• Corpse mistaken for April Fools' prank
    37 replies, posted
[img]http://tbo.com/storyimage/TB/20140402/ARTICLE/140409728/AR/0/AR-140409728.jpg[/img] [I]The woman jumped from a 16-story apartment building at 440 Fourth Ave. N[/I] [quote=tbo] Ronald Benjamin was working as the front desk clerk at Peterborough apartments, a downtown high-rise for the elderly poor, when he stepped outside for a smoke early Wednesday and saw the body of a 96-year-old woman lying in the parking lot. Benjamin, 61, didn't think it was a body. He thought it was a mannequin and someone was playing an April Fools' Day prank on him. He went back inside. About an hour-and-a-half later, at 6 a.m., his relief, Rose Anne Beavers, 62, arrived at the 16-story apartment building at 440 Fourth Ave. N. Beavers believed it was a body. But Benjamin told her it was a joke, St. Petersburg police spokesman Mike Puetz said. Then, Benjamin, Beavers and a third employee decided if it were a prank it needed to be removed from the parking lot, Puetz said. They decided the blood they saw underneath the body was red paint. Benjamin enlisted the help of a couple delivering newspapers, and they and Benjamin dumped the body into a trash bin.[/quote] [url="http://tbo.com/pinellas-county/suicide-mistaken-for-april-fools-prank-in-st-pete-20140402/"]More.. in the Source [/url] Must have been surreal for that guard; that realization
Wait what, so they picked it up and touched it and still thought it was a mannequin! [quote]Benjamin enlisted the help of a couple delivering newspapers, and they and Benjamin dumped the body into a trash bin.[/quote]
Poor guy, can't say I blame him either (soem people have a REALLY morbid sense of humor) up until the point where they picked up the body. A corpse feels vastly differrent from a mannequin.
How would you not notice? Surely once they picked her up, felt her weight and the general proportion of her he would've clicked on.
[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;44439307]Poor guy, can't say I blame him either (soem people have a REALLY morbid sense of humor) up until the point where they picked up the body. A corpse feels vastly differrent from a mannequin.[/QUOTE] Once rigor mortis sets in, a body no longer feels like a body. In a way I can understand why they might've thought it was a mannequin. Especially if you're convinced someone's playing a prank on you.
[quote]Puetz said when investigators went to woman's 16th-floor apartment, they found a suicide note and a stool she used to climb over the balcony wall.[/quote]
Just seems kind of ridiculous that even after touching the body they still didn't know it was real. Also strange to read about such an old woman killing herself...96-year-old's committing suicide is something you don't hear often.
[QUOTE=The Maestro;44439325]Just seems kind of ridiculous that even after touching the body they still didn't know it was real. Also strange to read about such an old woman killing herself...96-year-old's committing suicide is something you don't hear often.[/QUOTE] Old people committing suicide is more common than you think.
[QUOTE=The Maestro;44439325]Just seems kind of ridiculous that even after touching the body they still didn't know it was real. Also strange to read about such an old woman killing herself...96-year-old's committing suicide is something you don't hear often.[/QUOTE] Rigor mortis was said above but wasn't described. Rigor mortis can make the body feel very hard, stiff, and makes it difficult to move body parts completely not like the usual soft body you might pick up if it were alive (or further along after death), and could definitely feel similar to a hard mannequin, especially if you are convinced it's an april fools joke, you wont think much of it. I'm also sure your average person hasn't picked up a mannequin before, so the body could definitely feel similar to what someone imagines a mannequin would feel like, but it definitely didn't feel human (soft, movable, squishy) if there was rigor mortis.
[QUOTE=supersoldier58;44439481]Rigor mortis was said above but wasn't described. Rigor mortis can make the body feel very hard, stiff, and makes it difficult to move body parts completely not like the usual soft body you might pick up if it were alive (or further along after death), and could definitely feel similar to a hard mannequin, especially if you are convinced it's an april fools joke, you wont think much of it. I'm also sure your average person hasn't picked up a mannequin before, so the body could definitely feel similar to what someone imagines a mannequin would feel like, but it definitely didn't feel human (soft, movable, squishy) if there was rigor mortis.[/QUOTE] So zombies do have stiffies. Huh, snuff film ideas.
[QUOTE=Orkel;44439375]Old people committing suicide is more common than you think.[/QUOTE] Most are barely able to function after so long. It doesn't surprise me she wanted to die.
[QUOTE=D3vils Buddy;44439306]Wait what, so they picked it up and touched it and still thought it was a mannequin![/QUOTE] wonder if afterwards they stood in a bathroom and laughed really nervously as they washed the blood off their hands
Even with rigor mortis this still sounds ridiculous, a body fallen from that height would have some serious damage that would make it obvious that its not a mannequin (like a lot of broken bones and maybe a shattered skull)
What an incompetent dumb ass. This man needs to be fired.
Who the hell mistakes red paint for blood? They look completely different. (Oh and don't give me the "Oh but red paint is used for fake blood all the time" bullcrap because I know someone under this post will)
Rigor Mortis hadn't set in for it to feel stiff enough for Rigor Mortis to be factored in. The body couldn't have been there for more than an hour, Rigor Mortis takes 3 hours to actually start, and the maximum stiffness of the muscles is reached at 12 hours after the time of death.
