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The Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators – 1885 Life & Death

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The Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators

 

Execution of the Lincoln conspirators, 1865

A century and a half ago on the  July 7th , 1865 — one of the last grim scenes in the tragedy of the Civil War was played out — and caught on camera — at what is now Fort McNair, in Southwest Washington.

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The Lincoln Conspirators
Mary E. Surratt — the first woman to be executed by the federal government — Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt and David Herold had been convicted by a military tribunal of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the murder of Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth-portrait.jpg
John Wilkes Booth, assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

Booth had been killed 10 weeks earlier while trying to escape, after shooting Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre on April 14.

All the condemned were local Southern sympathizers implicated in the plans, first to kidnap Lincoln and later to kill him, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.

 

Image result for Secretary of State William Seward.

Secretary of State William Seward.

Seward survived a brutal knife attack by Powell the night Lincoln was shot. Johnson escaped harm when Atzerodt lost his nerve and failed to execute his part of the operation.

Herold had helped Booth escape and was “the getaway guy,” as one expert put it.

And by most accounts, Surratt knew of the plot and abetted the plotters from her boarding house on H Street NW.

 

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The four were lined up — their arms handcuffed, their feet shackled — as an officer read the execution order and the photographer, Alexander Gardner, aimed two cameras from about 100 feet away.

Mary E. Surratt

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“to be hanged by the neck until he [or she] be dead”

 

Mary Surratt — Surratt owned a boarding house in Washington where the conspirators met. Sentenced to death, she was hanged, becoming the first woman executed by the United States federal government.

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Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John H. Surratt, Jr., who was later tried but was not convicted of involvement in the assassination.

Born in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children by him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern

See Here for more details:  Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt

 

The condemned Lincoln conspirators on the scaffold, 1865

Adjusting the ropes for hanging the conspirators. 

 

David Herold 

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David Herold — An impressionable and dull-witted pharmacy clerk, Herold accompanied Booth to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth’s injured leg. The two men then continued their escape through Maryland and into Virginia, and Herold remained with Booth until the authorities cornered them in a barn. Herold surrendered but Booth was shot and died a few hours later.

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David Edgar Herold (June 16, 1842 – July 7, 1865) was an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincolnon April 14, 1865. After the shooting, Herold accompanied Booth to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth’s injured leg. The two men then continued their escape through Maryland and into Virginia, and Herold remained with Booth until the authorities cornered them in a barn. Herold surrendered, but Booth was shot and died a few hours later. Herold was sentenced to death and hanged with three other conspirators at the Washington Arsenal, now known as Fort Lesley J. McNair

See here for more details: David Herold

Adjusting the ropes for hanging the conspirators. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides, and their ankles and thighs together.

White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides, and their ankles and thighs together.

 

Lewis Powell

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Lewis Powell — Powell was a former Confederate prisoner of war. Tall and strong, he was recruited to provide the muscle for the kidnapping plot. When that plan failed, Booth assigned Powell to kill Secretary of State William Seward. He entered the Seward home and severely injured Seward, Seward’s son, and a bodyguard.

Lewis Powell 2.PNG

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Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine, was an American citizen who attempted to assassinate United States Secretary of State William H. Seward on April 14, 1865. He was a conspirator with John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln the same night.

Powell was a Confederate soldier wounded at Gettysburg. He later served in Mosby’s Rangers before working with the Confederate Secret Service in Maryland. He met Booth and was recruited into an unsuccessful plot to kidnap Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, Booth resolved to assassinate Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Powell was given the task of killing Seward. He was assisted by David Herold, who guided Powell to Seward’s home and kept horses ready for the escape. Powell severely injured Seward, and Herold fled before Powell could exit the Seward home. Powell lost his way in the city, and three days later arrived at a boarding house run by Mary Surratt, mother of co-conspirator John Surratt. By chance, the police were searching the house at that moment, and arrested Powell. Powell and three others, including Mary Surratt, were sentenced to death by a military tribunal and were executed at the Washington Arsenal.

See here for more details : Lewis Powell 

Close-up: the death warrant for the four is being read aloud by General John F. Hartranft.

Close-up: The death warrant for the four is being read aloud by General John F. Hartranft.

 

George Azterodt

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George Azterodt — German-born Azterodt was a carriage painter and boatman who had secretly ferried Confederate spies across Southern Maryland waterways during the war. Recruited by Booth into the conspiracy, he was assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve and stayed in a hotel bar, drinking, instead.

Image result for George Atzerodt

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George Andrew Atzerodt (June 12, 1835 – July 7, 1865) was a conspirator, with John Wilkes Booth, in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Assigned to assassinate U.S. Vice President Andrew Johnson, he lost his nerve and did not make an attempt. He was executed along with three other conspirators by hanging.

See here for more details:  George Azterodt

Close-up: A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place.

Close-up: A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place.

The conspirators stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell.

The conspirators stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell.

Close-up: The bodies continued to hang and swing for another 25 minutes before they were cut down.

Close-up: The bodies continued to hang and swing for another 25 minutes before they were cut down.

After last rites and shortly after 1:30 PM, the trap door was opened and all four fell. It was reported that Atzerodt yelled at this very last moment: “May we meet in another world”. Within minutes, they were all dead. The bodies continued to hang and swing for another 25 minutes before they were cut down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Necklacing – South African Justice?

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela 

dies at 81 

Image result for bbc news Winnie Mandela

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Anti-apartheid campaigner dies at 81

Winnie Mandela raises her fist in a black power salute after announcing that a massive pop concert will be held to mark the 70th birthday of her husband in 1988

Mrs Madikizela-Mandela (pictured in 1988) became a symbol for the anti-apartheid movement in her own right

South African anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died aged 81, her personal assistant says.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was the former wife of South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela.

The couple – famously pictured hand-in-hand as Mr Mandela walked free from prison after 27 years – were a symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle for nearly three decades.

However, in later years her reputation became tainted legally and politically.

Family spokesman Victor Dlamini said Mrs Mandela “succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones” following a long illness, which had seen her go in and out of hospital since the start of the year.

Retired archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu praised her as a “defining symbol of the struggle against apartheid”.

“Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists,” he added.

See BBC News for full story

 

 

Necklacing

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South Africa

Necklacing is the practice of summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire, filled with petrol, around a victim’s chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The victim may take up to 20 minutes to die, suffering severe burns in the process.

