Life sucks, then you die

[samhexum]

2017-04-06

A Detroit doctor who stopped to help passengers in an overturned car died after being struck by a car herself.

 

Forty-seven-year-old Cynthia Ray succumbed to her injuries Wednesday after she was hit on Sunday. She had stopped on her way to work, where she was an interventional pulmonologist, when she saw an overturned Jeep on I-96 and tried to help six teenagers trapped inside. A car pulled around a curve and hit her.

 

Another person who stopped to help, teenager Sean English, also was hit and had to have part of a foot amputated after the crash.

 

The driver of the vehicle that hit the people trying to help also was injured.

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

An 11-year-old Michigan boy hung himself after his 13-year-old girlfriend faked her own suicide as part of a “manipulative” social media prank.

 

Katrina Goss said her son Tysen Benz died at a hospital on Tuesday after she found him trying to take his life on March 14. She said that she later learned her son’s suicide attempt was in response to a sick online joke.

 

The shocking stunt, Goss claimed, was carefully coordinated between the teen girl — whose name is being withheld by The Post because she is a minor — and her friends.

 

“I’m quite angry,” Goss said. “I feel like, yeah, they’re young and all that, but I feel like when you’re 13, you’re completely knowledgeable of your choices and you know right from wrong. You can make your own choices. I do feel like she took advantage of a younger boy to control and manipulate him.

 

“I don’t feel like it should be taken lightly. She should be held legally responsible for this horrific prank.”

 

Capt. Mike Kohler of the Marquette Police Department confirmed there’s an investigation into Tysen’s death, but declined to comment directly on his mother’s allegations.

 

“If criminal charges are going to come out of this, they’ll be forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for review,” Kohler said.

 

Goss said trouble began after Tysen — an active, athletic and popular student at Bothwell Middle School — bought a cellphone from a friend without Goss’ knowledge. That’s when he began “secretly dating” the teen, who inexplicably concocted the “controlling, harassing and manipulative” prank on her son.

 

“She did a prank that made it look like she killed herself and used other friends and their [social media] accounts to make it look like she killed herself,” the mother said. “So, he believed her and said, ‘I’m going to kill myself.’”

 

Precisely what motivated the girl is unclear. Attempts to reach her parents were unsuccessful Thursday.

 

“I don’t know what she actually thought,” Goss said of the 13-year-old. “I feel like she certainly took it to the extreme, using other people’s accounts, with other people backing it up on several social media platforms … I don’t know how or why she initiated this.”

 

She said she never met the girl, but would see her while dropping off or picking up her son from school or hockey practice. She didn’t approve of their relationship, which other students at school characterized as “boyfriend-girlfriend.”

 

“He was probably the most amazing kid that you would ever know,” Goss said. “He was in every sport, he was super social, he had tons of friends and every single person who knew him loved him … [He] was the last person who would choose this choice, which I think was an impulsive choice based on a controlling, harassing and manipulative prank from this girl.”

 

William Saunders, superintendent of Marquette Area Public Schools, said in a statement that they had few details because the incident happened off of school grounds, but that officials were cooperating with investigators.

 

He also warned that young students need to be careful online.

 

“Many of us have followed Tysen’s mother on social media and agree wholeheartedly in her statements regarding the dangers of social media,” Saunders said. “After the gut-wrenching loss of a student we ask ourselves, ‘How can we do more?’”

 

More than $31,000 had been raised by Thursday in a GoFundMe campaign created days after the boy was hospitalized.

 

“He has now been set free and can Rest In Peace,” the website reads. “He was loved by everyone he knew and he will absolutely never be forgotten. Our family is completely heartbroken.”

• 2017-04-11
  A woman delivering food for the Meals on Wheels program has been killed by her pickup truck as it rolled over her in a Connecticut driveway.
   
  Police say 78-year-old Carol Moriarty was making a delivery to a home in Clinton on Tuesday and her pickup truck was parked on an incline in the driveway. They say when she returned to the truck it began to roll backward and she tried to stop it but was knocked down.
   
  Moriarty suffered head injuries and died on the way to a hospital.
   
   
  
• 2017-06-27
  A young woman has told of a terrifying acid attack on her 21st birthday that left her hospitalized and her cousin in a coma.
   
  Resham Khan said she was in a car traveling through Beckton, East London, on June 21 when the horrific incident occurred.
   
  Khan tweeted: “On my actual birthday, my cousin and I went for a drive in the morning, blasting music and chilling like cousins do, hyping it as I WAS 21.”
   
  But out of nowhere, she said, a man approached the car as they waited at a traffic light and threw a liquid at her through the open window.
   
