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History March 29, 2014

Creepy Kier Harris April 1, 2014

Action Park in New Jersey was one of the first water parks, back in the lawless era that was the 1980s. As a result, a lot of the rides were experimental at best. At the time, there was little to no regulation on water attractions—they were just too new. Because of this, Action Park got away with pretty much whatever they wanted to do, even with their non-water attractions. Most of these rides were little more than death traps that laughed in the face of safety. Add to that drunken guests (and some workers), apathetic (and sometimes stoned) teenage ride operators, and a general sense of recklessness, and you have a recipe for injuries. Lots of injuries.

Some things just don’t go together, and while loops and roller coasters are the best of friends, we’re pretty sure that waterslides and loops have restraining orders against each other. Apparently, the engineers of Action Park never got this message (or their engineering degrees, for that matter) and built the flagship of stupidity called “The Cannonball Loop.”

It was exactly what it looks like: a waterslide with a loop at the end of it. While it doesn’t seem physically possible to make it through, the slide was an operating attraction at Action Park—for about a month. After that, the state mandated that it be closed down, probably for being the most hilariously unsafe ride ever created.

Everything about the Cannonball Loop was a safety hazard. There was a legitimate chance of not clearing the loop. In fact, that happened so many times that the park had to install a hatch at the bottom of the loop so people could actually get out if they didn’t make it. Not that those who made it fared much better—bruises, bloody noses, and cracked craniums weren’t uncommon. Some patrons didn’t gather enough speed to “stick” to the loop the whole way around and fell 3 meters (10 ft) on the downward half. Guests were actually hosed down with water in the hopes it would help them build up enough speed.

Another issue was the sand and dirt that would build up at the bottom of the loop and horribly scratch people’s backs as they zoomed onward toward loopification. There wasn’t even a pool waiting at the end of this unholy terror—the slide unceremoniously dumped those who conquered the loop onto a wet rubber mat. It’s rumored that they first tested the slide with crash test dummies—and that they came out the other end dismembered. However, we know that park employees were offered $100 to test it out. After the ride was closed, it wasn’t dismantled until the park changed hands in 1996. Until then, it stood in its place at the front of the park, warning all guests of the horrors that lurked within Action Park.

In a contest of “things we probably shouldn’t make a slide out of,” Aqua Scoot is the clear winner. This “slide” was made entirely of metal rollers, like the ones that they use to slide luggage on in airports. Riders hopped on a plastic sled, and rode down the rollers into a shallow pool below. The water in the pool was only about 30 centimeters (12 in) deep, and the idea was that the sled would hit the pool and skim across the water’s surface.

There were a couple of problems, though. First of all, you had to be sitting in the correct position for the sled to go skimming across the water. If you weren’t and happened to be lucky, the sled just sank when you hit the water. If you were unlucky, the sled took a nosedive and flung you face-first into the incredibly shallow water, which resulted in a bunch of lacerations. There were also reports of people pinching themselves on the rollers, because they’re rollers and not a material you’re supposed to use to make slides, as well as people getting smacked with other revelers coming out of the slide after them.

The “Grave Pool” is the local nickname that was attributed to Action Park’s wave pool. It was one of the first of it’s kind, and because state regulations defined it as a pool, the only thing Action Park was required to do was keep the water clean and have lifeguards on duty. There was always a minimum of 12 guards, and sometimes, there were as many as 20. On a busy weekend, the guards would make as many as 30 saves in the pool, as opposed to the average one or two per season that a guard anywhere else can expect to make.

Most of the park’s deaths (there were three in total) were a result of people drowning in the wave pool. A lot of accidents and near-drownings were attributed to a combination of the pool’s design, which had waves higher than they should have been that lasted much longer than they should have, and the fact that most of the park-goers were from the city, where they didn’t get much swimming experience. It was also easy for people to forget that the freshwater waves weren’t nearly as buoyant as real ocean waves.

In theory, the Tarzan Swing wasn’t a bad idea. It was a 6-meter (20 ft) cable hanging from a steel arch that straddled a deep pool. Guests would stand on a platform, swing on the cable out over the pool, and then drop into the water. There were some design flaws, though. For one, the water was spring-fed, and because of that, it was freezing—significantly colder than the water in the rest of the park. The Tarzan Swing claims one of Action Park’s few non-wave pool deaths: A man died of a heart attack after entering the pool, presumably from shock because of the cold water.

The far side of the pool was bordered by the natural embankment, which was certainly within swinging range. Not to worry, though—the park decided to put a thin foam mat over the lower portion of it, making it virtually impossible for anyone to injure themselves by colliding with the bank, we promise.

Another big flaw in the design was that the zip line doubled back in the direction the line came from in such a way that the zip line was in full view of the entire line. A lot of riders would suddenly realize that they had an audience and perform reckless stunts like backflips, shout obscenities, or even display “body parts” to the onlookers. Remarkably, the Tarzan Swing is still in operation today.

The Kayak Experience was one of the more tame rides in Action Park. Riders got their own kayak and navigated it down a roughly straight slope with underwater fans that simulated real rapids. The worst thing you had to worry about was your kayak tipping over and having to get out and flip it back over. Oh, and of course, death by electrocution.

Toward the end of the Kayak Experience’s operation, a young man’s kayak flipped. When he got out to fix it, he stepped on some exposed wiring for one of the fans, which shocked him to death. Two of his nearby family members were also electrocuted, but they survived. The official coroner’s report said that the cause of death was cardiac arrest due to electrocution, but Action Park officials denied any responsibility. An investigation determined that the park hadn’t violated any regulations, but remember, there were few of those to begin with at the time.

Action Park drained the Kayak Experience and never reopened it after the incident, saying that guests would “always be intimidated by it.” A bit of a strange move, considering the park claimed the ride wasn’t responsible for killing him.

For a couple of years, Action Park had an obstacle course and jousting competitions inspired by the show American Gladiator. For the jousting portion, guests would compete against a “gladiator” (read: musclebound Action Park employee) and attempt to knock them off a 1-meter (3 ft) pedestal into the pool below. A metal pedestal. A wet, slippery metal pedestal. If they succeeded in not being bludgeoned to death by the gladiator, they were rewarded with the chance to be bludgeoned by the biggest gladiator, called “the Titan,” on a 2-meter (6 ft) pedestal. All of this was done in front of crowds of guests, of course, to sate their bloodlust.

And the park didn’t survey current employees to select its gladiators. No one said “Hey, Johnny, you look strong. Take this oversize cotton swab and go knock some guests off some poles.” No, instead, they surveyed a bunch of local gyms to find the biggest, strongest guys they could and told them not to hold back. On top of that, the events had an announcer who would perform commentary and make fun of guests who were outclassed by the gladiators.

You’ve probably seen an attraction similar to Surf Hill at almost every water park you’ve ever been to. It was a large waterslide that was split into a bunch of side-by-side lanes, and riders would race each other on mats to the bottom. Because it was one of the first slides of its kind, though, they still hadn’t ironed all of the kinks out. The dividers between lanes weren’t high enough, and it was very easy to jump lanes. The seventh lane also had one section that dropped off a bit faster than the others, making it easy to get air. On breaks, park employees would make a habit of sitting at the cafe at the base of the slide because it was almost guaranteed they’d see a wipeout or lost bikini top.

Once riders reached the bottom, they found themselves choosing the worst of two evils. You see, there wasn’t room at the bottom for the typical long, straight stretch that modern versions of these slides use to slow down. Instead, there was a water-filled basin that curved up to form a padded wall opposite the slide. If you went too slowly, you dropped into the basin, and your mat slapped you in the face. But if you went too fast, you slid up the curved wall and fell backward into the basin.

Geronimo Falls was Action Park’s take on speed slides. But there was a catch: The incline was far more steep than most speed slides today. It was so steep that the first portion of the slide was enclosed because riders would frequently come off of the slide at the top, and the enclosure forced them back down onto the slide instead of plummeting to the ground below. There was a metal bar that guests would hang from with their feet out over the edge of the slide and let themselves drop out onto it. Were they supposed to do this? Probably not, but it was a frequent occurrence. Riders could reach speeds of nearly 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) on the way down.

When the park changed ownership, the slides that made up Geronimo Falls were dismantled, and a new green speed slide (called H2 Oh No!) with a lesser incline was installed in their place.

Another worthy contender in our “please don’t make slides out of this, what are you even thinking?” contest is the Alpine Slide, which was a luge-like ride with a track made from fiberglass and concrete. Riders sat in tiny plastic carts and zipped down the hill at breakneck speed. The carts had brakes that allowed riders to control their speed, but they were notorious for not working. Without brakes, it was a challenge to keep the cart from sailing off the tracks—and many people failed that challenge.

This ride lead to so many cuts, scrapes, bumps, bruises, lacerations, and crying children that it’s impossible to keep count of how many poor souls wiped out on this monstrosity. There are more personal accounts of people losing skin on this attraction than any amusement park ride should boast, and this problem was made even worse by the fact that Action Park is a water park. People had a habit of going down in their bathing suits.

It also became the site of the park’s first death when an employee’s cart flew off the tracks and ricocheted off a hay bale (which was put there for safety, ironically), which parted him from his cart. He tumbled down an embankment and fatally slammed his head against a rock.

The tracks took up so much of the hill that riders took a ski lift to go down the slide, and the ski lift went right over the tracks. This led to guests on the lift spitting and hurling insults down at the riders below on a regular basis. Despite all of this, it was the park’s most popular ride, and a park official went so far as to claim it was “the safest ride there is.” The Alpine Slide was torn down when the park changed hands, but you can still see the path it used to take on the ground below the lift.

At its core, Tank Tag seems like some good, clean fun, and for the guests of Action Park, it probably was. But for the workers, it was literally the worst station in the park to be posted.

Think of the ride like most bumper cars, with riders in a relatively small fenced in area, but the bumper cars are tanks, and the tanks are armed with tennis ball cannons. The perimeter of the enclosure was lined with mounted tennis ball cannons that other park visitors could pay money to fire at the tanks.

Every now and then, one of the tanks would stall out, requiring one of the workers to run out and start it back up. Despite countless signs posted to dissuade this very thing, the park employees (who were totally unarmed and unprotected) would suddenly become everyone’s target and get pelted with tennis balls. Talk about a stressful work environment.

Kier is a writer at Listverse and Cracked.com, and when he isn’t doing that stuff, he’s tobogganing down a cement ditch and ramping through a ring of fire. It was awesome. You should’ve been there.

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Comment on 10 Love Stories That Ended In Murder by 10 Love Stories That Ended In Murder - Trneng/must visit

Health April 1, 2014

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Space March 31, 2014

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History March 30, 2014

History March 29, 2014

Health April 1, 2014

Creepy April 1, 2014

Crime April 1, 2014

Space March 31, 2014

History March 31, 2014

Creepy March 31, 2014

Books March 30, 2014

Humans March 30, 2014

History March 30, 2014

History March 29, 2014

Crime Nolan Moore April 1, 2014

Dan McCafferty once said that love hurts. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. Love can kill. Throughout history, rejected Romeos and jilted Juliets have dealt with heartache by filling bodies full of lead and leaving corpses in their wakes.

Paris is “The City of Love,” but wherever you find amour, you’re bound to find murder. Take the story of Henriette Raynouard for example. In 1911, the French socialite married Joseph Caillaux, a career politician and notorious Casanova who’d dumped his first wife for the lovely Henriette after he became prime minister.

As a member of the center-left Radical Party, Joseph made quite a few enemies thanks to his pro-German policies, but even after he left office in 1912, he remained an influential figure. That didn’t sit well with Gaston Calmette, the editor of Le Figaro and one of Caillaux’s biggest critics. Convinced Joseph was a threat to France, Calmette planned to destroy his reputation.

In 1914, Calmette shocked Paris by publishing a love letter between Joseph and his first mistress, Berthe Gueydan. With Caillaux’s private life on display, Henriette began getting nervous. During their adulterous affair, she and Joseph had exchanged numerous letters, and gossip around town said Calmette planned on publishing those too. Partly to protect her husband and partly to safeguard her secrets, Henriette decided to pay the newspaper editor a visit.

On March 16, 1914, Henriette entered Calmette’s office with a scarf concealing both hands. As she walked inside, she challenged the journalist with, “You know why I have come?” Clueless, Calmette responded with, “Not at all, Madame.” That’s when Henriette whipped a Browning automatic out of her handwarmer and shot Calmette six times in the stomach. As police officers surrounded her, Henriette boldly declared, “Do not touch me! I am a lady!”

During the sensational trial, Henriette played up the stereotype that women are governed by emotions. She sprinkled her testimony with references to the unconscious and the nervous system. Swayed by her argument, the all-male jury took less than an hour to reach a verdict of not guilty. Vindicated, Henriette went on to study art and write a book before her death in 1943.

George Remus was a jack-of-all-trades. First a pharmacist and later a lawyer, Remus decided it was time for another career change when Congress enacted the Volstead Act in 1919. He moved to Cincinnati and—using his pharmacist’s license to order whiskey for medicinal purposes—started a multi-million dollar bootlegging enterprise.

Remus was a big spender and built himself a mansion, complete with swimming pool, horse stable, and baseball field. He threw lavish parties where he handed out diamond-studded watches and automobiles. In fact, some suspect this “King of the Bootleggers” inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby. And, just like Gatsby, Remus had his eye on a special lady, a woman named Imogene Holmes. Infatuated, Remus divorced his first wife. Soon he and his new bride were running one of the biggest alcohol empires in the US.

When Remus was finally arrested in 1924, he gave Imogene power of attorney over his illegal enterprise. That was his first mistake. His second was telling inmate Frank Dodge that Imogene was in charge of all his money. Dodge was actually an undercover FBI agent, and when he got out of jail, he hooked up with Mrs. Remus. The two sold everything the bootlegger owned and took off with all his dough.

Obviously, Remus wasn’t too happy when he got out of prison. He got even angrier when Imogene filed for divorce, tried to have him deported, and attempted to have him whacked. Things finally exploded on October 6, 1927, the day their divorce papers were to be finalized. As Imogene left the courthouse, the gangster ordered his driver to force Imogene’s taxi off the road. Her car went careening into Eden Park. As she climbed out of the wreckage, Remus stuck a gun in her gut and fired.

During the ensuing trial, Remus acted as his own attorney, claiming he’d been temporarily insane. Surprisingly, the jury bought it and found him not guilty. However, he was shipped off to a mental institution for six months. When he got out, he spent the rest of his life trying to regain his fortune but died a poor man in 1952, still believing he’d “done right” by killing his wife.

Thomas Montgomery was a 47-year-old married New Hampshire man with two kids. He told none of that to “Talhotblond,” the 18-year-old he met in a Pogo chat room. He instead said he was a teenage Iraq War vet named Tommy, and the two hit it off. “Talhotblond,” also known as “Jessi,” started sending gifts of erotic photos of herself.

Thriving on the attention and cybersex, Montgomery bragged about his exploits to friends, but everything fell apart when his wife found out. She sent Jessi a letter explaining that Montgomery was a middle-aged married man, one old enough to be her dad. Horrified, Jessi broke off the relationship, shifting her attentions to Montgomery’s coworker, 22-year-old Brian Barrett.

The switch didn’t sit well with Thomas. The older man became violent, sending Jessi disturbing messages like, “Brian will pay in blood.” And when Montgomery learned that Barrett planned on visiting Jessi at her West Virginia home (a meeting Jessi canceled at the last minute), he decided Brian needed to die. On September 15, 2006, as Barrett sat in his car, Montgomery shot him sniper style with a .30-caliber rifle. When police learned about the love triangle, they decided to warn Jessi she might be next.

However, when authorities arrived at Talhotblond’s home, they found Mary Shieler, a middle-aged woman. Shieler had a daughter named Jessi, but this Jessi had never heard of Montgomery or Barrett. It turned out the mom was leading a double life, romancing both men while posing as her teenage daughter.

Police had no grounds for arresting Shieler, but they caught Montgomery, who was eventually sentenced to 20 years after a guilty plea. But Shieler didn’t escape unscathed. Both her husband and daughter abandoned her, leaving a lonely catfish in a very bloody pond.

Clara Harris and her husband David were Houston dentists who seemed happily married. They had three kids, a nice house, and a couple of expensive cars, like Clara’s Mercedes. Their life seemed great, right until David admitted he was having an affair with his former receptionist.

Desperate to keep her husband, Clara tried everything to win him back. She quit her job and began working out. She dyed her hair, worked on her tan, and scheduled breast-enhancement surgery. But when her plans failed, she decided to get more aggressive.

Clara hired a private detective to tail the two lovebirds, and on July 24, 2002, she got a call. The investigator had followed the couple to the Nassau Bay Hilton in Houston, the same hotel where Clara and David had gotten married. Infuriated, Clara grabbed her keys and her 16-year-old stepdaughter and sped off in her Mercedes.

When she reached the Hilton, Clara stormed inside the lobby and attacked her rival, tearing at her until they were escorted outside by hotel security. Furious, Clara rushed back to her car, and as the adulterers walked away, she hit the gas. The car slammed into David, sending him soaring, and before he even touched the ground, Clara hit him again. This time, she waited for David to land before running him over—three times.

In a twist of fate, the detective Clara had hired to catch her husband had recorded his murder. Coupled with her stepdaughter’s testimony, the PI’s video sealed Clara’s fate. The Mercedes-Benz Murderess was sentenced to 20 years behind bars, the maximum penalty for someone acting with “sudden passion.” Clara was denied parole in 2013, but she’ll get another crack at freedom later in 2014.

Steven Beard was a 69-year-old millionaire from Austin, Texas. He was also a lonely widower who had the misfortune of meeting Celeste Johnson. A waitress at Beard’s country club, the 32-year-old Celeste was attractive but had a troublesome history filled with depression and suicide attempts, even criminal acts. Despite her instability and the prominent age gap, the couple got married in 1995. Things then quickly spiraled out of control.

Not only was their marriage sexually cold, but Celeste regularly drugged Beard’s food so she could sneak off with one of her ex-husbands. She frequently insulted Steven’s weight and reportedly said, “Why doesn’t he die already?” Celeste also went wild with Beard’s cash, leading the old man to cancel her credit cards. The ensuing spat ended with Celeste threatening suicide and Beard putting her in a hospital. And that’s where she met Tracey Tarlton.

Tarlton, 35, was struggling with drugs and alcohol. She was also smitten with Celeste. Just a few days after they met, Tarlon started sending Celeste long love letters, and the two soon started a relationship. The affair continued long after their hospital stay, and Celeste’s daughters caught them having sex in Beard’s home on several occasions. But while Tracey was really in love, Celeste was playing a deadly game, one that would involve Tarlton, Beard, and a shotgun.

On October 2, 1999, Celeste left her doors unlocked and retreated to her bedroom. Not long after, Tracey crept inside, armed with a 20-guage. When she found Beard asleep in bed, Tracey took aim and blasted a hole in his stomach. The old man managed to call 911, telling the operator, “My guts are in my hands.”

Investigators linked a shotgun shell to Tracey’s weapon and charged her with murder when Beard eventually died. However, prosecutors were quite suspicious of Celeste, especially after she spent $550,000 in the two months after Beard’s death. But Tartlon refused to indict her lover—until she learned Celeste had quickly remarried. Scorned, Tracey told prosecutors how Celeste had planned the whole thing, and with the additional testimony of her own kids, Celeste was thrown in the slammer. She won’t even be eligible for parole until 2043. As for Tracey, she was released in August 2011 and will hopefully avoid shooting any more millionaires.

Pamela Smart wasn’t happy when her husband Greg chopped off his wild hair, gave up his bad boy image, and became an insurance salesman. She was even less thrilled when, weeks before their first anniversary, Greg admitted he’d cheated on her. Angry, Pamela did what any reasonable 22-year-old teacher would do. She manipulated her 15-year-old lover into murdering her husband.

The teenager was Billy Flynn, a student at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire. Smart was the school’s media services director, and Flynn spent his free time helping her create educational videos. Flynn learned quite a bit from his teacher, and after an evening watching the erotic drama 9 ½ Weeks, the two had sex in Pamela’s condo. From then on, Smart had Flynn wrapped around her finger, and several rendezvous later, she laid down an ultimatum: Get rid of Greg, or their relationship was over.

Convinced Greg was abusing Pamela, Flynn agreed to do the dirty deed, asking two buddies to help out. With Smart’s coaching, the trio decided to make the execution look like a burglary gone wrong. On May 1, 1990, Smart left the backdoor of her condo unlocked, and Flynn and his friend Randall sneaked inside while a third accomplice waited with the getaway car. When Greg came home from work, the teens wrestled him to the ground and put a bullet in his skull.

However, Smart’s scheme crumbled pretty quickly. Detectives felt Smart was too apathetic about her husband’s death and noticed that she casually tromped back and forth over the blood stains in her living room. Their suspicions were confirmed when they wired Smart’s best friend Cecelia Price (age 15), with a microphone. The mike caught Pamela implicating herself, and the high school teacher was charged with murder.

Thanks to the tapes and Flynn’s testimony, Pamela Smart got life without parole. As for the teens, they were sentenced to 28 years to life.

Evelyn Nesbit was the Marilyn Monroe of the first decade of the 20th century. Thanks to her unearthly beauty, she became a popular artist’s model and was eventually known as the most photographed woman of her day. But her real break came when she was cast as a chorus girl in the popular Broadway show Floradora. The 16-year-old attracted hordes of admirers but none more powerful than Stanford White.

A 52-year-old architect, White was the brains behind the Washington Square Arch, Tiffany’s, and the second Madison Square Garden. He also loved the ladies, especially Evelyn. After watching her perform, he showered her with gifts and even designed a special apartment for her and her mother. In addition to the presents, he regularly invited Evelyn to his apartment where he’d push her in a specially made swing, earning Evelyn her infamous nickname “the girl in the red velvet swing.”

One night, he got Evelyn drunk and raped her—which, oddly enough, kicked off a year-long relationship. Eventually, Evelyn broke up with the architect and started hunting for a suitable husband. Enter Harry Kendall Thaw, the heir to a $40 million railroad fortune. Obsessed with Evelyn, he pursued her for two years, sending her everything from pianos to roses wrapped in $50 bills.

Eventually, Evelyn accepted his proposal. This was too bad, since Thaw was a woman-beating coke addict. Plus, he hated Stanford White. The architect had barred Thaw from several important clubs, and the future railroad tycoon wasn’t the type to forgive and forget.

When Thaw finally learned what White had done to Evelyn, he decided to take revenge. On June 25, 1906, Thaw approached White in Madison Square Garden. He pulled out a pistol and shot his rival three times, killing him on the spot. The subsequent trial became a national sensation. Thanks to a strong PR campaign led by his mother, Thaw was seen as a hero, a protector of womanhood. After an initial hung jury, Thaw was finally found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Thaw spent the next eight years in a mental asylum and divorced Evelyn upon his release. The young woman was forced to work as a Vaudeville dancer and struggled with depression. She eventually ended up in California and died in 1967. However, some say you can still see her ghost wandering up and down the halls of a Pennsylvania hotel that used to be the Thaw family home.

Denise Labbe was willing to sacrifice everything for Jacques Algarron. It was 1954, and Labbe was working as a secretary at the National Institute of Statistics in Renne, France. That’s where she met Algarron, a dashing young soldier who was secretly a monster. Obsessed with the Nietzschean concept of the ubermensch, Algarron believed it was his right to humiliate women. He ordered Labbe to sleep with other men so she could crawl back to him and apologize. Initial degradation accomplished, Algarron decided to take his twisted game even further.

One evening at dinner, Jacques told Denise the only way she could prove her love was by murdering Cathy, her two-year-old daughter. Though Labbe initially refused, Algarron eventually broke down her resistance. But Labbe lacked a killer instinct, and her first three attempts failed miserably. Twice, she tried to drown Cathy, and once she tried to drop her from a window. Each time, someone saved the child, or Labbe balked. But on November 8, Denise finally went through with her plan, holding Cathy’s head in a washtub until the child was dead.

When the police investigated, Labbe quickly caved under the pressure. “I am a monster,” she confessed, but then she admitted that Algarron was “the devil incarnate.” In 1955, both lovers stood in a Blois courtroom, hurling accusations at each other. Labbe claimed Algarron was the mastermind, and the “superman” claimed Denise was crazy. However, the jury didn’t quite agree with Algarron, and the soldier was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor. As for Labbe, she was spared a date with the guillotine, but she received a life behind bars and an eternity of guilt.

Els Clottemans and Els Van Doren shared more than the same first name. These Belgian women also shared a lover, their skydiving instructor Marcel Somers.

The relationship was a tad awkward. Clottemans spent Fridays with Somers, and Saturdays belonged to Van Doren. There was a lot of friction between these ladies, and Clottemans took things especially hard. “I always knew I was number two for Marcel,” she once wrote, and their bizarre love triangle took a serious toll on her self-esteem.

Clottemans wasn’t exactly a healthy person, mentally speaking. Not only had she attempted suicide as a teen, but a psychiatrist would eventually describe her as psychopathic and narcissistic, rather unattractive traits in a girlfriend. Things finally boiled over in November 2006 when Van Doren showed up one Friday. Instead of sticking to the schedule, Somers took Van Doren to his bedroom while Clottemans slept in the living room. That night, as she listened to the couple upstairs, Clottemans decided to act.

On November 18, 2006, Somers, Clottemans, and Van Doren took off from an airport in eastern Belgium for a day of skydiving fun. The plan was to jump simultaneously, everyone holding hands as they fell. Only Clottemans didn’t jump in time. She hesitated, almost as if she wanted a view of the parachutists below. And when the three were about 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) from the ground, Van Doren tugged on her chute—and nothing happened. Panicking, she pulled the emergency chute and was horrified when it failed too. Plummeting at around 200 kilometers (120 mi) per hour, Van Doren smashed into someone’s garden, ending up as a big heap of broken bones.

Detectives suspected foul play when they found someone had cut the straps to Van Doren’s parachute. When they decided to question Clottemans, the mentally disturbed skydiver tried to kill herself. Convinced she was their culprit, the police charged her with Van Doren’s murder despite their lack of solid evidence. There weren’t any fingerprints or witnesses, but Clottemans had the motive, the know-how, and a psychopathic mind. She’d also sent Van Doren anonymous letters and had barraged her with mysterious phone calls.

Finally, in October 2010, Clottemans was found guilty and received 30 years behind bars. Unsurprisingly, she maintains her innocence, but if she didn’t cut the cords, who did?

Lucrezia Borgia has a pretty nasty reputation. Legend says this Renaissance villainess was fond of spiking her enemies’ drinks with arsenic. With that kind of notoriety, most folks wouldn’t want a nickname like “the Borgia of America.” However, Martha Wise wasn’t “most folks.”

The 40-year-old widow lived in the appropriately named Hardscrabble, Ohio. There wasn’t much to do in Hardscrabble, so Martha spent a lot of time attending funerals. Without a doubt, she was an odd bird, but she was also lonely. Martha’s first husband treated her like a slave, and after his death in 1923, she decided to get hitched again. Martha set her sights on a local fellow named Walter Johns. However, Martha’s family disapproved of the marriage, and Martha’s mother even threatened to disown her if she didn’t break up with Walter.

Seemingly defeated, Martha called off the relationship. And that’s when people started dying. On Thanksgiving Day 1924, Martha’s mom drank a glass of water and quickly died of “stomach inflammation.” A few weeks later on New Year’s Day 1925, Martha’s aunt, her uncle, and their six kids came down with the same illness. Though the children survived (barely), the parents succumbed to sickness, and the local sheriff grew suspicious. The law officer grew even more concerned when someone lit the local church on fire—the same church that had refused to marry Martha and Walter. When the sheriff discovered that Martha had bought large amounts of arsenic from the local drugstore, he ordered an autopsy on Wise’s aunt and discovered her system was loaded with the poison.

When Martha was arrested, she used the oldest defense in the book. “It was the devil who told me to do it,” she claimed. Supernatural conspiracy or not, Martha was found guilty and received life in prison. Martha supposedly enjoyed her time behind bars, and when she was paroled in 1962, she couldn’t cope in the real world. Institutionalized, Martha returned three days after her release and finally died in prison in 1971. She probably would’ve loved her funeral.

Nolan Moore would probably murder for his love of Dr Pepper. If you want, you can follow him on Facebook or email him.

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History March 29, 2014

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History Michael Van Duisen March 29, 2014

Much like Isaac Newton imagined when he gave his famous “shoulders of giants” quote, our modern civilizations owe a great deal to those which came before us. While examples like the Sumerians or Egyptians are deeply ingrained in nearly everyone’s minds, there are a number of other civilizations which have been largely forgotten. Here are 10 of them.

The Hattians were a civilization which inhabited the area of present-day Anatolia, Turkey from the 26th century to around the 18th century B.C. Believed to be the earliest urban settlers of the area, their existence can be traced to 24th-century Akkadian cuneiform tablets. Most archaeologists believe that they were indigenous to the area preceding the more famous Hittite civilization, which arrived in the 23rd century B.C. The two cultures slowly merged together, with the Hittites adopting a variety of Hatti religious beliefs and practices. Many of the largest Hittite settlements, such as Alaca Hoyuk and Hattusa, are believed to have originally been Hattian.

While they had their own spoken language, no evidence of a written form of the Hatti language has ever been found. It’s likely that they were multilingual, perhaps to facilitate trade with their Assyrian partners. In fact, most of what we know about the Hattians comes from the widespread adoption of their culture by the Hittites. Their population probably existed as a majority for decades—if not centuries—while they were under the aristocratic rule of the Hittites, before they eventually faded away into obscurity.

While most people are familiar with the Aztecs and the Maya of Mesoamerica, the people known as the Zapotec remain relatively obscure. Among the first people in the area to use agricultural and writing systems, they also built one of the earliest recognized cities in North America—Monte Alban. Founded in the fifth century B.C., the city was home to a maximum of 25,000 citizens and lasted for over 1,200 years. In Monte Alban, a privileged class made up of priests, warriors, and artists ruled over the lower classes.

Like many of the civilizations of Mesoamerica, the Zapotecs subjugated the surrounding areas through a mix of warfare, diplomacy, and tribute. The sudden downfall of their culture seemed to have no reason, and their largest city was mostly left intact, though it was eventually ruined by years of abandonment. Some scholars believe that a failure of their economic system may have pushed the Zapotecs to find work elsewhere. The rest of the population grouped together into various city-states, which proceeded to fight each other (as well as outside forces) until they were no more.

Europe’s biggest prehistoric civilization, the Vinca, existed for nearly 1,500 years. Beginning in the 55th century B.C., they occupied land throughout Serbia and Romania. Named after a present-day village near the Danube River, where the first discoveries were made in the 20th century, the Vinca were a metal-working people, perhaps even the world’s first civilization to use copper (they also excavated the first mine in Europe).

Though the Vinca people had no officially recognized form of writing, examples of proto-writing, symbols which don’t actually express language, have been found on various stone tablets which date as far back as 4000 B.C. In addition, they were artistic and fond of children; archaeologists have found various toys, such as animals and rattles, buried among the other artifacts. They were also extremely organized—the houses of the Vinca civilization had specific locations for trash, and the dead were all buried in a central location.

Another civilization which influenced the Hittites was the Hurrian people, who lived throughout the Middle East during the second millennium B.C. It’s probable that they were around even earlier than that: Personal and place names written in the Hurrian language were found in Mesopotamian records dating back to the third millennium B.C. Unfortunately, very few artifacts of their civilization exist; most of what we know about them comes from the writings of other cultures, including the Hittites, Sumerians, and Egyptians.

One of their largest cities is known as Urkesh and is located in northeastern Syria. Urkesh is also where the earliest known text in Hurrian, a stone tablet and statue known as the Louvre lion, was found. Long believed to be mainly nomadic, scholars now believe that the Hurrians may have had a much bigger impact than previously thought, mostly due to the way their language differed from other Semitic and Indo-European tongues. However, by the end of the second millennium B.C., nearly all ethnic traces of the Hurrians had disappeared, with only their influence on the Hittites left behind.

Named after the area in Nigeria in which artifacts of their culture were first discovered, the Nok civilization flourished during the first millennium B.C. before fading into obscurity in the second century A.D. Some theories posit that the overexploitation of natural resources played a large role in the population’s decline. Whatever the case, scholars believe that they played an important role in the development of other cultures in the area, such as the Yoruba and Benin peoples.

Perhaps the best-known examples of their artistic nature are the terra-cotta figures which have been found throughout the area. They were also the earliest known Africans to have smelted iron, though it’s believed that it was introduced to them through another culture, perhaps the Carthaginians. The reason for this assumption is that no evidence for copper smelting has ever been found, which was a precursor to an iron age in nearly every other civilization. Although they’re believed to be one of the earliest African civilizations, evidence of their existence has been slow to come to light because modern-day Nigeria is a notoriously difficult place to study.

A popular trading partner with ancient Egypt, the land of Punt (pronounced “poont”) was famous for producing incense, ebony, and gold. Scholars differ on where they believe the civilization was, with a range from South Africa all the way up the coast to the Middle East. Even though the Egyptians wrote extensively on the land and its people, they never bothered to actually say where it was.

A lot of our knowledge of Punt comes from the reign of Hatshepsut, the famed female pharaoh who ruled Egypt during the 15th century B.C. Reliefs in her mortuary temple contain information on a rather large trade expedition to Punt, as well as more specific details, like pictures of beehive-shaped houses on stilts. A scene showing Hatshepsut receiving wondrous gifts from the exotic land is also carved into the temple walls. Unfortunately, no actual archaeological evidence showing the location of Punt has ever been found, although there have been numerous Egyptian artifacts inscribed with the civilization’s name, giving scholars hope that Punt might one day be unearthed.

Beginning with its arrival during the third millennium B.C. and lasting for over 1,200 years, the Norte Chico civilization dominated South America as the oldest sophisticated culture on the continent. Named for the region of present-day Peru which they occupied, they had 20 major cities, with advanced architecture and agriculture making up a large portion of their settlements. They also developed intricate irrigation systems, sophistication which was unheard of in the Americas at that time.

Artifacts recognizable as religious symbols have been found throughout the area, especially near the stone pyramids for which the Norte Chico civilization is famous. There is some debate over whether or not they qualify as a civilization, as well as what that term even means. Usually, indicators like a form of art and a sense of urbanization are key, but the Norte Chico civilization possessed neither of these. Whatever the case, there is no denying that they were an influence on later South American cultures, such as the Chavin civilization, which began a few hundred years after the fall of the Norte Chicos.

Although their name for themselves was Haltam, the name “Elam” comes from the Hebraic transcription of the word. The Elamite civilization consisted mostly of land inside present-day Iran, along with a small portion of Iraq. One of the earliest civilizations, it was founded sometime in the third millennium B.C. and is by far the oldest in all of Iran. Situated along the borders of Sumer and Akkad, the land of Elam was similar to its neighbors, although its language was altogether unique.

Although they lasted as an independent kingdom for at least a millennium, if not longer, very little is known about them because Elamite scribes were not concerned with documenting their mythology, literature, or any scientific advancements. Writing was mostly seen as a way to honor the king or perform administrative duties. Due to this fact, they made a rather small impact on the development of future civilizations, especially when compared to the Egyptians and Sumerians.

An important trading civilization in its heyday, Dilmun encompassed an area consisting of present-day Bahrain, Kuwait, and parts of Saudi Arabia. Although very little concrete evidence has been found as of yet, scholars believe that a few sites, namely Saar and Qal’at al-Bahrain, are ancient settlements of the Dilmun people. Saar is still being investigated, but a large number of the artifacts that have already been found there date to the third millennium B.C., lending credence to the theory that it was built by the Dilmun civilization.

Dilmun was a major commercial player in its day, with control over the Persian Gulf trading lanes and a communication network that reached as far away as Turkey. Numerous water springs flow all across the area, which researchers believe may have led to the legend of Bahrain being the Biblical Garden of Eden. In addition, Enki, the Sumerian god of wisdom, was said to have lived in the underground springs. Described as “the place where the sun rises,” Dilmun played a large role in Sumerian mythology; according to legend, Dilmun was the place where Utnapishtim was taken to live for eternity.

Also known as the Indus Valley Civilization, the Harappans were a group of people who lived in parts of present-day Pakistan and India. Gifted with the idea that planning cities in advance would be a good idea, their urban areas were second to none; unfortunately, due to what scientists believe to have been a massive, centuries-long drought, their culture slowly declined, never to rise again. This is currently nothing more than a theory, but it helps explain other cultural declines in the area as well.

Beginning sometime in the 25th century B.C., the Harappans also developed their own language, a script with nearly 500 different characters which has not been completely deciphered even today. Their most noteworthy artifacts are seals, usually made of soapstone, which depict various animals and mythical creatures. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro are the two largest Harappan sites, with the former labeled as a UNESCO Heritage Site. When it collapsed, the ruins of the Harappan civilization provided a template for the various other cultures which sprang up after it.

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