 

In South Africa

The practice appears to have begun in the Eastern Cape area of South Africa in the mid-1980s. One incident sometimes cited as the first recorded instance of necklacing took place in Uitenhage on 23 March 1985 when a group of people killed Benjamin Kinikini, a local councillor who was accused of having links to a vigilante group.

Kinikini and members of his family were dragged out of their house, stabbed to death, and their bodies set on fire.

Two of those judged to be the perpetrators, Wellington Mielies, 26, and Moses Jantjies, 23, were hanged on 1 September 1987.

But in this case the victims were killed by stabbing, and not by burning tires.

Something similar seems to have happened in the killing of Matthew Goniwe and his fellow anti-apartheid activists by the police in July 1985.

Necklacing was used by the black community to punish its members who were perceived as collaborators with the apartheid government.

These included black policemen, town councilors and others, as well as their relatives and associates. The practice was often carried out in the name of the African National Congress, although the ANC executive body condemned it.

In 1986 Winnie Mandela, then-wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, stated

“With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country”

 

which was widely seen as an explicit endorsement of necklacing, which at the time caused the ANC to distance itself from her,although she later took on a number of official positions within the party. The number of deaths per month in South Africa related to political unrest as a whole from 1992 through 1995 ranged from 54 to 605 and averaged 244.

These figures are inclusive of massacres as well as deaths not attributed to necklacing.

The first victim of necklacing, according to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was a young woman, Maki Skosana, on 20 July 1985.

Moloko said her sister was burned to death with a tire around her neck while attending the funeral of one of the youths. Her body had been scorched by fire and some broken pieces of glass had been inserted into her vagina, Moloko told the committee. Moloko added that a big rock had been thrown on her face after she had been killed.

 

Photojournalist Kevin Carter was the first to photograph a public execution by necklacing in South Africa in the mid-1980s. He later spoke of the images:

I was appalled at what they were doing. I was appalled at what I was doing. But then people started talking about those pictures… then I felt that maybe my actions hadn’t been at all bad. Being a witness to something this horrible wasn’t necessarily such a bad thing to do.

He went on to say:

After having seen so many necklacings on the news, it occurs to me that either many others were being performed (off camera as it were) and this was just the tip of the iceberg, or that the presence of the camera completed the last requirement, and acted as a catalyst in this terrible reaction.

The strong message that was being sent, was only meaningful if it were carried by the media. It was not more about the warning (others) than about causing one person pain. The question that haunts me is ‘would those people have been necklaced, if there was no media coverage?’

See Kevin Carter

Author Lynda Schuster writes,

‘Necklacing’ represented the worst of the excesses committed in the name of the uprising. This was a particularly gruesome form of mob justice, reserved for those thought to be government collaborators, informers and black policemen. The executioners would force a car tire over the head and around the arms of the suspect, drench it in petrol, and set it alight. Immobilized, the victim burned to death.

 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once famously saved a near victim of necklacing when he rushed into a large gathered crowd and threw his arms around a man accused of being a police informant, who was about to be killed. Tutu’s actions, which were caught on film, caused the crowd to release the man.

Some commentators have noted that the practice of necklacing served to escalate the levels of violence during the township wars of the 1980s and early 1990s as security force members became brutalized and afraid that they might fall victim to the practice.

In other countries

This practice of lynching is found in Haiti. It was prominently used against supporters of Jean-Claude Duvalier‘s dictatorship at the beginning of the democratic transition, from 1986 to 1990.

In the early 1990s, university students in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire were plagued by burglars stealing from their dormitories. The students took matters into their own hands by capturing the alleged thieves, and then executed them by placing tires around their necks and setting the tires on fire. Ivorian police, powerless to stop these necklacings, could do nothing but stand by and watch

In 2006, at least one person died in Nigeria by necklacing in the deadly Muslim protests over satirical cartoon drawings of Muhammad.

The practice is widely used by drug dealers in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Southeast Region), where it’s called micro-ondas  (allusion to the microwave oven). Journalist Tim Lopes was a notable victim.

Necklacing was also widely used in the armed insurrection led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in Sri Lanka. A graphic description of one such necklacing appears in the book The Island of Blood by journalist Anita Pratap.

See Kevin Carter

 

 

Eugen Weidmann – The last public execution by Guillotine, 1939

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The Execution

of

Eugen Weidmann

Eugen Weidmann BirthFactxDeathCalendar Weidmann Eugen

by Guillotine

 

Eugen Weidmann
Eugène Weidmann IJ.jpg

 
Born February 5, 1908
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Died June 17, 1939 (aged 31)
Versailles, France
Occupation Career criminal
Criminal charge Conspiracy, kidnapping, fraud, robbery, murder, resisting arrest
Criminal penalty Death
Criminal status Executed by guillotine on June 17, 1939
Motive Personal gain

Eugen Weidmann (February 5, 1908 – June 17, 1939) was a German criminal and serial murderer who was executed by guillotine in France in June 1939, the last public execution in that country. (Executions by guillotine continued in private until Hamida Djandoubi‘s execution on September 10, 1977).

 

Early life

Weidmann was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany to the family of an export businessman, and went to school there. He was sent to live with his grandparents at the outbreak of World War I; during this time he started stealing. Later in his twenties he served five years in Saarbrücken jail for robbery.

During his time in jail Weidmann met two men who would later become his partners in crime: Roger Million and Jean Blanc. After their release from jail, they decided to work together to kidnap rich tourists visiting France and steal their money. They rented a villa in Saint-Cloud, near Paris, for this purpose.

Kidnapping

Their first kidnap attempt ended in failure because their victim struggled too hard, forcing them to let him go. In July 1937, they made a second attempt, Weidmann having made the acquaintance of Jean De Koven, a 22-year-old New York City dancer visiting her aunt Ida Sackheim in Paris.

Impressed by the tall, handsome German, De Koven wrote to a friend:

“I have just met a charming German of keen intelligence who calls himself Siegfried. Perhaps I am going to another Wagnerian role – who knows? I am going to visit him tomorrow at his villa in a beautiful place near a famous mansion that Napoleon gave Josephine.”

 

During their meeting they smoked and “Siegfried” gave her a glass of milk. She took photos of him with her new camera (later found beside her body, the developed snapshots showing her killer).