  Khan, who said she had just returned from a year exchange in Cyprus, told how the assailant ran around to the other side and threw more over her cousin.
   
  She said: “The pain was excruciating, I was struggling to close the window. My cousin struggled to get us away. I saw my clothes burn away in front of me.
   
  “He put his foot down as we were coming onto a dual carriageway but the pain took over and we crashed.
   
  “We stripped off in the middle of the road, running around screaming and begging for water.
   
  “We did this for 45 minutes.”
   
  Khan said another driver eventually stopped and drove the pair to a hospital, before they were transferred to a specialist unit.
   
  She continued: “I have had a skin graft, they are waiting on what my face will actually look like. And I have burns across my body.
   
  “My cousin was put into a coma as his burns were worst.
   
  “He has been woken up and I’m waiting to be told I’m no longer bedbound to visit him.”
   
  Khan added: “I’m devastated. I keep wondering if my life will ever be the same. Acid attacks in the UK are unheard of for me.”
   
  “I am so grateful to everyone that has prayed for me. I feel as though I’m blessed to have my limbs and senses. But I loved my face and body.
   
  “I just want this guy caught.”
   
  One of Khan’s student pals has set up a GoFundMe page to raise cash to support them in their long recovery.
   
  Daniel Mann said his friend and her cousin, whom he identified as Jameel Muhktar, have had to put their lives on hold since the shocking attack.
   
  He wrote: “Resham is usually a very confident young woman. She was preparing to open her own business over the summer, and had plans to model for Asian bridal, makeup and hair artists.
   
  “But now she feels as though her identity has been stolen from her, on her 21st birthday.”
   
  Khan said she had made a full statement to police, adding that one officer told her he was “certain [the attacker] will be found and sent away for a long time.”
   
  A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police told Sun Online: “Police were called at approximately 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, 21 June to reports that two occupants of a car had been sprayed with a corrosive substance.
   
  “The occupants, a man aged 37 and a woman aged 21, were assisted by members of the public and had been taken to an east London hospital prior to the arrival of police and the London Ambulance Service.
   
  “Both victims have suffered burn injuries described as life-changing.
   
  “It is believed the victims were inside a parked car when a man approached and threw a corrosive substance through the open window.
   
  “The car made off pursued by the suspect on foot before it collided with a fence. The suspect made off.
   
  “Officers from Newham and the Met’s Territorial Support Group executed a warrant at an address in E16 on the afternoon of [June 21] in connection with the incident. There were no arrests; inquiries continue.”
   
  
   
   
  
• 2017-06-30
  The Yankees seem to be introducing a new rookie everyday. Last night, a kid named Dustin Fowler debuted. On the first ball hit to him, he ran into a wall, and ruptured the patellar tendon in his knee. He would’ve had his first major league at bat the next inning. His whole game was based on speed, so this could be a career-altering injury.
   
  His parents couldn’t make it for his debut. They were going to meet the team in the next city tonight. I’m sure they were watching on TV.
   
  Ironically, he could've been replaced by another rookie named Jake Cave (but wasn't), who used to have blazing speed, but suffered a career-altering knee injury in his first professional (minor league ) game.
   
   
  

[samhexum]

2017-07-14

Two teenagers have been arrested after a series of acid attacks terrorized London motorists on Thursday night.

 

Police say several people were injured in five attacks across the British capital when two men on mopeds splashed an unknown noxious substance on other people riding similar bikes.

 

Two teenagers, an unidentified 15-year-old and 16-year-old, were arrested for the 90-minute rampage, though no motive has been given for why they threw the acid.

 

At least one victim, in his 20s, has life-changing injuries after the attack.

 

Another victim, UberEats delivery driver Jabed Hussain, told the Guardianthat he did not realize the liquid was acid until it began burning, and that he ran behind nearby cars after fearing the assailants would strike again.

 

“I was screaming for help and for water. No one was opening their door or window,” he told the newspaper.

 

Hussain said that he got water from a cab driver and then bought more to keep pouring it on himself until an ambulance came.

 

He said there had been a spree of attacks in the area, and credited his helmet with preventing further damage to his face.

 

London’s Metropolitan Police say that corrosive liquid attacks rose to 454 in 2016 from 261 the year before.

 

Aspiring model Resham Khan was attacked in London last month on her 21st birthday along with her cousin, and has suffered severe changes to her face. (see above)

 

Both Khan and her cousin Jameel Muhktar are Muslim, and police say they are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

 

London police did not discuss the possibility of a hate crime on Friday, and said that the victims were part of multiple groups.

 

“I’m aware of rumours circulating that the victims were all food delivery riders set up in advance of the attacks. This is not the case. All victims were riding mopeds at the time of the attacks, but were from a variety of backgrounds,”Chief Inspector Ben Clark said.

