In Genoa City or Pine Valley, it’s surprisingly easy to fake one’s own death. It’s kind of like the local amusement park ride, everybody’s done it at least once. In real life, it’s attempted way more than I ever knew and is never pulled off effectively.

Live Science has an interesting article on just how many folks have tried this and how sadly they have failed.

Faking one’s own death has come into the news most recently as Wall Street investor Marcus Shenker, wanted for well, being a Wall Street investor is enough these days, tried to fake a plane crash. He ran out of gas before hitting the Gulf of Mexico, which authorities believe was his intended target.

There’s also a woman on this list who faked terminal cancer and then showed up at her own funeral pretending to be a long lost twin. Somebody had seen one Days of our Lives episode too many.

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And when the other sister Anita stopped going out on the porch, neighbors again inquired. Margaret told them that Anita was afraid of the outdoors. The neighbors didn’t want to be nosy after all. And why wouldn’t they believe her? It was perfectly plausible.

Besides, no one was ever invited inside the home. Not even contractors.

Imagine the shock waves throughout the neighborhood when police found three corpses in the home. That of Frank, Anita, and another sibling, Elaine, who hadn’t been seen since the 1980s.

No one’s sure why the bodies were still inside the home. They were discovered when Margaret started becoming frail and sought help from an advocate for the elderly.

Man, talk about just a little bit creepy! We know people who are extremely private, but this really takes the cake.

[source] [Image: Newscom]

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Let’s just say your dad disappears. Can’t be found. Eventually, you are told his body was found, and your family decides to cremate him (three years after his disappearance). You’re sad, you grieve, but you eventually move on the best you can. And one night, you’ve just gotten home from working the night shift and decide to watch a little telly (tv).

You see your father. On the tv. The father whom you were told is dead. He’s on the bloody tv! Wouldn’t that freak you out?

Well, it happened in England. A man disappeared from his home and was admitted to the hospital with amnesia from a head injury several days later. He didn’t know who he was, or anything about his family (why didn’t they put a picture of him on the news and ask for family to come forward? why?!).

Since police couldn’t figure out who he was, he was remanded to social services. And they put him in a care facility for eight years. Eight years!

While all of this is going on, a body was found. It was badly decomposed and was identified as the old man (Mr. John Delaney). His family arranged a funeral and cremation.

And several years later, Delaney’s son spotted him on a program about missing people. But I guess authorities didn’t want to make another mistake, so this time they did a DNA test. After it confirmed they were related, the family was reunited.

Man, talk about a shocker! We’re sure it was a relief to know that dear old Dad was still alive, but they sure missed a lot of good years together. Here’s hoping this type of mistake doesn’t happen again.

Oh, and they’re now trying to figure out who was really cremated. Of course.

[source]

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Gawker brings us news of perhaps the biggest mainstream media gaffe of the year. Bloomberg financial newswire updated its 17-page obituary of Apple founder Steve Jobs and somehow inadvertently published it. This happened despite the news story bearing markers saying “Hold for Release” and “Do Not Use.”

It’s a pretty common, if not a little morbid, practice for news organizations to prepare obits well in advance of celebrities’ actual death to save time. That’s particularly the case with mammoth opuses like Jobs’ 17-page obit, almost approaching the length of a biographic novel.

In addition to publishing the obit, Bloomberg also accidentally published the list of people its reporters should contact when Steve Jobs does die. That list includes Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former veep Al Gore, (a member of Apple’s board of directors) and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Jobs is a survivor of pancreatic cancer and appears to have lost weight in recent months, leading to even more speculation about his health. While Jobs is very much alive, a few stockholders may have gone into cardiac arrest after reading the obit.

The Apple computer legend is far from the only celebrity to have this happen to them. The Smoking Gun was among the first to report about a 2003 CNN gaffe that allowed millions to see the pre-prepared obits for several very much alive celebs including Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela and Dick Cheney. CNN also prematurely killed off Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford all of whom have passed on since the 2003 mixup. And probably the most famous, or infamous case was Mark Twain, who gave us the eternally awesome quote about reports of his death being greatly exaggerated.

Bloomberg caught the mistake and pulled the obit within minutes, but in today’s instant information culture the damage was already done. Now Jobs’ obit is all over the web and if he so desires, he has the unique opportunity to read his own obituary. What do you think, readers? If something like this happened to you, would you read your own obit?