Weidmann then strangled and buried her in the villa’s garden. She had 300 francs in cash and $430 in traveller’s cheques, which the group sent Million’s mistress, Colette Tricot, to cash. Sackheim received a letter demanding $500 for the return of her niece. De Koven’s brother Henry later came to France offering a 10,000 franc reward from his father Abraham for information about the young woman.

On September 1 of the same year, Weidmann hired a chauffeur named Joseph Couffy to drive him to the French Riviera where, in a forest outside Tours he shot him in the nape of the neck and stole his car and 2500 francs.

The next murder came on September 3, after Weidmann and Million lured Janine Keller, a private nurse, into a cave in the forest of Fontainebleau with a job offer.

There he killed her, again with a bullet to the nape of the neck, before robbing her of 1400 francs and her diamond ring. On October 16, Million and Weidmann arranged a meeting with a young theatrical producer named Roger LeBlond, promising to invest money in one of his shows. Instead, Weidmann shot him in the back of his head and took his wallet containing 5000 francs.

On November 22, Weidmann murdered and robbed Fritz Frommer, a young German he had met in jail. Frommer, a Jew, had been held there for his anti-Nazi views. Once again the victim was shot in the nape of the neck. His body was buried in the basement of the Saint-Cloud house where De Koven was interred. Five days later Weidmann committed his final murder. Raymond Lesobre, a real estate agent, was shot in the killer’s preferred fashion while showing him around a house in Saint-Cloud. Five thousand francs were taken from him.

Arrest

Officers from the Sûreté, led by a young inspector named Primborgne, eventually tracked Weidmann to the villa from a business card left at Lesobre’s office. Arriving at his home, Weidmann found two officers waiting for him. Inviting them in, he then turned and fired three times at them with a pistol. Although they were unarmed, the wounded Sûreté men managed to wrestle Weidmann down, knocking him unconscious with a hammer that happened to be nearby.

Weidmann was a highly co-operative prisoner, confessing to all his murders, including that of de Koven, the only one for which he expressed regret. He is reported to have said tearfully:

“She was gentle and unsuspecting … When I reached for her throat, she went down like a doll.”

 

The murder trial of Weidmann, Million, Blanc and Tricot in Versailles in March 1939 was the biggest since that of Henri Désiré Landru, the modern-day “Bluebeard“, 18 years earlier. One of Weidmann’s lawyers, Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, had indeed defended Landru. Also present was the French novelist Colette, who was engaged by Paris-Soir to write an essay on Weidmann.

Weidmann and Million received the death sentence while Blanc received a jail sentence of twenty months and Tricot was acquitted. Million’s sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

 

 

Execution

Eugen Weidmann Eugen Weidmann Photos 2 Murderpedia the encyclopedia

On June 17, 1939, Weidmann was beheaded outside the prison Saint-Pierre in Versailles. The “hysterical behaviour” by spectators was so scandalous that French president Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions.

Unknown to authorities, film of the execution was shot from a private apartment adjacent to the prison. British actor Christopher Lee – who was 17 at the time – witnessed the event. He would later go on to play headsman Charles-Henri Sanson in a French TV drama about the French Revolution, in which his character made prolific use of the device.

Books about Eugen Weidmann

 

 

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The Guillotine

A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended.

The condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, to quickly fall and forcefully decapitate the victim with a single, clean pass so that the head falls into a basket below.

 

Marie Antoinette‘s execution on 16 October 1793

 

Controversy

 

Retouched photo of the execution of Languille in 1905. Foreground figures were painted in over a real photo.

From its first use, there has been debate as to whether the guillotine always provided a swift death as Guillotin had hoped. With previous methods of execution intended to be painful, there was little concern about the level of suffering that they inflicted. Because the guillotine was invented specifically to be humane, the issue of pain and suffering was seriously considered.

Living Heads

 

languille-headless

Henri Languille

The question of consciousness following decapitation remained a topic of discussion during the guillotine’s use.

The following report was written by Dr. Beaurieux, who experimented with the head of a condemned prisoner by the name of Henri Languille, on 28 June 1905:

Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck …

 

I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. […] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: “Languille!” I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.

 

Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again […].

 

It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. Then there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead

 

See: here for more information

 

Torrens Knight – Natural Born Killer

Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The Troubles, , , , , , , , ,

Torrens Knight

Image result for Torrens Knight pictures

– Natural Born Killer –

 

Torrens Knight (born 4 August 1969) is a Northern Ireland loyalist, who belonged to the North Antrim and Londonderry Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

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UDA Flag

In 1993 he took part in the Greysteel massacre (in which eight civilians were shot dead) and the Castlerock killings (in which three civilians and a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member were killed). After being convicted—along with three others—for the killings, he served seven years in the Maze Prison before his release in 2000 under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.

 

Disclaimer 

The views and opinions expressed in these pages/documentaries are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.

Early life

Knight spent his formative years living at his grandmother’s farmhouse in the rural area of Aghadowey after the split of his parent’s marriage. In adulthood he developed an addiction to poker gambling machines which resulted in his exposure of stealing money from his grandmother to fund his habit.

As a result of this he was asked to leave the home and subsequently moved to the mostly Protestant town of Portstewart. Living with a loyalist, he started drinking alcohol and involving himself with criminality.

Paramilitary Activity

His initial starting point within loyalism was selling a magazine for a loyalist prisoners association. He progressed to the ranks of the UDA and carried out acts like robberies and punishment beatings. Knight was part of a four-man UDA group sent to conduct an attack in revenge for the Shankill Road bombing.

 

Trick or Treat

Their target was the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel, where Knight, Stephen Irwin, Jeffrey Deeney and Brian McNeill shot eight dead (six Catholics and two Protestants). After the leading gunman, Irwin shouted “Trick or treat”, he and Deeney raked the bar with gunfire, while Knight, armed with a shotgun, stood at the door. 19 other people were injured. McNeill was the driver of one of the cars used after the shootings.

 

Image result for flag uda

UFF Flag

The attack was claimed by the “Ulster Freedom Fighters”, a covername used by the UDA.

Knight was given eight life sentences for his part in the killings and a further four more for the killing of an IRA member and three Catholic civilians in Castlerock, County Londonderry. He served seven years in the Maze Prison before paramilitary prisoners were granted a general release under the Good Friday Agreement in 2000.