2017-08-11

Such a sad story

 

A Bronx family was reeling from twin tragedies Friday after a 34-year-old man died of a gunshot wound on the same day his father suffered a fatal heart attack.

 

The son, Duro Akil, took a bullet to the torso Monday night when a man fired a shot through the door of the victim’s Williamsbridge building after getting into a fight with a neighbor, cops said.

 

The father of two, a Fresh Direct deliveryman, was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center with a punctured lung. He died two days later.

 

When his devastated family returned to the scene of the shooting to tell his father, Okera Ras I, 54, they found him lifeless in bed.

 

“We were in the middle of the street screaming. In shock,” said Akil’s sister, Makini Akil, 23.

 

“It was like something out of a movie scene.”

 

Makini Akil said the family is convinced that Ras, a longtime Fox News network web video producer who rode with his son to the hospital following the shooting, died of a broken heart.

 

The city Medical Examiner told the family he suffered cardiac arrest.

 

“It was really too much for him,” added Makini Akil. “It was really like heartbreak.”

 

The bloodshed was set in motion when an upstairs neighbor forced an unwanted visitor out of the two-story brick building on E. 219th St. near White Plains Road.

 

The man stomped over to his car, grabbed a gun, and stormed back to the front door, cops said. The gunman then pounded on the locked front door before smashing its top window with the pistol’s handle.

 

Alarmed by the banging, Duro Akil, his brother and father came out into the hallway — unaware that the man on the other side of the door was carrying a gun. The man opened fire through the door, striking Akil.

 

“The way this happened, it’s stupid,” said Daquan Johnson, 27, the brother of the neighbor who quarreled with the shooter.

 

“It was ego. That’s all it was.”

 

The killer jumped into a car and sped off. Police have identified him but were still hunting for him Friday night.

 

Makini Akil said her brother, the oldest of five siblings and a graduate of Beacon High School, loved sports and had a passion for journalism and creative writing.

 

He had recently spent two months with his daughters — ages 8 and 13 — who live out of state.

 

Ras held a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta and a master’s degree in communications from New York University. Makini Akil said he recently left Fox News to pursue several entrepreneurial endeavors, including producing a film on the meaning of Kwanzaa. He also deejayed events in the community and led a monthly healing retreat, his daughter said.

 

“There are so many people who can speak to how giving and well-liked he was,”she said.

 

Friends have launched a GoFundMe page to help the family cover funeral costs and other expenses.

 

“This heartbreak has left their family in an extreme state of anguish and sorrow,” the page reads. “Your contribution is needed to help honor these two amazing men.”

 

A pack of dogs attacked and nearly killed an elderly woman in Mississippi — “mutilating” her and causing horrific injuries to her neck and head — during her usual morning walk, witnesses and cops said.

 

The incident unfolded August 22nd at around 8:30 a.m. in Marshall County near the small town of Byhalia.

 

The victim, identified as Sheena Rose, 82, remained hospitalized Wednesday after being treated for severe, life-threatening wounds on her scalp and throat, as well as other parts of her body.

 

Neighbors and friends said it was a miracle that she was still alive and able to speak following the savage attack.

 

“Just awful. To see her lay there and look at me and say, ‘ Vickie they got me,'” pal Vickie Harris told WREG. “Her left arm is…they don’t know if they’re going to be able to save it or not.”

 

Rose had been taking her normal, early-morning walk around her neighborhood when the dogs — described as seven mixed-breeds — reportedly set upon her. She was about a half mile away from her home.

 

Harris recalled how her sister stumbled upon the heinous scene and told her to call police.

 

“She heard [Rose] screaming and she drove down to the end of the road, and she said the dogs were just like mutilating her,” Harris said.

 

Neighbor Chelsey Brock also witnessed the attack — and said it was something she’d never forget.

 

“I know she struggled from the side of the road to the middle,” Brock remembered. “And then they just took her to the ground. And she was pretty messed up.”

 

Authorities and paramedics arrived, soon-after, and rushed Rose to a local hospital.

 

Harris and others told WREG that the octogenarian had been carrying a bottle filled with water — which she typically uses to deter the dogs — but was unable to use it in time.

 

“She had the bottle in her hand, but she wasn’t even able to get the top off to protect herself,” Harris explained. “She said she would spray them with that and they would leave her alone, and someone told her to put ammonia in the bottle, but she said she didn’t want to hurt the dogs.”

 

The Marshall County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday that they had seized all seven dogs who were allegedly involved in the attack.

 

According to officials, they belong to two different people — a male and a female — though it’s unclear if the two know each other.

