Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Murders ever committed.

Sometimes the best-laid plans of mice and men…no, wait…that was Steinbeck. Nevermind.

Today we’re talking about Upfield. Arthur Upfield. More specifically we’re talking about one of his better-known pieces of crime fiction and the weirdness that surrounds its history.

While still trying to “make it” as a writer despite two mild successes under his belt Upfield took a job as an itinerant laborer on Australia’s well known Rabbit Proof Fence project while he tried to come up with a new mystery for his fictional detective to solve. It wasn’t unusual for him to discuss the project of the campfire with other itinerant workers and eventually, with some help, he devised (bum bum bahh…) the “perfect murder.”

He figured if you burned the body, sifted out the left over bone bits, dissolved them in acid and threw all the ashes to the wind then there would be no evidence left with which to convict anyone. Great idea for a villain’s MO, right? Except with no evidence he found his plot stuck again with no great way for his detective to solve the case.

Back to the campfire.

Enter Snowy Rowles, yet another itinerant and one with a history of burglary. Without much to add to the conversations he nonetheless listened to the stories.

Soon after, two men disappeared and somehow Snowy ended up with a sweet new ride that looked suspiciously like one of the missing worker’s brand new Ford. It seems Snowy decided to take this whole “perfect murder” thing on a test drive.

Three murders deep, however, he got a little sloppy and didn’t quite do all the necessary “throwing to the wind” that might have been recommended in Upfield’s book.

In an additional case of bad luck, the officer assigned to the case instantly recognized Snowy as John Thomas Smith, an escaped convict. Suddenly the detective had all the time in the world to scrap up little tiny bits evidence that may or may not have been vaguely reminiscent of people while Snowy (er…Smith) flounder in a jail cell waiting to be executed.

No word on whether Upfield was more upset with providing inspiration for murder or with being so poorly emulated.

The end.

That’s all for this week gang! Now for my favorite part…time for the Weird Off! Let’s see your ranks when dealing with some of the Weirdest Murders ever committed. We have:

1. El Shaka – The man who wasn’t murdered…until he was.

2. Michael Malloy – The bum who wouldn’t die.

3. The world’s first homicidal robot

4. Nicholas Cocaign – The would-be soul stealing lung eater.

5. The “perfect murder”…on paper.

Sound off!

Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Murders ever committed.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase, “Eat your heart out…”. As in, “Eat your heart out Google, there’s a new iPhone in town,” or “Eat your heart out Thierry, I just ate your lung.”

Right, well…something like that.

Want more explanation? I thought you’d never ask.

In 2007, Nicolas Cocaign’s lawyer TRIED to explain that the French attempted rapist was crazy. He TRIED to get the dude shipped to a psych ward. Unfortunately, when the prison officials refused, it was up to Cocaign to provide the actual proof.

That’s where Cocaign’s cellmate, Thierry Baudry, comes in…or exits rather. After stabbing Baudry repeatedly in the chest with a pair of scissors Cocaign finished him off by suffocating him with a plastic bag. (Why a crazy rapist had access to a pair of scissors and a plastic bag I leave up to you to try to figure out.)

Apparently satisfied with his attempt to prove his insanity Cocaign then set out to prove that he also had no anatomical knowledge whatsoever.

In an effort to absorb Baudry’s soul by eating his heart, our buddy Cocaign, managed instead to eat a lung AND two chest muscles. (I like to think that after finishing the lung he looked down, saw another one and with a quiet sigh, said to himself, “crap.” Before resigning himself to chowing down on the more centrally located albeit no more heart-shaped chest muscles.)

Fun fact: At his subsequent murder trial the lead juror announced the verdict by standing up and singing:

He’s a plight,

He’s a plight,

He’s a plight,

COCAIGN.

(Shoot. I promised myself no more Eric Clapton jokes.)

Your thoughts? Have any other weird cannibal/murder stories? (Or Eric Clapton jokes?)

Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Murders ever committed.

The wheels were set in motion on January 25th, 1979. Now it’s just a matter of time…

That’s the date that Robert Williams of Flat Rock, Michigan, during an otherwise uneventful shift on an assembly line, met his fatal demise at the murderous hands of (…wait for it…) A ROBOT!

Never before in history had a robot been responsible for the death of a human being. I like to picture that in the year 2025, a short ten years after the release of the hover board, in the wastelands of the new Robotopia will stand a monument to the robotic arm that crushed Williams for getting in its way while it tried to retrieve some vital parts.

No word on whether or not the robot had foreknowledge of Williams’s grandson becoming the leader of the human resistance.

According to an article on wired.com, “The jury agreed the robot struck him in the head because of a lack of safety measures…” Which I can only assume means the robot was a stickler for safety and eventually had all it could take of Williams’s careless work practices.

For those of you that say this one is cheating and not an actual murder, I say, “Time will shed full light on the truth and I for one welcome our new robot overlords.”

What are your thoughts on the coming Robopocalypse? What’s the best way to fend off a murderous robot?

Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Murders ever committed.

I’m going to be honest here folks, today’s story not only feels like a strong early contender for the number one spot in this week’s Weird Off…but may also retroactively take away Wenseslao Moguel’s title from the Weirdest Survival Stories Weird Off of two weeks ago. (Is it just me or was that an awful lot of ‘W’ words for one sentence?)

Michael Malloy was once known as the most durable man in history…of course, he was also once known as the town drunk, a hopeless alcoholic and a strong candidate to drink himself to death. So naturally, five friends took it upon themselves to take out a series of life insurance policies that would pay out the exorbitant sum of $3500 in the event of Malloy’s accidental death. (I should mention this all happened in 1933, so that’s almost $60,000 in real money.)

Since no one likes to stake their financial gains on chance, these five guys decided nature might need a little helping hand and started referring to themselves as the Murder Trust. It all started out innocent enough (Relatively speaking. Don’t get me wrong, they were trying to kill some homeless drunk for pecuniary gain.) with one of the Murder Trust offering Malloy an unlimited tab at a speakeasy in an effort to speed up the whole drinking himself to death process.

Apparently that just wasn’t getting the job done…so they started switching out alcohol for antifreeze.

Didn’t work.

Turpentine?

Nope.

Horse liniment?

Uh-uh.

Rat poison?!

Thanks to an iron stomach (and no taste buds?), he just kept coming back for more.

In an effort to up their game the Murder Trust started feeding him methanol soaked oysters and spoiled sardine sandwiches mixed with poison. (That’s the one that gets me. I’ve had sardines out of a can before and they almost put me down for the count…and those weren’t even arsenic flavored.)

Bottom-line: When all that did was give Malloy a shinier winter coat (I have no reason to believe that’s true.) things got serious.

One night when temperatures dropped to below zero the five really-wish-we-could-be-murderers fed our hero drinks until he passed out, dumped him in the nearest snow bank, took off his shirt and dumped five gallons of water on his chest. And finally, FINALLY, after Malloy died a miserable, frozen death, they were able to collect their ill-gotten gains.

Just kidding. He showed up at the bar the next day looking for a drink.

Eventually they settled on a more direct approach and just ran him over with a taxi. Once they set out to collect their ill-gotten gains however, they found it was difficult to prove his death without the body. Luckily, it mysteriously showed up at the bar three weeks later…asking for a drink. It seems they at least managed to hospitalize Malloy for almost a month on that attempt. Way to make progress, murderers!

Okay, for reals this time, they finally did, really for real, no take backs, kill him on their next attempt by sticking a gas hose in his mouth after he passed out drunk one night and successfully collected the policy…only to get busted by police because they couldn’t stop telling their friends the crazy story after a few drinks.

Final score: Michael Malloy 10; Murder Trust 1

Weird enough? What do you think? Was the Murder Trust doing it all wrong or was Michael Malloy really the toughest hobo who ever lived?

Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville is bringing us the Weirdest Murders ever committed.

It was my favorite American author (well, maybe my second favorite) who once said, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Which would be a PERFECT analog to today’s story if just a couple hours after Samuel Clemens uttered one of his most famous phrases…he dropped dead.

In a startling display of topicality, hitherto unseen in this column, just two short days ago José Sergio Vega was murdered in his red Cadillac by an unknown gunman somewhere in Northwest Mexico.

“Pfft. Getting shot is not exactly ‘weird’, Brett.”

I hear what you’re saying, Mr. Disembodied Voice, and, I assure you, I whole-heartedly agree. However, maybe you just need to sit tight and listen to the rest of the story instead of being so damn argumentative and judgmental.

Here’s the weird part: Just a few short hours before “El Shaka” (That’s Vega’s rad musical nom de er…music) was shot dead he was giving an interview expressly to dismiss the rumors that he had been shot dead! (I can neither confirm whether he used the phrase, “Las noticias de mi muerte eran una exageración.”)

Apparently El Shaka is well known around the Mexican Country Music circuit (according to my Mexican Music sources, that’s a real thing) for performing “narcocorridos,” which are songs mostly about the amazing feats of Mexican drug traffickers. Not unlike a 50cent ditty but with less being shot in the face and more running drugs hidden in the headrest of a ’92 Civic across the border (I guess…).

The problem there is that seven such performers have been killed by rival traffickers (miffed by the power ballads extolling their competitors virtues) in the last three years. El Shaka’s lawyer however, seems to think he was being targeted for his sweet ride…

Regardless, kind of makes you want to stop going around telling people you’re not dead, right?

So, how excited are you for a week of weird murders? Got any you think need to make it into the final five? Most importantly, why do drug traffickers have so many songs about them that there’s actually a name for their style of music and I can’t get you guys to write one tiny little theme song about me?!