Allegations of being an informant

According to David McKittrick, there had been rumours that Knight had been a police informer. Suspicions have been voiced by John Dallat, a member of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

Dallat, who said he was in touch with police about Knight before the attacks in Greysteel and Castlerock, claimed they might have been prevented since it was known Knight was an extremist.

In 2000 Knight attracted the attention of staff at a bank where he was withdrawing large amounts of money from an account into which £50,000 a year was being paid. The bank’s concern was that Knight was involved in money laundering, but, when police were contacted, an assurance was given that everything was in order.

The money was said to be from a Scottish engineering firm, but the account was quickly closed down.

Image result for Nuala O'Loan, Baroness O'Loan

Nuala O’Loan

Police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan investigated Dallat’s claim that police had prior information about Greysteel, stating that there was no evidence this was the case. She also stated that Knight’s conviction and sentence led her to believe that he was not being protected by police, but added that it was beyond her remit to investigate whether or not he was a paid informer.

Alleged membership of Apprentice Boys

In 2008 Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard claimed that Knight was a member of the Kilrea branch of the Apprentice Boys. It was claimed that Knight took part in a parade in Kilrea and laid a wreath at the cenotaph in the village.

The Kilrea branch of the Apprentice Boys denied this as did Knight himself. A spokesman stated that Knight wasn’t a member and that they will demand an apology and explanation from Sinn Féin.

Knight also stated that John Dallat and Billy Leonard are taking part in a ‘hate campaign’ against him and challenged the nationalist politicians ‘to get off his back’

2009 conviction

In October 2009 Knight was found guilty of assaulting two sisters in a bar in Coleraine.  As a result, his early release licence was suspended and he was returned to jail.

He was later sentenced to four months jail for the assault. The judge said:

“The injuries sustained were consistent with a vicious attack on the two women and of particular concern in this case is that you kicked Ms Nicholl while she was on the ground, prone and unable to defend herself…. People who do that can expect no mercy or sympathy from these courts.

You acted as a bully when you approached these sisters. You lost control and lashed out”.

After Knight was returned to prison in 2009 it was revealed that Trevor Collins, a member of Jim Allister‘s Traditional Unionist Voice political party from Garvagh, was collecting signatures campaigning for his release from prison. The TUV said it would not be taking action against Collins for instigating the petition.

 

Image result for Torrens Knight

Knight was released on 6 August 2010

 

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See:  The Greysteel Shootings

 

See:  Castlerock Killings

See: Shankill Bombing

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Greysteel

Confessions of serial killer Torrens Knight

Recording reveals loyalist’s life of drugs, crimes and sectarian murder

Notorious ‘trick or treat’ killer Torrens Knight has spoken frankly about his life of crime, drug abuse and sectarian murder.

The once defiant, gloating loyalist gunman says his life “spiralled out of control” when he joined the UFF and he knew the Greysteel massacre was wrong.

But the born-again Christian, 46, has also admitted that he relished being in the UDA/UFF, saying: “I was on a road to destruction but I liked it because it fuelled my anger.

“I looked upon the UDA as my family. It was sad in a way but that’s how I looked at the UDA.”

 

Co Londonderry man Knight – the most infamous of the Greysteel killers – has spoken candidly of his life as a terrorist in a 33 minute audio testimony made for a Christian group and broadcast online on the same site that published the testimony of Ballymena ‘glued lips’ killer Adrian Hayes.

Choking with emotion on occasions, Knight tells how he descended from being a poker machine addict who took cash from granny’s purse, to becoming a UDA robber and enforcer before joining a UFF murder squad.

Aged 24 he led the UFF gang that shouted “trick or treat” before raking the Rising Sun bar with machine gun fire in Halloween 1993.

A 19-year-old woman and an 81-year-old man were among the eight people mercilessly killed in the sectarian slaughter at the village pub on Saturday, October 30.

Following his arrest TV pictures of an unrepentant Knight screaming abuse and defiance outside Limavady courthouse were beamed around the world.

Bible-basher Knight now says that his snarling, hardman stance was all a front.

He planned to go on the run but says he knew in his heart the atrocity in the pub was wrong and allowed police to arrest him.

Speaking at a Gospel meeting, Knight began by telling fellow Christians of his early days, living with his God-fearing granny on a farm in Aghadowey when his parents’ marriage broke up.

Knight’s life began to go wrong when he became addicted to poker machines at a local pub.  He took cash from a purse where his granny kept money for church missions and his gran and furious dad told him to pack his bags.

He moved to Portstewart with a pal from a hardline loyalist background who had been told to leave his family home when he started going out with a Catholic girl.

“I went to Portstewart to live. I started drinking and going out. I lost the influence and fear of my father.

“One thing led to another. I had anger issues. I would say I had a chip on my shoulder and I got involved in criminality.

“A few years later I got involved in an organisation. I started off just going round the doors selling magazines for the LPA (Loyalist Prisoners Association) and lifting money. I enjoyed it.

“Then I progressed. I moved up into the UDA, going round the doors wasn’t enough. I started doing robberies and beatings, things like that. But that still wasn’t enough. I wanted to go further.

“I progressed to the UFF, which was really the murder teams of the loyalist paramilitaries. My life just spiralled out of control.

“I joined the organisation to fight against the IRA who I saw as the enemy and it just progressed and progressed. It was a scary time.

“I got involved in shooting and ended up killing not only IRA men but also killing innocent people. That was a thing I never ever thought I would do. I never planned it.

 

Aftermath: RUC officers outside the Rising Sun bar where Torrens Knight murdered eight innocent people on Halloween night 1993.
Aftermath: RUC officers outside the Rising Sun bar where Torrens Knight murdered eight innocent people on Halloween night 1993.

“But that’s just sin. Once you go down the road of sin, it sucks you in, it can just take over.

“It was just like I was going down a road of destruction. And I liked it because it fuelled my anger,” said the man who was also jailed for the killings of four men in Castlerock in 1993.

He said he looked on the UDA as his family.

“I was part of something. I felt special. I had boys who would watch my back and I would do the same for them.”

Knight talks about “eyeing up” a Provo for assassination for a few days prior to the Greysteel murders but he now thanks God that the man did not turn up.

“Then the Shankill bomb happened and orders came down the line something big was going down, that we were to cancel what we were doing. And I was asked to take charge of the team that were going to carry this out.

“The place that was picked was the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel. I didn’t question it.”

