The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  ONE-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN DIES SECONDS AFTER READING QUEEN’S TELEGRAM

  At his retirement home in Dulwich, London, in 2000, Bob Talley read his 100th birthday telegram from the Queen, proudly announced, “Yes, I made it,” then promptly died. His niece said: “He knew he had reached 100 and I think he relaxed and just let go.” Buckingham Palace said it was happy that Mr Talley had received and read the congratulatory telegram but was sorry to hear that he had died so shortly afterwards.

  FICKLE FINGER OF FATE FOR TEENAGE BIKER

  In Kameoka, Japan, in 2002, police in cars were pursuing a teenage motorcyclist who kept riding through red lights. Unable to keep up with him through the narrow streets, they were eventually forced to abandon the chase, whereupon, sensing victory, he turned around to give them the finger. In doing so, he took his eyes off the road just long enough to avoid seeing a taxi ahead. The bike ploughed into the cab, killing the teenage rider instantly.

  SURPRISE PARCEL WAS DAD’S BODY

  When a large parcel was delivered to the Severin, Romania, home of Aurelia Cenusa in 2006, she thought it might be a prize from the lottery competition she had entered a few weeks earlier. Instead she opened it to find a banana crate containing the bones of her dead father. The body was sent to her in the post because the cemetery in which he had been buried for 16 years had been sold to developers.

  WORKER BURIED UNDER AN AVALANCHE OF NUTS

  Willie Murphy was buried alive under an avalanche of peanuts while working at a Georgia, US, processing plant in 1993.

  MOURNERS SHOCKED BY PHONE RINGING IN COFFIN

  Mourners at a chapel of rest in Belgium were horrified when a cell phone started ringing inside the coffin. Since the deceased had been badly mutilated in a road accident, the undertaker suggested that relatives say their farewells with the body already in the coffin. But as they tearfully gathered around the coffin to pay their last respects, a phone was heard ringing inside. Some family members were so startled that they ran out, while the embarrassed undertaker had to reopen the coffin to empty the dead man’s pockets.

  A BRIDGE TOO FAR FOR AUTO PRESIDENT

  Mike Stewart, President of the Auto Convoy Company, Dallas, Texas, was killed instantly in 1983 when a flatbed truck unsuccessfully attempted to pass under a low-level bridge. At the time Mr Stewart had been standing on the back of the truck presenting a piece to camera for a TV item about the dangers of low-level bridges.

  SISTERS KEEP DEAD MOTHER IN FRIDGE FOR TEN YEARS

  In 2007 it was revealed that two sisters had been keeping their dead mother in an undertaker’s fridge for ten years so that they could visit her at weekends. Unable to bear burying mum Annie after she died in 1997, Josephine and Valmai Lamas spent more than $25,000 to keep her in cold storage at a London funeral parlour and made weekly visits to sit with her in the parlour’s chapel.

  WORKER DIES IN VAT OF HOT CHOCOLATE

  A temporary worker at a Camden, New Jersey, cocoa company died in 2009 after falling into an eight-foot-deep vat of hot chocolate. Vincent Smith II was pouring solid chocolate pieces into the vat for melting when he slipped and fell into the boiling chocolate. He was killed not by drowning but by being hit on the head by the paddle-like mechanism used to stir the chocolate.

  FARMER KILLED BY SHEEP AND MOTORBIKE

  To feed her flock of sheep at her farm in Durham in 1999, 67-year-old Betty Stubbs loaded a bale of hay on to the back of a motorbike and rode out to the field. The sheep were clearly hungry as 40 of them immediately rushed at the hay, knocking Betty over the edge of a cliff and down a 100-foot quarry. She survived the fall, only to be killed when the motorbike, which was also sent over the cliff in the stampede, came crashing down on top of her.

  EMERGENCY TOILET BREAK PROVES FATAL

  Stuck in stationary Florida traffic after visiting a Pompano Beach bar, Shawn Motero was desperate for a toilet break. Unable to wait a moment longer, he climbed from his car, jumped over a low roadside concrete wall – and fell 65 feet to his death. Pointing out that at the time of the fatality the car had been on an overpass above railroad lines, a police spokesman said: “He probably thought there was a road, but there wasn’t.” The dead man’s mother revealed: “Shawn didn’t do a whole lot for a living. He got along on his charm.”

  FAILED SUICIDE SUES ROPE MANUFACTURER

  Victor Dodoi’s attempt to hang himself in 2003 ended in failure when the rope broke and brought part of the ceiling down on his head. The Romanian promptly announced that he was suing the rope manufacturer on the grounds that he was now even more miserable than he had been before.

  MAN IS KILLED BY LAVA LAMP

  Philip Quinn, 24, died in 2004 after heating a lava lamp on the stove at his home in Kent, Washington State. The lamp became so hot that it suddenly exploded and sprayed shards of glass, one of which fatally punctured his heart. Police found no evidence of drug or alcohol use and suggested that the deceased had simply wanted to know what a really hot lava lamp would look like. “It wasn’t bubbling fast enough for him,” said his mother. “Philip had been a kid who tinkered with things ever since he was little.”

  FUNERAL ADDICT HAS A HOBBY TO DIE FOR

  For over 25 years, Luis Squarisi has attended every single funeral in his home town of Batatais, Brazil, and even quit his job to feed his addiction. He explained: “The first thing I do every morning is to turn on the radio to find out if anyone has died. If I don’t hear anything on the radio, I call the hospitals and the local funeral home.” Whilst acknowledging that Mr Squarisi had an unusual hobby, a spokesman for the funeral home said: “We don’t want him to go to therapy. Everyone expects to see him at the funerals. If he stopped coming, a lot of people would be disappointed.”

  BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION TURNS TO TRAGEDY

  When Basilio Re turned 100 in 1996, nearly everyone in his Italian village turned out to help him celebrate. But a sudden gust of wind blew off his hat and as he chased it, he slipped, fell, hit his head and was killed.

  PHONE CALL PROVES FATAL

  Ken Barger of Newton, North Carolina, accidentally shot himself dead in 1992 while answering the phone in the middle of the night. He reached out to pick up the phone beside his bed but, half asleep, grabbed his .38 Smith and Wesson special instead. The gun went off when he pulled it to his ear.

  SPITTING CONTEST ENDS IN DEATH

  A 29-year-old Swiss man died in 2008 when he fell from a hotel balcony during a spitting match with a friend. He took a run-up from inside the room so that he could spit further, but lost his balance and fell 20 feet to the street below.

  MIDGET WRESTLERS FATALLY DRUGGED BY BOGUS WHORES

  Two professional midget wrestlers were found dead in a low-rent Mexico City hotel room in 2009 after it was claimed that they had been fatally drugged by two female robbers posing as prostitutes to attract victims. Police said 36-year-old twin brothers Alberto and Alejandro Pérez Jiménez had picked up the two women after filming a TV show but had their drinks spiked before being robbed. It is thought their 4-foot 1-inch frames made them more vulnerable to the drugs. Officers arrested a 65-year-old woman, accusing her and an accomplice known as “The Fat One” of spiking the wrestlers’ drinks with eye drops.

  FIVE SHOTS TO HEAD BUT SUICIDE BID FAILS

  Determined to commit suicide, an 84-year-old Argentine man shot himself five times in the head and once in the stomach – but still survived. Police attributed his failure to the fact that the gun and ammunition he used were extremely old.

  MAN BURNS TO DEATH AFTER FART

  A man from Kansas died in a fire that apparently started when he struck a match to burn off the smell of a fart. A heavy smoker, he was found badly charred and fully dressed, sitting in an empty bathtub. Investigators initially suspected suicide until his wife pointed out that he often struck matches after passing gas and that the fire which killed him had started around the crotch area.

  “DEAD MAN” ANGRY AT POOR FUNERAL TURNOUT

  A man who faked hi
s own death to see how many people would attend his funeral was furious when only his mother bothered to turn up. Amir Vehabovic, 45, paid for a fake death certificate and bribed undertakers to deliver an empty coffin. He then watched proceedings from behind bushes in the Bosnian town of Gradiska.

  WIFE REACTS BADLY TO BEING TICKLED

  A Vietnamese man crept up on his wife and playfully tickled her while she was chopping firewood. She responded by hurling the axe at him with such force that it nearly decapitated him. He died shortly afterwards as a result of his injuries. When police arrested the 62-year-old wife, she told them: “I hate being tickled.”

  PRISONER CHOKES TO DEATH ON BIBLE

  A Canadian prisoner choked to death after attempting to swallow a pocket-sized Gideons’ Bible. Staff at the Metro East Detention Centre in Toronto found 22-year-old Franco Brun in his cell with the New Testament wedged in his throat. The coroner said he believed the deceased was trying to purge himself of the devil by consuming religion.

  MAN DIES WHILE WAITING IN LINE TO PROVE HE IS ALIVE

  To crack down on cheats who were receiving pensions issued in the name of dead people, Colombian authorities introduced a “survival certificate” which claimants had to produce in order to continue drawing their monthly pension. When the measure was first introduced in 1999, thousands of elderly people joined long lines to obtain their certificate, but for one man the bureaucracy proved too much. Eighty-seven-year-old Arturo Suspe died of a heart attack in a local government office in Bogota as he waited patiently in line to collect the all-important certificate to prove that he was still alive.

  WOMAN DIES WHILE STUCK IN LOVER’S CHIMNEY

  A woman’s decomposing body was found wedged inside the chimney of her lover’s house in 2010 after she had tried to sneak into the property. Refused entry to the building in Bakersfield, California, 49-year-old Dr Jacquelyn Kotarac, who had what was described as an “on-off” relationship with the householder, William Moodie, scaled a ladder to the roof, removed the chimney cap and slid down the flue, planning to emerge in his living-room. But in the meantime her sometime lover had, according to police, left the house “to avoid a confrontation”. Dr Kotarac’s body was discovered three days later, about two feet above the fireplace, by a house-sitter who noticed “an odour and fluids” coming from that area. Mr Moodie said of the dead doctor: “She made an unbelievable error in judgement and nobody understands why.”

  BAD ROUND ENDS WITH GOLFER DROWNING

  After missing yet another short putt on the final hole of a disappointing round at Lyon in 1995, elderly French golfer Jean Potevan was so angry that he hurled his golf bag into a lake. Having relieved his frustration, he prepared to drive home – only to remember that his car keys were in the bag. So he dived into the lake fully clothed, but drowned after becoming entangled in weeds. According to another player, his last words were: “I’m going back for the keys, but I’m leaving the clubs down there!”

  DECEASED’S ASHES FORM TOWN’S MAIN STREET

  As town manager of Erie, Colorado, Leon Wurl had campaigned long and hard to pave the network of streets that make up the old town. So when he died in 1999, his widow commemorated his work by pouring some of his ashes into the asphalt mix that became the new Main Street. She said: “He liked the smell of asphalt, so by God, he can smell it forever.”

  VIETNAM’S ELECTRIC MAN IS ELECTROCUTED

  A Vietnamese man who had appeared on national television to demonstrate his amazing ability to resist electric shocks was electrocuted in 2006 while repairing a generator without first cutting the power supply. Paying tribute to Nguyen Van Hung, who was better known by his nickname “Hung Electric”, a local official said: “When alive, he used to demonstrate at our office how he would insert two fingers into the electric plughole without problems.”

  UNDERTAKER ATTACKED BY CORPSE

  New York undertaker Richard Blake was attacked by the corpse he was embalming. The body suddenly jerked into life, breaking Blake’s ribs before suffering a massive heart attack and dying again.

  TV VIEWER DIES LAUGHING

  Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, died of heart failure brought on by uncontrollable laughter while watching a 1975 episode of the BBC comedy series The Goodies, in which a kilt-wearing Scotsman used a set of bagpipes to defend himself against an aggressor armed with a black pudding. Mr Mitchell’s widow later wrote to The Goodies – alias Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor – and thanked them for making her husband’s final minutes so happy.

  MAN FINDS THAT LIONESS DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GOD

  Shouting “God will save me if he exists”, a man lowered himself by a rope into the big cats’ enclosure at Kiev Zoo, Ukraine, in 2006. He then took off his shoes and went over to the lions, whereupon a lioness knocked him down and severed his carotid artery, killing him instantly.

  DRIVER DIES IN BID TO RESCUE HAT

  Jason Jinks was driving near Slidell, Louisiana, one night in 1997 when a gust of wind caused his hat to fly out of the window. He immediately stopped the car, opened the driver’s side door, leaned out and reversed at 30 miles per hour in the dark. When he spotted the errant hat, he slammed on the brakes – but the jolt threw him out of the open door and he landed on his head, sustaining fatal injuries. Two passengers in the car stated that Jinks had been drinking whiskey and taking pills.

  TRAIN CRUSHES COUPLE HAVING SEX ON TRACK

  A couple who were having sex on a railway track in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, in 2008 were killed by a goods train after ignoring shouts from the driver to move. A police spokesman said: “The driver yelled at them as he pulled the train into the disused station but they continued with their business.” The man died at the scene and the woman died later in hospital.

  MAN DROPS DEAD IN OWN GRAVE

  Sixty-three-year-old Giovanni Greco was so keen to ensure that his future resting place would be a perfect fit that he paid regular visits to check that the builders were constructing the tomb to his exact specifications. One day in 2002, he was making his customary trip to the construction site at Lascari, Sicily, when he climbed a ladder to get a better view of the work in progress. Alas, he slipped, fell, hit his head on a marble step and dropped dead into his own grave.

  THIEF KILLED BY HOT DOG

  Robert Puelo entered a 7-Eleven store in St Louis, Missouri, in 1994 and started shouting and cursing. When an employee threatened to call the police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, stuffed it defiantly down his throat and walked out without paying. The police discovered him outside the store unconscious and turning purple. He choked to death before he could be saved.

  SUICIDAL WIFE LANDS ON HUSBAND

  After discovering that her husband had been unfaithful, Czech housewife Vera Czermak decided to end her life by throwing herself from her third floor balcony in Prague. By chance she landed on her husband who was walking directly below. The blow killed him while she escaped unhurt.

  ESCAPE BID FOILED BY CROCODILE

  A 28-year-old Panamanian was eaten by a crocodile as he swam across a river after escaping from prison in 2002. Oswaldo Martinez was being held in custody in Costa Rica on a murder charge but then he escaped and tried to re-enter his home country by swimming across the reptile-infested River Terraba.

  SINS PROVE DEADLY TO CLERGYMAN

  To add impact to his 1998 sermon about the seven deadly sins, Jacksonville, Florida, clergyman Melvyn Nurse used a .357 Magnum revolver loaded with just one blank, the remaining chambers being empty. He proceeded to illustrate each of the sins by playing Russian roulette, spinning the chamber and holding the gun to his head. After one spin, the gun fired and the cardboard wadding in the blank pierced his temple, causing fatal brain injuries. He had not realized that even blanks can be dangerous when fired from close range.

  DEAD MAN TESTIFIES IN COURT

  At a pre-trial hearing for a slander lawsuit in Payson, Arizona, in 1996, Judge Michael Flournoy permitted testimony
from a man who had been dead for 500 years. As the courtroom lights were dimmed, Trina Kamp, of the Church of the Immortal Consciousness, contacted its spiritual leader, Dr Pahlvon Duran, from the witness stand so that he could tell the court why a local couple’s attack on the church was wrong.

  LAWYER DIES WHILE TESTING WINDOWS

  Canadian lawyer Garry Hoy fell 24 storeys to his death in 1993 while demonstrating the safety of an office block’s windows. Showing visiting law students around Toronto’s Dominion Bank Tower, he decided to illustrate the strength of the windows by barging into a pane with his shoulder. The first time he threw himself at the window it held, but the second time it gave way and Hoy ended up in the courtyard below. He was described by the head of his legal firm as “one of the best and brightest” members.