 

“A male subject claimed a few of the canines we seized. And he informed us there was a female that was owner of some of the canines as well,” said Maj. David Cook with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department.

 

Officials said the dogs were neither registered or vaccinated, which is required by law.

 

Local prosecutors are reportedly reviewing the incident and weighing charges for the owners.

Edited August 24, 2017 by samhexum

[+ WmClarke]

Well that's fucking depressing.

[jjkrkwood]

That is why I hope to so a lot of SUCKING before I DIE !

[+ Keith30309]

Life has always sucked... but now we have a direct pipeline into our brains every waking moment.

When centenarians are interviewed the common thread I observe in them is Resilience. These are folks who lived in a time when life expectancy was quite low, families bore 10 children to work because 3 of them were likely to die and the threat of starvation or sudden death/catastrophic injury was very real.

 

I'll take the threat of having acid thrown in my face over dropping dead behind a plow in a field or inhaling mustard gas in a trench in France any day.

 

There's no other time in which I'd rather live.

[+ nycman]

Isn't this a cheery little thread?

 

And I'm someone who enjoys exploring the darker side of life....even for me this is a little rough.

 

Nonetheless, in some ways it's nice to be reminded of just how fucking lucky we are!

[+ Eric Hassan]

Seriously? What value does this thread have in moving this community forward?

[bigvalboy]

Seriously? What value does this thread have in moving this community forward?

 

No argument here @Eric Hassan ...but to be fair, @samhexum has sorta redeemed himself in these thread.

Here...

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/teixeira.127637/

And Here...

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/its-like-pulling-teeth.127638/#post-1344037

Edited August 25, 2017 by bigvalboy

[jjkrkwood]

Seriously? What value does this thread have in moving this community forward?

 

Just to be fair, nuturing and supportive for a hot minute, not every thread needs to have relevance or positivity. Sometimes things are there for entertainment or information value. I think that is where Sammy was coming from. His message here is life isnt always fair, which is an accurrate statement we can all attest to (think having Trump for President). And to be even fairer, there is a lot worse shit that gets posted here without critique, so Sammy gets a pass from me.

 

Perhaps THIS is a bit more representative of positivity, and will help the community move Forward or UP ?

 

 

 

http://68.media.tumblr.com/a3761363ce0944c48bcc67e8e3fe9834/tumblr_ov5zsduO3d1wqromlo1_540.jpg

 

 

http://68.media.tumblr.com/9cca3b60fb0d5c0342da7184a76b77f6/tumblr_ov8r52NRZa1r4hcn4o1_1280.jpg

Edited August 26, 2017 by jjkrkwood

[samhexum]

A 91-year-old Brooklyn man died, possibly from shock, Wednesday after cruel home invaders tied him and his 99-year-old wife up in their home.

The woman told police that at about 3:15 p.m., she felt someone come up behind her and throw a blanket over her head in their three-story house on Decatur St. near Marcus Garvey Blvd. in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

She said four men had somehow gotten into the house. They also tied up her husband.

“The house was not ransacked. We’re still trying to determine if anything was taken,” a law enforcement source said. “At the very least, it’s someone they knew.”

After they left, she freed herself and called 911.

The terrifying incident caused the husband to fall unconscious, and he later died at Interfaith Medical Center.

“She has no idea that her husband has died,” the source said.

There was no forced entry into the home, sources said.

 

Mike Rippey stood among pieces of metal, porcelain and other remnants of the California home where his 100-year-old father and 98-year-old mother had died in the raging wine country wildfires.

 

Rippey said Tuesday his brother had discovered their bodies after driving to the home and managing to get past security.

 

He said his father, Charles, appeared to be heading to the room of his mother, Sara, when he was overcome by the smoke and flames.

 

“My father certainly wouldn’t have left her,” Mike Rippey said.

 

The couple had met in grade school in Wisconsin and been together ever since, celebrating their 75th anniversary last year.

 

Rippey, 71, said he and his siblings couldn’t imagine how either parent would have navigated life if just one had survived the flames.

 

“We knew there’s no way they would ever be happy, whoever was the last one. So they went together, and that’s the way it worked,” he said stoically.

 

In the charred remains of the home, only metal and porcelain survived to testify to the couple’s long life together. There were coffee cups along a low sill; two metal chairs, side by side by a patio table; and a porcelain tea set of white and soft washes of blue, some pieces still intact.

 

Charles Rippey — nicknamed “Peach” as a toddler for his chubby cheeks — and his wife were among the 17 victims who have died in the fierce, fast-moving fires that started Sunday and raged through neighborhoods. None of the other victims had been identified.

