The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  FISHERMAN PAYS HEAVY PRICE FOR LOSING COUNT

  Fishing with two friends in 2002, a Denton, Texas, man suddenly decided it would be a fun idea to discharge his gun into the lake. Then, for a laugh, he pointed the gun at his nose and pulled the trigger, confident that there were no bullets left in the barrel. He was wrong. Afterwards, one of the friends said the dead man simply “lost count of the rounds when he was firing the gun”.

  FRIEND IS LEFT SAUSAGES IN WILL

  Every week for five years, Pat Vaughan treated work colleague Peter Fountain to a sausage sandwich as they met in the same café in Odiham, Hampshire, to discuss council business. When Mr Vaughan died of cancer at the age of 57, he left his friend $ 1,500 and a note: “Buy your own bloody sausage sandwiches!”

  MAN DISMANTLES GRENADE AND HIMSELF

  In an attempt to dismantle a rocket-propelled grenade, a Brazilian man drove over it back and forth with his car. When the weapon still failed to break up, he attacked it with a sledgehammer. The resulting explosion killed him as well as destroying six cars and his workplace.

  WILDERNESS EXPLORER FORGETS TO ARRANGE COLLECTION

  Enthusiastic American amateur photographer Carl McCunn paid a bush pilot to drop him at a remote lake near Alaska’s Coleen River in March 1981 so that he could study wildlife . . . but failed to make arrangements for the pilot to pick him up again the following August. A plane did circle overhead at one point but the hapless McCunn used the wrong emergency hand signals and thus merely succeeded in waving the plane away. When it became clear that nobody was coming to collect him, rather than starve in the wilderness, McCunn shot himself in the head. Shortly before blowing his brains out, he had written in his diary: “I think I should have used more foresight about arranging my departure.”

  SON PUTS FATHER’S ASHES UP FOR SALE ON EBAY

  In revenge for being abandoned as a child, a Warwickshire man auctioned his father’s ashes on eBay. The ad placed by William Ireland, of Atherstone, read: “Here are the ashes of my father, Kenneth Ireland, an adulterer who left a wife, two children and just £17 ($25) in her pocket. He never paid a penny towards his kids’ upbringing.”

  MARRIED COUPLE DIE OF EXCITEMENT

  Shy Japanese couple Sachi and Tomio Hidaka, both 34, waited 14 years before making love for the first time in 1992. Alas, the excitement proved too much for them and both died of heart attacks.

  BUDDHIST MONK RUN OVER BY LAWNMOWER

  A Buddhist monk was killed instantly in 2007 when he was run over by his own sit-on lawnmower as he cut the grass at his temple in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Rev. Sanji Handa was seen chasing the out-of-control machine and fell beneath it as he tried to climb back onto it. His dismembered body was found on a grassy slope at the ten-acre peace centre. It was reported that Rev. Handa had lost three fingers in a previous incident with a lawnmower.

  BUNGLING BURGLAR STUCK IN CHIMNEY FOR 16 YEARS

  The fully-clothed skeletal remains of a bungling burglar were found in a chimney in Natchez, Mississippi, in 2001. Calvin Wilson had last been seen alive in 1985. It is thought he had tried to burgle the premises but had got stuck in the chimney and died.

  WIDOW HAS HUSBAND’S ASHES PUT IN EGG-TIMER

  When Londoner Malcolm Eccles died of bowel cancer, his ashes were put in an egg-timer so that he could be with his widow in the kitchen while she cooked. Brenda Eccles said: “I can’t boil an egg to save my life. He knew that and said I should turn some of his ashes into an egg-timer. Then he could help me and it would be a nice way of remembering him.”

  DRIVER BLINDED BY BUBBLE GUM

  Abner Kriller of Albany, Australia, was blowing bubble gum while driving when it burst and stuck to his glasses. Temporarily blinded, he drove off the road and plunged down a hill to his death.

  SKYDIVING PHOTOGRAPHER FORGETS TO PUT ON PARACHUTE

  An experienced skydiver with over 800 jumps to his name made a fundamental – and fatal – error in 1988 when he forgot to strap on his parachute before jumping from a plane 10,000 feet above North Carolina. Ivan McGuire was filming a private lesson given by an instructor for a trainee. He had attached a video camera to his helmet and wore the power supply and recorder in a rucksack on his back. Jumping from the rear of the plane, he carefully captured the moment as student and instructor jumped from the front and pulled their ripcords. It was then, as McGuire reached for his own ripcord, that he realized to his horror that while remembering all his camera equipment, he had forgotten to strap on his parachute.

