Strange deaths
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
Last summer, police in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, were allegedly called to an unnamed motel after the body of a young woman had been found under a bed. According to medical opinion, it had lain undisturbed for about five years. “I dropped the television remote, and when I went to check under the bed I found her,” said Aaron Silver, who was staying in the room. “I clean that room every day,” said housekeeper Anita Rodriguez. “I noticed a smell several times, and told my manager. He told me to just use extra Febreeze in the room and it would go away eventually. I always hated cleaning that room.” Empire News, 24 July; nymeta.co, 26 Aug 2014.
After this news story was published, Mount Laurel Police spokesperson Lt Stephen Riedener described it as “absolutely false”, further noting that it didn’t even correctly name his department’s police chief, identifying him as “Joe Goldsmith” instead of Dennis Cribben. Besides, the story originated at Empire News, one of many fake news sites. Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand first heard a “dead body under hotel bed” story in 1991, and the lack of circumstantial detail led him to class it as an urban legend. However, many similar stories are undeniably true: the Snopes legend website recounts 10 authenticated cases of odorous dead bodies being found under hotel and motel beds since 1982 (www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/bodybed.asp). On 15 March 2010, for instance, the remains of Sony Millbrook from Memphis were found inside the frame of a bed at a Budget Inn motel an alarming 47 days after her initial disappearance – even though the room had been cleaned and rented several times. For a 1999 case, see FT127:16. antiviral.gawker.com, 30 July 2014.
William Wilson of Cape Coral, Florida, thought he was getting a great deal on a foreclosed home he bought at an auction for $96,000. However, he discovered an unexpected ‘bonus’ inside: a corpse on the master bedroom floor. Neighbours said two sisters had lived in the house but no one had seen them for a while. Police blocked off the property and launched an investigation. Fort Myers (FL) News-Press, 5 Nov 2014.
A television fitness instructor killed while filming on a railway line in Los Angeles was reportedly trying to outrun a train for a sports drink commercial. Greg Pitt, 37, the star of the Bravo television series Work Out, tripped and couldn’t get out of the path of the train near Burbank station. “He wanted to push things to the limit,” said his girlfriend, Christina Stejskal. “He’s just like Superman.” D.Telegraph, 21 Jan 2015.
Richard Mileski, 60 (or 70), from Chicago, the owner of a Mexican wildlife sanctuary, died on 14 October after being kicked, bitten and sat on by an enraged camel. “Between the blows and the weight of the camel on top of him, he was asphyxiated,” said a civil defence official. The camel weighed over 600kg (94 stone). Staff at the Tulum Monkey Sanctuary wildlife park in Yucatan, southern Mexico, had to use a rope and a pickup truck to pull the camel away from the body. It was suggested the camel was annoyed at not getting a drink of CocaCola, which Mileski gave it most days. MX News (Sydney), 16 Oct; rt.com/news, 17 Oct 2014.
A male camel in rut trampled two people to death at Camel Kisses Ranch in Texas. It charged ranch owner Mark Mere, 53, as he entered the pen it shared with two females, before killing Peggy McNair, 72, when she tried to shut the gate of the pen. The camel was put down. Metro, 12 Jan 2015.
Beekeeper Steven Adderson, who was allergic to bees, suffered fatal anaphylactic shock on 17 June 2014 after being stung once on the ankle. The 39-year-old engineer from Downham Market, Norfolk, died as he tried to help a neighbour tackle a rogue swarm of bees. “He had put on his suit,” said his father Graham, “but was in such a rush to get to work that he forgot the boots.”
A gardener in Arizona died after 800,000 Africanised bees attacked him, having been driven into a frenzy by his lawnmower. The 32-year-old man suffered a heart attack and was dead on arrival at hospital. He was tending a lawn at the house of a 90-year-old man in Douglas, near the Mexican border. The bees swarmed from the attic; their hive, 4ft (1.2m) wide and 6ft (1.8m) high, was thought to be a decade old. It was later destroyed by a beekeeper after workmen removed part of the roof. Eve. Standard (London), 9 Oct; D.Telegraph, Sun, 10 Oct; D.Mirror, D.Mail, 24 Oct 2014.
A wild boar caused the death of a motorist on the M4 near Swindon on 5 January. The unnamed 47-year-old man, from Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, was killed when his Seat Ibiza collided with the animal before hitting a lorry. Wild boar were hunted to extinction in Britain at least 300 years ago, but have been making a comeback in the last few decades; they have virtually no natural predators. A fullygrown male can weigh up to 200kg (440lb), and the animals often stray onto roads. In 2013 there were 43 road accidents involving wild boar in the Forest of Dean, which for the first time was more than those involving deer. D.Telegraph, 7 Jan 2015.
Lucie Brownlee was trying for a baby with husband Mark, 37, when he suffered cardiac arrhythmia and died. His last words were: “You’ve still got your socks on.” Sun, 18 July 2014.