 

Authorities are expecting other older people to be among the dead, who like the Rippeys might not have been able to move fast enough to beat the flames.

 

Mike Rippey said his mother had previously suffered a stroke.

[Good Grief]

Good Grief.

[samhexum]

Good Grief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeSRSPoNuyc

[Good Grief]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeSRSPoNuyc

 

Yep. Sounds perfect.

 

Thank ya hun!

[Bearofdistinction]

Seriously? What value does this thread have in moving this community forward?

 

THANK YOU!!!

 

SAM --- if all you look for is sadness then that is all you will find.

 

[Bearofdistinction]

:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

[Rudynate]

Life has always sucked... but now we have a direct pipeline into our brains every waking moment.

When centenarians are interviewed the common thread I observe in them is Resilience. These are folks who lived in a time when life expectancy was quite low, families bore 10 children to work because 3 of them were likely to die and the threat of starvation or sudden death/catastrophic injury was very real.

 

I'll take the threat of having acid thrown in my face over dropping dead behind a plow in a field or inhaling mustard gas in a trench in France any day.

 

There's no other time in which I'd rather live.

 

 

When it first came out, this study made big news. According to this guy's numbers, ancients lived with a 15% probability of dying a violent death. Today, the probability of dying as a result of violence is miniscule.

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-decline-of-violence/

[samhexum]

A California man tortured and killed his girlfriend's 8-year-old son because he believed the child was gay, prosecutors said Monday.

 

Isauro Aguirre is charged with capital murder and may face the death penalty for the "unspeakable acts of abuse" committed against little Gabriel Fernandez, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

 

"This wasn't about drugs. This wasn’t about mental health issues," Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami said in court Monday, according to the newspaper. "(Aguirre) did it because he didn’t like him ... he believed Gabriel was gay and to him that was a bad thing ... he did it out of hatred of a little boy."

 

The beatings and torture began after Gabriel moved in with his mother and Aguirre, prosecutors said. The boy had been "happy and healthy" while living with his grandparents, according to the newspaper.

 

Aguirre weighed 270 pounds and stood 6-foot-2 and had worked as a security guard, Hatami told the Los Angeles courtroom. Gabriel weighed less than 60 pounds and stood 4-foot-1.

 

Gabriel died in 2013, one year after he moved in with the couple in Palmdale. His mother is also charged in his death.

 

"After eight months of living with the defendant ... his body was battered," Hatami said, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. "The evidence will show he was beaten, burned, bruised."

 

Los Angeles paramedic James Cermak testified that there was an "unbelievable amount of trauma on his body," according to KTLA.

 

Aguirre's lawyer admitted in court that his client caused Gabriel's injuries, but said that Aguirre should not face the death penalty because he did not mean to end the life of the child.

 

"He is guilty of murder, but the special circumstance alleged, that he intended kill Gabriel with the infliction of torture, is not true," lawyer John Allan said, according to KTLA. "Despite the horrific abuse, Isauro never intended for Gabriel to die."

 

The couple told cops that the child "liked to hit himself, he was gay and he wanted to kill himself," according to the L.A. Daily News.

 

However, prosecutors allege that Aguirre and Gabriel's mother Pearl Fernandez plotted to kill the child.

 

"The defendant admitted that he hit Gabriel harder than he hit anyone else," Hatami charged in court, according to ABC 7. "He admitted hitting him 10 times in the head. This is a 6-foot-2, 270-pound man. (He hit him) 20 times in the body. He admitted that he lost count."

 

A North Carolina mother says her son's grave marker was "repossessed" by the monument company following a dispute over money.

 

Crystal Leatherman, of Hickory, lost her 5-year-old son Jake to leukemia last November.

 

She told WBTV during a recent visit to his grave she was shocked to discover that the stone marker adorned with images of her son's face and hand print had been dug up.

 

Leatherman said the owner of Southeastern Monument Company, where she purchased the grave marker, had it removed.

 

"He repossessed it, like it was a car," she said. "This is my lowest point. He doesn't care."

 

Leatherman said the owner of the company claimed they owe him money. She said they paid for the stone in full.

 

J.C. Shoaf, a pastor who runs the Hickory-based monument company, told the outlet the couple did pay in full but later made changes to the stone.

 

 

The Charlotte Observer reports that the changes totaled $2,500.

 

"If you buy something, you've got to pay for it. No matter what it is," he told WBTV. "It was my first time in 54 years (that) I've had this problem."

 

Shoaf said he initially put the marker down without full payment because he was trying to do the right thing.

 

"If I would have owed him the money, I would have paid him," Leatherman said, telling the outlet Shoaf never informed them they still had a bill. "This is not something you argue over."