  THE UNLUCKY FOUR-LEAFED CLOVER

  Salvatore Chirilino was walking with his wife along the cliff top at Vibo Marina, Italy, when he spotted a four-leafed clover and picked it. Just as he was congratulating himself on his good fortune, his foot slipped on the wet grass and he toppled over the cliff edge, plunging 150 feet to his death.

  TIN THIEVES POISON THEMSELVES

  A dozen thieves stole a sizeable quantity of tin from a company in Gejun, China – unaware that the metal had been treated with arsenic and would therefore create a poisonous gas when exposed to water. It was raining at the time of the theft, and within 8 days eight of the gang were dead and another two were critically ill.

  “ROTTING CORPSE” TURNS OUT TO BE MAN WITH SMELLY FEET

  Police broke into an apartment in Kaiserslautern, Germany, after neighbours complained about a foul stench seeping on to the stairway. The windows and curtains of the apartment had been closed for a week, and the postbox was full of uncollected mail, leading to fears that there was a rotting corpse inside. On entering the apartment, however, officers found a man with pungent feet asleep in bed next to a pile of dirty laundry.

  COVER BLOWN IN INSURANCE FRAUD

  Sacramento, California, funeral director Melvin Lincoln was convicted of defrauding an insurance company in 1991 by trying to fake his own death and that of his wife. The deception was uncovered when the supposedly deceased Mr Lincoln tried to renew his driving licence.

  THAI SISTERS ARE A PAIR OF REAL “LIVE WIRES”

  A 57-year-old Thai woman, Yooket Paen, was walking on her farm in 1991 when she accidentally slipped on a cow pat, grabbed a naked live wire to steady herself and was electrocuted. Shortly after her funeral, her 52-year-old sister, Yooket Pan, was showing neighbours how the accident happened when she, too, slipped, grabbed the same live wire and was killed.

  “CORPSE” LASHES OUT AT POLICE OFFICERS

  Two off-duty policemen leapt into action when they found a corpse at an English country hotel, only to get the shock of their lives when he jumped to his feet and asked them angrily what they thought they were doing. Police Constables Mick Cotterill and Grant Darbey, who were guests at a party at the Botleigh Grange Hotel near Southampton in 1998, had tried to revive the man by checking his airways and loosening his clothing, unaware that he was an actor taking part in a murder mystery weekend. A Hampshire police spokesman said: “It was a bit of a surprise when the dead man made a full recovery in front of them.”

  FACTORY WORKER KILLED BY ROBOT

  While working at a Kawasaki factory in Japan in 1981, 37-year-old Kenji Urada climbed over a safety fence to carry out maintenance work on a robot. In his haste, he failed to switch off the robot properly. Unable to sense his presence, the robot’s powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and pushed him into a grinding machine with fatal consequences.

  MAN DIES FOR THE LOVE OF HIS CAR

  When 68-year-old Ivece Plattner found himself trapped in his car on an Italian level crossing with a train fast approaching, his first thought was to save his beloved Porsche. So instead of scrambling to safety, he ran along the track toward the oncoming train, waving his arms frantically in a bid to spare his car. The attempt was successful insomuch as the car received considerably less damage than its owner who was hit with such force by the train that he landed 100 feet away and could not be revived.

  FINED FOR CELEBRATING NEIGHBOUR’S DEATH

  A 63-year-old man from Ulrichtstein, Germany, was fined
$5,000 in 2003 for celebrating his neighbour’s death by loudly singing “It’s a Wonderful Day”.

  SUICIDE BID SUCCEEDS – EVENTUALLY

  Sevan Kevorkian, 36, from San Diego, California, tried to hang himself in 2008 but his bid was foiled when his girlfriend found him just in time and pulled him down. He reacted angrily to her intervention and the pair argued violently, attracting the attention of a passer-by who, in restraining Kevorkian, applied a wrestling hold to his carotid artery and accidentally killed him.

