FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
The latest updates on fortean stories, from Canada’s murderous ‘Wendigo’ to Kent’s ‘killer clowns’...
PASSENGER TURNS ‘WENDIGO’ [FT241:4-5]
A man with schizophrenia who beheaded a fellow bus passenger in Canada on 30 July 2008 has been released. Will Baker, formerly known as Vincent Weiguang Li, killed 22-year-old Tim McLean after hearing what he thought was the voice of God. “The voice told me that I was the third story of the Bible, that I was like the second coming of Jesus [and that] I was to save people from a space alien attack.” Baker was deemed not criminally responsible and spent seven years in treatment in a secure wing of a psychiatric hospital. Last year, he was allowed to live in his own apartment in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but was still subject to monitoring to ensure he took his medication. A review board in Manitoba has now ordered his discharge – without monitoring – saying he did not pose a significant threat. He said he was “really sorry” for what he had done.
The attack took place in front of horrified passengers as the inter-city Greyhound bus travelled past Portage la Prairie, about 70km (40 miles) west of Winnipeg. Baker, a 40-year-old former church custodian and computer programmer who emigrated from China to Canada in 2001, repeatedly stabbed McLean, who was sitting next to him, before cutting off his head, removing internal organs, and putting his nose, an ear, and part of his mouth in his pocket, inside a plastic bag. The attack began without warning. Alerted by screams from the victim, the driver stopped the bus and fled with the passengers as Baker continued his attack. Ten days earlier, Baker had read an article about the Wendigo, a terrifying hairy biped in native mythology with a ravenous appetite for human flesh. The belief was that it could take possession of people and turn them into cannibalistic monsters. So was Baker simply crazy, or “turning Wendigo”? Or is it impossible for such a Native American culture-bound disorder to possess a Chinese person? BBC News, 11 Feb 2017.
CHEATING THE REAPER [FT346:19]
Emma Martina Luigia Morano, recognised as the world’s oldest person since Susannah Jones passed away in New York in May last year, died on 15 April 2017 at the age of 117 years, 137 days, and 16 hours. She was probably the oldest Italian person who ever lived, but more than five years behind the world champion, Jeanne Calment (122 years and 164 days). Her life spanned three centuries, two world wars, 10 popes and over 90 Italian governments.
She was born in the village of Civiasco in Piedmont, northern Italy, on 29 November 1899, the year in which Marconi first transmitted a radio signal across the English Channel. She outlived her five sisters and three brothers, and was the world’s last living link to the 19th century… well, maybe. She worked in a factory making jute sacks and then as a cook in a boarding school. In 1938, shortly after the death of her only child at the age of seven months, she drove her violent husband out of the house, a courageous act in Fascist Italy. She remained single for the rest of her life.
A party and concert celebrating her 117th birthday last year, organized by Verbania, the town where she lived on the shores of Lake Maggiore, were broadcast live across Italy. She claimed the secret of her longevity was eating three eggs a day, two of them raw, and a little raw minced meat. She maintained this regime ever since a doctor advised her that it would be good for her health when she was diagnosed with anæmia at the age of 20. When she still had teeth, she was fond of chicken and lean raw steak. She long eschewed vegetables and her consumption of fruit was limited to the occasional bunch of grapes. A non-smoker, she drank a daily glass of homemade grappa. According to the US-based Gerontology Research Group (GRG), the world’s oldest registered human is now Jamaican Violet Brown, who was born on 10 March 1900. Guardian, 30 Nov 2016; BBC News, 16 April; D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 17 April; NY Times (Int. edition), 25 April 2017.
CARRY ON CLOWNING [FT346:8-9, 347:28-35, 348:20]
An axe-wielding “killer clown” prankster has been jailed after he chased a pregnant woman the night before Hallowe’en last year. Michael March, 18, is thought to be the first person jailed in the UK after the craze swept the country last autumn. Newcastle Crown Court heard he terrified a couple walking past him after banging the foot-long axe on the ground in a pub car park in Sea Road, South Shields, just after 9pm. The woman, who was 22 weeks pregnant, threw a brick at him in an attempt to defend herself before he ran off. After police were called they traced him via CCTV and found him with the axe and a clown mask in his backpack. He said he had himself been chased by killer clowns in Gateshead and thought he would scare people as part of a prank. It cost him dear: six months in nick, even though he had no previous convictions.
Kent police dealt with 59 clown-related incidents between 7 and 10 October, Thames Valley Police had 14 reports in 24 hours, and South Yorkshire Police received 61 reports. D.Telegraph, Guardian, (Dundee) Courier and Advertiser, 9 Feb 2017.
On 25 February, children were playing hide-and-seek in the woods near Lauder Street in a suburb of Pittsburgh when two men dressed as scary clowns “seemed to come out of nowhere”. Eight-year-old Dylan Milkowski, of West Mifflin, said: “They were chasing us. They had clown outfits on. They had clown masks. They had pipes and they had shotguns.” Dylan called his father Michael, who saw the two men running away up a hillside towards a slagheap. According to Mr Milkowski, one of the men was carrying a shotgun and the other a pipe. He called 911 and police combed the area for two hours, but there was no sign of the men. pittsburgh.cbslocal.com, 4 Mar 2017.