The Pear of Anguish

The Pear of Anguish was used during the Middle Ages as a way to torture women who conducted a miscarriage, liars, blasphemers and homosexuals. 

A pear-shaped instrument was inserted into one of the victim’s orifices: the vagina for women, the anus for homosexuals and the mouth for liars and blasphemers.

The instrument consisted of four leaves that slowly separated from each other as the torturer turned the screw at the top. It was the torturer’s decision to simply tear the skin or expand the “pear” to its maximum and mutilate the victim.

The Pear of Anguish was usually very adorned to differentiate between the anal, vaginal and oral pears. They also varied in size accordingly.

This torture very rarely provoked death, but was often followed by othertorture methods.

(Source: medievality.com)

The Judas Cradle

It was a terrible medieval torture where the victim would be placed on top of a pyramid-like seat. The victim’s feet were tied to each other in a way that moving one leg would force the other to move as well - increasing pain.

The triangular-shaped end of the judas cradle was inserted in the victim’s anus or vagina. This torture could last, depending on some factors discussed below, anywhere from a few hours to complete days.

The time it took someone to die varied enormously from individual to individual. Torturers would sometimes add weight to the victim’s legs as to increase pain and hurry the victim’s death. Other torturers would place oil on the device which increased pain considerably.

The victim was usually naked when subject to the Judas Craddle. This was to increase humiliation.

This device was rarely, if at all, washed. If the victim did not die quickly enough, or their painful execution was interrupted, they would invariantly die from an infection. 

The victim was sometimes rocked or made fall repeatedly onto the “pyramid”. This was done so torturers could acquire vital information from the victim. If he or she refused to talk, the torturer would either add more weight to the victim or make him or her fall repeatedly on the device.

(Source: medievality.com)

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

- Strange Fruit

(Source: tropertylovusuq.blogspot.com)

Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were two African-American men who were lynched on August 7, 1930 in Marion, Indiana. They had been arrested the night before, charged with robbing and murdering a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his white girlfriend, Mary Ball. A large crowd broke into the jail with sledgehammers, beat the two men, and hanged them. When Abram Smith tried to free himself from the noose as his body hauled up by the rope, he was lowered and then his arms broken to prevent him from trying to free himself again. Police officers in the crowd cooperated in the lynching. A third person, 16-year-old James Cameron, narrowly escaped lynching thanks to an unidentified participant who announced that he had nothing to do with the rape or murder. A studio photographer, Lawrence Beitler, took a photograph of the dead bodies hanging from a tree surrounded by a large crowd; thousands of copies of the photograph were sold.

Cameron has stated in interviews that Shipp and Smith had, in fact, started to rob a white man, who was later found shot. He says that he fled when he realized what was going on. Mary Ball later testified that she had not, contrary to the accusations against the three men, been raped.

(Source: wikipedia.com)

The witch chair was the most frequently used torture equipment during modern witch pursuit.

The chair was a wooden arm armchair, whose seat, backrest, Fussbrett and arm rest were provided with metal points. The accused, who was suspected of being a witch and being in league with the devil, was completely undressed and forced to sit in the chair.  The accused was not allowed to move in order to relieve the pain of the metal points digging into her flesh. This procedure could drag on up to 36 hours.

Many chairs had a device under the seat with which it was possible to kindle a small fire. The iron points could also be heated and increase the agony enormously.

If a woman survived this torture, it was proven that she is a witch and the accused became condemned to death. The logic behind this conclusion was that only the devil and/or black magic could have given the woman the strength to survive the torture. If the woman confessed her misdemeanours before completion of the torture, she was condemned also to death. Therefore, once accused, no woman could escape death.

Many women died, before they were allowed to leave the chair.

(Source: economypoint.org)

The Brazen Bull was invented by Perilaus of Athens (a Brass worker) in the 6th Century BC and offered to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, as a gift. It was a large brass bull that was completely hollow inside with a door on the side large enough for a man to enter. Once the man was inside the bull, a fire would be lit beneath it in order to roast him to death. In the head of the bull, Perilaus put a series of tubes and stops that were designed to amplify the screams of the victim and make them sound like the roar of a bull.

Interestingly, Perilaus was the first person to feel the pain of the Brazen Bull. After Perilaus said to Phalaris: “[his screams] will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings”, Phalaris was so disgusted that he tricked Perilaus in to entering the bull. 

Perilaus was removed from the Bull before he died and Phalaris had him thrown off a cliff. The Brazen Bull became one of the most common methods of execution in Ancient Greece.

(Source: listverse.com)

Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., 20-month-old son of the famous aviator and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped about 9:00 p.m., on March 1, 1932, from the nursery on the second floor of the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, New Jersey. The child’s absence was discovered and reported to his parents, who were then at home, at approximately 10:00 p.m. by the child’s nurse, Betty Gow. A search of the premises was immediately made and a ransom note demanding $50,000 was found on the nursery window sill. 

