Kaufman’s Sylvia Plath effect. What do you think? Does the Sylvia Plath effect make sense? The other side of the coin is that there are a number of suicides with any occupation and these are just more public given the public nature of the work.

I’m not really sure which side I believe, but I am a little bit relieved to know I have no talent for poetry whatsoever.