Unsolved Mysteries

[Bowwowmeow]

Patsy Ramsey, Slain Girl's Mother, Dies
http://my.eimg.net/harvest_xml/NEWS/img/20060624/449cb8c0_3ca7_1552720060624758040388.jpg (http://enews.earthlink.net/article/pho?guid=20060624/449cb8c0_3ca7_1552720060624758040388&article_path=/article/top&article_guid=20060624/449cb8c0_3ca6_15526200606241137032111)

Patsy Ramsey and her husband, John, give a news conference in Atlanta on May 24, 2000 regarding their polygraph examinations for the murder of their daughter, JonBenet. RIC FELD

By ROBERT WELLER (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
June 24, 2006 5:48 PM EDT
Patsy Ramsey, who was thrust into the national spotlight by the unsolved 1996 slaying of her daughter, 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant JonBenet, died Saturday following a long battle with ovarian cancer, her lawyer said. She was 49.
Ramsey was diagnosed with the disease in 1993 and suffered a recurrence several years ago, attorney L. Lin Wood said. She died at her father's home in Roswell, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, with her husband, John, at her bedside.
"It is not unexpected but it is a sad day," Wood told The Associated Press.
JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family's home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996.
Patsy Ramsey said she found a ransom note on the back staircase demanding $118,000 for the safe return of JonBenet. John Ramsey said he found his daughter's body in a basement room eight hours later.
Boulder police said early on that Patsy and John Ramsey were under an "umbrella of suspicion" in JonBenet's death. The Ramseys said an intruder killed their daughter. A grand jury investigation in Boulder ended with no indictments, and no arrests have been made in the case.
In 2003, U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes in Atlanta concluded that the evidence she reviewed suggested an intruder killed JonBenet. That opinion came with the judge's decision to dismiss a libel and slander lawsuit against the Ramseys by a freelance journalist, who the Ramseys had named as a suspect in their daughter's murder. The Boulder district attorney at the time said she agreed with Carnes' declaration.
"Hopefully her legacy will not be tied to the false accusation related to the brutal murder of her daughter," Wood said of Patsy Ramsey Saturday.
Scott Robinson, a Denver defense lawyer who has followed the case from the start, said JonBenet's killing is unlikely to ever be solved and accused police of mishandling the case by focusing on the Ramseys from the start.
"Once the forensic evidence was made public it was clear that the police accusation that they were under the umbrella of suspicion was not only unfair but insulting," Robinson said.
Patsy Ramsey was born in Parkersburg, W.Va., on Dec. 29, 1956. She was crowned Miss West Virginia in 1977.
"Those who were fortunate enough to really know Patsy didn't just like her, or admire her, but truly loved her," longtime friend Linda McLean of Parkersburg, W.Va., said in a statement Saturday. "She was probably the most beloved person I've met.
"Watching how she maintained her strong faith through all her heartache gave the rest of us strength," McLean said.
JonBenet was named after her father, with the name pronounced in a French-inspired manner as zhawn-ben-AY. She followed her mother into beauty pageants, learning how to walk, gesture and perform and collecting a wardrobe of elaborate costumes, including that of a Las Vegas showgirl and a cowgirl.
The little girl's titles included Little Miss Colorado; Little Miss Charlevoix, Mich.; Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl; America's Royale Miss, and National Tiny Miss Beauty.
John and Patsy Ramsey left Colorado after JonBenet's death and wrote a book, "The Death of Innocence," which was published in 2000.
They had homes in Atlanta and in Michigan, where John Ramsey ran unsuccessfully for the Michigan House in 2004, finishing second among six candidates vying for the Republican nomination.
The Ramseys discussed their daughter's death during the campaign.
"We can't just hold our breath and hope the killer will be found and then go on with our lives," Patsy Ramsey said in 2004. "We have to move ahead now. We can't let evil win."
Patsy Ramsey is survived by her husband and their 19-year-old son, Burke.
She will be buried next to JonBenet in St. James Cemetery at Marietta, Ga., said Terry Pendley, owner of Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home in Marietta, Ga. Services were scheduled for Thursday.
I have always suspected the brother. Jealous of all the attention his sister got, he probably got in a fight with her, and accidentally killed her, and the parents covered it up. :(

[paul]

you could well be right.

[paul]

is this the case that was in court last week, the man admited it but was found not guilty becase he could have done it.

[Bowwowmeow]

Yes, that was an odd case of someone confessing to something he didn't do, which happens quite frequently, and is very bizarre. They didn't even take him to trial, though, because there was not enough evidence against him, and some of the things he said happened didn't. I think his family also provided a pretty good alibi that he was with them several states away at the time.

He does have a background of pedophilia. Maybe he wants the authorities to take control of him because he is unable to control himself, so he figured confessing and being found guilty would solve his problems.

[Bowwowmeow]

The Winchester Mystery House (http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/)

"The story begins in September 1839 with the birth of a baby girl to Leonard and Sarah Pardee of New Haven, Connecticut. The baby’s name was also Sarah and as she reached maturity, she became the belle of the city. She was well-received at all social events, thanks to her musical skills, her fluency in various foreign languages and her sparkling charm. Her beauty was also well-known by the young men about town, despite her diminutive size. Although she was petite and stood only four feet, ten inches, she made up for this in personality and loveliness.
At the same time that Sarah was growing up, a young man was also maturing in another prominent New Haven family. The young man’s name was William Wirt Winchester and he was the son of Oliver Winchester, a shirt manufacturer and businessman. In 1857, he took over the assets of a firm which made the Volcanic Repeater, a rifle that used a lever mechanism to load bullets into the breech.
Obviously, this type of gun was a vast improvement over the muzzle-loading rifles of recent times, but Winchester still saw room for advance. In 1860, the company developed the Henry Rifle, which had a tubular magazine located under the barrel. Because it was easy to reload and could fire rapidly, the Henry was said to average one shot every three seconds. It became the first true repeating rifle and a favorite among the Northern troops at the outbreak of the Civil War.
Money began to pour in and Oliver Winchester soon amassed a large fortune from government contracts and private sales. He re-organized the company and changed the name to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The family prospered and on September 30, 1862, at the height of the Civil War, William Wirt Winchester and Sarah Pardee were married in an elaborate ceremony in New Haven.
Four years later, on July 15, 1866, Sarah gave birth to a daughter named Annie Pardee Winchester. Just a short time later, the first disaster struck for Sarah, as her daughter contracted an illness known as "marasmus", a children’s disease in which the body wastes away. The infant died on July 24. Sarah was so shattered by this event that she withdrew into herself and teetered on the edge of madness for some time. In the end, it would be nearly a decade before she returned to her normal self but she and William would never have a another child.

Not long after Sarah returned to her family and home, another tragedy struck. William, now heir to the Winchester empire, was struck down with pulmonary tuberculosis. He died on March 7, 1881. As a result of his death, Sarah inherited over $20 million dollars, an incredible sum, especially in those days. She also received 48.9 percent of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and an income of about $1000 per day, which was not taxable until 1913.
But her new-found wealth could do nothing to ease her pain. Sarah grieved deeply, not only for her husband, but also for her lost child. A short time later, a friend suggested that Sarah might speak to a Spiritualist medium about her loss. "Your husband is here," the medium told her and then went on to provide a description of William Winchester. "He says for me to tell you that there is a curse on your family, which took the life of he and your child. It will soon take you too. It is a curse that has resulted from the terrible weapon created by the Winchester family. Thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance."

Sarah was then told that she must sell her property in New Haven and head towards the setting sun. She would be guided by her husband and when she found her new home in the west, she would recognize it. "You must start a new life," said the medium, "and build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die."
Shortly after the seance, Sarah sold her home in New Haven and with a vast fortune at her disposal, moved west to California. She believed that she was guided by the hand of her dead husband and she did not stop traveling until she reached the Santa Clara Valley in 1884. Here, she found a six room home under construction which belonged to a Dr. Caldwell. She entered into negotiations with him and soon convinced him to sell her the house and the 162 acres which it rested on. She tossed away any previous plans for the house and started building whatever she chose to. She had her pick of local workers and craftsmen and for the next 36 years, they built and rebuilt, altered and changed and constructed and demolished one section of the house after another. She kept 22 carpenters at work, year around, 24 hours each day. The sounds of hammers and saws sounded throughout the day and night.
As the house grew to include 26 rooms, railroad cars were switched onto a nearby line to bring building materials and imported furnishings to the house. The house was rapidly growing and expanding and while Sarah claimed to have no master plan for the structure, she met each morning with her foreman and they would go over the her hand-sketched plans for the day’s work. The plans were often chaotic but showed a real flair for building. Sometimes though, they would not work out the right way, but Sarah always had a quick solution. If this happened, they would just build another room around an existing one.

As the days, weeks and months passed, the house continued to grow. Rooms were added to rooms and then turned into entire wings, doors were joined to windows, levels turned into towers and peaks and the place eventually grew to a height of seven stories. Inside of the house, three elevators were installed as were 47 fireplaces. There were countless staircases which led nowhere; a blind chimney that stops short of the ceiling; closets that opened to blank walls; trap doors; double-back hallways; skylights that were located one above another; doors that opened to steep drops to the lawn below; and dozens of other oddities. Even all of the stair posts were installed upside-down and many of the bathrooms had glass doors on them.
It was also obvious that Sarah was intrigued by the number "13". Nearly all of the windows contained 13 panes of glass; the walls had 13 panels; the greenhouse had 13 cupolas; many of the wooden floors contained 13 sections; some of the rooms had 13 windows and every staircase but one had 13 steps. This exception is unique in its own right.... it is a winding staircase with 42 steps, which would normally be enough to take a climber up three stories. In this case, however, the steps only rise nine feet because each step is only two inches high.

While all of this seems like madness to us, it all made sense to Sarah. In this way, she could control the spirits who came to the house for evil purposes, or who were outlaws or vengeful people in their past life. These bad men, killed by Winchester rifles, could wreak havoc on Sarah’s life. The house had been designed into a maze to confuse and discourage the bad spirits.
The house continued to grow and by 1906, it had reached a towering seven stories tall. Sarah continued her occupancy, and expansion, of the house, living in melancholy solitude with no one other than her servants, the workmen and, of course, the spirits. It was said that on sleepless nights, when she was not communing with the spirit world about the designs for the house, Sarah would play her grand piano into the early hours of the morning. According to legend, the piano would be admired by passers-by on the street outside, despite the fact that two of the keys were badly out of tune.

The most tragic event occurred within the house when the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 struck. When it was all over, portions of the Winchester Mansion were nearly in ruins. The top three floors of the house had collapsed into the gardens and would never be rebuilt. In addition, the fireplace that was located in the Daisy Room (where Mrs. Winchester was sleeping on the night of the earthquake) collapsed, shifting the room and trapping Sarah inside. She became convinced that the earthquake had been a sign from the spirits who were furious that she had nearly completed the house. In order to insure that the house would never be finished, she decided to board up the front 30 rooms of the mansion so that the construction would not be complete - and also so that the spirits who fell when portion of the house collapsed would be trapped inside forever.
For the next several months, the workmen toiled to repair the damage done by the earthquake, although actually the mammoth structure had fared far better than most of the buildings in the area. Only a few of the rooms had been badly harmed, although it had lost the highest floors and several cupolas and towers had toppled over. The expansion on the house began once more. The number of bedrooms increased from 15 to 20 and then to 25. Chimneys were installed all over the place, although strangely, they served no purpose. Some believe that perhaps they were added because the old stories say that ghosts like to appear and disappear through them. On a related note, it has also been documented that only 2 mirrors were installed in the house.... Sarah believed that ghosts were afraid of their own reflection.
On September 4, 1922, after a conference session with the spirits in the seance room, Sarah went to her bedroom for the night. At some point in the early morning hours, she died in her sleep at the age of 83. She left all of her possessions to her niece, Frances Marriot, who had been handling most of Sarah’s business affairs for some time. Little did anyone know, but by this time, Sarah’s large bank account had dwindled considerably. Rumor had it that somewhere in the house was hidden a safe containing a fortune in jewelry and a solid-gold dinner service with which Sarah had entertained her ghostly guests. Her relatives forced open a number of safes but found only old fishlines, socks, newspaper clippings about her daughter’s and her husband’s deaths, a lock of baby hair, and a suit of woolen underwear. No solid gold dinner service was ever discovered.
The furnishings, personal belongings and surplus construction and decorative materials were removed from the house and the structure itself was sold to a group of investors who planned to use it as a tourist attraction. One of the first to see the place when it opened to the public was Robert L. Ripley, who featured the house in his popular column, "Believe it or Not." The house was initially advertised as being 148 rooms, but so confusing was the floor plan that every time a room count was taken, a different total came up. The place was so puzzling that it was said that the workmen took more than six weeks just to get the furniture out of it. The moving men became so lost because it was a "labyrinth", they told the magazine, American Weekly, in 1928. It was a house "where downstairs leads neither to the cellar nor upstairs to the roof." The rooms of the house were counted over and over again and five years later, it was estimated that 160 rooms existed..... although no one is really sure if even that is correct.
Today, the house has been declared a California Historical Landmark and is registered with the National Park Service as "a large, odd dwelling with an unknown number of rooms."
Most would say that such a place must still harbor at least a few of the ghosts who came to reside there at the invitation of Sarah Winchester. The question is though, do they really haunt the place? Some would say that perhaps no ghosts ever walked there at all.... that the Winchester mansion is nothing more than the product of an eccentric woman’s mind and too much wealth being allowed into the wrong hands.
There is no question that we can regard the place as one of the world’s "largest haunted houses", based on nothing more than the legend of the place alone. Is this a case where we need to draw the line between what is a real haunted spot .... and what is a really great story?
Is the Winchester Mansion really haunted? You will have to decide that for yourself, although some people have already made up their minds.
There have been a number of strange events reported at the Winchester House for many years and they continue to be reported today. Dozens of psychics have visited the house over the years and most have come away convinced, or claim to be convinced, that spirits still wander the place. In addition to the ghost of Sarah Winchester, there have also been many other sightings throughout the years.
In the years that the house has been open to the public, employees and visitors alike have had unusual encounters here. There have been footsteps; banging doors; mysterious voices; windows that bang so hard they shatter; cold spots; strange moving lights; doorknobs that turn by themselves.... and don’t forget the scores of psychics who have their own claims of phenomena to report.
Obviously, these are all of the standard reports of a haunted house... but are the stories merely wishful thinking? Reports of ghosts and spirits to continue the tradition of Sarah Winchester’s bizarre legacy? Or could the stories be true? Was the house really built as a monument to the dead? Do phantoms still lurk in the maze-like corridors of the Winchester Mystery House?"

[Bowwowmeow]

They're making another movie about the Zodiac Killer. Dirty Harry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066999/) was the most well-known.
Zodiac Killer Case Still Fascinates
By KIM CURTIS (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
February 24, 2007 7:10 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO - For Ken Narlow, watching a re-enactment of the Zodiac killer's handiwork was nearly as disturbing as the crimes themselves.
The former Napa County detective, now 75, served as a consultant in the making of the upcoming motion picture "Zodiac." He says the film, coupled with investigators' recent decision to retest three envelopes for DNA, is rekindling interest in the still-unsolved case.
"It's a case that gets put on the back burner, but you never put it away," Narlow said in an interview one day after previewing the film he called "mesmerizing."
The Zodiac killer - he gave himself that moniker in his taunting letters to police and newspapers - is blamed for at least five slayings in 1968 and 1969. He was never caught, though many, including the author of the book on which the movie is based, believe he was Arthur Leigh Allen, a convicted child molester from Vallejo who died in 1992.
In September 1969, the Zodiac struck in Napa County, stabbing two 20-year-old college students picnicking at Lake Berryessa. The crime scene was a small peninsula jutting out into the lake. The couple were accosted, hog-tied and repeatedly stabbed by a man dressed all in black and wearing a hood.
Cecelia Shepard died; Bryan Hartnell survived and is now a lawyer in Southern California. He did not return calls seeking comment from The Associated Press.
Narlow met the ambulance at the hospital that day, calling what happened to the young couple "heart-wrenching."
Thirty-eight years later, he was upset all over again when the stabbings were re-created for the film.
"I can sit through autopsies and gruesome cases," he said. "But it never affected me like it did when I was with the director when they were filming that scene."
The $80 million film, opening nationwide Friday, is based on the 1986 true-crime book by Robert Graysmith, the former political cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle who investigated the case for years as an amateur sleuth.
It was shot in 2005 in the Bay Area and stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith and Mark Ruffalo as police Inspector David Toschi, who also inspired Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" character. It's directed by David Fincher, who made "Fight Club," "Seven" and "Panic Room."
Graysmith said he was astounded at the lengths to which Fincher went to keep the film historically accurate.
"I've never seen anything like it in my life," he said. "Jake is wearing my clothes. ... Same pad. Same pen. Same bright red VW Rabbit."
Graysmith and Narlow also are encouraged that police interest in the case has been reinvigorated, although authorities insisted the timing has nothing to do with the movie.
Vallejo Police Lt. Richard Nichelman said Friday that three envelopes from the case had been sent to the state crime lab for DNA retesting. He said he expects results in a few weeks.
"You're obligated to do it if you have new technology," he said. "Percentage-wise, it doesn't look good, but you've got to have hope."
Three killings took place in the Vallejo area. David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen, teenagers on their first date, were shot to death in December 1968. Darlene Ferrin, 22, was shot and killed seven months later at the Blue Springs Golf Club, while her companion, Michael Mageau, 19, survived. Graysmith said filmmakers even tracked down Mageau as they grew obsessed with the case.
"They're still calling, asking questions," Graysmith said, laughing. "There is something about this case from the arcane symbols, the unbreakable ciphers. ... And the fact they came so close to catching this guy time and time again."
While Narlow believes the Zodiac is still at large, Graysmith said he's confident it was Allen, even though an earlier, partial DNA profile from envelopes holding his letters appeared to clear him.
Circumstantial evidence - a shoe, his presence at Lake Berryessa at the time of the crime and other factors - points squarely in his direction, Graysmith said.
Toschi, who was unavailable for an interview but attended the preview in San Francisco, also thinks it was Allen, according to Graysmith.
Evidence was removed from Allen's house shortly before he died, Nichelman said, but he refused to elaborate.
"In our hearts we know the Zodiac's reign of terror has ended," Graysmith said.


I remember when I was in school and we had police escorts for our school bus on account of his threats to hijack a bus full of kids. It was always a race to the back of the bus to be able to watch the police follow us home. I often won. I don't care much for the police anymore, though. :rolleyes:

[Gliondrach]

I saw the last five minutes of a telly programme which claimed that Albert Wotsisname wasn't the Boston Strangler.

I am also convinced that James Hanratty was not guilty of the murder he was hanged for. The dna evidence from him and the two victims had been kept together in a bag for about forty years when it was tested. The tests concluded that he was the killer. The surviving victim claimed that the killer didn't know how to drive properly but Hanratty was an accomplished car thief who knew how to drive anything. A landlady also said that he was staying at her boarding house in Wales at the time of the killing. There were just too many inconsistencies in the prosecution case. An innocent man was hanged. Thankfully, the barbarous crime of judicial execution had been outlawed by the time the innocent Guildford Four and Birmingham Six were wrongfully convicted of murder or they would probably have been dangled from a rope.

[Fauxmage]

Houdini Kin Wants Body Exhumed, Tested

By LARRY McSHANE (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
March 22, 2007 9:31 PM EDT
NEW YORK - For all his death-defying stunts, Harry Houdini couldn't escape the Grim Reaper: He died on Halloween 1926, apparently from a punch to the stomach that ruptured his appendix. But rumors that he was murdered have persisted for decades. Eighty-one years after Houdini's death, his great-nephew wants the escape artist's body exhumed to determine if enemies poisoned him for debunking their bogus claims of contact with the dead.
"It needs to be looked at," George Hardeen told The Associated Press. "His death shocked the entire nation, if not the world. Now, maybe it's time to take a second look." Houdini's family scheduled a news conference for Friday to give details on the plans. Prominent New York lawyer Joseph Tacopina is helping clear any legal hurdles to the exhumation.
A team of top forensic investigators would conduct new tests on Houdini's body, said Hardeen, whose grandfather was Houdini's brother.
The circumstances surrounding Houdini's sudden death are as murky as the rivers where he often escaped from chains, locks and wooden boxes.
The generally accepted version was that Houdini, 52, suffered a ruptured appendix from a punch in the stomach, leading to a fatal case of peritonitis. But no autopsy was performed.
When the death certificate was filed on Nov. 20, 1926, Houdini's body - brought by train from Detroit to Manhattan - had already been buried in Queens, along with any evidence of a possible death plot.
Within days, a newspaper headline wondered, "Was Houdini Murdered?"
A 2006 biography, "The Secret Life of Houdini," raised the issue again and convinced some that he might have been poisoned, including George Hardeen, who lives in Arizona and is the chief spokesman for the president of the Navajo Nation.
The likeliest murder suspects were members of a group known as the Spiritualists. The magician devoted large portions of his stage show to exposing the group's fraudulent seances. The movement's devotees included Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle.
In the Houdini biography, authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman detail a November 1924 letter in which Doyle said Houdini would "get his just desserts very exactly meted out ... I think there is a general payday coming soon."
Two years later, Houdini - by all accounts a man in extraordinary physical shape - was dead. Kalush and Sloman say that "the Spiritualist underworld's modus operandi in cases like this was often poisoning" - possibly arsenic, which could be detected decades later.
The authors also suggest that Houdini might have been poisoned by "an experimental serum" injected by one of his doctors at Detroit's Grace Hospital.
Houdini took the Spiritualists' death threats seriously, but he traveled without security, often accompanied only by his wife, Bess.
"If someone were hell-bent on poisoning Houdini," the authors wrote, "it wouldn't have been very difficult."
The team working on the exhumation includes internationally known forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden and professor James Starrs, a forensic pathologist who has studied the disinterred remains of gunslinger Jesse James and "Boston Strangler" Albert DeSalvo.
Baden, who chaired panels reinvestigating the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., pointed out a pair of oddities in Houdini's death certificate: It noted his appendix was on the left side, rather than the right. And the diagnosis of appendicitis caused by a punch was "very unusual."
Starrs said he was long familiar with the story of Houdini's death, and believed the fatal injury was the result of an accident until he read the Houdini biography.
"My eyebrows went up when I read this book," Starrs said. "I thought, `This is really startling, surprising and unsettling, and at bottom, suspicious in nature.'"
The exhumation plan received support from a surprising source: Anna Thurlow, the great-granddaughter of "medium" Margery, whose husband Dr. Le Roi Crandon was one of the Spiritualist movement's biggest proponents - and one of Houdini's enemies.
During a 1924 "seance," Margery channeled a "spirit" named Walter who greeted Houdini with a threat: "I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day for the rest of your short life."
"With people that delusional, you have to question what they're capable of,'" Thurlow said. "If there's any circumstantial evidence that Houdini was poisoned, we have to explore that."

[Gliondrach]

The coffin will be empty.

[Fauxmage]

:rofl:

[Charmagne]

It's been in the news - I'm curious to see if he was indeed poisoned.

[Fauxmage]

I think they'll hire Geraldo Rivera to cover the exhumation live, on April 1st, and the coffin really will be empty. :jester2:

[Gliondrach]

Well, one mystery for me has been cleared up. I always wondered why big cats didn't kill their prey quickly. They always seem to grab them round the neck to suffocate them. I thought it was a very nasty way to kill. Sometimes tigers kill with a bite to the back of the neck. I wondered why it can't always be done this way. Quite apart from saving suffering - which the big cats don't care about, of course - it would ensure that they were less at risk from flailing hooves. But in a television programme a couple of days ago I learnt that the notions of how the big cats kill have been wrong. For small animals, like hares, they will often kill instantly with a bite to the back of the neck. But for big animals they will bite them on the throat and death will take longer. It is not suffocation, however, that kills their prey. This would be cruel, from our point of view, because the animal would feel the distress and panic of not being able to breathe. This is not what happens. The big cats have a gap at the side of their mouths where there are no teeth. Their victims' throats fit into this gap and the canine teeth apply pressure to the carotid arteries. They draw blood but the cause of death is lack of blood and oxygen to the brain. Unconsciousness will occur much more quickly than in asphyxiation. And won't be so unpleasant.

This makes me feel a bit better. Now, I just need to know that animals swallowed live by snakes and others die much more quickly than I imagine.

[Bowwowmeow]

Man Claims Film of Loch Ness Monster

http://my.eimg.net/harvest_xml/NEWS/img/20070531/465e4840_3ca7_1552720070531-2080886261.jpg (http://enews.earthlink.net/article/pho?guid=20070531/465e4840_3ca7_1552720070531-2080886261&article_path=/article/str&article_guid=20070601/465f99c0_3ca6_1552620070601-329165289)

This shadowy something is what someone says is a photo of the Loch Ness monster in Scotland. An amateur scientist claims he has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.

By BEN McCONVILLE (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
June 01, 2007 11:58 AM EDT

EDINBURGH, Scotland - The Loch Ness monster is back - and there's video. A man has captured what Nessie watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland's most mysterious lake.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.
Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.

"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," said Shine, of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake.

Holmes said whatever it was moved at about 6 mph and kept a fairly straight course.

"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."

Loch Ness is surrounded by myth. It's the largest inland body of water in Britain, and at about 750 feet to the bottom, it's even deeper than the North Sea.

"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," Shine said.

While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky, legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St. Columba, who wrote of them in about 565 A.D.

More recently, there have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.

Since then, the faithful have speculated about it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon - even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years - or even a last surviving dinosaur.

Real or imagined, Nessie has long been a Scottish emblem. She has been the muse for cuddly toys and immortalized on T-shirts and posters showing her classic three-humped image.

On Thursday, a group of Scottish business owners launched a bid to nominate Loch Ness for World Heritage site status - though they cited its natural beauty, not Nessie. The Destination Loch Ness consortium must submit the nomination to the British government, which would decide whether to forward it to UNESCO.

The Scottish media is skeptical of Nessie stories but Holmes' footage is of such good quality that even the normally reticent BBC Scotland aired the video on its main news program Tuesday.
:yea: :yea: :yea:

[paul]

And here it is. it could just be a dolphin

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=nessie&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=go&uri=%2Fscotland%2F

[Bowwowmeow]

And here it is. it could just be a dolphin
No it isn't! Its Nessie!!!

NesSIE! NesSIE! NesSIE!
:babydragon:

[veggiesosage]

What about Lake Windermere in the Lake District?

[Gliondrach]

As the chairman of the Northern Anomalies Group (NAG), I know a thing or two. But I'm not telling.

I do know that it's difficult to judge the size of things in the water if there's nothing to compare them to. And lots of strange patterns can be caused by the wind. And that in Loch Ness there's a doorway to another dimension.

[thevegantwins]

It's such a beautiful place, Loch Ness. I hope they prove the video to be a fake just to lessen the amount of people. Even with the hordes of tourists who visit now, it doesn't feel too crowded because the loch is so enormous.

[Charmagne]

If there really is an unexplained animal in Loch Ness (which I like to think there is) it has so far been smarter than any human (which isn't hard to be). Heaven forbid the dreaded human ever capture it - because if it is the last of some great species it won't last long then!

[Bowwowmeow]

it has so far been smarter than any human (which isn't hard to be). :rofl:
If that damned asteroid hadn't struck I bet the dinosaurs would still be ruling the world, and doing a much better job too.

[paul]

Part of me loves the idea of nessie, but there's apart of me says no because i know what humans would do to him/her.

[Gliondrach]

There's a video on the site linked to below.

Search For England's Loch Ness Monster

Monster hunters have used sonar equipment for the first time to search for a mysterious creature reportedly living in England's largest lake.

Sky News filmed out on Windermere with the team looking for proof that the beast exists.

In the last four years there have been seven reported sightings of a long humpbacked animal, now nicknamed Bow-Nessie.

Windermere hotel owner, Thomas Noblett, described his strange encounter in the water, saying: "All of a sudden I felt something brush past my legs like a giant fish.

"And then I was lifted up by a 3ft wave. I've no idea what it was."

During the sweep of the lake, the team spotted a strange 44 foot long disturbance in the water but were unable to detect anything on sonar.

Searching Windermere is a huge task as the lake is 220ft deep in parts and over ten miles long.

Hunt organiser, Dean Maynard, said: "We've had more creature sightings here than at Loch Ness in recent years so we think it's time that Bow-Nessie received more attention."

Last year, a local film crew spotted a 60 foot long object below the surface of the lake but sceptics believe the footage shows a wave from an unseen boat.

ht--tp://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100912/tuk-search-for-england-s-loch-ness-monst-45dbed5.html

[Gliondrach]

I have been trying to trace my father's wartime army career on the internet for a couple of years but I just find it becoming more confused. I thought I'd spend an hour today doing another search. Now, three hours later, I'm hardly any further forward. I even tried to find mention of his regiment's service in Malaya after the war but there is no mention. But he was there. My mother was there. My brother and sister were there. I was there.

My father joined the 2nd Battalion The Green Howards before the Second World War and was sent to India. During the war, the 2nd Battalion served in India and Burma. But there the certainty ends. I have reference to the 2nd Battalion being part of the 82nd West African Divsion and the 5th Indian Division and the 26th Indian Division. Battalions were transferred between different Brigades and Divisions but this battalion seems to have been in more than one at the same time. I have seen references to them being in the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade, 5th Indian Infantry Division.
And the 4th Indian Infantry Brigade, 26th Indian Division. In both from September, 1944 to April, 1945.

The 1st battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment was also in the 4th brigade and the 7th brigade at the same time. In fact, the Green Howards replaced them in the 4th brigade.

Some time after the war, he was transferred to the Northumberland Fusiliers. I don't know when. He must have been in their 1st battalion because the Northumberlands were reduced to one regular battalion in 1948. But, according to the list of regiments that served in Malaya during the troubles there, neither the 2nd battalion of The Green Howards, nor any battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers were there. The Northumberlands at that time were in Korea, the Suez Canal area and later in Kenya. He was in Kenya - I know that for a fact.

I have a small black and white photograph taken of him sometime after 1949, judging by the uniform. He has his medal ribbons. But the picture is not very sharp and the ribbons don't show a lot of detail. You can just make out darker and lighter stripes. If it was clearer, it would show which campaigns he had been in and would give some more clues.

The only way to find out where he was is to obtain his army record. But I would need to provide his death certificate for that and I don't know when he died. I assume he is dead. I've searched for mention of his death but can't find it. Now that our new central library has opened I will have another look in there. They have the St Catherine's House records of births, marriages and deaths. The last time I looked, the most recent records were only up to about the 1970s. He was still alive then.

[Bowwowmeow]

Oh, that's kind of a sad mystery. I know so much about my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great great grandparents. I feel extra grateful for that when I learn others know very little about their own.

[Gliondrach]

Looking at my notes again, some things are a bit clearer. The 7th Indian Infantry Brigade was formed at the beginning of the war but was renumbered as the 4th Brigade in 1940. It became part of the 26th Indian Infantry Division in 1942. It was briefly with the 14th Division - a month or two only - in 1943, and then back with the 26th Division. Then it went into the 82nd West African Division in April, 1945. And then back in the 26th Division until the end of the war.

I know that the 2nd Green Howards were in the 4th Indian Brigade from September, 1944 to April, 1945.

When I did a search for the 82nd West African Division I found mention of the 4th Brigade, 26th Division in 1945 and then this: 'On the 3rd April, the 2nd Battalion, The Green Howards captured Hill 370 some three miles north of Taungup ....'

This will have been when the Green Howards were briefly in the 82nd Division. But I don't know why they also mention the 26th Division.

More confusion: 'The 2nd Green Howards, however, were transferred from the command of the 4th Indian Brigade to the 4th (West Africa) Brigade on the 17th April 1945.' I haven't come across mention of the Howards being in that brigade before.

A couple of things cleared up but still a long way to go. I'll have to get his army service record to learn anything more.

[Bowwowmeow]

When was the last time you saw your father?

[Gliondrach]

:rofl:

This is what came to mind when I read your question - the famous painting called 'When did you last see your father?'


I last saw him in 1977. But perhap also later.

[Gliondrach]

I was watching Countryfile on telly three days ago (Sunday) and a woman from Lincolnshire was talking about Lincolnshire sausages. She said she had an old family recipe which called for a secret ingredient. I immediately said: 'Nutmeg.' She then said: 'Freshly grated nutmeg.'

How did I know what she was going to say? I don't associate nutmeg with savoury dishes. I think of it in apple pies or other sweet things.

I've never had nutmeg.

[Gliondrach]

For the past few days I've been receiving strange 'phone calls. I don't answer the 'phone unless I'm expecting a call or the caller uses a special code but I usually check to see which number it came from. I dial 1471 and the recorded voice reads out the number of the person who 'phoned me. It is my number! How can my number call me? It can only be someone from BT. But why are they calling me as if from my own number? Has anyone else experienced this?

[Bowwowmeow]

No. That gives me the creeps too. I've seen too many scary phone horror movies. :o

[Gliondrach]

I dialled my own number in case they had changed it without telling me but I received the engaged tone. Which is to be expected as my 'phone was engaged at the time. I might pick the 'phone up the next time and remain silent or pretend I can't hear them and keep asking them to speak up.

[gabbles]

Any more calls?

[Gliondrach]

Just one on Saturday and none since then.