The Pocket Book of Death Page 5
‘Taps’ is the melody played at the funerals of servicemen in the US. It was adapted from the tune that was played an hour before ‘lights out’ at the end of the military day.
Death Valley, on the border of California and Nevada, is the lowest point in America and one of the world’s hottest and driest places. Temperatures can fluctuate from 130° F (54° C) in the summer to below freezing in the winter. The hottest temperature ever recorded here was 134° F (57° C) in July 1913.
Bermuda Triangle Curiousities
The US Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an official name.
Lloyds of London, one of the top marine insurers in the world, does not charge unusual rates for passage through the area known as the Bermuda Triangle.
Check, Please! The Last Meals of Death Row Inmates
What would you have if you only had one meal left? Would it be a filet mignon, slightly pink, with a side of twice-baked potatoes? Maybe an assortment of soft cheeses and a fresh fruit platter for the veggie clientele? Or would it be a Big Mac® from McDonald’s®? Death row inmates have made some interesting requests for their last suppers …
‘LET’S ALL GO TO DEATH ROW!
LET’S ALL GO TO DEATH ROW!’
Timothy McVeigh
The Food:
Two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
The Crime:
The ‘Oklahoma City Bomber’ who drove his explosive-laden truck into the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more.
The Execution Method:
Lethal injection on 11 June 2001.
Gerald Mitchell
The Food:
One bag of Jolly Ranchers (assorted flavour).
The Crime:
Mitchell was 17 when he robbed and killed a man who was trying to buy marijuana from him.
The Execution Method:
Lethal injection on 22 October 2001.
Thomas Grasso
The Food:
A dozen steamed mussels with lemon wedges, a Burger King double cheeseburger (lettuce, tomato, pickle and onions), a mango, half a pumpkin pie with whipped cream, a strawberry milkshake and a can of Franco-American spaghetti with meatballs.
The Controversy:
Grasso had actually requested Spaghetti-Os served at room temperature, not Franco-American spaghetti. Some of his last words were – ‘I did not get my Spaghetti-Os. I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this!’
The Crime:
Grasso killed an 81-year-old Staten Islander during a robbery and also admitted to robbing and killing an 87-year-old woman in Tulsa in a separate incident.
The Execution Method:
Lethal injection on 20 March 1995.
Walter LaGrand
The Food:
Six fried eggs (runny), 16 strips of bacon, one large portion of hash browns, one pint of pineapple sherbet ice cream, one ‘breakfast steak’ (well done), a 16-oz cup of ice, one 7UP, one Dr Pepper, one Coke™, one portion of hot sauce, one cup of coffee two packs of sugar and … four Rolaids.
The Crime:
While unsuccessfully attempting to rob a bank, Walter and his accomplice stabbed the bank manager 24 times with a letter opener. They also attempted to murder another employee of the bank who survived.
The Execution Method:
Gas chamber on 3 March 1999.
‘I DON’T KNOW ABOUT MY LAST MEAL, BUT I KNOW WHAT MY NEXT MEAL IS GONNA BE.’
Farley Charles Matchett
The Food:
Four olives and a bottle of wild-berry flavoured water.
The Crime:
Desperate for drug money, Matchett went on a three-day crime binge. He was convicted for stabbing a 52-year-old man and beating him to death. He also admitted to severely beating an elderly woman, leaving her with brain damage, and beating another elderly woman to death.
The Execution Method:
Lethal injection on 12 September 2006.
Miguel ‘Silky’ Richardson
The Food:
Chocolate birthday cake with ‘2/23/90’ written on it, seven pink candles, one coconut, kiwi fruit juice, pineapple juice, one mango, grapes, lettuce, cottage cheese, peaches, one banana, one delicious apple, chef salad (sans meat) with Thousand Island dressing, fruit salad, cheese, and tomato slices. The date on the cake is believed to be his wedding anniversary.
The Crime:
Richardson killed two security guards who interrupted his attempted burglary of a Holiday Inn.
The Execution Method:
Lethal injection on 26 June 2001.
A few of the more infamous death row victims actually declined the last meal:
Ted Bundy
Executed via the electric chair on 24 January 1989. Bundy did not make any special requests for a last meal, so he was offered steak and eggs (the standard meal) which he did not eat.
Aileen Wuornos
Executed via lethal injection on 9 October 2002. Wuornos stuck with the prison canteen that night and did not make any special requests.
Saddam Hussein
Executed via hanging on 30 December 2006. Hussein refused both cigarettes and a last meal of chicken.
At the Florida Department of Corrections, inmates are allowed to request a last meal, but the food bill can’t exceed $40, and they must be able to buy the food locally.
Federal prisoners have a $20 limit on their last meal.
Maryland does not give death row inmates a last meal option.
Incarcerating a death row inmate in Delaware costs around $66 per day.
Um, Oops … Execution Snafus
Much as everyone involved would probably hope for a quick and error-free execution, sometimes mistakes happen. No method of killing has been found without fault – the chair, the chamber, the needle. They’ve all experienced the occasional snag …
In 1983, Jimmy Lee Gray was executed with lethal gas in Mississippi. After eight minutes of listening to his moans, the witnesses cleared out. He died banging his head against a steel pole in the chamber. It was rumoured that the executioner responsible for Gray was intoxicated. In 1984, Mississippi switched to lethal injection.
In 1985, William Vandiver was executed by the electric chair in Indiana. The first charge of electricity – 2,300 volts to be precise – did not kill him. After an astonishing three more jolts, Vandiver’s heart finally failed. The Department of Corrections eventually revealed that the execution ‘did not go according to plan.’
Emmit Foster was executed by lethal injection in Missouri in 1995. Seven minutes after the injection, the deadly chemicals suddenly stopped circulating properly. Apparently the technicians had tied the straps too tightly around Foster which restricted proper flow in the veins. They loosened the straps, and Foster was declared dead ten minutes later. In total, it was 30 minutes after the injection that he finally died.
Pedro Medina was electrocuted in Florida in 1997. After the first charge of 2,000 volts, huge flames began shooting from the headpiece. Medina finally died after the fire stopped. Apparently the sponge used to conduct electricity was not affixed correctly to Medina’s head.
‘OH, THANK GOD. I THOUGHT YOU SAID URETHRAL INJECTION!’
Making Dough off the Dead
‘I think the easiest job in the world has to be a coroner. Surgery on dead people. What’s the worst thing that could happen? If everything went wrong, you might get a pulse.’
Dennis Miller
Jobs in the Death Biz
If you have a passion for the pale, you might want to consider pursuing a career in the death industry. But not all jobs are created equal. Use the handy icons below when determining what bloody business is right for you. The jobs listed on the next few pages will each feature one or a combination of the icons below. Please note that the salaries listed reflect an average and will vary depending on where you live (and the number of corpses that pop up in your town, of course).
Death Job Icons – Use
at Your Own Risk
The Schmooze Factor
Why would you possibly need a personality when your clients are all … well, dead? A surprising number of jobs require smooth talkers, so if you’re the kind of person who laughs at a funeral procession or instinctively giggles at a 12-car pile-up, then you should avoid jobs with this icon at all costs.
The Ick Factor
Not for the faint of heart. You will most certainly need to get your hands dirty when doing these jobs. Corpses, entrails, a variety of unsettling fluids … you get the picture.
The Greed Factor
Since most people would rather die than work with the dead, some careers have tremendous earning potential. Look for this icon if you’re prepared for a lifetime of morbidity … at the right price.
The Harvard Factor
Let’s face it, you won’t be able to get every job in the death business if the most college you’ve scraped together is a few uneventful liberal arts classes and an ‘A’ in The Origin of the Cool Ranch Dorito. Jobs with this icon will require a substantial degree or some kind of advanced training.
Funeral Director
WHAT YOU DO: organize all aspects of a funeral service including meeting with families, filing for death certificates, offering bereavement services, coordinating with clergymen, preparing the body for the funeral, and yep, most of them can embalm bodies. Most funeral directors are available 24/7, so don’t count on getting a full night’s sleep for a while … or ever.
FUN FACT: This was traditionally a male-dominated field, but in recent years more women have been donning black and perfecting the art of concern. In 2003, 51% of mortuary science graduates were female.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: the average salary is around $49,620.
Embalmer
WHAT YOU DO: well, there’s no point in trying to make this pretty. Embalmers remove the blood from corpses and replace it with embalming fluid. They also restore disfigured or damaged corpses so the body can be viewed by the family during the funeral services. It really gives cut and paste a new meaning, no?
FUN FACT: Bending and lifting is one of the unusual job requirements for embalmers since they’re the ones who often get stuck transporting the bodies between locations.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: the average salary is around $37,840.
Crime Scene Clean-up
WHAT YOU DO: ever wondered who gets to clean up all the skull fragments and gallons of blood after a brutal murder? Welcome to the world of crime scene clean-up. If you’re not quite sold on it yet, you should be aware that you get to wear a really attractive biohazard suit and transport the toxic chemicals yourself.
FUN FACT: grieving family members of the deceased will often stick around while clean-up does their thing, so it’s surprisingly not the kind of job for people who relish alone time.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: you start off in the $35,000 range, but if you’re lucky enough to land in a city with extremely high violent death rates, you could earn upwards of $80,000.
Forensic Pathologist
WHAT YOU DO: If you’re an avid fan of shows like CSI, you probably already know what this job entails. You’re the one who gets to examine the body, perform autopsies and determine the cause of death. You also provide expert testimony during case trials. Oh, and in case you didn’t figure this out already, you need to be a doctor.
FUN FACT: Since forensic pathologists are asked to testify in high-profile murder cases, they often have the media scrutinizing their every word. We’ll put it this way … if you get a bit weepy watching Hallmark commercials, you won’t last a day.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: Well, if fifteen years of school and regular media spotlight doesn’t sound particularly appealing, maybe this will. The average salary is around $150,000.
After glimpsing the vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck several years ago, we weren’t terribly surprised to discover that Angelina Jolie grew up wanting to be a mortician.
Crematorium Technician
WHAT YOU DO: you meet with the families of the deceased, maintain and operate the cremators, dispose of the remains and shuffle a lot of paperwork around.
FUN FACT: the number of people choosing cremation is rising rapidly all over the world. Get in while the fire’s hot!
SHOW ME THE MONEY: average salary is around $35,000.
Obituary Writer
WHAT YOU DO: if you have a flair for the written word and a penchant for cutting to the chase, then you might want to consider becoming an obit writer. Your job is basically to write a nugget-sized article encapsulating the lives of the deceased. For the average Joe, obits are around 200 words long.
FUN FACT: there are large groups of people obsessed with obituaries. And not just the casual reader who browses them over a morning coffee. We’re talking clippings, albums, discussion groups. You never know … if you’re a good enough obit writer, you might get fans.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: average salary is around $42,500.
Those are just a few of the many jobs in the death business. You could become a suicidologist, a death midwife, an urn manufacturer, a coffin designer, a coroner. There are even music thanatologists who provide music to people on their deathbeds, a practice which has been shown to ease and comfort the dying. The possibilities are, well, endless.
Need more proof that death pays? The average cost of a funeral in the US in 2004 was $6,500. And guess what? This doesn’t even include the cemetery costs.
Funeral homes across the US have a combined revenue of 11 billion dollars.
This was an actual classified ad for Funeral Services/Supplies that we saw on a website for professionals in the funeral industry in September 2007:
Out Sourcing Your Embalming
The way thing are going today, why not outsource your embalming? Think about the savings on salarys, BENFITS, vacations. Just one call and watch your savings add up.*
*the spelling errors were in the actual ad too.
This Job Is Killing Me!
Ever think your job will be the death of you? Well, with an estimated two million people dying worldwide every year from fatal accidents at work or from illnesses brought on by hazardous working conditions, you might be right. The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles annual results of the work fatalities for the US, and you might be surprised by some of the careers that consistently set the Reaper knocking a little earlier than expected …
Construction
Construction has an extraordinarily high number of work-related deaths, especially among speciality trade contractors such as roofing contractors and building finishing contractors. Electricians, roofers, painters, and drywall and ceiling tile installers particularly showed increases in fatalities in 2006. Falls to a lower level in a building, falls from ladders and scaffoldings, accidental contact with power lines or other electric currents … these are the occupational hazards that construction workers face every day.
‘DIED AT HIS COMPUTER, EH? WHAT MAKES YOU SO SURE?’
Truck Drivers
Combined with construction workers, jobs involving transportation and material moving make up almost 50% of all the work-related deaths. Highway collisions, overturned vehicles, jack-knifed tractor trailers … we hear about them on the news every single morning. Anyone operating a motor vehicle on a daily basis could probably share some of their near misses on the open road.
Salesmen
Just like truck drivers, travelling salesmen know that the road is a dangerous place to be. Accidents or incidents on the road were the number one killer of America’s workers in 2006 (just over 1,300 deaths), and the bulk of these deaths came from truck drivers and salesmen. And we’re not always talking about a head-on collision. Late-night exhaustion causes many drivers to swerve out of control and off the road.
Coal Mining
The Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia in 2006 illustrates just how deadly coal mining can be. Fires, explosions and incredibly poor air quality make coal mining a highly hazardous occupation. In 2006, fo
r every 100,000 workers, 49.5 suffered fatalities in coal mining. Improved safety conditions for miners including wireless communication and over two days’ supply of oxygen have helped to make mining less dangerous.
Fishing
It’s not just relaxing with a beer and calmly waiting for your bait to work its magic. Commercial fishing is an incredibly volatile occupation – violent storms, sinking boats, falling overboard and accidents on deck all contribute. The scary number isn’t the actual death toll though … it’s the percentage of fatalities. The fatality rate was 118.4 per 100,000 workers in 2005 which made fishing the most dangerous job that year.
‘YOU’RE A FISHERMAN? WOW, THAT SOUNDS DANGEROUS.’
Refuse and Recyclable Collectors
It might sound surprising at first, but you’ve probably seen that impatient morning driver who gets stuck behind the refuse lorry and angrily tries to pass them. With the collectors going from house to house and crossing the road, it’s easy to get hit. And let’s not forget all the refuse that passes through their hands every day. Not everyone knows how to properly dispose of toxic substances, chemicals, sharp objects … you get the picture.