During the search at the kidnapping scene, traces of mud were found on the floor of the nursery. Footprints, impossible to measure, were found under the nursery window.  There were no blood stains in or about the nursery, nor were there any fingerprints. 

A second ransom note was received by Colonel Lindbergh on March 6, 1932, (postmarked Brooklyn, New York, March 4), in which the ransom demand was increased to $70,000.  Over the next 10 days, five more communications passed between the kidnappers and the Lindbergh family’s representative, Doctor John Condon.  Included with the seventh note was a child’s sleeping suit.

An additional 5 ransom notes were sent before the ransom of $50,000 was actually paid to a stranger named “John” on April 2.  This amount was handed to the stranger in exchange for a receipt and the thirteenth note, containing instructions to the effect that the kidnapped child could be found on a boat named “Nellie” near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.  The following day an unsuccessful search for the baby was made near Martha’s Vineyard. The search was later repeated. 

Seventy-three days after he was taken from his crib, Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was found.

On May 12, 1932, the body of the kidnapped baby was accidentally found, partly buried, and badly decomposed, about four and a half miles southeast of the Lindbergh home.  The head was crushed, there was a hole in the skull and some of the body members were missing. The body was positively identified and cremated at Trenton, New Jersey, on May 13, 1932. The Coroner’s examination showed that the child had been dead for about two months and that death was caused by a blow on the head.  

(Source: fbi.gov)

8 People Murdered in their Beds in Villisca

On June 9, 1912, Lena and Ina Stillinger, the daughters of Joseph and Sara Stillinger, left their home for church early Sunday morning. They planned on having dinner with their grandmother after the morning service, spending the afternoon with her and then returning to her home to spend the night after the Children’s Day exercises concluded. The girls, however, were invited by Katherine Moore to spend the night at the Moore home instead. 

All of the Moore children as well as the Stillinger girls participated in The Children’s Day Program at the Presbyterian Church. The program ended at 9:30 pm and the Moore family, along with the Stillinger sisters, walked home from the church. They entered their home sometime between 9:45 and 10:00 p.m.

Based on the testimonies of the Moore’s neighbor and those who saw the Moore’s at the Children’s Day Exercise, it is believed that sometime between midnight and 5:00 a.m., an unknown assailant entered the home of J.B. Moore and brutally murdered all occupants of the house with an axe.

Once the murderers were discovered, the news traveled quickly in the small town. As neighbors and curious onlookers converged on the house, law enforcement officials quickly lost control of the crime scene. It is said that up to a hundred people traipsed through the house gawking at the bodies before the Villisca National Guard finally arrived around noon to cordon off the area and secure the home. The only known facts regarding the scene of the crime were:

• Eight people had been bludgeoned to death, presumably with an axe left at the crime scene. It appeared all had been asleep at the time of the murders.
• Doctors estimated time of death as somewhere shortly after midnight.
• Curtains were drawn on all of the windows in the house except two, which did not have curtains. Those windows were covered with clothing belonging to the Moore’s.
• All of the victims faces were covered with the bedclothes after they were killed.
• A kerosene lamp was found at the foot of the bed of Josiah and Sarah. The chimney was off and the wick had been turned back. The chimney was found under the dresser.
• A similar lamp was found at the foot of the bed of the Stillinger girls, the chimney was also off.
• The axe was found in the room occupied by the Stillinger girls. It was bloody but an attempt had been made to wipe it off. The axe belonged to Josiah Moore.
• The ceilings in the parent’s bedroom and the children’s room showed gouge marks apparently made by the upswing of the axe.
• A piece of a keychain was found on the floor in the downstairs bedroom.
• A pan of bloody water was discovered on the kitchen table as well as a plate of uneaten food.
• The doors were all locked.
• The bodies of Lena and Ina Stillinger were found in the downstairs bedroom off the parlor. Ina was sleeping closest to the wall with Lena on her right side. A gray coat covered her face. Lena, according to the inquest testimony of Dr. F.S. Williams, “lay as though she had kicked one foot out of her bed sideways, with one hand up under the pillow on her right side, half sideways, not clear over but just a little. Apparently she had been struck in the head and squirmed down in the bed, perhaps one-third of the way.” Lena’s nightgown was slid up and she was wearing no undergarments. There was a bloodstain on the inside of her right knee and what the doctors assumed was a defensive wound on her arm.
• Dr. Linquist, the coroner, reported a slab of bacon on the floor in the downstairs bedroom lying near the axe. Weighing nearly 2 pounds, it was wrapped in what he though may be a dishtowel. A second slab of bacon about the same size was found in the icebox.
• Linquist also made note of one of Sarah’s shoes which he found on Josiah’s side of the bed. The shoe was found on it’s side, however it had blood inside as well as under it. It was Linquist’s assumption that the shoe had been upright when Josiah was first struck and that blood ran off the bed into the shoe. He believed the killer later returned to the bed to inflict additional blows and subsequently knocked the shoe over.

