STRANGE DEATHS
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
A man who was taking his rooster to a cockfight in India was killed when the bird slashed his throat with a blade attached to its claw. Saripalli Chanavenkateshwaram Rao, 50, was declared dead on arrival at a hospital in the southern state of Andra Pradesh. The cockfight went ahead, even though the sport was outlawed in India in the Sixties. Times, 24 Jan 2020.
Former gas fitter James Pettit,
63, was found dead under a mountain of rubbish at his home in Erdington, Birmingham. Police broke into the property after being alerted by neighbours, but Mr Pettit’s body could not be recovered until council workers had taken away three flatbed trucks of material. A narrow staircase behind the front door was seen to be overflowing with papers, bottles and rubbish. Two years prior to his death, Mr Pettit had tripped on the cluttered stairs and fallen through a glass door. “It was ten times worse upstairs,” said one worker. “The police said it was too dangerous and unsafe to move the body”. Mr Pettit had lived at the property for around 40 years. Neighbours recalled seeing the hoarder “always well turned out” and said he had been seen getting into a Bentley a few weeks before his death. “The strange thing is that he always appeared well dressed,” said one neighbour. “You’d see him walking down the street with his dry cleaning. That always struck me – that he would get his clothes dry cleaned and then go back into that flat. I went in 25 years ago and there was no room to move.” Another resident remarked: “He was a very quiet man but he had a good job. He would get taxis everywhere.” D.Express, 18 Jan 2020.
Mother of two Ekaterina Nikiforova, 27, of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, was killed by Alexey Yastrebov, 35, who slashed her throat and then cooked her lungs and heart in his kitchen. He called his landlady to tell her what he had done, and when medics arrived at the flat he said: “There’s a heart cooking on the stove”. Under questioning, Yastrebov told police: “I told her I would eat her heart. So I did.” D.Mirror, 23 Mar 2018.
Odessa Carey, 36, bludgeoned her identically named mother with a mallet and cut off her head with scissors. She then visited a friend’s allotment where she took the head out of a carrier bag and kissed it. (The friend’s reaction is not recorded.) The body of Odessa Carey Senior, 79, was found at her house in Ashington, Northumberland. Her head was found under the sink at another house where her daughter was hiding in the loft. She was found unfit to stand trial. Sun, 6+12 Mar 2020.
In late 2019, engineer Adam Ashby, 31, fell to his death from a washing line pole while trying to entertain friends and relatives. He had climbed up the 10ft (3m) pole, but lost his balance and fell onto the concrete patio head first. Among the family gathering was his fiancée Abbie Williams, 27; the couple were due to get married in January. “He fell right in front of me, my friends, and my family,” Ms Williams told the coroner. “He was just trying to make people laugh.” A verdict of accidental death was recorded. Sun, 2 Dec 2019.
A man shot five people dead for talking too loudly outside his house. The shooting occurred in the village of Yelatma in the Ryazan region, about 200km (124m) south-east of Moscow. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the area was under lockdown. An argument broke out after the man complained to the four men and one woman from his balcony, after which, at around 10pm, he starting shooting at them with a hunting rifle. All five died of their injuries at the scene. BBC News, 5 Apr 2020.
Two sisters in different countries both died from brain haemorrhages within 24 hours of each other. Amanda Williams, 54, collapsed as she prepared to travel from her Leicester home to Ingolstadt, Germany, to be with her sister Jacqueline, 57, who was gravely ill with a bleed on the brain. An ambulance took Amanda to hospital but she died there on 7 September, a day after her sister had passed away in Germany. The family held a joint funeral for the pair in Leicester. Metro, 19 Sep 2019.
By late March, nearly 300 people had died and more than 1,000 made ill across Iran after drinking methanol, believing it could cure coronavirus. Drinking alcohol, of course, is banned in the Islamic Republic and those who do have to rely on bootleggers. D.Telegraph, 28 Mar 2020.