  MAN DROWNS WHILE FLEEING FROM FIRE

  Ioannis Philippou, 50, accidentally set himself on fire while huddled over a heater in his house in Kato Deftera, Cyprus, in 1990. To douse the flames, he ran out of the house and jumped into a nearby reservoir, where he drowned.

  DEAD MAN IS GIVEN PARKING TICKETS

  Police in New York City repeatedly ticketed an illegally parked Chevrolet Ventura for a month in 2009 without noticing that its occupant was dead. The body of the 59-year-old man was finally discovered after a marshal attempted to tow the vehicle, which had a number of summonses on the windshield, away from underneath a flyover in the city’s Queens district. The deceased’s daughter said: “The window was cracked open. I don’t understand how no one noticed him. They just gave him tickets.”

  GIRLS KILLED AFTER LIGHTNING STRIKES THEIR BRAS

  Two young visitors from Thailand were killed in 1999 after lightning struck their bras while they were sheltering under a tree in London’s Hyde Park. The underwiring in their bras conducted the electrical charges straight to their hearts, killing them instantly.

  BOTTOMS UP! HUSBAND HAD ADDICTION TO ALCOHOLIC ENEMAS

  A man with an alcohol problem who was addicted to enemas died after receiving one based on sherry. Michael Warner, of Lake Jackson, Texas, died of alcohol poisoning in 2004 with a level almost six times the state’s legal limit. Tammy Jean Warner said her husband had been addicted to enemas since he was a child. Unable to swallow liquor because he suffered from ulcers and heartburn, he often gave himself wine or sherry enemas as his body would absorb the spirits more quickly that way. Mrs Warner told reporters: “He did coffee enemas, he did soap, he had enema recipes. That’s the way he went out and I’m sure that’s the way he wanted to go out because he loved his enemas.”

  SUICIDE BID DUMPS ITALIAN IN SEWERS

  In despair after separating from his wife, a 35-year-old bank clerk tried to drown himself in a river on the outskirts of Milan. But he hadn’t realized that after a few hundred yards the river flowed underground to join the city’s sewer system, and within moments of jumping in he was swept along on a tide of filth. The “indescribable” smell quickly made him change his mind about committing suicide. “I just wanted to get out of there,” he said afterwards. “I wanted to live.” He was eventually rescued from a manhole after a six-hour ordeal and a seven-and-a-half-mile journey through the stinking sewers of Milan.

  WOMAN DIES AFTER HOLDING HER WEE FOR A WII

  A Californian woman died in 2007 after trying to win a “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest run by a radio station in Sacramento. KDND 107.9 radio promised a Nintendo Wii to the person who drank the most water without going to the toilet. Twenty-eight-year-old mother-of-three Jennifer Strange was one of the participants but she complained of a severe headache hours after the contest and died later that day from water intoxication.

  CORPSE WAS LIFE AND SOUL OF THE PARTY

  When 35-year-old Ian Clifton passed out at a party in a Sheffield pub, his friends shaved one side of his head and took pictures of him with a blow-up doll. It was not until an hour later that one of the other partygoers decided to check for a pulse and found that there was none. Ruling that Clifton had died from accidental alcohol poisoning, the coroner remarked: “It is quite disturbing to think people were celebrating a birthday party in the presence of a corpse.”

  COMEDIAN CHOKES TO DEATH ON CUSTARD PIE

  French comedian Yves Aboucher, 45, choked to death on a custard pie that was thrown in his face. He breathed in just as the pie landed and was suffocated by the foam.

  NEW ZEALANDER DROWNS IN CAT BOWL

  A New Zealand man died in 2001 after slipping on ice and drowning in his cat’s water bowl. Peter Robinson, 28, hit his head in the fall at his home in Reefton and landed face down in the dish, where the one and a half inches of water was enough to cover his mouth.

  HUSBAND SHOOTS WIFE WHILE INSTALLING SATELLITE TV

  A man accidentally killed his wife in 2008 while trying to install satellite television in the bedroom of their Deepwater, Missouri, home. Unable to punch a cable through an exterior wall, Ronald Long decided to use his .22 calibre handgun to blast a hole. He fired two shots, the second of which hit his wife Patsy who was standing outside, wounding her fatally. Long told police he thought his wife and their two children were all inside the house when he opened fire. He added that he didn’t own an electric drill and hadn’t wanted to hire or buy one for such a small job.