 

Shoaf told the Charlotte Observer he now regrets removing the stone and wishes he would have handled things differently.

 

"I hated to do it," he said. "I'm not heartless and I have had a child die, so I know how it feels. ... I thought having (the marker) would give me some leverage. In hindsight, I should have just written it up as a bad debt."

 

The Leatherman's said they have hired a lawyer and are looking at another company for their son's grave marker.

A 19-year-old man is accused of fatally stabbing his two younger siblings, who were found dead in their Colorado Springs home early Tuesday.

 

The suspect's father was also attacked, and is in serious condition. He is expected to survive.

 

Officers responded to reports of violence at the home at about 1 a.m. A girl, 5, and boy, 7, were later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

 

Police said that they took Malik Vincent Murphy into custody. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

 

Investigators are questioning family members and neighbors as they try to find a possible motive.

 

Anyone with information should contact the Colorado Springs Police Department at (719) 444-7000.

[samhexum]

A couple who survived the massacre at the Las Vegas music festival were killed in a fiery traffic accident two weeks later, according to a report.

 

Dennis and Lorraine Carver of California died when their vehicle smashed into a metal gate outside their community in Riverside County and burst into flames Oct. 16, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

 

When they came under fire at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Vegas on Oct. 1, Dennis jumped on top of his wife to shield her from the withering hail of bullets.

 

“That’s just the kind of love they had for each other,” Brooke Carver, their oldest daughter, told the paper. “Their love was selfless.”

 

During a lull in the gunfire, the couple ran for their lives, hand in hand, and emerged unscathed.

 

The couple, who owned a plumbing company, returned to their home two days later with a newfound appreciation for life.

 

“After the shooting, they heard from all of the people they cared about most. They were so happy,” said Brooke, 20. “The last two weeks of their lives were really just spent living in the moment.”

 

But luck was not with them for long.

 

On the night of Oct. 16, the couple’s younger daughter, Madison, 16, heard a loud bang outside her window, ran down the street and saw a familiar vehicle engulfed in flames.

 

Dennis, 52, and Lorraine, 53, were killed less than half a mile from their home.

 

“We were so relieved when they got out of the shooting alive,” Brooke told the Review-Journal. “But I also think we’ve been given little pieces of them that we would’ve never gotten if the shooting hadn’t happened right before they died.”

 

Three days after the worst mass shooting in US history, Brooke said she was on the phone with her dad. They asked about each other’s plans for the weekend.

 

“‘Hey, you think I should get roses or different flowers for your mom?’” she said he asked her — though there was no special occasion.

 

“He just wanted to give my mom a reason to smile after the shooting,” she said. “I swear they were more in love those two weeks than the last 20 years.”

 

Almost a month later, she said, not a single petal had fallen from the wilted roses.

 

“It’s almost as if they’re frozen in time,” her sister added. “We’re so lucky we have those flowers to remind us of them.”

 

A week after the devastating accident, the daughters received a package containing their father’s cellphone, which had been lost during the pandemonium in Vegas.

 

“When we turned it on, all his photos and messages were still there,” Brooke said. “This is how we know they’re looking down and watching over us.”

 

Madison added: “We’ve found some peace in knowing that our parents just loved each other so much that they had to go at the same time. They couldn’t live without each other.”

 

A couple is struggling to understand how their daughter was found dead years ago in Detroit and buried in an unmarked grave without their knowledge.

 

The parents of 28-year-old Crissita Cage-Toaster reported her missing in October 2009.

 

Her mother, Rosita Cage-Toaster, says Detroit police called her late last month, telling her they’d found her daughter’s body in 2010 in the Detroit River but didn’t initially identify the body.

 

Part of the reason was because the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office and Detroit police records listed her ethnicity as Caucasian or Hispanic. She was black.

 

A cause of death wasn’t determined. The body was eventually buried at a cemetery west of Detroit.

 

The county notified her parents this week of plans to exhume the body. They say Detroit police were negligent in the investigation.

 

A 22-year-old woman was killed after a 12-year-old boy attempting suicide by jumping off an overpass in Virginia landed on her car Saturday afternoon, investigators said.

 

Virginia State Police said Marisa Harris of Olney, Md., was driving east on Interstate 66 when the boy landed on top of her Ford Escape, WRC-TV reported.

 

While the boy’s jump left Harris “incapacitated,” he survived and was being treated for life-threatening injuries at Inova Fairfax Hospital.

 

Harris’ boyfriend, who was sitting in the SUV’s passenger seat, steered the car to the side of the road, police added. Harris died at the scene.

 

Harris’ family members told WRC she was a graduate student at Marymount University in Arlington, where she studied clinical counseling.