[QUOTE=FLIPPY;44439928]What an incompetent dumb ass. This man needs to be fired.[/QUOTE] maybe he just really didn't want to believe that it was really a dead body because something like that is actually a really traumatizing thing for a sane person
[QUOTE=Neddy;44440211]Who the hell mistakes red paint for blood? They look completely different. (Oh and don't give me the [b]"Oh but red paint is used for fake blood all the time"[/b] bullcrap because I know someone under this post will)[/QUOTE] Oh but red paint is used for fake blood all the time No but joke aside, you have to be a dense fuckass to think it was all a prank even after TOUCHING and LIFTING the body. A human body is squishy, so how can someone manipulate a human body without realising it is one?
[QUOTE=Tasm;44440310]Rigor Mortis hadn't set in for it to feel stiff enough for Rigor Mortis to be factored in. The body couldn't have been there for more than an hour, Rigor Mortis takes 3 hours to actually start, and the maximum stiffness of the muscles is reached at 12 hours after the time of death.[/QUOTE] A Cadaveric spasm is when the body instantly stiffens, and is often mistaken for rigor mortis, and persists into the rigor mortis period. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaveric_spasm[/url] It is "usually associated with violent deaths happening under extremely physical circumstances with intense emotion." Jumping off the roof, combined with the intense feelings she must of had to consider suicide, would fit those criteria. Yes it is rare, but it has a chance of happening that we can't exclude. Another possibility, she was there for more than " hour-and-a-half" (according to the article), considering the time before Benjamin noticed her and when he got the third employed to determine it was "red paint" it also could have been longer. Infact, it was probably much longer. It was apartments for the elderly, so nobody is getting up early, and not many are going to visit their relatives at that early knowing they would be asleep. Benjamin discovered it at 5:30 am, so she could have done it as early as 12:00 am. We also know that Benjamin probably doesn't smoke that often, considering he never thought to himself why he never noticed a "prankster" putting the body there and would also look bad if anyone saw him do it on the job. He probably wasn't paying much attention to the door at all, him being 61 at an early hours job, he was likely doing something else and is why he thought a prankster was doing it, since they did it while he was busy. If that wasn't the case, and he did smoke from 12-5 am, it would have been very dark, he could have been tired, and since he was enjoying a smoke, he wouldn't have noticed the body as easily. Onset is also "relatively more rapid in children and the aged than in muscular young adults." She was definitely aged, and considering 3 is not a set number (multiple cases have arrived in at least 2 hours, she was probably there for well over 2 hours, possibly into 6:30 - 7 hours max. Well enough for stiff rigor mortis to happen, especially since she was old. 72% rigor mortis is the usual for 6 hours, but this could be accelerated by her age. [url]http://www.dundee.ac.uk/forensicmedicine/notes/timedeath.pdf[/url] A lot of assumptions there, but a lot of facts, and it is entirely within the realm of possibility for her to be deep into rigor mortis by the time they decided to pick her up. Or, a cadaveric spasm could have happened. She is in the high-risk group for these two to happen.
What a crazy old lady.
If you hit concrete jumping from a 16 story, wouldn't your body just burst open from the impact? How do you mistake it for a mannequin, or how do you even pick that up without realizing.
[QUOTE=The Maestro;44439325]Just seems kind of ridiculous that even after touching the body they still didn't know it was real. Also strange to read about such an old woman killing herself...96-year-old's committing suicide is something you don't hear often.[/QUOTE] elderly people preventing a slow and possibly undignified death while their organs fail isn't that uncommon
[QUOTE=DEMONSKUL;44440745]Oh but red paint is used for fake blood all the time No but joke aside, you have to be a dense fuckass to think it was all a prank even after TOUCHING and LIFTING the body. A human body is squishy, so how can someone manipulate a human body without realising it is one?[/QUOTE] So I take it you've carried a dead body before?
I feel like the smell would give it away. Even hours after death, I'd assume some smell would be present, especially being as close to the body as they were.
This makes me think about how people only use to live to the age 30 then die of old age. Maybe humans are not made to live to 90?
[QUOTE=tigerman4111;44443361]This makes me think about how people only use to live to the age 30 then die of old age. Maybe humans are not made to live to 90?[/QUOTE] Considering things like alzheimer's, arthritis, organ failure and general body degradation in old age, no, we were not supposed to live this long. The only reasons we live this long are modern medicine and technology.
I have some friends in the make up departments on major film sets. They have fake bodies that are so realistic looking and weight wise the difference is almost impossible to really, really tell without taking a super good look at it. I can totally understand thinking it's a prank but it's weird they didn't notice anything while cleaning it up
I feel bad for really old people. Your friends and family are mostly dead or far away, you can barely god damn walk at a certain age, you cant drive for shit, and are just sitting down rotting away.
this is actually the perfect cover up story ronald benjamin is a genius
[QUOTE=SexualShark;44445173]I feel bad for really old people. Your friends and family are mostly dead or far away, you can barely god damn walk at a certain age, you cant drive for shit, and are just sitting down rotting away.[/QUOTE] My grandma is 90 and she doesn't have it so bad. She gets nice, thoughtfully prepared meals everyday, gets to watch Star Trek with me every morning, and I take her for walks when the weather's nice. [editline]4th April 2014[/editline] I guess most elderly don't get that though...
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