He said he would have done anything he was asked to do by UDA leaders at that point.

“At that time we were so, in a way brainwashed, that’s being truthful. We believed what we were doing was right.”

After the pub massacre Knight considered going on the run but instead effectively gave himself up.

“I had a gut feeling when the ‘job’ was carried out that something wasn’t right.

“I was actually ready to go on the run and go into hiding but there was something in here [he thumps on his heart a number of times] that didn’t sit right with me.

 

“I says ‘I’ll man up’ because I knew they [police] were looking for me. A pile of my mates had been lifted. I saw the police in Macosquin and I just stood and they took me and another chap away.”

Knight said he had been interrogated by CID at Castlereagh Holding Centre previously and regarded it just as a game which he enjoyed. He never thought the cops would ‘get under his skin’ but this time was different.

He added: “I tried to put on this hard exterior, I tried to justify it but deep down I knew it wasn’t right, these innocent people, it wasn’t right.

“And I think that’s what helped break me too because I knew it wasn’t right.”

He talks about spending time in the Maze jail on remand after “wrecking the Crum (Crumlin Road Gaol)” and finding drugs in easy supply.

“It was a scary place. It was a mad place. It was full of mad men. I thank God he brought me through it all.”

Knight says he “dabbled” in drugs prior to going into the Maze but cannabis became a way of life in jail.

“Whenever we went into prison unfortunately drugs were readily available and that’s the way we put in our days in, smoking weed and getting stoned.”

The multiple killer, who was given 12 life sentences, said: “I suppose it [the drugs] were a way of us dealing with what we were going through because it was traumatic, our lives were just turned upside down. It was a form of escapism.”

In his testimony Knight, who is understood to work for a joinery firm on the North Coast, tells how he found God while serving time in prison.

He says his partner Carolyn also came to the Lord after seeing how he had changed. At times he chokes with emotion as he talks about his life and the role of God in his life. The killer admits that on occasions he has backslid, saying “he took the hand off the plough”.

After being given early release under the Good Friday Agreement terms he was later returned to jail for assaulting two women and disorderly behaviour in a Coleraine bar. But he says he now thanks God he was jailed for a second time.

Choking up, he says: “I had drifted away from God and that’s why I got into the mess that I did.  I was one of those men who the Bible talks about, a man who had taken his hand off the plough.

“Since then I cry a lot. God touched me in a special way. God has had to break me a few times but he hasn’t broke me to destroy, he has broke me to build me up again, to teach me.”

The audio of Torrens Knight’s full testimony was recently uploaded to the website of Set Free Prisons Bangor.

See Belfast Telegraph for full story

 

 

IRA Rheindahlen Barracks Bombing 23rd March 1987

Major events in The Troubles, ,

 

Rheindahlen Barracks Bombing

Image result for Rheindahlen Barracks Bombing

23rd March 1987

30 hurt as car bomb hits Army base

Thirty-one people have been injured after a car bomb exploded at a British army base in West Germany.

The device, believed to contain 300lbs (136kg) of explosive, went off close to the officers’ mess at Rheindahlen, 50 miles (80km) from the West German capital Bonn.Twenty-seven West Germans and four Britons were hurt in the bombing at 2230 local time.

The force of the blast ripped up the road and caused extensive damage to parked cars and surrounding buildings.

We were very lucky that people were not killed

Nigel Gillies, Army spokesman

 

The injured have been treated for shock and wounds caused mainly by flying glass. Firefighters at the scene say none of the injured are in a critical condition. Army spokesman, Nigel Gillies, said:

“Indeed we were very lucky that people were not killed.”

Mr Gillies said the fact that it was night-time when the bomb went off and the heavy curtains at the base had helped to protect people.

Most of the injured were German officers and their wives, who were enjoying a farewell party at the base. The injured have been taken to the RAF hospital at Wegberg, a few miles south of Rheindahlen, near the Dutch border. The bomb caused parts of the ceiling to collapse and doors were ripped from their frames. A police spokesman said the blast blew out windows in buildings several hundred yards away.

A German air force officer at the base said:

“We are investigating the possibility that there may be other bombs on the base.”

Servicemen have been put on alert and police have sealed off the area around the barracks.Public roads run through the middle of the base, which is the Army’s largest in Europe. Service personnel, families and civilian staff make up the community.All vehicles are being checked by soldiers to stop any other attempts to breach security after the bombers drove into the open base.

Armed Forces Minister John Stanley said Rheindahlen was on a higher state of security alert than normal at the time of the attack.

Mr Stanley said if this had not been the case, casualties would have been much higher. A man speaking in English had telephoned a warning to the German press before the blast, Mr Stanley confirmed.

An internal investigation is to be held but Mr Stanley has spoken to MPs about the “immense difficulties” of ensuring total security on such a sprawling base.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman has denied that the public have unrestricted access to the mess area although he said there are :

“different security levels at various parts of the base”.

 

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1987 JHQ Rheindahlen bombing

Thirty-one people were injured on 23 March 1987 after a 300 lb (140 kg) car bomb exploded near the visitors officers’ mess at JHQ Rheindahlen military barracks. The Provisional IRA later stated it had carried out the bombing. It was the start of the IRA’s campaign on mainland Europe from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.

 

Background

The bombing was one of several high-profile attacks in mainland Europe by the IRA in the 1980s. It was the first IRA attack in West Germany since a British Army officer, Colonel Mark Coe, was shot dead by an IRA unit outside his home in, Bielefeld, West Germany in February 1980. Coe’s assassination was one of the first high-profile killings by the IRA in Germany and on mainland Europe.

A year before in August 1979 the IRA injured four British soldiers in a bomb attack in Brussels, Belgium just one day after the killing of Lord Mountbatten and the Warrenpoint Ambush, which killed 18 British soldiers. In November 1981 the Irish National Liberation Army bombed a British Army base in Herford, West Germany. There were no injuries in the attack.

The Bombing

Other than attacks in Northern Ireland & mainland Britain the Provisional IRA also carried out attacks in other countries such as West Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, where British soldiers were based. Between 1979 and 1990, eight unarmed soldiers and six civilians died in these attacks, including the British Ambassador to the Netherlands Sir Richard Sykes and his valet, Karel Straub.

There was also a mortar attack on British Army base in Germany in 1996.

