LONDON, February 16th 1974 — A coroner's inquest here has found that the death of a 48‐year‐old health‐food enthusiast was caused by “carrot‐juice addiction.” The coroner's court heard evidence this week that Basil Brown, a scientist had taken 70 million units of Vitamin A in 10 days. In addition he was drinking about a gallon of carrot juice a day during that time. His skin was bright yellow when he died. Dr. David Haler, the pathologist who performed an autopsy, said that the effect of the enormous intake of Vitamin A from carrots and tablets was indistinguishable from alcoholic poisoning. It produces the same result, he said—cirrhosis of the liver.
Basil Brown
Kurt Friedrich Gödel (28 April 1906 – 14 Jan 1978) was a mathematician and logician who proved theorems on the predicate calculus created by Frege and on provability in formal logic systems of unprecedented scope and significance. His completeness theorem of 1929 proved that any logical truth that can be stated in the predicate calculus is provable by the axioms of deduction. His incompleteness theorem of 1931, in contrast, proved that no finitely or recursively enumerable axiom system that is consistent, and strong enough to include arithmetic, can be complete: there must exist true theorems in arithmetic that cannot be proved in it. In a second incompleteness theorem proved shortly afterwards he showed that the consistency of such a theory is also unprovable.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
Moving Object above - General Relativity - Conceptual illustration of time and space distortion Albert Einstein, General Relativity,
Gödel also found a class of solutions to Einstein’s general theory of relativity (GTR) according to which the universe as a whole rotates (the so-called Gödel universe). In such a universe there exist closed timelike curves, whereby an object evolves in time into its own past. No such universe admits a global time function, i.e. there do not exist global 3-dimensional hypersurfaces all of whose points are spacelike related to each other. Gödel argued that this showed that ‘essential’ properties of time were not built into our best fundamental laws of space and time, and that therefore time in this sense is illusory. He was a Platonist: according to Gödel, not only do abstract objects exist, but the human mind can be in contact with them.
Gödel was born in Brünn, in Austria-Hungary (now Brno, in the Czech Republic), where he attended the Evangelische Volksschule. He entered the University of Vienna in 1924, intending to study physics. There he attended meetings of the Vienna Circle. He was eventually awarded a doctorate in 1929 under the supervision of Hans Hahn; his thesis contained his completeness theorem for the predicate calculus. In 1942 Gödel attempted to prove that the axiom of choice and continuum hypothesis are independent of (not implied by) the axioms of set theory. He did not succeed, and the problem remained open until 1963. (In that year, Paul Cohen proved that the axiom of choice is independent of the axioms of set theory, and that the continuum hypothesis is independent of both.)
Gödel's work was the surprising culmination of a long search for foundations. Throughout the nineteenth century, mathematicians had tried to establish the foundations of calculus. First Cauchy gave the modern definition of limits; later Weierstrass and Dedekind gave rigorous definitions of the real numbers. By the end of the century, the foundations of calculus rested on integers and their arithmetic. This left the problem of putting the integers themselves on a sound logical basis, which Frege appeared to solve by defining the positive integers in terms of sets. But it soon became clear that naive use of sets could lead to contradictions (such as the set of all sets that aren't members of themselves). Set theory itself would have to be axiomatized. In their massive 3-volume Principia Mathematica, Russell and Whitehead built the foundations of mathematics on a set of axioms for set theory; they needed hundreds of preliminary results before proving that 1 + 1 = 2.
Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789 - 1857)
Karl Weierstrass
Richard Dedekind
Gödel struck most people as eccentric. His political views were often surprising: for instance, while he condemned Truman for fomenting war hysteria and creating the climate for McCarthyism, he was a great admirer of Eisenhower. While studying for his U. S. citizenship examination in 1948, he became convinced he had found an inconsistency in the Constitution. (Fortunately, this did not disrupt Gödel's citizenship interview, as the judge brushed aside the point when Gödel tried to bring it up.) Gödel became increasingly reclusive in his later years. He was always somewhat prone to paranoia, was distrustful of doctors, and tended to feed himself poorly. When his wife Adele was incapacitated with illness in late 1977 these factors combined to cause his death from self-starvation. “He had hallucinatory episodes and talked darkly of certain forces at work in the world ‘directly submerging the good,’ ” according to the New Yorker. “Fearing that there was a plot to poison him, he persistently refused to eat.” His death certificate read he had died due to “malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance.” He was 71 at the time of his death, and he weighed 65 pounds.
Richard Dedekind
Robert Williams was one of three operators of the parts retrieval system, a five-story robot built by the Unit Handling Systems division of Litton Industries. The robot was designed to retrieve castings from high density storage shelves at the Flat Rock plant. Part of the machine included one-ton transfer vehicles, which were carts on rubber wheels equipped with mechanical arms to move castings to and from the shelves. When the robot gave erroneous inventory readings, Williams was asked to climb into the racks to retrieve parts manually. Another news account states the robot was not retrieving parts quickly enough. He climbed into the third level of the storage rack, where he was struck from behind and crushed by one of the one-ton transfer vehicles, killing him instantly. His body remained in the shelf for 30 minutes until it was discovered by workers who were concerned about his disappearance.
His family sued the manufacturers of the robot, Litton Industries, , alleging "that Litton was negligent in designing, manufacturing and supplying the storage system and in failing to warn [system operators] of foreseeable dangers in working within the storage area."In a 1983 jury decision, the court awarded his estate $10 million and concluded that there simply were not enough safety measures in place to prevent such an accident from happening. He would go down in history as the first recorded human death by robot. The award was raised to $15 million in January 1984. Litton settled with the estate of Williams for an undisclosed amount in exchange for Litton not admitting negligence. Litton had sought indemnification and recovery of judgment costs from Ford because Ford had not sent Williams to Litton-provided training and allowed Williams to enter the rack without engaging the lockout system. Since Litton had already settled with the estate of Williams, the Michigan Court of Appeals denied the action, and that decision was later upheld by the Supreme Court of Michigan.
The Condor Club nightclub is a striptease and topless bar in the North Beacon section of San Francisco, California and was opened in 1964. The club is located at the corner of Broadway and Columbus Avenue, The large lit sign in front of the club featured a picture of Carol Doda. The sign had red lights on the image of her breasts. She was the first topless entertainer there and the most famous. Her première topless dance occurred on the evening of June 19, 1964. The club went "bottomlessness" with the dancers performing fully nude, on September 3, 1969. In 1972, bottomless nude dancing became illegal in establishments that served alcohol in California, but Carol Doda continued dancing there topless until 1986.
Carol Doda, showing the effects of silicone breast injections to the press in 1965.
The Condor Club in North Beach, closed since the bizarre death of its assistant manager, may reopen tonight, police said. The Condor has been sealed since James Ferrozzo was found sandwiched between the ceiling and a white baby grand piano that topless star Carol Doda uses in her act. Ferrozzo, who was fully clothed, and his naked girlfriend, who lay under him, had to be freed by the Fire Department’s rescue team. Medical Examiner Boyd Stephens has suggested that Ferrozzo may have died from asphyxiation when he was trapped between the piano and the ceiling. Ferrozzo was pronounced dead at the scene. His girlfriend was treated for bruises. She told investigators that she had been drinking and remembered little. The piano is raised and lowered by a cable mechanism, and police speculated that Ferrozzo’s foot had accidentally hit the “up” switch. “There are a lot of questions,” said Daniel Rosenberg, a former public relations man for the club. “It’s pretty hard to believe a guy like that – a rough, tough, John Wayne-type guy – could get so pie-eyed that he’d get squished like a grape on top of a piano with a girl.”
Here then follows the true story, from the man himself, around November 1983, Mr. Walter Pastore: “Okay, the joint was closed, four in the morning, and my friend Jimmy, we called him ‘Jimmy The Beard’ — great guy by the way — so The Beard has this cocktail waitress up on the top of the piano and they’re both completely nude right? Except he’s wearing cowboy boots, go figure! So evidently, she’s on her back with her legs spread and The Beard is going down, you know, right there, and this is the amazing part … I mean, later, the guys from the fire department figured the toe of The Beard’s boot must have accidentally hit the switch to the motor. So the piano starts up slow, and they’re out of their brains, so they don’t notice … and Dave, when it gets to the ceiling it shoves the Beard’s face into her crotch so hard he can’t breathe … so, Jimmy got smothered to death in her rug, right there”. “And get this, the reason why she was saved was because Jimmy was so big, I mean his head and shoulders — this guy had tried out for the Dallas Cowboys Dave, oh yea — anyway, his shoulders left her just enough breathing space to survive. And the motor didn’t have a clutch see, so it just kept pulling until it burned out, and then she was stuck up there with Jimmy’s face like that, for hours until the janitor came in the morning and called the police. They called the fire department, and then the fire guys couldn’t get the motor to release, so they had to use a chain-saw and cut a hole in the ceiling to get her out”.
Remember, I and my good-lady wife were in that Club and the story was verified by the manager at that time.
C.J., Kitty, and Isis at the Condor, October 2014
Legendary stripper Carol Doda dies at 78
1977 Piper Seneca II - Forty-five year old private pilot, Linda Varner Keath, with 470 hours of flight time, and a pilot rated passenger, 59 year old Carl Beauford Terry, were flying in a 1977 Piper Turbo Seneca II, owned by Trans Air Direct and registered as N47506, to practice simulated instrument flight, from Ocala (0CF), Florida, to Winter Haven (GIF), Florida. A native of Winter Haven, Keath had been married for 16 years to her husband, Dan. Together, they started, in 1979, Radio Towers Construction & Services, Inc., which and operated a handful of towers used to transmit telephone signals. Over the years, the couple expanded the business into duplexes and citrus orchards. A mother to seven children and step-children, she was active in the local elementary school's Parent-Teacher Organization, and her Baptist church. She starting flying in August of 1990, under the instruction of Charles Cone, and was looking forward to the trip she had planned to fly her family to Alabama aboard this same plane the next day.
Terry had served in the U.S. Army, during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as a helicopter pilot and warrant officer. He had continued to develop his career in aviation, earning an Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic certificate and multiple flight instructor ratings. He had sold his charter business a month earlier, as he had developed a heart problem, and moved the pride of his fleet to Winter Haven's Municipal Airport. There, he was helping Keath work towards her instrument rating. The pair had dropped off Keath's husband's sister, Fern Snow, to visit friends in Ocala at that Monday morning. They stopped into the FBO there, Hawthorne Ocala aviation services, to use the restrooms, and returned to the skies. Shortly after takeoff, at 11:25 a.m., after leveling off to a cruising altitude of 2,500 feet, witnesses on the ground observed the airplane's right wing fail in a dive, and explode.
"I was sitting in my truck parked along a field on our farm when I just happened to look up and see the plane just before the explosion," said Willis Markham, an employee of the Coke Markham Farm in Romeo, located near the crash site. "I saw a little bit of colored smoke come from the plane, and then it flew into a million pieces. I couldn't tell if the explosion came from the engine or from inside the plane. After the explosion, the plane started circling down for a minute or so before it hitting the ground." The craft broke apart in midair, and crashed in a wooded area, spread over a mile in length, along Terrapin Avenue in Rainbow Lake just after 11:30 in the morning. Both Terry and Keath were flung from the spinning wreckage, and were killed on impact.
The FAA's preliminary report faulted structural damage to the Seneca's right wing at the point where it attaches to the body of the plane, causing the starboard engine to pivot towards the cockpit, and slice the fuselage "like a can opener", according to Captain Steve Binegar of the Marion County Sherriff's Department. However, further examination of the wreckage, and the two bodies, revealed that both occupants were partially clothed and the front right seat was in the full aft reclining position, and neither of the two were wearing seatbelts or shoulder harnesses. Further examination of the individuals' clothing revealed no evidence of ripping or distress to the zippers and belts, suggesting that the clothing removal was voluntary.
Terry was buried at Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida. Keath was buried at Lakeside Memorial Park Cemetery in Winter Haven, at a funeral attended by over 300 and included a flyover of seven float-equipped airplanes in a "missing man" formation. In May of 1993, the National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause of this accident was the pilot in command's improper in-flight decision to divert her attention to other activities not related to the conduct of the flight. According to the NTSB, a contributing factor to the accident was the exceeding of the design limits of the airplane leading to a wing failure.
The participants in this accident, who were left unnamed in the awarding, were nominated for the “Darwin Award” in 1994. Daniel L. Keath died on December 1st, 1995, at the age of 61.
Gloria Ramirez was an ordinary woman living in Riverside, Calif. with two children and a husband. Rev. Brian Taylor called her a friend to everyone she met and a joker who brought joy to others. However, that all changed on Feb. 19, 1994, when Gloria Ramirez was rushed to General Hospital in Riverside. She was undergoing a rapid heartbeat and a drop in blood pressure. The woman could hardly breathe and was answering questions in incoherent sentences.
To make this case even more unusual, the woman was just 31 years old. Ramirez also had late-stage cervical cancer, which would explain her deteriorating medical condition. Doctors and nurses went to work on Ramirez right away to try to save her life. They followed procedures as much as possible by injecting her with drugs to try to bring her vital signs to normal. Nothing worked.
When nurses removed the woman’s shirt to apply defibrillator electrodes, they noticed a strange oily sheen on her body. Medical staff also smelled a fruity, garlicky odor coming from her mouth. Nurses then placed a syringe in Ramirez’s arm to obtain a blood sample. Her blood smelled like ammonia and there were manila-colored particles floating in her blood. The doctor in charge of the ER that night looked at the blood sample and agreed with the nurses on duty. Something wasn’t right with the patient and it had nothing to do with heart failure. Suddenly, one of the attending nurses started to faint. Another nurse developed breathing problems. A third nurse passed out, and when she awoke, she was unable to move her arms or legs.
What was going on? A total of six people were unable to treat Ramirez because they kept having strange symptoms that were somehow related to the patient. Symptoms ranged from fainting and shortness of breath to nausea and temporary paralysis. Ramirez died that night. Even after the patient’s death, the night at the hospital got even weirder. In order to handle the body, a special team arrived in hazmat suits. The team searched the ER for any signs of poison gas, toxins or other foreign substances. The hazmat team didn’t find anything that could suggest how the medical staff fainted. The team then put the body in a sealed aluminum casket. An autopsy didn’t happen until almost a week later and in a special room where the autopsy team conducted its work in hazmat suits as a precaution. The press dubbed Ramirez “The Toxic Lady” because no one could get near the body without facing a bevy of medical problems. Yet no one could point to a definitive cause shortly after her death. Officials conducted three autopsies. One occurred six days after her death, then six weeks and right before her burial.
A more thorough autopsy happened on March 25, more than a month after Gloria Ramirez passed away. That team concluded that there were signs of Tylenol, lidocaine, codeine, and Tigan in her system. Tigan is an anti-nausea medication, and it breaks down into amines in the body. Amines are related to ammonia, which could explain the ammonia smell in Ramirez’s blood sample at the hospital. More importantly, the toxicology report said that Ramirez had large amounts of dimethyl sulfone in her blood and tissues. Dimethyl sulfone does occur naturally in the human body as it breaks down certain substances. Once it enters the body, it disappears quickly with a half-life of just three days. However, there was so much in Ramirez’s system, it still registered at three times the normal amount six weeks following her death. Three weeks later, on April 12, 1994, county officials announced that Ramirez died of heart failure due to the kidney failure brought on by late-stage cervical cancer. Ramirez was diagnosed with cancer six weeks before her death.
The unusual substances in her blood were too low to explain her death, even though there were elevated levels of ammonia and dimethyl sulfone in her body. It took county officials two months to release the body for a proper funeral because of the toxicity levels and fears that people would faint or pass out. The woman’s family was incensed. Her sister blamed deplorable conditions at the hospital for the death. Although the facility was cited for violations in the past, there was nothing in the county’s investigation that pointed to conditions in the hospital being at fault. After an investigation lasting several months, officials concluded that the hospital staff suffered from too much stress and suffered from mass sociogenic illness triggered by an odor. In other words, it was mass hysteria. Medical staff at the hospital urged the coroner’s office to take a closer look at the file. The assistant deputy director, Pat Grant, made a startling conclusion.
Ramirez covered her skin from head to toe in DMSO, or dimethyl sulfone, as a possible way to cure her late-stage cervical cancer. Medical science labeled DMSO a toxic substance in 1965. The reasons for Ramirez’s use of a toxic substance on her skin goes back to when DMSO was all the rage as a cure-all. Research in the early 1960s led doctors to believe that DMSO could relieve pain and reduce anxiety. Athletes would even rub DMSO cream on their skin to try to relieve aches in muscles. Then a study in mice showed DMSO could ruin your eyesight. The fad of DMSO stopped, for the most part. DMSO gained an underground following as a cure-all for many types of ailments. By the late 1970s, the only way to get this substance was as a degreaser in hardware stores. The DMSO found in degreasers was 99 percent pure as opposed to a less-concentrated form that was in muscle creams in the 1960s.
Note the picture of the Dimethyl sulfate barrel. This chemical was used as a chemical warfare agent in World War I. Grant looked up what happens to DMSO when it is exposed to oxygen and had a revelation. The substance converts to dimethyl sulfate (not sulfone) because it adds oxygen to its chemical structure. Dimethyl sulfate acts much differently than dimethyl sulfone. As a gas, dimethyl sulfate vapors destroy cells in people’s eyes, lungs, and mouth. When this vapor gets into the body, it can cause convulsions, delirium, and paralysis. Of the 20 symptoms described by medical staff that night, 19 of them match symptoms of people who have exposure to dimethyl sulfate vapors. The medical staff didn’t suffer from mass hysteria or stress. They suffered from dimethyl sulfate poisoning. This theory adds up to the facts of the case. DMSO cream would explain the cream that doctors noted on Ramirez’s skin. It would also explain the fruity/garlicky odor coming from her mouth. The most likely explanation is that Ramirez, the Toxic Lady, used DMSO to try to relieve the pain caused by her cancer.
However, the family of Gloria Ramirez denied that she used DMSO. No matter how someone looks at the case, it’s sad all the way around. The young woman found out she had cancer too late to do anything about it. When medical science could offer her no help, she turned to an archaic substance to try to get some kind of relief. In the end, Gloria Ramirez’s nickname of the Toxic Lady is the last sad note of her final days.
Image Above - I agree with his assertion that Merion was a frustrating course, no question about that and like humans that we are, we eventually have to release some of that built up frustration and anger and sometimes that means attempting to snap your 9 iron in half. Happens to the best of us.
That being said, I feel like if you are going to attempt to snap your club in half on live TV, then I think you have to actually snap it in half, no half fasting it, right? I don’t care how long it takes to snap it in half, you have to fully commit to the challenge, going 50% is no bueno in my book. If you are a quitter when it comes to snapping your club, then you are going to be a quitter on the course as well. Never leave anything in the gas tank, 110% effort all the time, no excuses.
I’d be more embarrassed that I couldn’t snap a club in half, brutal. McIlroy, pull your shit together man!
Greg Owen hits himself in the head at the Canadian Open.
Charl Schwartzel angrily fires his putter off his bag.
Image Above Left - Jamie Donaldson sinks 1st hole-in-one of 2013 Masters
Making up for his countryman's disaster earlier, Jamie Donaldson fires the first ace at Augusta.
Golf can be relaxing but also frustrating and stressful when things are not going to plan, A teenager was killed when he slammed his golf club against a bench and the club's broken shaft snapped back and pierced his heart. Jeremy T. Brenno, 16, was playing golf with friends at the Kingsboro Golf Club Saturday when he whacked the bench with his No. 3 wooden club at the sixth hole after a bad shot.The broken shaft pierced Brenno's pulmonary vein and he bled to death, Fulton County Coroner Paul Decker said. Gloversville is about 40 miles northwest of Albany. Several doctors who were at the golf club administered emergency medical treatment to Jeremy before he was taken to Nathan Littauer Hospital. Additional attempts to save him there failed, and he was pronounced dead just before 6 P.M., deputies said.
Deodorants are cheap and come in many flavours and scents, They are quick to use and quickly fragrance a room or yourself, Manchester - A teenager died from deodorant fumes because of his obsession with personal hygiene, an inquest heard. Jonathan Capewell (16), had 10 times the lethal dosage of propane and butane in his blood, a coroner heard. He became obsessed with smelling fresh and would cover his entire body in deodorant at least twice a day. The schoolboy died after suffering a heart attack. It is believed the gases built up in his body following months of repeatedly spraying himself in the bedroom of his home in Whitebank Road, Oldham, Greater Manchester. Jonathan's father, Keith Capewell, 43, said: "When we told him he was using too much, he said he just wanted to smell good." He said that his son was using so much deodorant that "even when we were in a room downstairs we couldn't just smell it, we could taste it.
"You wouldn't have thought that could have been the cause for someone to die.
"What a price to pay for smelling nice."
Jonathan's death is believed to be the first by accidental inhalation in the UK. There was no evidence that he was a substance abuser. The coroner said: "I accept there was no experimentation with solvents, but rather a high use of deodorant. "His personal hygiene led him to use more than was normal in a confined space which limits ventilation."
Jonathan's mother, Louise, called for better warnings to be put on aerosol cans. "You just get up in the morning and spray it on, but who expects it to kill you?" she said.
"Companies spend all that money and time on advertising how exotic it smells, but they don't do enough to warn you of the dangers." Cans of Lynx, Gillette and Right Guard deodorant were found in Jonathan's room after his death.
Sue Rogers, from the British Aerosol Manufacturing Association, said it was looking into the matter urgently. "I have never heard of any accident like this. It is extraordinarily unusual and terribly tragic. "The aerosols have warnings about spraying in confined areas and well- ventilated places but these are for flammability risks, not about accidental inhalation.
"The circumstances of Jonathan's death are so unusual that it is difficult for us to make a further comment. But clearly we are a responsible industry, and we will look into it with the utmost urgency to ensure that everything possible is done to maintain good practice."
Image Above - Oh Look here comes Betty. A FARMERS wife died when she fell into a quarry on a quad bike while feeding sheep. Betty Stobbs, 67, was forced over the edge into the quarry when the flock rushed to feed from the back of the quad bike, She was taking a nice dinner of hay to the family's flock of sheep using a four wheeled all-terrain vehicle (ATV) with a small trailer attached. As she fell the heavy quad bike landed on top of her and she was killed instantly. Her sheepdog survived the fall, which took place at Ashes Quarry, Stanhope, Weardale, Country Durham. A neighbouring farmer witnessed the accident, which took place as Mrs Stobbs was feeding the sheep on her family farm. STOBBS Betty Stanhope Died January 26 1999 Never forgotten and always in our hearts. William, Anne, Donna, Emma and Hayley and family.
Published in The Northern Echo on 28th January 2019
On 28th August 2003 one of the most bizarre crimes ever seen in America unfolded in Erie, Pennsylvania. Events begin when 46-year-old pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells calmly walks into a PNC Bank in town and demands that they give him $250,000. But what is particularly unusual about this robbery is that Wells, who is also carrying what appears to be a cane, has a large bulge underneath his t-shirt. He hands a note to the cashier demanding the money and states that the device around his neck is in fact a bomb. But the cashier tells him that they don’t have that amount of money in the bank, and she instead hands him a bag containing just $8,702. Wells seems satisfied with this and leaves the bank, gets into his car and drives off. Everything about him is cool, calm and collected.
Just a few minutes later he stops, gets out of his car and collects what appears to be another note from underneath a rock. But soon the Pennsylvania State Troopers are onto him and surround the car. They force Wells to the ground and proceed to handcuff his hands behind his back. Here the story takes an even more extraordinary twist. Wells begins to relate a bizarre tale to the police. Wells, who has no criminal record, tells the officers that he has been forced to carry out the robbery after being taken hostage by three black men whilst delivering a pizza to an address just a few miles from the Mama Mia Pizzeria, where he worked. He says they held him at gunpoint, attached the bomb around his neck, and then instructed him to carry out the robbery. If he succeeds, he lives. But if he fails, the bomb will explode after 15 minutes.
Image Above - The Erie police’s bomb squad prepares to examine Brian Wells after the collar bomb locked to his neck exploded. The bomb squad arrived after the bomb detonated. JANET B. KUMMERER/ERIE TIMES-NEWS - But something about this man doesn’t quite add up. Despite his insistence to the officers that the bomb will explode at any moment, Wells seems completely at ease with the situation. Is the bomb actually real? Wells, it seems, may think that the bomb is a fake – but the truth is about to be revealed. At 3:18pm, the device starts to emit a loud bleeping noise, which grows steadily faster. It is at this point that Wells, for the first time, appears to become agitated. Just seconds later, the device explodes, killing Wells. Later, the FBI find a set of complex notes in Wells’s car which reveal that he had just 55 minutes to complete a series of tasks, including the bank robbery, before the device would explode. Upon the completion of each task, Wells was to be given more time before the device exploded.
But what really happened here? This long and complicated story involved an even longer investigation – but ultimately Wells was, it transpires, in on the robbery. Wells, together with Kenneth Barnes, William Rothstein and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, had plotted to rob the bank. The purpose of the plot was to raise enough money to pay Barnes to kill Diehl-Armstrong’s father, so she could claim her inheritance. Barnes had drawn Wells into the plot, a man who he knew through prostitute Diehl-Armstrong. However, Wells’s personal motivations for his involvement are still unknown. When Wells discovered the bomb was real, Barnes said a pistol was fired, and witnesses confirmed hearing a gunshot, in order to force Wells' compliance. Rothstein died of natural causes in 2003 and as such was never charged. In September 2008, Barnes was sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring to rob a bank and for aiding in the plotting and execution of the crime. Due to bipolar disorder and a ruling that she was unfit to stand trial, Diehl-Armstrong was not sent down until February 2011. She was sentenced to life plus 30 years for armed bank robbery and using a destructive device in a crime.
Image Above - Security camera footage of Brian Wells walking toward the bank’s exit, bomb strapped around his neck, just after the robbery.
Image Above - The deadly collar was tightly clamped around Brian Wells neck and could explode at any time.
Wells had originally agreed to play the part of the robber, back when he thought that the bomb would be a fake and he'd only be acting, and believed that the instructions he was told to follow were simply an elaborate alibi he could use if apprehended by the police. However, when he drove to a radio tower near Bill Rothstein's house on August 28, the plan suddenly changed; he was fitted with a real bomb and ordered to play along or die painfully. Without warning, Heat had turned into Saw, with Rothstein acting as a real-life Jigsaw, a theory that was corroborated by the FBI's alarming conclusions. They determined that the scavenger hunt was a hoax and the bomb was rigged so that any attempt to remove it would detonate it, even if the correct code had been entered into the three-digit keypad. Wells had been doomed from the start.
It was a prison inmate who eventually revealed all. Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, an intelligent yet callous and erratic woman, who'd been sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2005 for murdering her boyfriend James Roden, requested a prison transfer to a milder penitentiary in exchange for important information about the Wells case. She revealed that Wells had been in on the plot and had hoped to profit from the bank robbery, along with herself, crack dealer Kenneth Barnes and erudite handyman William Rothstein. Marjorie had wanted to raise enough money to hire a hitman to kill her father, so she could then inherit his considerable fortune. Barnes was purely in it for the money, but the ex-television repairman Rothstein, who succumbed to cancer before he could be prosecuted, seemed to be in it simply for the thrill of pulling it off.
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong
William (Bill) Rothstein speaks outside Diehl-Armstrong's house in Erie, Pennsylvania in September 2003
Rob Pinetti
.jpg)
Floyd Stockton
Kenneth Barnes (Crack Dealer)
Rob Pinetti was a co-worker with Brian Wells at Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria in Erie, he died under semi suspicious circumstances a few days after Brian wells death from a drug overdose, He was about to provide information to investigators, Floyd Stockton was Bill Rothsteins roommate and is also a convicted child rapist who admitted to attaching and locking the collar bomb to Well's neck the day he died. He also told FBI Investigator Jerry Clark that Pinetti was given an "Ultra powerful dose of drugs to kill him". It seems everyone involved was stabbing each other in the back and none of the perpetrators were good people, But Brian Well's seems to be the more innocent victim in this case. Jessica Hoopsick, a sex worker who had a relationship with Wells, confesses that she suggested Brian Wells to rob the bank to Barnes because of his kind and unquestioning nature. The money would then be given to Barnes who would then kill Marjorie Diehl Armstrongs father so that she would inherit his vast fortune.
Jessica Hoopsick
Investigators found that the bed was not lowered correctly by the sisters, causing the base to be tilted instead of horizontal with the bed unit on the wall. But the sisters had not been told how to lower it properly and there were no instructions in the room. Screws and plugs on the bed’s wall storage unit were not fitted correctly, Gateshead Coroner Terence Carney heard. These gave way, causing the unit to collapse on top of the sisters as they slept. Mr Carney said the fact the screws were the wrong size for the wall plugs was a critical issue in the death of the sisters. "I have no doubt that their deaths were avoidable," he said. "If this bed had been fitted properly these ladies would not have been trapped in the way they were."
Image Above - Alice Wardle 68 & Mildred Bowman, 62, on Holiday. Two Sisters died after a folding bed collapsed entombing them for four days.
Two elderly sisters were killed when their folding bed collapsed while they were on holiday in Spain, an inquest has heard. The two sisters lay trapped beneath the bed's wooden casing for four days after it fell off the wall while they slept. Mildred Bowman, 62, and Alice Wardle, 68, were on holiday in Benidorm but became entombed under the collapsed wooden casing for four days. The pair suffocated to death in August 2005. As they lay stuck under the wall unit, their family were frantically searching for them around the resort in Benidorm. A coroner ruled that the deaths could and should have been avoidable, after hearing evidence the bed had not been fitted properly.
Because the sisters had not fully laid the beds flat pressure was applied to the wooden wall storage units, As the storage units were not safely secured because the wrong screws had been used the weight of the two sisters toppled the unit over them. It was a perfect fit and they became entombed with only the air inside the unit to breath. If they shouted for help there cries were left unheard and they did not have the strength to lift the heavy unit off them it was simply to heavy. Other rooms in the hotel do not have these type of wall storage units and they should never be used again in this hotel or any other. It is quite obvious that the units would entomb anyone who was in bed if they fell and sadly the wall units fitted the beds perfectly, Staff should of checked the rooms daily regardless if they are locked, It is wrong to assume but best to find out. Did the sisters ask not to be disturbed, was there a sign on the door?
Image Above - Levante Club Apartments Benidorm - Other rooms do not have wall storage units.
Image Above - Levante Club Apartments Benidorm - Another room which does not have wall storage units.
Image Above - Levante Club Apartments Benidorm - A view from outside the hotel complex. In December last year, a Spanish court cleared holiday resort bosses of wrongdoing, outraging the family, including Mrs Bowman’s sons Paul and John Bowman, and daughter Carole Gregory.
But, Mr Carney said, there is nothing to stop the family from pursuing a case for civil liability. Mrs Bowman, from Low Fell, and Alice, from Bensham, Bensham, went on holiday to Spain together two or three times a year. They flew to Benidorm on Saturday, July 30, 2005 and checked into the Levante Club Apartments. The Spanish investigation found that the rooms are cleaned on Mondays and Thursdays and that when the cleaner tried to gain entry to the room on the Monday, he couldn’t get in because the door was locked from the inside. This was not considered suspicious because some guests didn’t want to be disturbed. But when the cleaner couldn’t get in again on the Thursday, a maintenance technician was called to gain entry and the sisters were found.
Alice's daughter, Allison Gibbons, who was also holidaying in Benidorm with husband Peter, sons John, 12, and David, 16, and David's 16-year-old girlfriend Ashleigh, became worried when the women failed to meet them as planned. A post mortem examination concluded they died sometime between 11pm on the Wednesday and 2am on the Thursday. Giving a narrative verdict, Mr Carney concluded: "The deceased died as a consequence of being trapped for an indeterminate time by a collapsed bed unit and in circumstances that could and should have been avoided." He told the family there was no evidence to say where the sisters had been since the start of their holidays. "But horror of horrors I think these ladies were trapped at least since Monday if not earlier," he added. "It horrifies me in many ways. I am sorry to have to come to this conclusion."
There are many ways to commit suicide but what drives a man to cut his own head off with a chainsaw is beyond me,
By Martin Halfpenny - Wednesday 19 November 2008 - A man cut off his own head with a chainsaw in a carefully thought out suicide because he was "irrationally opposed" to leaving his repossessed home, an inquest heard today. David Phyall, 50, had consumed a small quantity of alcohol but no drugs, and arranged the chainsaw in such a way as to facilitate his suicide. His elderly parents John and Jean Phyall raised the alarm when they could not contact their son in his ground floor housing association flat in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, on 5th July this year. Police were called and they broke in asking the parents to stay outside. Sergeant Mark Carter said he found Mr Phyall in the lounge with blood spattering the walls, floor and a cabinet. Central Hampshire deputy coroner Simon Burge said to the officer: "It must have been a huge shock to you." Sgt Carter replied: "In some ways it was sir."
The hearing heard that the block where Mr Phyall had his flat was to be demolished and despite great efforts from his housing association Atlantic Housing, he had refused 11 offers of alternative accommodation. Eventually it had gone to court to repossess the property. At the time of his death Mr Phyall, who had suffered from mental illness and attempted suicide before, was the only person living in the 1960s block with the rest of the properties boarded up. Recording a verdict of suicide, Mr Burge said First Wessex Housing Group had done all they could to help Mr Phyall but he was "irrationally opposed to moving". "In the 15 years I have been sitting as a deputy coroner, this is the most bizarre case I can recall," Mr Burge said. "It is an appalling way to take one's life but that is what happened in this case. "He thought through how he was going to commit suicide very carefully. He went to a great deal of trouble. "I think he did it to draw attention to the injustice of his situation."
Mr Phyall lived here on Bobmin Road Flats - 81-87 - he used a timing device to set an electric chainsaw in motion after a countdown. Securing it with tape against a table leg, Phyall placed the chainsaw on his neck and waited for the big moment. The Black and Decker device made it three-quarters of the way through Phyall’s neck, spraying the apartment with blood in what probably looked a bit like that penultimate scene from the Evil Dead remake. Police say the chainsaw ran for another 15 minutes after Phyall’s death. Cops and paramedics found his blood-soaked corpse ten days ago after his dad John raised the alarm.