Scotland Yard considers opening its “Black Museum” to the public

When serial killers and other violent criminals terrorize Britain, their possessions–equipment, souvenirs of victims, personal belongings, or simply crime scene evidence–are stored away in the Crime Museum, also known as the Black Museum, a 120-year-old  private collection that Scotland Yard’s investigators have access to, but not the general public*. That may change if Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has his way. He wants to open up at least part of the collection as a tourist trap, noting, “If we had a Black Museum, we would have tourists queuing around the corner.”

No, this is not an exhibit from the Black Museum.
No, this is not an exhibit from the Black Museum.

Among other things, the museum contains notes alleged to be from Jack the Ripper, items owned by Dr. Hawley Crippen (an American doctor hanged in London in 1910 for murdering his wife), the clothing that Police Constable Keith Blakelock was killed in when a mob tried to behead him in 1985, various nooses used to execute men, and death masks of executed criminals. I’m trying to imagine what they’re going to be able to sell in the gift shop without looking completely tasteless.

* although special appointments can sometimes be made

Official Crime Museum page at the Metropolitan Police website

(Photo: eschipul)

May 7, 2009 | Filed Under Crime, Places | View Comments 

Human Muti: Ritual Killings And Organ Harvesting For Luck

ms-mutipurchase300.jpgIn 2005, an Australian news agency put together a lengthy news report on Sangomas, or traditional healers in Southern Africa, and the folk medicine called muti. For the most part, muti is all about roots and herbs, asking for help from ancestors, and good luck charms. But there’s also a vicious minority of practitioners who use human parts, usually harvested from victims while they’re still alive because the pain is believed to make the medicine more powerful.

Around the 8:55 mark is a horrible story of Peter Sello, a child who lured into an ambush, possibly by a neighbor who is a local healer, then “harvested” by a group of attackers. He was found still alive, but missing several body parts and part of his brain, and later died.

The Independent has an article about muti and ritual killings from August 2004, centered around the attack on the Sello child:

How the body parts are used varies with what customers want to achieve. They are eaten, drunk or smeared over the ambitious person. Various parts are used for different purposes. A man who had difficulty in producing children killed a father of several children and used his victim’s genitals for muti. In another case, a butcher used a severed human hand to slap each of his products every morning before opening as a way of invoking the spirits to beckon customers.

Mathews Mojela is the head teacher at Sello’s primary school. He has worked in rural areas for nearly a quarter of a century and says muti is founded in the archaic belief that there is only a limited amount of good luck around. If one wants to increase his wealth or luck, then it should come at another’s expense.

The screaming of a child while his body parts are being chopped off is also regarded as a sign calling customers to the perpetrator’s business, Mr Mojolela said. It is also believed that magical powers are awakened by the screams. Eating or burying the body parts “capture” the desired results. Robert Thornton, an anthropology professor at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg , who has done research in traditional healing, says children like Sello are targeted because it is believed that the power of the virgin is greater than that of a sexually active adult.

The main motivating idea is what Professor Thorntorn describes as “symbolic logic”, the idea that another person’s penis will strengthen the perpetrator’s, or that the perpetrator’s far-sightedness will be improved by devouring the victim’s eyes. Blood is thought to increase vitality.

Wikipedia’s entry on muti links to more recent ritual killings and evidence of harvested body parts—like the story from December 2006 of the discovery of human body parts found in the walls of a beauty salon that was still being built:

Police armed with sledge hammers, angle grinders and chisels hacked at the ash brick walls of Ngoveni’s salon after two sniffer dogs indicated several areas – which two State witnesses had earlier pointed out – from which the scent of rotting flesh emanated.Ncube’s mother collapsed in hysterics as police began pulling chunks of cement, mixed with what seemed to be human flesh, from the broken walls.

Police filled three evidence bags with the dark brown and black chunks.

[tags]muti,ritual killings,religion,south african,africa,zulu,sangoma,murder,organ harvesting[/tags]

January 16, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Places, Religion, Ugly Humanity | View Comments 

Bible Town Casts Out Satanic Phone Prefix

666 SignA Lousiana town of 450 people, writhing in the terrified grip of hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia since the 1960s, have just added themselves to God’s “Do Not Smite” list by changing their telephone prefix from 666 to 749. Even the town mayor, who sought permission from the state at the behest of his faithful townsfolk, has made the switch, and he’s told the press he expects about 80% of the population of the town will follow.

The BBC gives some useful facts on the Devil’s Combination Lock, for those not up on the arcana of Christian superstitions:

Revelation 13:18 states: “If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.”

Although in recent years scholars at Oxford University said that they had discovered a 3rd Century papyrus, from Oxyrhynchus, which gives the Number of the Beast as 616.

And a manuscript fragment from the 11th Century lists the number as 665.

The traditional number, 666, has fascinated and puzzled Christians for centuries and led to a great deal of speculation about its meaning.

Many scholars believe it is a reference to the Roman emperor at the time Revelation was written – either Nero or Domitian. Both men put Christians to death.

Using the Jewish system of Gematria, in which each letter is given a number, either name can be made to add up to 666.

So wait, 616 and 665 are also satanic? Couldn’t we put these in some sort of handy book, a reference book of some sort? Jeez!

“US town escapes 666 phone prefix” [BBC]
(Photo: welovethedark)

[tags]news,religion,telephony,satanic,bible,revelations,apocalpys,telephone numbers[/tags]

January 7, 2008 | Filed Under Funny, News, Places, Strange But True | View Comments 

Traveling in Vermont? Look for ghosts.

Traveling in Vermont, but want to see something more interesting than yet another stand selling maple syrup?

Try visiting Timothy Clark Smith’s final resting place in Evergreen Cemetery. This New Haven burial park is home to an unusual grave, created to ensure that Mr. Smith was able to escape if interred alive.

Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, VT

According to Vermonter.com, there are several “weird” places to visit, including the cursed Brunswick Springs and Hope Cemetery, which boasts some of the most unusual “memorial art” in the country.

Interested in ghost stories? Be sure to see their article on hauntings around the state.

September 13, 2007 | Filed Under Funerals, History, Places | View Comments 

Buddhist self-mummified priest gods of Japan

As if Japan’s ghostly legends and particular style of horror don’t already creep the fuck out of us, here come tales of real life monks who starved, then poisoned, the suffocated themselves over a period of years–first ridding themselves of all body fat, then severely starving and dehydrating themselves, then infusing their system with a poisonous lacquer by drinking a special tea made from sap. Finally, they’d bury themselves alive:

Self-mummified priest of Japan The third and last step of the process was to be entombed alive in a stone room just big enough for a man to sit lotus style in for a final 1000 day period. As long as the priest could ring a bell each day a tube remained in place to supply air; but when the bell finally stopped, the tube was removed and the tomb was sealed.

When the tomb was finally opened, the results would be known. Some few would be fully mummified, and immediately be raised to the rank of Buddha; but most just rotted and, while respected for their incredible endurance, were not considered to be Buddhas.

According to another website, “It seems that most Japanese mummies are to be found around Yamagata Prefecture (Northern Japan), and there may not be more than 6 of them.” This site offers some clues on where to find them, if you’re in Japan and want to pay your respects to a Buddha.

Buddha monk

“The Self-Mummified Monks of Japan” [thethinkingblog.com]

“Japanese Buddhist Mummies” [Japan Reference]

“Mummies in Northern Japan” [Daruma Forum]

August 7, 2007 | Filed Under People, Places, Religion | View Comments 

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