Morbid Mortality Monthly - April

Method acting without limits can have deadly consequences, as 22 year old Italian Renato di Paulo discovered on Good Friday 2000. Di Paulo was playing the part of Judas Iscariot in a traditional Easter play undertaken by the villagers from Camerata Nuova, 50km east of Rome. When re-enacting the part in the story where Judas hangs himself from a tree, the young actor leapt from a rock with a rope around his neck, the other end of which was attached to the branch of an olive tree.

However, Realo's safety harness failed and the noose tightened around his neck. His fellow actors and audience thought his desperate choking was just part of his performance. By the time it occurred to anyone that something might be wrong, it was sadly to late...

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - March

No-one is sure how former Nazi soldier Andre Richter mistook weed killer for vodka when he filled his old hip flask engaged with the SS death's head. Yet it proved a fatal mistake when he took a swig from it and the passed it around at a military reunion in 1981, killing himself and three former comrades.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - February

Frank Hayes was a professional jockey who had never won a race. In 1923, Frank entered a steeplechase riding a 20-1 outsider called "Sweet Kiss" at Belmont Park in New York. During the race, he sadly suffered a fatal heart attack. Despite his death, he stayed on the horse which went on to finish first, making him the first (and so far only) dead jockey to win a race. He was allowed to skip the formality of weighing in after the race and the horse was nicknamed "Sweet Kiss of Death" for the rest of her life...

Morbid Mortality Monthly - January

Andreas Plack, a 23 year old Italian from Merano, bled to death after persuading his cousin to cut open his leg with a chainsaw in an attempt to cash in on a $600,000 insurance policy...

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - December

Pope Adrian IV (born Nicholas Breakspeare) is the only Englishman to have ever become Pope. In 1159, Breakspeare delivered a violent speech in Rome, excommunicating reigning Emperor Frederick I. While in full thundering force, a fly flew into his open mouth, causing the Pope to choke to death.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - November

Attack of the killer squirrel!

A building worker at the top of a ladder in Quinton, Birmingham, fell to his death after being savaged by a squirrel. The pesky vermin had jumped out of the guttering and bitten the 61 year old workman in the face, causing him to lose his footing and fall. According to a colleague, his last words were "Get it off! Get it off"

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - October

Jackie Johnson from Kentucky argued with his wife about who should walk their dog. She lost the argument, but he was the bigger loser when he settled down on his sea at the exact moment a boulder fell 300 ,metres down a cliff and crushed him in his mobile home. Cosmic karma perhaps?

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - September

Award Winning American playwright Tennessee Williams died in 1983 at the age of 71 when he swallowed an eye drop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee, New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eye drops in each eye, but it is believed that alcohol and narcotics may have contributed to the choking...



Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - August

A 25 year old woman drowned while performing fellatio on 34 year old Christopher Sean Payne off Pee Wee Camp beach in Darwin. The couple had consumed 11 bottles of beer before getting kinky in the surf. Payne was charged with manslaughter when he admitted putting his hands on the woman's head during the act.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - July

Herbeert Pickey was a prisoner at a jail in South Carolina in 1992 when he decided to take the ultimate way out and commit suicide. He died after eating eight bars of soap and five cans of shaving foam...

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - June

Anyone who has been exposed to the horrors of a karaoke night will have probably felt the urge to grab a gun and relieve the pain between their ears by either shooting themselves or the so-called performer in front of them. However it was not the singer that ended up getting shot when policeman Lieutenant Corporal Jirawat Sangworn go up to perform at a downtown Bangkok karaoke bar one night in June 2000.

The policeman was enraged when his attempt to the sing the same sentimental Thai ballad for a forth time that evening was meet with jeers. When one karaoke bar patron called out "Get this limp prick off, we are sick of his shit," Corporal Jirawat pulled out his service revolver and fired six shots into the crowd, instantly providing the ultimate heckler putdown.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - May

Kenneth Matthews, a 58 year old man from Moss Bluff, Florida, was beaten to death by housemate Franklin Crow in February 2006. The reason for the violent attack, according to Crow, was that there was "a lack of toilet paper" in the bathroom they shared.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - April

In 1994, Sydney resident Cory Quinn took an overdose of sleeping tablets and climbed into his estranged wife's freezer while she was on holiday. He attached a note to himself for his 120kg ex-partner to read when she eventually found his body that read: "Gorge on this, you fat pig"

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - March

Over the years, there have been fair few newspaper headlines that have stopped us in our tracks or made us splutter over tea, but none more so than "Giant Bavarian Beer Garden Sled Kills One, Injures 14"

The story behind this classic of journalism is just as ridiculous as the headline would suggest. In March 2000, more than 5,000 people gathered in the Spitzingsee region south of Munich to watch the annual sleigh race. While some compete on speed, other contestants aim to win the prize for having the most elaborately decorated sled that manages to get safely to the bottom of the ski run.

One entrant in the 2000 race was a giant sled built in the shape of a Bavarian beer garden. Attention to detail on the sophisticated vehicle saw it fitted with benches and beer barrels full of lager. The alcohol onboard may have played a part in the tragedy that unfurled as the sled left the top of the ski run. Its driver lost control of the Bavarian behemoth and it left the designated course, hurtling down at an accelerating speed until it crashed into a hut used by race officials.

According to Horst Hornfeck, head of the local mountain police patrol: "There were 14 people on the sleigh, but 17 were injured in total when it demolished the hut. The one man killed on the spot was a sleigh rider." As a mark of respect, the event organisers stopped any other giant beer gardens coming down the mountain for the rest of the day.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - February

Former US basketball star Roderick W. Floyd was randomly murdered in 1998 by Chicago truck driver David Teran. Teran thought the slaying would release an alien enzyme in his body, allowing him to board a spaceship coming to pluck him off the Earth. Teran told ex-wife Tess Burke she couldn't come with him because she was a lower life form...

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - January

Happy 2013! Everyone at And Several Butchers' Aprons hopes you had a safe New Years - one safer than that of a particular Romanian farmer. His body, naked apart from a condom, was found in his pig sty. A doctor pronounced the farmer had died from heart failure, while his family tried to explain his unusual appearance at death was down to his fondness for "pig wrestling". Well, that sounds like one euphemism for it.

Morbid Mortality Monthly - December

2006 will not be remembered as one of the best Christmases for the Hughes family. 29-year-old Londoner James Hughes was visiting his brother's flat in Bristol, for the holidays. James had been out drinking with his brother Andy earlier in the evening, but minutes after returning to the flat he ran to an open window and dived head first out of a first-floor window, falling about 20 feet to the ground. James died from severe head and chest injuries, taking the reason for his deadly leap with him to the grave.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - November

Wayne Condo, a 45-year-old mime artist from Melbourne, died of a heart attack midway through a performance on July 13th, 1998. The 300 members of the audience initially thought that his collapsing to the floor and remaining motionless were part of the act.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - October

Hungarian painter, poet and sculptor Mihaly Gubis was killed when his one and a half ton sculpture fell on him. Gubis had been loading the 24ft high "Woman With Four Breasts" sculpture onto the back of a lorry in Mundelsheim, Germany, on 17 May 2006. At one point during the attempt to transport the sculpture to an exhibition, the huge piece of art lurched violently to one side, leading Mihaly to try and push it back with his body. However the 58-year-old artist only succeeded in throwing it further off balance, causing it to fall onto him. He was crushed and died instantly.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams

Morbid Mortality Monthly - September

Police in Yekaterinburg in central Russia were called out late one night in 1998 to deal with the problem of a persistently barking dog. Deciding the best way to solve the problem was with guns, officers at the scene let loose nearly a dozen shots in the dark. However, they only managed to shoot the rope keeping the canine in his yard. With the dog free, the police gave chase, firing off more shots - one of which hit the dog's elderly female owner in the heart.

Taken from "1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die" (2008) by David Southwell & Matt Adams