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The Dallas Morning News reports James “Buster” McKay died Saturday from injuries he sustained, police believe, attempting to steal copper wire from a utility pole. Dallas police received a call about 4:30 a.m. Friday about a man who appeared to be stuck on the pole near the Dallas/Irving border. Utility company Oncor received a call about an outage at around the same time and restored power. Police believe McKay may have grabbed a wire during the power restoration.

Crews responding found McKay with his skin melded to the pole after receiving an estimated 7,000 volts of electricity, possibly twice. He suffered third-degree burns and was burned over 50 percent of his body Much of McKay’s clothing had either burned off or been blown off.  Ow. As Super Dave Osborne might say, record pain.

Police estimate the incident caused some $10,000 in damage and of course McKay’s death. Had he lived to profit from his attempt, police say they found $50 worth of copper on the ground beside McKay. Yeah, that was totally worth it, dude.

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Unfortunately, the priest only partially succeeded. He did tie balloons to his chair/ contraption. And he did float. Only he crashed into the ocean and was lost for three months.

The search is over, though, as his body was found off the coast of southeastern Brazil.

Far be it from us to malign this poor man. We think it’s sad that his stunt had to end this way, although in many ways it should come as no surprise. Balloons plus strong ocean winds do not a perfect flight make. He was last heard from when he called friends on his mobile to let them know he was getting ready to crash into the ocean.

That’s too bad. All he wanted to do was get some media attention and raise money for a chapel for truckers. Let’s hope the next fundraiser is a little more, well, grounded.

Image: Newscom

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He drank chloropicrin, which is apparently quite toxic – even just the fumes will give you breathing problems and eye sores. Nice.

Other patients were affected, too, including a poor pneumonia patient whose condition worsened due to the fumes.

Unfortunately for the emergency room workers, the paramedics didn’t identify the poison, so no one was wearing protective gear. We’re not sure if it was an oversight, or if they couldn’t find what he ingested. Let’s hope it wasn’t just stupidity on the part of the paramedics for not telling the hospital all of the details.

Image: Autistic Psycho on Flickr (Creative Commons license)

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Image details: New Line Premiere Of “Semi-Pro” – Arrivals served by picapp.com

A grizzly bear – most recently featured in Will Ferrell’s “Semi-Pro” – bit and killed his trainer. While the bear was supposed to be the best trained in the biz, officials were reportedly puzzled by the attack.

Um, hello? It’s a BEAR. No matter how well trained, it’s still a BEAR. You know, a wild animal that tends to kill things and eat them? A meat eater?

Don’t get us wrong, we feel for the guy’s family. That’s tragic. But how in the world can people truly be puzzled? One always takes risks when working with dangerous animals. Remember Roy Horn from Siegfried and Roy?

The bear in question, five-year-old Rocky, weighs 700 pounds and stands 7 1/2 feet tall. He was subdued with pepper spray and pulled off of his handler Stephan Miller. California’s Fish and Game examined the bear, finding no danger to public safety. But if you’re near Big Bear Lake in California, I don’t think I’d be seeking Rocky out. We’re just saying.

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The Boston Globe reports that a woman is suing pet store chain Petsmart because her husband and two other people died from a rare virus carried by hamsters.

Nancy Magee’s husband Thomas died after receiving a liver transplant from a woman infected by lymphocytic choriomeningitis, a viral infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

The virus is carried by rodents like house mice or hamsters and generally only causes flu like symptoms in humans. But in humans with compromised immune systems (like those just having undergone a transplant) it can be fatal. In 2005 Magee and two other organ recipients died from the rare virus, which was traced to a hamster purchase at a PetSmart in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Magee said the chain had a duty to tell customers of the potential virus. I’m not usually one to defend corporate America, but how would that have read?

Dear Potential Hamster Owner: There is a 1 in 10,000,000 chance that if you die and are an organ donor you could transmit a fatal hamster virus to the organ recipients.

I suspect this ends with PetSmart scratching her off a decent check to make the bad publicity go away. And hey, if you want to avoid the middleman and just start paying media outlets….

Photo by Alon A licensed under Creative Commons

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A Deepwater, Missouri man (it pains me to say this) fatally shot his wife last month when he tried to shoot a hole in their bedroom wall. He was inside the bedroom when he did it. He shot out of his house. To make a hole. In the wall. Because previous attempts were unsuccessful.

What part of speeding bullets and trajectories do people not understand? Now, we feel really sorry that this man lost his wife. Yet what he did defies description. And his wife is the poor one who paid for it. So sad.

Authorities weren’t sure if they would file manslaughter charges against the man. Can they charge him with stupidity?

[Source]

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