 According to author Ed Moloney’s “The Secret History of the IRA”, IRA Chief of Staff Kevin McKenna before the capture of the Eksund (a ship that was to ship heavy weaponry to the IRA from Libya) envisaged a three-pronged offensive that would start in the Northern Ireland and then spread to British targets in mainland Europe.

The IRA planted a 300-pound car bomb inside the JHQ Rheindahlen the British Armies military base in West Germany near the officers’ mess. When the large car bomb exploded 31 people was injured, some of them badly. Twenty-seven West Germans and four Britons were hurt in the bombing at 22:30 local time.

The force of the blast ripped up the road and caused extensive damage to parked cars and surrounding buildings. The injured were taken to the RAF hospital at Wegberg, a few miles south of Rheindahlen, near the Dutch border. The bomb caused parts of the ceiling to collapse and doors were ripped from their frames. A police spokesman said the blast blew out windows in buildings several hundred yards away.

It looked like it was a reasonably successful attack from the IRA’s point of view but the IRA actually had a close escape. The only reason people had not been killed was that the IRA ASU was unable to position the car bomb closer to the mess, because the car park was full of vehicles.

Unknown to the IRA unit, most of the vehicles were owned by West German military officers who had been invited to spend a social evening with their British counterparts. Had the IRA’s operation plan been carried out fully many of these German officers could have been killed and the start of the IRA’s Europe campaign would have been a diplomatic and military disaster and a big blow to any of the IRA’s international support.

Aftermath

The IRA later said it had carried out the bombing of the Rheindahlen barracks.

A statement from the IRA said: “Our unit’s brief was to inflict a devastating blow but was ordered to be careful to avoid civilian casualties.” The National Democratic Front for the Liberation of West Germany, a previously unheard of group, also claimed to have been behind the attack, but this was dismissed by police investigators.

More than 12,000 service personnel were stationed at the base. It was the joint headquarters of the British Army of the Rhine and the Royal Air Force.

The British Army of the Rhine was renamed British Forces Germany (BFG) in 1994.

See also: Osnabrück mortar attack

Lest We Forget! Keith Palmer – A brave Police Officer who died protecting us from an Islamic Madman!

Blog, Islamic Extremists,

Keith Palmer

Image result for Keith Palmer

Keith Palmer with wife Michelle

Keith Palmer, GM (1969 – 22 March 2017)

Keith Palmer, GM (1969 – 22 March 2017) was a British police officer who was posthumously awarded the George Medal, the second highest award for gallantry “not in the face of the enemy“.

Though unarmed, he stopped a knife wielding terrorist from entering the Palace of Westminster during the 2017 Westminster attack; he died from wounds he received in this attack.

He had worked for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) for 16 years, and had joined the MPS’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Group in April 2016

 

 

Keith Palmer
GM

 
Keith Palmer's funeral (003).jpg

 

The hearse carrying PC Keith Palmer’s coffin to his funeral
Born 1969
Died 22 March 2017 (aged 47–48)
New Palace Yard, Palace of Westminster, London, England
Awards George Medal (posthumously)
Police career
Department Metropolitan Police Service
Badge number 4157U
Country United Kingdom
Years of service 2001–2017
Rank Police Constable

Police Career

In November 2001, Palmer joined the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) as a police constable. From 2002 to 2009, he served in the London Borough of Bromley.

He then joined the Territorial Support Group, a grouping that specialises in public order and operates across Greater London. In 2015, he was nominated as “best thief taker” at the Commissioner’s Excellence Awards in recognition of making 150 arrests in twelve months.

In April 2016, he joined the MPS’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Group.

Westminster Attack

 

Related image

See article: 2017 Westminster attack

On 22 March 2017, Palmer was in New Palace Yard guarding the Palace of Westminster.

 

Image result for Khalid Masood

At approximately 14:40, he was approached by Khalid Masood who was armed with two knives. Though unarmed, Palmer confronted Masood in an attempt to stop him. Masood fatally injured Palmer during this encounter.

 

Image result for Keith Palmer

By confronting Masood, Palmer delayed him long enough for an armed policeman to arrive and shoot Masood dead.

Funeral

 

Image result for pc keith palmer

Before the  funeral procession

Image result for pc keith palmer

Palmer was granted the rare honour of lying in rest in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, Palace of Westminster; other recipients of this honour include Margaret Thatcher and Tony Benn. On 9 April 2017, his coffin was received into the chapel with a guard of honour of police officers.

A private service was then held for his family.

 Officers kept vigil next to the coffin overnight.

 

The following day, on 10 April, Palmer’s coffin travelled in procession to Southwark Cathedral. The route was 2.6-miles long and avoided Westminster Bridge where the terrorist attack had begun.

Instead, the procession crossed the Thames over Lambeth Bridge, during which a ten-second horn salute was given by boats on the river.

 Tens of thousands of people lined the streets, including 5,000 police officers.

 

The procession was fronted by a colour party carrying the Metropolitan Police Service Standard, who were followed by five mounted police officers. Then came the funeral conductor and chaplains (including Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Chaplain to the House of Commons) who were walking in front of the hearse.

The hearse carried Palmer’s coffin which was draped in the police flag, and there were “red and white floral tributes atop the hearse”;

these “spelled out ‘No 1 Daddy’, ‘husband’, ‘son’, ‘brother’, ‘uncle’ and ‘Keith'”.

Making up the rear were cars carrying his family, and four more mounted officers.

Palmer was given a full police funeral at Southwark Cathedral. It was attended by his family and friends, and a number of dignitaries including Cressida Dick, the newly appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Image result for Keith Palmer

The hearse carrying Palmer’s coffin with ‘No 1 Daddy’ floral decoration. 

Dick read the poem Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden at the service which was her first public engagement since taking up the post. The address was given by Andrew Nunn, the Dean of Southwark.

Personal life

Palmer was married to his wife, Michelle. They have a daughter, who was aged five at the time of Palmer’s death.

Palmer was a supporter of Charlton Athletic F.C. and held a season ticket. The club honoured him by replacing his regular seat at The Valley stadium with “a white chair bearing his warrant number ‘P204752′”.

Honours

In the 2017 Birthday Honours, Palmer was awarded the George Medal (GM)

“for confronting an armed terrorist to protect others and Parliament”.

 

In recognition of his sacrifice, the Metropolitan Police Service retired his shoulder number (4157U) and stated that it would :

 

“not be reissued to any other officer”.

His name has been added to the National Police Officers Roll of Honour and Remembrance by the Police Roll of Honour Trust.

He was awarded the outstanding bravery of the year award at the 2018 Met Excellence Awards

 

George Medal

george medal.PNG

Criteria

 

The medal is granted in recognition of “acts of great bravery”. The original warrant for the George Medal did not permit it to be awarded posthumously. This was changed in December 1977 to allow posthumous awards, several of which have been subsequently made.

The medal is primarily a civilian award, but it may be awarded to military personnel for gallant conduct that is not in the face of the enemy.

As the Warrant states:

The Medal is intended primarily for civilians and award in Our military services is to be confined to actions for which purely military Honours are not normally granted.

 

Bars are awarded to the GM in recognition of the performance of further acts of bravery meriting the award. In undress uniform or on occasions when the medal ribbon alone is worn, a silver rosette is worn on the ribbon to indicate each bar.

Recipients are entitled to the post-nominal letters GM.

The details of all awards to British and Commonwealth recipients are published in the London Gazette. Approximately 2,122 medals have been awarded since its inception in 1940.

See here for more details on:   The George Medal

 

 

 

The Girl Who Escaped ISIS – Farida Khalaf

Books I Recommend, Books I've Read, Books on the Troubles of Northern Ireland, , , ,

The Girl Who Escaped ISIS 

 Farida Khalaf 

by Farida Khalaf  (Author), Andrea C. Hoffmann (Author)
I have long followed with sympathy the plight of the Yazidi people of Iraq and I watched with horror and a heavy heart as the madmen  of Islamic  State turned its twisted , pitiless hatred on these gentle folk and the genocidal  destruction of their families , communities and very cultural.
 
Crimes against humanity were committed on an industrial scale  and the Yazidi people were easy targets for the bullies  and worthless  losers  of Islamic Sate or should that be
” Islamic Failed State”  .
Hundreds were killed , fathers and sons separated from their women and children  and slaughtered without  an ounce of mercy. Their wife’s and daughters  enslaved and bought , sold and resold within the slave markets of an Islamic  Hell on earth .
 
Farida Khalaf   survived this nightmare ordeal and against all the odds she escaped and was reunited with her mother and surviving brothers in an Iraqi refugee camp .
This is her incredible story

 Farida’s Story

 

Image result for farida khalaf the girl who escaped isis

In August 2014, Farida was, like any ordinary teenager, enjoying the last days of summer before her final year at school. However, her peaceful mountain village in northern Iraq was an ISIS target as their genocide against the Yazidi people began.

The Catastrophe

ISIS murdered the men and boys in the village, including Farida’s father and brother, and took the women hostage. Farida was one of them. She was held in a slave camp, in the homes of ISIS members and finally in a desert training camp. Continually she struggled, resisted and fought against her captors, showing unimaginable strength and bravery.

This is my Story

Eventually, Farida managed to plot her escape and fled into the desert with five young girls in her care, but defeating ISIS was just the first step in her journey. In this book she tells her remarkable and inspiring story.

Extracts
farida Khalaf extract.PNG

Reviews

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-----------------------------------

Farida Khalaf

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Farida Khalaf (born circa 1995) is a Yazidi woman who was abducted by ISIS in 2014 and sold into slavery. She escaped to a refugee camp, and in 2016 published a book about her experience, The Girl Who Beat ISIS.

Khalaf grew up in the village of Kocho in the mountains of Iraq. In 2014, when she was 18, ISIS invaded her village. The jihadists murdered all the men and boys of the village, including her father and brother. Single women and girls, including Farida and her friend Evin, were forced onto a bus at gunpoint and brought to Raqqa, where they were sold into sexual slavery.She was once beaten so badly by her captors that she lost sight in one eye, and could not walk for two months.

The young women managed to escape to a refugee camp in northern Iraq, and Khalaf was reunited with surviving family members. Among members of her community, however, she was seen as having brought dishonor to her family by having been raped. She subsequently moved to Germany, where she hopes to become a mathematics teacher.

 

My Strange Coincidences & Stephen Hawking’s Death

Blog

My Strange Coincidences & Stephen Hawking’s Death

Science and Technology - Stephen Hawking
archive-640687

 

Do you believe in ESP or a sixth sense?

Throughout my life I have had many strange coincidences and they always amuse me and leave me feeling a little bit….well spooked.

  • Last week I  bought Stephen Hawking’s autobiography which I have been reading and on Tuesday night I started working on a blog post about the book and his life and he died on Wednesday morning.

 

The title caption has the similar "FRASIER" logo, black background, and line drawing of Downtown Seattle. Each episode has a different animated gag. The above gag from the pilot episode, "The Good Son", has a lit antenna spire at the observation tower, Space Needle, one of Seattle's landmarks.

  • A few weeks ago I started watching the TV show Frasier from the beginning of the series and chatting to my wife I mentioned  that I wondered  if they would ever get together for another show , as they were all still alive and a few days later John Mahoney , who played the dad Martin died.

 

  • A few months ago I was chatting to a friend about another friend we had known whilst living in London and had  lost contact with and how much we would like to reconnect with him. We had tried to find him via the usual channels on social media etc without any luck and as we didn’t know his address or contact details we hit a dead end. The very next day he sent me a message from Facebook , he’d be looking for me also.

 

  •   About ten years ago I was on holiday in Lanzarote with my family and the wife and I  met a couple from Preston whom we got talking to and hanged out with during the evenings in the bar. The husband was an electrician .When we return home to London I never give them another thought.  A few years later we moved up  north to Leyland , which is near Preston and we needed an electrician to do some work for us. So I called the first one I came across in the local directory and guess what? Yep , it was the guy who we’d met years before on holiday.

 

  • When I first moved to London I was looking for part time work and went to sign up to an agency that covered advertising and marketing which was what I was doing at the time. I was called into a room for an interview and the guy who interview me was called John Chambers , exactly the name as me.

I have loads of these and will  do a post about them at a later date.

————————————————————-

 

Well I never!

The most mind-boggling real-life coincidences revealed

 

As Dorothy Fletcher of Liverpool knows only too well, there are few worse places to have a heart attack than on a transatlantic flight – unless 15 of your fellow passengers are cardiologists on their way to a conference.Mrs Fletcher was flying from Manchester to Florida for her daughter’s wedding in November 2003 when disaster struck. The stewards put out an urgent appeal for any doctors on board to make themselves known.