[Walker1]

So what is the purpose of this thread-random postings of death-pondering the meaning of life-the vast dark empty soul-what are you trying to express?

[+ Tarte Gogo]

So what is the purpose of this thread-random postings of death-pondering the meaning of life-the vast dark empty soul-what are you trying to express?

It is just a thread you need to ignore.

I never read anything longer than 6 lines anyway.

[samhexum]

So what is the purpose of this thread-random postings of death-pondering the meaning of life-the vast dark empty soul-what are you trying to express?

 

The irony and randomness of life. The Maryland student who was killed by the suicidal jumper was studying to work with suicidal patients.

[samhexum]

An 18-year-old woman died after she got out of her vehicle to check for damage from a fender-bender in Long Island — and the driver of the other vehicle ran her over and sped off, police said Friday.

 

Taranjit Parmar was on the phone with her mother when she was mowed down, heartbroken relatives said.

 

“She had called my wife and said, ‘Hi, Mom,” Parmar’s father Ranjit Parmar, 50, told the Daily News. “Then she said ‘Oh, no, Stop!’ and the call got disconnected. There was no answer.”

 

The dental student was on her way home when she got into a minor accident on Hempstead Turnpike near Gardiners Ave. in Levittown about 4:45 p.m. Thursday. A red pickup truck was making a turn from Gardiners Ave. onto Hempstead Turnpike when it struck Parmar’s jeep.

She and the truck driver pulled over outside a gas station after colliding. When Parmar got out to inspect the damage to her 2018 Jeep, the driver of the pickup truck sped off, running the young woman over. Cops are still looking for the hit-and-run driver.

 

Medics rushed Parmar to Nassau University Medical Center, where she died from massive head and chest injuries.

 

Parmar, who was studying to be a dentist at Adelphi University, was 10 minutes from her home when she was hit.

 

“A witness said she had stepped out of her car and looked at the damage and then approached the pickup truck to talk to the other guy, but the other guy basically took off, dragging her along with him,” her heartbroken father said.

 

“She was my oldest daughter and was a role model to her other sisters. She was the foundation of this family. She even told us what to do as parents.”

 

A homeless man who uses a wheelchair was killed by a heartless hit-and-run driver in the Lower East Side early Friday, officials said.

 

The 49-year-old victim, known as Johnny to local residents, was discovered dead with severe head trauma lying in the roadway near his wheelchair at Delancey and Clinton Sts. about 3:25 a.m., cops said. His full name was not immediately released.

 

Cops say he was hit be a vehicle that fled the scene.

 

Neighbors said Johnny was a severe alcoholic but a friendly presence who had a prosthetic leg after losing the limb to complications from diabetes.

 

"Everyone in the neighborhood knows him," said Barakat Nahshal, 22, a clerk at the Fancy Tobacco Shop near the corner where the victim was found. "He's on the street drunk 24/7."

 

Nahshal said that since he started working at the store a month ago he saw Johnny passed out on the sidewalk two times.

 

"(The ambulance) is always coming to pick him up for drinking," he said. "This is a usual thing. I thought they were going to take him to the hospital but this time he's dead."

 

"He's been in out of the hospital a few times," said Aaron Grosser, 52. "When he gets out, we try to get him clean clothes and a shower. He's an alcoholic but what the hell, who isn't?"

 

Cops don’t have a description of the vehicle that hit Johnny and have made no arrests.

 

Johnny’s death rattled neighbors.

 

"His family is gonna come out in the morning and wonder where he is," said a tearful man who declined to give his name. "He's always out here but he doesn't bother nobody. You don't want to see someone who's already in bad shape die like that."

The grieving family of a Brooklyn man dragged to his death during a road rage dispute blasted the driver who ran him down.

 

“Imagine how cruel the person (has) to be to drag a person,” said the sister of victim Gavriel Mardakhay, who declined to give her name. “There is so much going on I can't even get my mind around it.”

 

Mardakhay, 65, was shopping at Costco on Third Ave. near 37th St. in Sunset Park with his wife Thursday night when he saw an electrical company van hit his car in the parking lot. The 55-year-old van driver took off.

 

Mardakhay jumped into his car and chased the van. Mardakhay and a good Samaritan in a gray minivan boxed the fleeing driver in after the van mounted the curb on Third Ave. at 65th St. in Bay Ridge

 

But when Mardakhay left his car and confronted the van driver, that driver drove into him and dragged him two blocks, police said.

 

The good Samaritan grabbed the van driver, held him down, and yelled, “What did you do?” witnesses said.

Firefighters from the nearby Engine 241 and Ladder 109 firehouse lifted the van to free Mardakhay. Medics took him to NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn, where he died.

 

“It's a very sad day,” Mardakhay’s sister said Friday while going through his belongings. “He's not going to come back.”

 

She left a boombox, a small white shelving unit and a side table outside his apartment as she sorted through his belongings.

 

The van driver is in custody but has yet be charged, police said Friday.

[gallahadesquire]

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself what a wonderful world

 

I see skies of blue and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

And I think to myself what a wonderful world

 

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do

They're really…

--Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World

[samhexum]

At least twice a week, an 8-year-old Maude Julien was made to grasp an electric fence for 10 minutes at a time without betraying any feeling — no twitching or grimacing, not even a blink.

 

The cruel ritual, supervised by her father, was considered a test of her willpower as he sought to turn her into the “ultimate survivor.”

 

“I held on with both hands, and it was most important to show no reaction at the moment of the power surges,” recalled Julien, now 60, to The Post. “I had to stay impassive.”

 

As if that weren’t disturbing enough, once a month, the little girl was locked overnight in a rat-infested cellar to “meditate about death.”

 

Julien, now a grandmother living in Paris, has chronicled her horrifying childhood in the memoir “The Only Girl in the World” (Little Brown, out Tuesday).

 

According to the book, she spent 18 years being mind-controlled by her paranoid dad, who belonged to an esoteric lodge of Freemasonry that dabbled in the occult and subscribed to a mishmash of oddball philosophies. He believed in a fallen world and thought that there would one day be an uprising of evil. In his mind, Maude had been chosen as a leader and his protector.

 

“He was most definitely insane and an alcoholic,” said Julien of her father, Louis Didier, who died in 1981 at age 79.

 

Didier, who became relatively wealthy from selling transport stock after World War II, created Maude for his own twisted purposes. It started when he adopted a 6-year-old girl, Jeannine, in 1936, then groomed her to become his wife.

 

In November 1957, Jeannine gave birth to the child whom her husband would put through experiments to raise the perfect “superhuman.”

 

The trio lived in an isolated mansion in northern France, where Julien was home-schooled and subjected to Didier’s countless “endurance tests.” These ranged from being dangled over a cliff and assisting in the slaughter of livestock, to drinking whiskey before having to walk in a straight line.

 

To this day, Julien has liver damage from all the alcohol her father forced on her.

 

For 10 years, between the ages 3 and 13, she was sexually abused by a laborer who worked on the estate.

 

Meanwhile, Julien was forbidden from leaving the compound for nearly a decade. Her only companions were her dog and two ponies whom she adored.

 

“I really think that, without my animals, I wouldn’t be alive today,” she said. “They gave me physical contact and warmth because nobody [in my family] was allowed to touch each other in the house.

 

“I learned love and compassion from them.”

 

She sought solace in books, though Didier dictated what she read. Eventually she became fond of Dostoyevsky and, particularly, “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas — which inspired Julien to dream of her escape.

 

Amazingly, despite the mind control and hypnosis, the girl resisted being totally drawn into her father’s “cult of three.” But she suffered from self-loathing and took to self-harm as a coping mechanism.

 

Mercifully, her savior came in 1972 in the form of a music tutor, Andre Molin, who arrived to teach her how to play the accordion and piano.

 

“He played along with my father for three years to gain his trust,” explained Julien of how Molin eventually helped free her from the house. “Then he got my dad’s permission to teach me at his shop in a nearby town and I eventually got a job there.”

 

When Julien was 18, Didier allowed her to wed a young musician she’d met during classes — with the caveat that she’d leave him after six months and return home a virgin.

 

She seized the opportunity and fled for good.

 

The six-year marriage produced a daughter, now 35. Julien later settled down with another man and had a second daughter in 1990. Julien is still estranged from her own mother, to whom the memoir is dedicated.

 

“She is a victim and I sent the book to her with a note,” she said. “She didn’t react directly but I heard through intermediaries that she was afraid and wasn’t happy I wrote it.”

 

Over the years, Julien has received intensive therapy to help cope with the traumas of the past. After receiving her psychology degree, she now treats patients of her own.

 

She admits that writing her memoir triggered flashbacks to her childhood horrors. But she’s relieved her story’s being published. She said: “I really want it to be a book of hope — I consider it an escape manual.”

[coriolis888]

Speaking of sad things, there was an actor, a long time ago, with a similar name as the OP - Jon-Eric Hexum.

 

While playing around on the set of a movie he was making, he accidentally killed himself (at age 26) with a blank gun from the set.

 

He was an extraordinarily handsome man.

 

Here is a little u-tube clip that shows a little about him and his gorgeous looks.

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFh6HjRiELM

Edited December 12, 2017 by coriolis888