Crime
Ubiquitous Perpetuity God
1985: Enrique Silberg had previously tried to change his name to God, but was denied on the grounds that it would be confusing and that he also needed a first name. Finally he convinced a judge to let him change his name to Ubiquitous Perpetuity God.1996: Ubiquitous Perpetuity God was sentenced to nine months in Marin County Jail for indecent exposure, a crime that he had 17 prior convictions for. He said that he exposed himself to women so that they "could have some type of awareness of God".
San Francisco Examiner - Apr 18, 1985
Memphis Commercial Appeal - Feb 15, 1996
Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 16, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Crime, Odd Names, Religion
Serial aperitif thief
Philippe Delandtscheer may have preferred to steal aperitif, but that's not all he stole. He was later arrested for stealing meat from a supermarket.
Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - Feb 15, 1996
Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 05, 2023 -
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Category: Crime, 1990s
Murder, Inc. Vinyl Album
Get the full story here.Start grooving with this cut, then find the rest of the playlist on YouTube.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 05, 2023 -
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Category: Crime, Music, Space-age Bachelor Pad & Exotic, 1960s
The Elizabethean Underworld
This review by the famous Anthony Burgess (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) alerted me to the existence of a fascinating book. Turns out it's available at the Internet Archive. The lexicon of thieves talk that Burgess mentions makes for fun reading.Review source: The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) 19 Mar 1965, Fri Page 11
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 28, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Crime, History, Books, Slang
Decoy Santas
Arizona Daily Star - Dec 10, 1976
Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 25, 2022 -
Comments (1)
Category: Crime, Police and Other Law Enforcement, 1970s, Christmas
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 12
Source: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) 17 Feb 1949, Thu Page 21
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 03, 2022 -
Comments (1)
Category: Crime, Death, Feet, Alcohol
Trapdoor for bank tellers
I'm aware of quite a few inventions designed to trap or incapacitate bank robbers. But the idea of allowing a bank teller to abruptly vanish is more novel.Of course, this approach could only work if there was a single teller working, and hopefully no other customers in the bank.
I was curious whether this bank with the cashier trapdoor might still exist, but I had no luck finding its address. I did find that it was acquired by another bank in 1948. So it was probably demolished long ago.
Hagerstown Morning Herald - Aug 9, 1932
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 28, 2022 -
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Category: Crime, Inventions, Money, 1930s
Breakaway Stethoscope
Joshua Allen Stivers of Puyallup, WA recently received a patent for a "breakaway stethoscope." It works like a normal stethoscope, but breaks apart if someone tries to use it as a garrote to strangle a person:
A quick google search reveals that stethoscopes become weapons disturbingly often. So it's kind of surprising that breakaway ones aren't already standard issue.
Derby Evening Telegraph - Aug 9, 1948
via Jeff Steck
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 17, 2022 -
Comments (3)
Category: Crime, Medicine, Patents, Weapons
The Pug Anti-Bandit Bag
Inventor John Rinfret debuted his "Pug Anti-Bandit Bag" in 1963. His idea was that, if attacked, you could activate a spring that would forcefully eject all the contents from the bag. The attacker would be so shocked that he would run away. At least, that was the theory.From what I can gather, Rinfret hoped to rent his anti-bandit bags to companies that used couriers to carry important documents or money. He definitely put a lot of work into promoting his invention. He even came out with a new and improved version of the bag the following year. But evidently few companies were interested in using his bag.
Possible reasons why: 1) a bandit might pick up the money instead of running away; or 2) what if the spring was activated by accident, spraying money everywhere?
London Daily Telegraph - Aug 28, 1963
Rinfret demonstrates his anti-bandit bag (August 27, 1963). Source: Getty Images
London Evening Standard - Aug 27, 1963
London Daily Telegraph - Sep 25, 1963
Personnel Management and Methods - April 1964
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 09, 2022 -
Comments (2)
Category: Crime, Inventions, 1960s
Melvin Purvis’s G-Men Detective Game
Play along with current headlines!
The object of the game is to capture the Public Enemy. The player who brings a G-Man together with the Public Enemy wins the game. The game starts with one G-Man chasing the public enemy, but after 30 minutes a second can be brought into play.
More pix and info here.
Melvin Purvis at Wikipedia.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Aug 13, 2022 -
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Category: Crime, Games, 1930s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |