Taking Your Breath Away: It's All About the Killer Series

While faced with the task of trying to come up with some ways that the Serial Killer in my book kills... I of course turned to the interwebs to find a list I was sure that was out there - with all kinds of different ways to "murder" someone...

So when I found absolutely nothing, I was kinda shocked.....

... but then I started thinking, well, why give actual people who kill ideas ....

And then I thought, but they can just watch ID Channel to get all kinds of ideas ...

So why isn't there a master list out there?   Who knows..... but, guess I'm going to make one of my own.

So I sought out to create our own master list... and thought, I'm not going to limit it to just ways that the character(s) I'm writing would do, it's going to be a master, MASTER LIST ..

Asphyxiation is a tricky little thing.  There are several more uncontrollable (dare I say, natural) caused for being unable to breath. 

Hanging
Strangulation
Suffocation
Smothering
Drowning in various substances
Erotic asphyxiation gone wrong
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Halon Gas

A list on this website is: 

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
Carbon Monoxide Inhalation
Contact with certain chemicals. (like phosgene)
Drowning
Drug Overdose
Exposure to low pressure or vacuum
Hanging
Self-Induced Hypocapnia by Hyperventiliation
Inert gas asphyxiation
Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome
Respiratory Diseases
Sleep Apnea
Seizure
Strangling
Breaking the wind pipe
Prolonged exposure to Chlorine Gas

Tools of the Game

Nylons/Stockings (Cindy)
Wire
Rope
Nylon or other cloth/fabric Cords
Ties
Phone Cord
Computer Cords
Belts
Electronic Power Cords
Pillows
Plastic Bags

Notes:

A woman is choked with her own nylons (Cindy)

suffocation by extended time locked in a fridge/freezer hidden in a scrapyard (Anton)

being compressed by weights until asphyxiation (Travis - See Also Stoning)

Is that a Rock in your Hand? - It's All About the Killer Series

While faced with the task of trying to come up with some ways that the Serial Killer in my book kills... I of course turned to the interwebs to find a list I was sure that was out there - with all kinds of different ways to "murder" someone...

So when I found absolutely nothing, I was kinda shocked.....

... but then I started thinking, well, why give actual people who kill ideas ....

And then I thought, but they can just watch ID Channel to get all kinds of ideas ...

So why isn't there a master list out there?   Who knows..... but, guess I'm going to make one of my own.

So I sought out to create our own master list... and thought, I'm not going to limit it to just ways that the character(s) I'm writing would do, it's going to be a master, MASTER LIST ..

Google Images

I first became aware of this practice while I was in high school and was in the Amnesty International.  You hear about it and you think, how could anyone do that?  Of course, I didn't get the internet until 1996 and by then I was out of high school and had a newborn, so I had a lot of other things on my mine then the women being murdered in Iran and the Middle East thanks to the word of their stupid-ass-husbands.

So I'm on this mission - and I remember, Stoning ....  I need to put that on my list because it hideous.  It is one of the few things that makes my stomach churn ... well any murder does, but as I was searching for graphics for this blog, I mean...  I am currently sitting here nauseated to the tenth degree.  There are death photos on Google of actual stonings.

To hear about it, and to see photos, it is two different things...  photos make that impact that even the imagination has a hard time drumming up.

Women can be falsely accused of adultery by their lying cheating I no longer want to be married to this woman husbands... and they do not need actual proof, they can just say "she cheated" and be done with it.  Now, if a woman wants to make a claim that her husband is lying and she never cheated.... SHE HAS TO PROVE IT.

It blows my mind....

And then I saw a photo of a child who had been stoned to death.  The child looked anywhere from 2 to 4-ish.  It's hard for me to tell exactly and I didn't see any information on the age.  However, apparently, a child can be stoned for disobeying their parents.

I mean....  gobsmacked.

Oh and ...  it is not illegal to do the stoning, but it is against the law to use the wrong size stone.  It cannot be too big or too small.  They don't want large rocks thrown that could kill them in one blow, and they don't want too small rocks thrown that cause no damage.

Although I don't suggest going and looking at the actual pictures ... I do recommend that you are aware of this practice.

I read that death by stoning came into use in Iran after the 1979 revolution.  Prior to that, it was used in Medieval times...  but it's on our radar because of the brutal deaths in the Middle East.

(You could watch the 2008 movie named THE STONING OF SORAYA M - about the true story of Soraya Manutchehri, an Iranian woman who was stoned to death in 1986 when her cheating husband accused her of adultery.  Not sure I recommend it.)

In the case of Soraya, from the articles I have read, stones were thrown at her for 7 1/2 minutes, and although her face was mutilated, her asshole husband approached her and check her - finding her alive.  He announced the "bitch" is still alive, and so they continued to throw stones at her for a few more minutes.  Then once they pulled her out of the ground, wild dogs basically fed off of her until only her bones were left.  Then her Aunt buried what bones she could find (I'm assuming because dogs can run off with bones.) ...

How covered the person is

I just can't anymore.

Beyond the stoning - as for throwing them - there are cases where stones are placed upon people until they are basically crushed to death.  I saw, in once case, a huge body sided stone was used to crush someone.

(Notes Below)

Google Images

Google Images

Google Images

Google Images

Google Images

Google Images

Notes:

Being compressed by weights until asphyxiation  (Travis - See Also Asphyxiation)


DO YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL IDEAS???  Please leave a comment and tell me about it!

Things that Shoot: It's All About the Killer Series

While faced with the task of trying to come up with some ways that the Serial Killer in my book kills... I of course turned to the interwebs to find a list I was sure that was out there - with all kinds of different ways to "murder" someone...

So when I found absolutely nothing, I was kinda shocked.....

... but then I started thinking, well, why give actual people who kill ideas ....

And then I thought, but they can just watch ID Channel to get all kinds of ideas ...

So why isn't there a master list out there?   Who knows..... but, guess I'm going to make one of my own.

So I sought out to create our own master list... and thought, I'm not going to limit it to just ways that the character(s) I'm writing would do, it's going to be a master, MASTER LIST ..

Google Image

THINGS THAT SHOOT .... 

Interesting Link List of various weapons through various eras & areas

Guns
Blow Gun (poison dart, tranquilizer)
Bow & Arrows
Tranquilizer Gun
Cannons
Sling Shots
Catapults
Tanks (Military, other military equipment)
Rockets & Missiles (maybe belongs in Bombs & Explosions)
Flame Thrower (kind a gun of some kind right?)  (my friend Jennene suggested)
Nail Gun (my friend Jennene suggested) (also my Aunt Cindy)

I wasn't sure if  the following could actually kill people, so here are some notes...


Flare Gun  (my friend Jennene suggested)
I figured that you can kill with a flare gun.  I don't see why not when maybe shooting in certain areas ... but I wanted to make sure.  So I searched.  I saw that a father murdered his three children with a flare gun.  Gah! I hate reading stuff like that.  Here are two answers I thought were appropriate.  Both from HERE.

1:  Yes. It's a 10ga pistol, which means that its bore is larger than a 12ga shotgun (yes, I now it's a smaller number that 12ga, just trust me on this). 10ga is the largest bore that you can get without a special license, basically getting pretty damn close to an elephant gun, though obviously a snub-nosed smooth-bore pistol isn't going to be horribly accurate. 

Essentially, you have a charge larger than that of a 10ga shotgun shell, propelling an extremely hot burning projectile (generally using strontium nitrate for the red emergency flare) with such a velocity and thermal signature that it can be illuminated and high enough to seen up to 50 miles away (a SOLAS flare). Strontium nitrate is so dangerous as a pyrotechnic that specialty companies have to have unique federal licenses just to transport it cross-country (though for some reason they can sell it directly to you, which I don't understand). 

How dangerous are they? Consider the force behind a heavy burning flare that was going to go high enough to be seen for 50 miles. Just the blunt-force trauma alone would be devastating. It would definitely break bones, crush tissues, and possibly even penetrate into the body, at which point you'd have an object burning at many hundreds of degrees inside your gut. That would suck. 

These things are so powerful that hunters in the Pacific Northwest often carry them as a "point defense" weapon against freaking *bears,* and it usually sends the animal packing. Everybody knows that being on a merchant ship off of Somalia is a bad place to be these days. A couple of months back, a Danish cargo ship came under attack, fired a flare at the pirate boat... and sank it! 

Basically, they're nearly as dangerous as packing a conventional pistol, but you don't need a license or register with anyone. Still -- killing someone with a flare gun is probably still a felony offense.

2: A flare gun fires a flare; which is a pyrotechnic that contains highly combustible chemicals to produce a bright light. The flare burns very hot for a brief period, and can cause sever burns or even death to a person hit by it. Flares can be hot enough that they will even burn under water. 
The active ingredients in the flare are chemicals such as potassium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, strontium nitrate or calcium phosphide; usually mixed with other combustible ingredients.

Tazer & Tazer Gun
I didn't think this can "kill" people, but can definitely be useful.. (my friend Jennene suggested)  I was wrong though... Almost all 18,000 police departments in the U.S. issue their officers Tasers, or stun guns, as a non-lethal alternative to subdue people they might see as a threat. But in a five-part series, Reuters documented more than 1,000 incidents since 2000 in which their Tasers have killed people.

BB Gun
BB Guns can kill a person.  High-Velocity BB guns which have muzzle velocities higher than 350 feet per second can increase this risk.  The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has reports of about 4 deaths per year caused by BB guns or pellet guns.

Airsoft Rifles
This one is still kinda a mystery.  I'm sure there is always some way that it can be used as a lethal weapon but things I have read are mixed.  These guns are designed to shoot at humans and I have read that it is not as "powerful" as ... say... a BB gun.  I have read, though - that maybe if you modify the gun and/or use BB rounds instead of the safer alternative designed to be used with the airsoft rifles, that maybe it could be used as a murderous weapon.

Paintball Gun
Can do serious damage.  If you crank the velocity up past 300 and/or freeze the paintballs it does become a deadly weapon, especially if someone is not wearing a mask.  If you got shot in the temple at relatively close range, without protection of any kind, paintball marker's velocity above 300, and with (or maybe even without) frozen paintaballs, it could be lethal.  A paintball marker set above 300 FPS can easily break bones in your hand.

Many paintballers have said that paintballs do not freeze (they tried).  The few comments I read said that it takes forever for the paintballs to freeze and when they are removed from the freezer it thaws out very quickly.  If it doesn't thaw out in a few minutes it's so brittle that just the burst of air to fire it could shatter it before it even hits a target.  One commenter said that their frozen paintball turned to the consistency of sherbert when it thawed ...

Water Gun
No way this could be lethal right? But if there is poison or acid or maybe even a biological weapon ...  but definitely if there is some poison or something that could kill someone either long term, short term or immediate ... it could be used as a lethal weapon.  (s1 ep2 of Deception)

Hot Glue Gun ... (glue them to death! LOL) (my friend Jennene suggested)
So .... although I can't see this actually causing death.  I can see this being used as a type of torture (and will have to add it to my torture list.  So ...  using a hot glue gun to glue mouth shut? Eyes shut. hands together, feet together, all kinds of things can be "glued" together (sexual also?) ... also super glue!?

Silicone Gun ... (Jenna) probably the same lines as the Hot Glue Gun, however ......  if you have someone tied up, and you want to kill them with it...  or if they are drugged, you could fill their nose and mouth full of either hot glue or silicone and that would completely leave them unable to breath. 


METHODS...... 
Shooter vs. Victim
Gang Violence
The Mob
Firing Squads
Mass Shooting
Hunting People
Accidental Shootings (or was it? Muahhahahahaha)

Shot in the head or heart with a roofing nailer  (Cindy)


DO YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL IDEAS???  Please leave a comment and tell me about it! 

Ways of Torture - Spanish Boot & Foot Press

(all the graphics below are via Google Search)

I am doing research....  no really, it's research...

I have been fascinated with murderers for a long .....loooooong....... loooooooooooong time.  So working on this book and having a serial killer in it...  I'm taking the opportunity to do a lot of research because my serial killer ...  or is it killers? .... and I'm actually learning a lot.  I am also taking some notes from my constant watching of ID (channel) ...

Look at the times of the Salem Witch Trial where women and men who were accused of being a "witch" were jailed, treated horribly, and tortured until they admitted their guilt.

But this series includes some notes on Medieval Torture (or general torture devices)...

But the first thing I'm going to talk about is the SPANISH BOOT and the FOOT PRESS.

I have read that a lot of these different torture type devices were used in trials to coerce the truth out of the people they believed commited crimes of the time. It's sad in a way because it seems that this was a "guilty unless proved innocent" time of mentality and would very likely and very easily get people who were innocent to say they were guilty of something they really didn't do.

These are all very similar of a device, but also different too.  There are also similar things for the hands.

SPANISH BOOT

So the SPANISH BOOT was an iron casing for the leg and foot. (Sometimes only for the leg.)  Wood or iron wedges, or studs, would press against the skin, through the skin, into and through the muscles, eventually into the bones - breaking them - with every turn of a screw (or screws depending on how they were made.)

When you look up the "Spanish Boot" you see the following types of images (among others of different things)

But I think this is actually the SHIN CRUSHER which is a smaller device that squeezes the calf between two carved iron plates decorated with spikes, knobs, teeth, etc that specifically fractures the tibia and fibula.

However it the foot is in there in a flexed position, I can see it working with the foot in there.

These types of devices date as much as a thousand years back.  The first known type of - at least the idea of this device - was a Scottish effort.   They would make a boot-shaped rawhide version that would be soaked in water, put into place on the foot/lower leg, and bound in place with leather cords.  The book would be heated ever so slowly to make the rawhide/leather contract around the wearers leg and foot and it would apply sufficient pressure to cause pain but not enough pressure to actually break any bones. It was later made from leather, with hot boiling water poured over it, and it was known to actually eat the flesh away.

There were some that they would pour hot boiling water or oil INTO ... also.

There were also versions that started to be improved upon and would then be made out of wood and wedges that would actually would dislocate and crush the bones.

None of these sound pleasant...  and those pictures make me shiver.  A part of me always wanted to be a princess or live in that time, a tiny part, but those photos make the "princess" in me want to shrivel up and die!  Much like a lot of the "torture" devices.

This is what Wikipedia had to say:

The Spanish boot was an iron casing for the leg and foot. Wood or iron wedges were hammered in between the casing and the victim's flesh. A similar device, commonly referred to as a shin crusher, squeezed the calf between two curved iron plates, studded with spikes, teeth, and knobs, to fracture the tibia and fibula.^[1]

Primitive forerunners of the archetype can be found dating back as far as a thousand years. The first Scottish effort also referred to as a buskin, made use of a vaguely boot-shaped rawhide garment that was soaked with water, drawn over the foot and lower leg, and bound in place with cords. The contraption was slowly heated over a gentle fire, drastically contracting the rawhide and squeezing the foot until the bones were dislocated, though there would not have been sufficient pressure actually to crush the bones of the foot. A more progressive variant, found in both the British Isles and France, consisted of a trio of upright wooden boards that splinted around and between the feet and were tied in place by cords. Wedges were hammered between the boards and the feet to dislocate and crush the bones. A prototype hailing from Autun, France, consisted of high boots of spongy, porous leather that were drawn over the feet and legs. Boiling water was poured over the boots, eventually soaking through the leather and eating the flesh away from the entrapped limbs. Lastly, oversized boots of iron or copper (often soldered in place on the floor) received the prisoner's bare feet as he lay helplessly bound and gagged in a chair. The boots were slowly filled with boiling water or oil, or even molten lead, to consume the feet and legs. One variant—applied in Ireland to the martyr Dermot O'Hurley—consisted of lightweight metal boots that were filled with cool water and heated with the feet inside over a fire until the water boiled aggressively.

FOOT PRESS

Similar to the Spanish Boot the FOOT PRESS or FOOT SCREW can (depending) look more like a boxy metal shoe that the bare foot in placed in, with spikes, teeth, knobs and screws that will cause discomfort and breaking into the skin, muscle, and bone much like the Spanish Boot.   This torture device has a crank mechanism that will eventually break the bones if it's taken to that point.

There have been other versions of this device too...  you can read about them on Wikipedia along with various references in cinema and literature!

A similar implement, the foot press or foot screw, consisted of a pair of horizontal iron plates slowly tightened around the bare foot by means of a crank mechanism to crush the bones. Although it was quite standard to line the lower plate with ribs to prevent the foot from popping out of the grip of the instrument as it became sweatier, a crueler variant of this device—typically encountered in Nuremberg, Germany—lined the upper plate with hundreds of sharp spikes. A version from Venice, sometimes called the foot screw or toe breaker, connected the crank mechanism to a drill that slowly mutilated the foot by boring a hole through the center of the instep as the press was tightened. The instrument was of sufficient power and cruelty to pulverize the tiniest of toe bones.^[2]

Medieval boots were built according to a wide array of architectures. One commonly encountered boot consisted fundamentally of a pair of upright parallel boards that splinted the toes. Turning the screw squeezes the toes between the boards, inflicting lateral pressure on the metatarsal heads and causing agony. This is the type of boot commonly associated with the torture of Esmeralda in Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The cruelty of the torture could be increased by spacing the toes apart with stiff wooden pegs. Various extensions of the instrument were designed to crush the ankle, calf, or knee in addition to its primary target, the instep. The toes often protruded from the front of the boot, facilitating the infliction of additional tortures, such as forcibly tearing the nails from the toes with red-hot iron pincers.

It's All About The Killer Series ..

So I started to work on the actual history of the crimes in my book....

I have been fascinated with murderers for a long .....loooooong....... loooooooooooong time.  So working on this book and having a serial killer in it...  I'm taking the opportunity to do a lot of research because my serial killer ...  or is it killers? .... but I'm actually learning a lot.  I am also taking some notes from my constant watching of ID (channel) ...

But there was definitely some huge holes in my research.

.......... see...  I started to do the research, and I found things were lacking....  I mean, of course, how much information do people out there REALLY want out there on murder and serial killers?

Okay - there is no research lacking on actual serial killers but there are things that ARE lacking ....

......... like, I was looking for a specific list as to how a serial killer may commit murder, like ...  stabbing, shooting, hanging, poisoning, etc ..... a one stop shop list.

............... but I found ....... nothing........

Things were really lacking there.

So of course from there ...  after search and search and search .... hours and hours of clicking and going "nope" in my head ...  I started my own list.  I think I have a pretty good list.  Then I thought, shoooo I should post it ...

So I'm going to do various blogs, about certain ways a killer may murder ...  my notes, things I find interesting, good to know things, etc and so on, and I'm going to link them all in one place - HERE - when I get them done.

So ....  the blogs that I write up will be linked in this blog, below...

But this series includes some notes on Medieval  & Current Ways to Torture (or general torture devices)...  When you "TORTURE" someone you may not necessarily kill someone, or they may not have certain death because of doing this type of torture, and/or use particular torture devices, so they will be on separate lists. Ways to torture and torture/torture devices that kill ...

So there is some pretty interesting devices of torture ....

WAYS TO TORTURE:  <== may not result in actual death

WAYS OF THE PAST: Medieval Type Torture (Devices)

• First off, there is the Callahan.....  like.... wow (my son's name is Calahan).  But there is no info out there that I can find, so...  does it really exist?
• Spanish Boot & Foot Press *New 3-24-18*
• Breast Ripper (AKA Iron Spider or just Spider) and Tongue Tearer
• Pear of Anguish (aka Choke Pear) 
• Cattle Prod
• Heretic's fork
• Tean Zu (for women, translated: literally: "finger compressing")
• Kia quen (for men, translated: literally: "pinching-sticks")
• Mancuerda
• Parrilla
• Pau de Arara
• Pendulum
• Stocks and Pillory
• Rope
• Scavenger's Daughter (AKA Skevington's gyves, iron shackle, as the Stork (as in Italian cicogna) or as Spanish A-frame. Further it is known as Skevington's daughter)
• Scold's Bridle (AKA witch's bridle, a brank's bridle, or simply branks)
• Tablilla
• Thumbscrew
• Tramp Chair
• Tucker Telephone
• Wooden Horse (AKA Wooden Horse, Spanish Donkey, Cavaletto Squarciapalle)

Mental (Psychological) Torture Methods

• Blackmail (Exploitation of secrets)
• Chinese water torture
• Disfigurement threats (permanent, severe to self or loved ones)
• Exploitation of fears (kidnapping and ransom, threats of death to loved ones or the victim)
• Exploitation of phobias (mock execution, leaving an arachnophobe in a room full of spiders)
• Forced nudity/prostitution (sex trafficking)
• Interrogation for long periods
• Music torture
• Pharmacological torture
• Sensory deprivation
• Sleep deprivation
• Solitary confinement
• Waterboarding

Physical Torture Methods

• Beatings and physical violence
• Blinding with light
• Boiling
• Bone breaking
• Branding
• Castration
• Chinese water torture
• Garrote/Strangling
• Cold Cell Torture (Cold Air/Cold Water/Ice Water Showers/Ice Baths)
• Combing
• Crushing
• Cutting
• Denailing
• Disfigurement
• Drowing
• Dunking
• Electroshock weapon (Includes Tazers & Close-Contact Stun Guns, Cattle Prod)
• Flagellation
• Foot roasting
• Foot whipping (aka bastinado) 
• Force-feeding
• Genital mutilation/forced circumcision
• Glue (hot glue gun, super glue)
• Hamstringing
• Hypothermia (cold cell torture)
• Jetliner position
• Kneecapping
• Keelhauling
• Mutilation
• Noise torture
• Oxygen deprivation
• Pitchcapping
• Pressure points 
• Rape
• Rat torture
• Riding the rail 
• Sexual assault 
• Sawing
• Scalping
• Scaphism
• Shrimp tie (ebi-zeme)
• Sleep deprivation 
• Sound torture (extremely high volumes, dynamic range, low frequency, high pitched noise, intended to interfere with rest, cognition and concentration)
• Starvation 
• Strappado/squassation (aka "reverse hanging" and "Palestinian hanging") 
• Stress positions 
• Ta'liq hanging from a metal bar
• Tarring and feathering
• Thumbscrew (torture)
• Tickle torture
• Tooth extraction 
• Wailing 
• Water cure
• Waterboarding

DEVICES OF TORTURE & DEATH:

WAYS OF THE PAST: Medieval Type Torture

• Brazen Bull <=== working on 
• Breaking Wheel <=== working on 
• German Chair
• the Head Crusher
• Instep Borer
• Iron Chair (aka: the Chinese Torture Chair, the Torture Chair)
• Iron Maiden
• Judas Cradle (aka: Judas Chair or The Guided Cradle) 
• the Rack (aka Duke of Exeter's Daughter)
• Impalement 

WAYS THAT A MURDER KILLS:

• "Angel of Death" Medical Professionals playing God
• Arterial Gas Embolism (AGE)
• Asphyxiation/Suffocation/Strangulation/Hanging (*NEW* 4.10.18)
• Biological Weapon (Illness Epidemic)
• Blunt Force Trama (w/ various instruments)
• Body Trama (saw body in half - either direction, disemboweled, etc)                                     (also) Drawn, Hanged & Quartered - could adjust from horse to 4-wheeler
• Bombs & Explosions
• Buried Alive
• Burns/Fires
• Car accident (on purpose - cut break line, hit & run, running into on repeat)
• Chemical Warfare
• Death from Pain (too much stress on the body)
• Decapitation ("Off with their head!")
• Drownig
• Drug Overdose (Street Drugs, more potent drugs)
• Eaten by animals (Rat Torture, Dogs, Gators & other wild animals)
• Electrocution/Shock Treatment (Tazers, Cattle Prod)
• Exsanguination (massive blood loss)
• Fall from heights (pushed)
• Flaying (Skinning)
• Forced Suicide (often with threats of a child or other loved ones death if they don't)
• Freezing (temps, long exposure to cold)
• Gun Shot/Firing Squad/Mass Shootings (*NEW* 4.8.18)
• Medication Overdose (that is not self inflicted suicide)
• Poison
• Stabbing
• Starvation/Dehydration
• Stoning (buried up to neck - stones thrown, large stones placed upon a body/packed on head ... done in the middle east.) (*NEW* 4-9-18)
• Various Medieval Torture Device

OTHER NOTES: 
List of ways to "get rid" of a body
Cold Case Options
Taunting Letters to Media and Law Enforcement