The murders remained unsolved.

Embalming surgeon at work on a Civil War soldier’s body.  

(Source: shorpy.com)

the-night-stalker:

Medieval Surgery Kit

(Source: true-crime-101)

 The expansive story of the Hodgson family began on a late August night in 1977. Peggy Hodgson, a single mother of four,  claimed to witness what would be the first of many strange and seemingly unexplainable occurrences. Occurences that seemed to center around her two oldest daughters, and more specifically her middle child, Janet Hodgson.  What Peggy later told investigators, is that she witnessed a chest of drawers in the girls’ small bedroom slide, on its own accord, across the room and come to a stop in front of the pair of girls. 

After moving the dresser back to its original position, Mrs. Hodgson was shocked when yet again, the chest slid across the room. Only this time, due to the force of some invisible weight, she was unable to move it. This incident was then accompanied by a disembodied knocking sound that would continue nearly the length of the entire fourteen months.

Two journalists fro m:The Daily Mirror” are dispatched to the house.  They witness, but are unable to capture any tangible evidence of small objects floating in mid-air and being thrown around the living room.

Shortly after the floating object incident, the Society for Paranormal Research, or SPR, are contacted and two members by the name of Morris Grosse and Guy Lion Playfair are first to jump at the opportunity to investigate. After a short time of investigating in the home, both men are convinced that something genuinely paranormal is taking place. Loud noises of knocking, banging, and scratching in addition to the erratic movement of furniture, the major activity presented in the case, continue to escalate. SPR come to the conclusion that they are dealing with a particular kind of entity, one that they believe either manifests or feeds off of psychokinetic energy: a poltergeist.

One of the more shocking accounts, as retold by Grosse, details the destruction of the girls’ 300-pound fireplace in October of 1977.  He explains having heard a loud banging, followed by the feeling of shaking. By the time he reached the girls’ bedroom, the fireplace had wrenched itself out of the wall, ripping a solid metal pipe in half. The only two witnesses present at the time were Margaret and Janet Hodgson, who claimed to have been sleeping.

London University is contacted and a student of experimental physics is sent to the house to test the girls’ ability to influence metal. Within a short period of time Janet managed to bend a spoon completely in half without ever coming into contact with the object itself. The investigators now believed most of the activity to be centered around Janet, who appears to be less and less frightened of the strange events as they continue to occur. 

In late November, three months into the investigation, the now familiar disembodied knocking became persistent to the point of being categorized as intelligent. Grosse attempts to communicate with it, asking it to answer questions by rapping once or twice on the wall. The response that follows is a succession of 53 distinct knocks, all recorded on nearby tape recorder. It is around this time that Janet begins to fall into what Grosse describes as a trance-like state. She is said to have developed phenomenal strength while acting out violently towards herself and others. In order to prevent injuries, Janet is restrained.

On November 26^th a doctor visits the house and injects Janet with 10 mg of Valium, sedating her. Half an hour later she’s found in her bedroom, on top of a dresser, kneeling on a wide clock radio with her head hanging towards the ground, legs in the air.

Graham Morris, photographer for The Daily Mirror, sets up a remote control camera in the girls’ bedroom that can be activated from anywhere in the house. Once activated, the camera would proceed to take a photograph every 4 seconds. He captures what appears to be a series of photographs of Janet being forcefully pulled out of her bed and thrown across the room to the foot of her sister’s bed.

In an even more controversial turn of events, Janet then begins to speak in a deep voice, like that of a man. Grosse begins asking Janet a series of questions, all of which are answered by “the voice”. Doubting that the voice is anything but a clever ventriloquism act, Janet’s mouth is filled with water and taped over. Grosse challenges the voice to continue. It does.

During an interview done by both investigators, the voice refers to itself as a man by the name of Bill, a previous resident of the home who had died of a hemorrhage in a chair on the first floor. Months later, Grosse is contacted by a man by the name of Terry Wilkins. Terry’s father had lived in the Hodgson’s home prior to the family, and had died of a hemorrhage in his favorite chair on the first floor. His name was Bill.

In July 1978, Janet is admitted to Maudsly Hospital for extensive psychiatric testing. Two months later she is given a clean bill of heath and returns home to a seemingly quiet house. Almost as quickly as they had begun, the strange happenings of the Hodgson home had finally ceased.