“I couldn’t believe what happened,” Mrs Fletcher recalled.

“All these people came rushing down the aircraft towards me.”

The cardiologists were able to keep her stable while the plane was diverted to North Carolina and she even made it to the wedding.

Mould Magic

Alexander Fleming locked up his London lab one evening in September 1928 without bothering to do the dishes. When he returned a few days later and reluctantly began to tackle the toxic detritus of his failed experiments he noticed that one Petri dish containing a staphylococcus culture had begun to grow blue mould and that the mould had apparently killed any staphylococcus bacteria it had come into contact with.

Fleming conducted a series of experiments on this miraculous mould – presumably leaving his washing up to its own scientific endeavours – and determined that it was penicillium notatum, now commonly known as penicillin.

 

brad pitt

Brad Pitt damaged his Achilles tendon while playing Achilles in the film Troy

HOW UNFORTUNATE

Ticket to Hell

Choosing a holiday destination became the stuff of nightmares for Birmingham couple Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence after they inexplicably witnessed three international terrorist atrocities over seven years.

In 2001 the couple were visiting New York when the Twin Towers were struck; they were in London for a few days in July 2005 when three Tube trains and a bus were bombed and they were in Mumbai in November 2008 when a coordinated shooting and bombing spree brought tragedy to the city.

In something of an understatement Mrs Cairns-Lawrence told reporters: “It’s a strange coincidence. The terror attacks just happened when we were in the cities.”

Mamma Mia!

Police in Bari, Italy, were able to apprehend a thief who had grabbed a woman’s handbag as he sped past on his motorbike after she gave them an exceptionally detailed description of him. It turned out she was his mother.

Catch a falling Star

In all of human history only one person is unlucky enough to have been struck by a meteorite. And while the laws of probability dictate that meteorites will generally fall into uninhabited areas such as deserts or oceans, this one landed on a woman who was snoozing on her sofa.

In November 1954 Ann Hodges was asleep in her lounge in Sylacauga, Alabama, when a chunk of space rock crashed through her ceiling and hit her, causing an enormous bruise on her thigh but leaving her otherwise unharmed.

“You have a better chance of getting hit by a tornado and a bolt of lightning and a hurricane all at the same time,” astronomer Michael Reynolds told National Geographic.

Method Acting

Brad Pitt went all out to get into character on the set of Troy (2004) but it was probably a performance he’d rather forget than win an Oscar for. During a particularly tricky fight scene against his enemy Hector, Pitt leapt and landed badly, tearing his Achilles tendon in the process and ruling out the filming of other fight scenes for weeks.

Apt, considering Pitt was portraying Achilles, the mythical Greek hero.

Impossible Title

Proving that no amount of international fame can counter the weight of public emotion, pop star Kylie Minogue felt compelled to make an expensive and time-consuming last-minute change to the title of her 1997 album following the death of Princess Diana in August of that year.

The rather unimaginative new title was Kylie Minogue – the original had been Impossible Princess.

 

jfk  

President John F Kennedy spookily ‘predicted’ his own death on the morning of his assassination

 

HISTORY REPEATING

Uneasy Rider

In July 1974, 17-year-old Neville Ebbin was riding his moped in Hamilton, Bermuda, when he was hit by a taxi and killed. One year later, his younger brother Erskine, now 17 himself, was killed in an identical accident.

That is, entirely identical: same moped, same road, same taxi, same taxi driver – and even the same taxi passenger.

See: The Expressed for more amazing coincidences 

If you have any stories regarding strange coincidences I’l love to hear about them

 

 

 

 

Castlerock Killings – 25th March 1993

Deaths in the Troubles, Major events in The Troubles, , , , , , , , , ,

Castlerock Killings

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25th March 1993

The Castlerock killings took place on 25 March 1993 in the village of Castlerock, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a loyalist paramilitary group, shot dead three civilians and a Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer as they arrived for work. Another was wounded. The men were all Catholics.

The five men were builders and had been renovating houses in the Gortree Park housing estate for some months. As they arrived in their van at Gortree Park, at least two gunmen jumped out of another van and opened fire.

— Disclaimer –

The views and opinions expressed in this post/documentaries  are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.

 Those killed were James McKenna (52), Gerard Dalrymple (58), Noel O’Kane (20) and Provisional IRA volunteer James Kelly (25).

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25 March 1993


James Kelly,   (25)

Catholic
Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),

Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
Shot during gun attack on van, as he arrived at his workplace, renovating houses, Gortree Park, Castlerock, County Derry.

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25 March 1993
 James McKenna,  (52)

Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ),

Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
Shot during gun attack on van, as he arrived at his workplace, renovating houses, Gortree Park, Castlerock, County Derry.

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25 March 1993


Gerard Dalrymple,  (58)

Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ),

Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
Shot during gun attack on van, as he arrived at his workplace, renovating houses, Gortree Park, Castlerock, County Derry.

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25 March 1993
Noel O’Kane,  (20)

Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ),

Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
Shot during gun attack on van, as he arrived at his workplace, renovating houses, Gortree Park, Castlerock, County Derry.

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The gunmen drove off toward Castlerock before doing a U-turn and passing their victims again. The van used by the gunmen was found burnt-out two miles from the attack.

Later in the day, the UDA shot dead a Catholic civilian Damian Walsh and wounded another at Dairy Farm Shopping Centre in Belfast.

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25 March 1993


Damian Walsh,   (17)

Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ),

Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
Shot at his workplace, Dairy Farm Shopping Centre, Twinbrook, Belfast.

See: 25th March – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles

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The UDA claimed responsibility for the attack using the covername “Ulster Freedom Fighters” (UFF) and said the men were republicans.

 Sinn Féin councillor Patsy Groogan said the men were regularly stopped and harassed by the security forces and that he had:

“no doubt that this behaviour played a part in targeting these men for assassination”.

The weapons were later used by the same gang in carrying out the Halloween Greysteel massacre at the Rising Sun pub on 31 October 1993. It has been claimed that one of the gang was a double agent and protected by RUC Special Branch.

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Torrens Knight

Torrens Knight received eight life sentences for the Greysteel massacre, together with four more for the Castlerock killings. He served seven years in the Maze Prison before paramilitary prisoners were granted a general release under the Belfast Agreement.

 

See:  The Kingsmill Massacre – 5 January 1976

See: 25th March – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles