Weird Universe
HOME   |   CONTACT   |   PINTEREST   |   FACEBOOK   |   TWITTER   |   RSS
 

Category:
Crime

Batman Reads NOTW!

From this issue.

image
Posted By: Paul | Date: Mon May 06, 2013 | Comments (5)
Category: Crime, Weird Universe, Chuck, Comics

Doc Owens, Con Man

As early as December 1900, the notorious Doc Owens was making headlines, having established his racket of fleecing sea-going sheep.



imageimage

READ LEFT-HAND COLUMN, THEN RIGHT-HAND COLUMN, THEN SAME FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING.

imageimage

Three years later, The New York Times did a special feature on Owens and his fellows (with his photo miscaptioned).

Click here for very readable PDF download.

image

image

But Owens was to meet poetic justice in 1912, as our final piece reveals.

image

Man loses eye in court

John Huttick was in court on the witness stand describing how he lost his eye in a bar fight. Suddenly said eye — the new prosthetic one, not the old one he lost — popped out of its socket and landed in his hand. The jurors gasped in fright. The judge promptly declared a mistrial.

This case has sparked my curiosity, so I'm going to keep an eye out to see what happens during the rescheduled trial. [nj.com]
Posted By: Alex | Date: Sat Feb 09, 2013 | Comments (4)
Category: Crime, Eyes and Vision

Nigerian Pen Pals

image

Wait a minute--my spam filters are all set up to protect against "Nigerian pen pals!" Not to vilify a whole country just on account of a few million citizens who are scammers, but I don't think Nigeria would be my first choice when seeking global camaraderie.

But if you're interested, here you go.
Posted By: Paul | Date: Mon Feb 04, 2013 | Comments (11)
Category: Crime, Foreign Customs, Africa

Weapon War is On—LA Doubles Seattle Missile Launchers

It may be the beginning of a new arms race -- which city can collect the most missile launchers?

Both of these cities were conducting a gun buyback programs. I can't wait to see what they get next.

Of course, Seattle got one, and LA only got two, but you can see where this is headed.

image

Pictured is one of the LA launchers. Here are the links to both stories.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/28/16221808-rocket-launchers-surface-during-los-angeles-guns-buyback?lite

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/29/16754974-missile-launcher-shows-up-at-seattle-gun-buyback?lite

Which will be the next city to gather more missile launchers than LA?
Posted By: gdanea | Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 | Comments (4)
Category: Crime

Chinese Punishments

From The Family Magazine, Vols 2 & 3, 1835-1836.


In taking the culprit before the tribunal he is preceded by a man who strikes upon a gong, that he may aggravate the shame of the offender, by drawing upon him the notice of the publick. Two others follow after him on foot, one of whom is employed in keeping up the culprit's face by means of a bundle of cleft canes. His hands are tied behind his back, and to render him more conspicuous a little red banner is fastened upon each side of his head.



He is thrown flat upon his face, and held in that position by one, or more, if necessary of the magistrate's attendants kneeling upon his back, whilst another applies the pan-stee to his posteriors. The pan-stee is a thick piece of split bamboo cane, the lower end of which is about four inches in width, and the upper end small and smooth, to render the instrument more convenient for the hand.



He is held securely by two men in the service of a tribunal who are instructed to give pain, by particular method of turning the cartilages of the ear.



This man is suspended by his shoulders and ancles, in a very painful situation: at intervals, two attending officers afford some trifling alleviation of his sufferings, by supporting him with a bamboo passed under his breast. Pencil, ink and paper, are ready to note down whatever he may say. This punishment, together with the preceding one, is chiefly inflicted upon such merchants as have been detected in committing frauds, impositions, or any other unwarrantable tricks of trade.



A species of correction appointed for boatmen, or, as they are termed in England, watermen. Having been convicted of some misbehaviour, he is compelled to kneel: one of the officers of justice prevents him from flinching, whilst another grasps his hair, and bestows a certain number of blows upon each side of his face, with a sort of double battledore, made of thick leather.
Posted By: Alex | Date: Tue Nov 13, 2012 | Comments (10)
Category: Crime, Law, Public Humiliation, Asia

The Five Man Army



Samurais and the Old West: can the combo ever not satisfy?
Posted By: Paul | Date: Sun Sep 16, 2012 | Comments (9)
Category: Crime, Movies, Stereotypes and Cliches, Wild West and US Frontier, 1960's, Asia

Crime-Fighting Babies

Business owners in southeast London are decorating their store fronts with giant pictures of babies, in the hope that such pictures will deter criminals and rioters. [The Blaze]

Maybe it's just me, but something looks odd about the baby in the picture. I think it's the hair. I know some babies are born with more hair than others, but that kid has such a full head of hair that he looks like he's wearing a wig. Also, (and I know this is not a comparison that would occur to most people) he vaguely reminds me of the (fake) baby Adolf Hitler.

Posted By: Alex | Date: Sun Sep 09, 2012 | Comments (5)
Category: Babies, Crime

The Method of the Nail



I came across an unusual article titled "The Good Old Method of the Nail" in an old medical journal. (Unfortunately I can't find an online version of it.) The article details the history of killing people by driving nails into their brain.

Apparently the 'method of the nail' used to be quite a popular homicide technique, because in the days before x-rays it was hard to tell that someone had a nail in their head. The victim's hair might hide the wound, so people, not seeing any obvious sign of injury or foul play, would often assume death occurred from natural causes.

The method of the nail is such an ancient technique that it's mentioned in the Bible, Book of Judges 4:21:

Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.

It also pops up in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in "The Wife of Bath's Prologue," which includes a list of various ways wives kill their husbands:

And somme han drive nayles in hir brayn
Whyl that they slepte, and thus they han
hem slayn.

Nor is the nail-in-the-head just a western phenomenon. It also has deep roots in Chinese culture. From the article:

The nail murder is one of the most famous motifs in Chinese crime literature. The oldest source is quoted in the casebook T'ang-yin pi-shih, where the solution is ascribed to Yen Tsun, a clever judge.
The point of these stories is always the same: the judge is baffled by the fact that although there are strong reasons for suspecting the wife, the body of the husband shows no signs of violence. The final discovery of the nail is elaborated in various ways.
The oldest version said that Yen Tsun found it because he noted that a swarm of flies congregated on one place on top of the dead man's skull...
In 1881, Stent recorded another version under the title 'The Double Nail Murders' in volume 10 of the China Review: When the coroner fails to discover any trace of violence on the victim's corpse, his own wife suggests to him that he look for a nail. When the judge has convicted the murdered man's widow on this evidence, he also has the coroner's wife brought to him, since her knowledge of such a subtle way of committing a murder seems suspicious to him. It transpires that the coroner is her second husband. The corpse of her first husband is exhumed, and a nail discovered inside the skull. Both women are executed.

The image at the top is an x-ray from a 1973 case, in which a man used a hammer to drive an awl into his wife's head, explaining that he did it to "exorcise the evil soul that had taken its place in her head."
Posted By: Alex | Date: Sat Sep 08, 2012 | Comments (6)
Category: Crime, Brain, Brain Damage

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths

image

Once upon a time, there was a kindly old lady who specialized in creating gruesome murder dioramas. Her name was Frances Glessner Lee, and her little scenes went on to educate criminologists for decades.

image

Follow the link for a whole book about her.



Posted By: Paul | Date: Tue May 08, 2012 | Comments (8)
Category: Crime, Death, Eccentrics, Education, Toys, 1940's, 1950's
Page 1 of 11 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »


Custom Search

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.