STRANGE DEATHS

UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL

In Florida, in 1990, Marlene Warren was murdered by someone wearing an orange wig, white face paint and a red nose who shot her in the face at close range after handing her carnations and foil balloons on her doorstep. At the time, the killer could not be identified, but advances in DNA technology allowed Sheila Keen Warren, who worked in a car lot belonging to Marlene’s husband Michael and later married him, to be charged with Marlene’s murder. However, her prosecution hit a snag when defence lawyers managed to obtain a police “clown sightings file” from the early 1990s, leading them to claim that the 40 mystery clowns listed there need to be followed up as potential alternative killers before the trial could proceed. theguardian.co.uk, 15 Oct 2022. In Slough, Berkshire, police were investigating the deaths of two men found in different parts of a park in the town within 24 hours. The body of a 65-year-old man was found at 4.40pm on Saturday 1 October in Bayliss Park, while that of a man in his 40s was also found in the park at 8am the following morning. Police could see no immediate connection between the deaths, saying that both were “sudden and unexplained”, adding that “there is a great deal of work to do to find out exactly what has happened and whether there is any link at all between these deaths.” BBC News, 2 Oct 2022.

Police in Kerala, India, arrested healer and masseur Bhagaval Singh, his wife Laila, and restaurant owner Muhammed Shafi for the murder of two women named only as Rosly, 49, and Padmam, 52, who had been reported missing. The Singhs got in touch with Shafi via Facebook, where he advertised his services as someone who could put them in contact with a black magic practitioner to increase their wealth. He then visited the Singhs, claiming to be the practitioner and, it is alleged, persuaded them to carry out a “ritualistic human sacrifice for financial prosperity”. The two women, who were sex workers, were lured to the Singh’s house by Shafi, who offered money for their services. There, the trio carried out rituals in which the women were tortured and beheaded, after which they were dismembered and parts of their bodies cooked and eaten, it is claimed. indiaexpress.com, 12 Oct 2022. An unnamed soldier in the Welsh Guards accidentally shot Sergeant Gavin Hillier, 35, dead during an exercise after mistaking him for a wooden target. The soldier had initially been turned down for entry to the Guards for poor eyesight but was later admitted after using contact lenses. However, he then stopped wearing the lenses as he was “confident he didn’t need glasses” and shot Sgt Hillier despite him wearing body armour and a fluorescent yellow jacket so he could be easily identified. A medical report found the soldier would have needed to be six times closer to Hillier to differentiate him from a target without his lenses in, although he still managed to shoot him accurately. Sun, 28 Aug, 2022.

DJ Edwin Villafuerte had already finished playing music at a festival honouring Saint Isidore the Labourer in the village of San Isidro in Guatemala and was packing up his equipment when a drunk reveller demanded he played one last song. Villafuerte refused and continued to pack his kit while the drunk reeled off; however, he returned later with a gun and waited outside, shooting the DJ several times at point blank range as he left the building, killing him instantly. mirror.co.uk, 19 May 2022. Mark Latunski, 53, of Bennington, Michigan, was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing and eating Kevin Bacon, a 25-year-old man he met through the Grindr dating app. He admitted killing Bacon and hanging his body up by the ankles in his basement, as well as eating parts of the corpse, including the genitalia. He had also investigated buying a dehydrator to turn some of Bacon’s body into jerky and preserve it. His lawyer insisted that Latunski had not intended to kill Bacon and did not understand the gravity of his crime. news.sky.com, 20 Oct 2022.

Tired of being forced to carry heavy logs all day in intense heat on a rubber plantation in Phang Nga province, Thailand, a 20-year-old male elephant named Pom Pam turned on his trainer Supachai Wongfaed, 32, goring and dismembering him, leaving the corpse with its arms and legs ripped from the torso. Volunteers tranquilised Pom Pam, enabling police to retrieve Wongfaed’s remains, and the elephant was taken to a rehabilitation facility. metro, 23 Aug 2022.