body

KN, p. 170 “Death at the Antique Fair”

 

Ferguson House, Cameron, NC
 

 

The cousins love antiques. Sheila’s Mom loved antiques and sold them after she retired from her teaching career. Sheila’s aunt loved antiques and had a thriving business that also included creating beautifully painted accessories for the antique furniture. Get the picture? It’s the unofficial family biz, although not under one umbrella.

 

We’ve acquired a few older pieces over the years as well; some were gifts, some were inherited, and some were garage sale/antique show finds. This past weekend, the yearly Antique Fair was held in a local community, the weather was gorgeous, and it was a great day to search through the vendor piles and stalls for the perfect bookcase. We have a LOT of books that need shelving and needed a unit that had a solid wooden back to it.

 

The Fair had everything from old furniture and glassware to handcrafted birdhouses and quilts for sale.

AntiqueFurnitureIMG_5274AntiqueBirdhousesIMG_5272

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little did I know that we would also find lots of places in which to hide/find bodies and/or methods with which to dispatch them. Lol

 

Ever watch a TV show or movie where poison or drugs were added to a drink? We found this ‘poison’ ring for $5. Soooo easy to open and dispense the deadly dose. 😉

 

AntiquePoisonRingDSC_1166

 

Need a quilt to wrap the body in?

AntiqueQuiltIMG_5287

 

Need a place to put the body while waiting for the ‘package pickup’ company to arrive?

AntiqueHopeChestIMG_5289

 

As far as we know, there were no murders committed while we were there, but there were quite a few large barrels and chests already packed by late afternoon.

Shovels anyone? 😉

 

 

*Photos: taken by Patti Phillips

 

 

 

KN, p. 170 “Death at the Antique Fair” Read More »

KN, p. 124 “Is there more crime on Halloween?”

 

Halloween Pumpkin

 

Worried about your personal safety on Halloween? Afraid to leave your house unguarded, because of potential break-ins while you’re at the party across town? Think crime spikes on Halloween?

 

Seriously? That may depend on where you live, what day of the week Halloween occurs and whether or not it’s cold that night. Apparently, criminals don’t like to go out on cold and rainy nights any more than we do.

 

A Columbus, Ohio, TV program – Crime Tracker10 – looked into safety on Halloween in 2013, wondering if there were more break-ins while people were out trick-or-treating. And they found nothing remarkable at all, just some underage drinking, and occasional theft. They had to look back at statistics from several years ago to find anything as serious as disorderly conduct on the books. They did find that the area police departments traditionally put on extra patrol officers that night. A visible cop presence may be enough to keep the unfriendlies at home for the night.

 

Boston area residents don’t seem to have the same experience. The numbers published by the Boston Globe in 2014 showed violent crime rates in the city during a four-year period. “The evening violent crime count on October 31 is about 50 percent higher than on any other date during the year, and twice the daily average.” Pretty grim. I would stay home or drive my kids to a party, walk them to the door, and not do any neighborhood trick-or-treating.

A website devoted to information about forensics colleges found that certain areas of the country focus on prevention of specific Halloween crimes:

  • Orlando, Florida – on the alert for adults wearing masks
  • Georgetown, Washington, DC – watching for burglars
  • South L.A. – watching out for children running from between parked cars
  • Lompoc Valley, CA – flamingo flocking (those plastic lawn flamingoes are used as a way to refocus Halloween energy. You can pay to have a bunch of flamingos put on lawns or pay ‘insurance’ to keep from getting ‘flocked.’ (It’s a fundraiser for the PAL)
  • San Luis Obispo – increases the staff for the night and doubles the fine for certain offenses

http://www.forensicscolleges.com/blog/resources/halloween-crime-in-10-cities

 

 

 

 

Halloween is celebrated all over the world, and in 2013, a reporter in the UK looked into Halloween crime in the USA. He found some pretty nasty cases, but I’ll only chat about two. You can read about the rest by clicking on the link.

 

1) A nine-year-old girl dressed in a black costume, complete with black hat and white tassel, was accidentally shot by a relative who thought she was a skunk. She was outside her house in Pennsylvania when he fired a shotgun, hitting her in the shoulder, arm, back and neck.

I don’t know about you, but all the nine-year-olds I ever met were at least four times the size of the biggest skunk I’ve ever seen. The report did not mention whether alcohol was involved.

 

2) When people in Delaware saw a body hanging from a tree in 2005, they assumed it was a Halloween decoration. Nope. By the time anyone realized that it was actually a dead woman, she had been there for three hours.

By Anthony Bond: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/halloween-2013-eight-real-life-2657825

 

I doubt that I will be able to pass an outdoor Halloween display again, without checking to see that the scarecrows really are made of straw.

 

Stay safe everyone and have a Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

Save

KN, p. 124 “Is there more crime on Halloween?” Read More »

KN, p. 148 “Is that a body under the deck?”

 

DeckIMG_1452_3

I was taking the recycles out to the bin and my leg went through one of the planks in the deck. Nothing was damaged except the plank. Well, maybe a scrape on my shin, but not much else. This was the second plank I had gone through – and replaced – in a week, so it was time to get the whole deck redone.

 

Normally I would replace the thing myself, but my doc said no heavy lifting while I was finishing up the rehab. So I got my former construction partner on the line and gave him the job. He owed me a favor so we agreed on parts + a percentage for labor. Basically I paid for the lumber and the salary for his helper for the day. He would not agree to my paying him for his own labor, but I twisted his arm with the promise of having his family over for a couple of barbecues once the deck was finished.

 

Sheila and I have had a snake problem under the deck ever since we built the raised garden beds surrounding it. We inadvertently blocked off any runoff and the critters soon had their own swampy little place to live, full of food, shelter and water. They’ve been happy, but us? Not so much.

 

Since Todd was pulling out all the boards, it was the perfect time to level the ground below, then dig a small drainage trench about three inches wide at the edge so that the accidental pond could empty. After the water ran off, the sun dried out the exposed dirt and for the first time in a couple of years, the frogs/toads were off to greener, damper grassland.

 

The next step was to put a layer of small stones on top of the leveled dirt. That definitely changed the animal habitat. Without the artificial pond, and no food source that we could see, we hoped that the snakes would be gone as well. Foolishly, we didn’t have all the facts, but that’s for another story.

DeckIMG_1453

As I watched Todd and his helper work, I got to thinking that the mini pond wasn’t deep enough to hide a body. The unbelievably rank smell of a corpse rotting in the summer would have been a dead giveaway if I had one lying around, but now there was gravel… and digging….

 

If I was inclined to do this deck myself, nobody could see me in back of the house and passersby would think nothing of shovels and lumber and gravel and even cement coming in and out of the yard. And Bingo! Hiding place for the body. Who would notice a bag or two of quicklime? The neighbors would be none the wiser.

 

Hmmm…come to think of it….Milly’s husband has been away on a business trip for a really long time and they have a new patio and a new deck and new, high, lush landscaping around it all. Just kidding. Maybe.

 

If you think nobody would really do that, take a look at these recent stories in the news.

 

In April, 2014:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dead-body-found-easter-egg-hunt-knoxville-backyard-article-1.1760574

 

and, in May, 2015:

www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/30/body-missing-worcester-man-discovered-buried-under-deck-rhode-island-home/o9w4eeRjlaV1y5JgybmzpM/story.html

 

As for us? We’re both healthy and enjoying the new deck.  🙂

DeckMorningCoffeeViewIMG_1447 copy

 

*Photos by Patti Phillips

 

 

KN, p. 148 “Is that a body under the deck?” Read More »

Scroll to Top