  MAN DIES AFTER RETIREMENT PARTY FUN

  A 60-year-old transport company worker who was thrown into the air in celebration at his retirement party in Ritto, Japan, in 2007, died after his colleagues failed to catch him and he crashed to the floor.

  SUICIDE JUMPER REFUSES TO PAY FOR DAMAGED CAR

  A suicidal jumper who landed on top of a car in a Hong Kong street refused to pay for the damage she caused because she claimed the vehicle was illegally parked. Chung Kai-chiu’s car was totally destroyed in the death bid but Lee Chen-fan protested that it should not have been there to break her fall. Refusing to pay the $3,000, Lee said: “I have lived in that building for over ten years, and I know very well there was no parking space on that street.”

  MAN MISTOOK WIFE FOR MONKEY

  A Malaysian man shot his wife dead in 2004 after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit behind their house.

  UNDERTAKERS STRANDED AFTER POLICE TOW AWAY HEARSE

  Two German undertakers were left stranded on the street with a coffin for two hours after over-zealous traffic police towed away their illegally parked hearse. The vehicle was parked in the city of Wiesbaden while the undertakers were collecting a corpse. Police said they did not realize it was a hearse.

  PREACHER DROWNS TRYING TO WALK ON WATER

  Franck Kabele, an evangelist preacher in Libreville, Gabon, told his congregation in 2006 that if he had enough faith, he could walk on water just like Jesus. One eyewitness said: “He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across the Komo estuary, which takes 20 minutes by boat. He walked into the water, which soon passed over his head, and he never came back.”

  CLUB MANAGER DIED HAVING SEX ON PIANO

  Jimmy “the Beard” Ferrozzo, the 40-year-old assistant manager of the Condor Club, a topless bar in San Francisco, was crushed to death in 1983 while having sex with an exotic dancer on a piano. Ferrozzo and 23-year-old Teresa Hill were enjoying an after-hours romp on the Steinway baby grand when one of the pair inadvertently flipped the switch to the motorized winch that raised the instrument back up to the ceiling. Firefighters arrived several hours later to find Ferrozzo fatally sandwiched between the piano and the ceiling with Miss Hill still trapped beneath him, naked and hysterical. Only the cushioning effect of her erstwhile lover’s body had saved her life.

  BACK FROM DEAD BUT SHUNNED BY FIANCÉE

  In 1993, Sipho Mdletshe was formally declared dead following a traffic accident in Johannesburg, South Africa. But after spending two days in a metal box in a mortuary, his cries alerted staff who rescued him. However his fiancée, who was also involved in the crash, didn’t believe his story and flatly refused to see him because she believed he was a zombie who had come back from the dead to haunt her.

  ROID-RAGE WIFE SHOOTS ABSENT HUSBAND

  Bedridden on her stomach while recovering from haemorrhoid surgery, a Brooklyn woman took exception to her husband packing cans of beer and going off with his buddies on a six-hour fishing expedition. So when he finally arri
ved back home, she shot him dead. A police investigator said: “She felt that her husband didn’t demonstrate that he cared for her on that particular day.”

  PSYCHIC FAILS TO SEE LAMPPOST

  A psychic who attempted to demonstrate her gift by driving a car blindfold in Perth, Australia, was killed when she crashed into a lamppost.

  REVENGE OF THE BEES

  Irritated by a bees’ nest in their Los Angeles shed, Ani Saduki and his brother decided to remove it with explosives – the equivalent of a half-stick of dynamite. The resulting blast blew out surrounding windows and badly cut Ani. Deciding that he needed stitches in his wounds, the brothers headed for hospital but while walking towards their car, Ani was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknown to either brother, Ani was allergic to bee venom and died on the way to hospital.

  DIVORCEE ADVERTISES FOR SOMEONE TO SHARE A GRAVE

  In 1994, Donal Bredin-Smith, a chiropodist from County Clare, Ireland, bought a double burial plot for himself and his wife, but they subsequently divorced. So four years later the 65-year-old took out an advertisement in the local paper looking for someone to share the grave. It read: “Spacious room for two occupants. Present owner seeks one female gravemate. First one in takes bottom berth. Garlic eaters and smokers need not apply.” However he was inundated with applicants wanting to share his bed instead. He lamented: “They wanted to have a pre-grave relationship.”