Ramplate's Bottom Feeders

Colorado v James Holmes

The judge entered a not guilty plea on behalf of the defendant who faces 166 counts of mostly Murder and Attempted Murder. The defense is still contemplating an insanity defense. Court date has been set for August 5th.
Holmes sat in court with dark brown hair and a full reddish-brown beard this time.

The Corpse Bride

Inés Pérez de Castro y Valadares Sánchez de Castilla

Castro was born (1325) to a Spanish nobleman and his mistress and had many illegitimate and legitimate royal relatives within the regions of Spain. She immigrated to Portugal as the maid of Constance of Castile who at the time was married to Peter I of Portugal, heir apparent to the throne of that country.
Peter fell deeply in love with Inez and started to neglect his marriage to Constance, which enraged his father, King Alfonso IV, due to how this influence put the throne too closely associated with the Castilian throne. Unfortunately he could not disentangle the two lovers.
In 1345 Constance died, leaving a son as the future legitimate heir to the throne of Portugal - unfortunately the boy was a sickly lad. Meanwhile the relationship between Peter and Inez produced three robust healthy children - two sons and a daughter.
King Alfonzo did not want these illegitimate offspring to ascend to the throne and had tried several times to arrange relationships for his son with other women, as Inez was proclaimed to be ineligible to become queen. Unable to pry the two apart, the king ordered Inez to be assassinated, and so in 1355 she was beheaded in a monastery where she was being held. Peter hunted down the assassins and had their hearts publicly ripped out as they had done to his own. This action also unleashed his wrath upon his father's kingdom, and the two waged war until the father was finally successful in putting down Peter's army.

In 1357 Prince Peter became Peter I, king of Portugal when his father had died in Lisbon shortly after their reconciliation. Being the king, Peter claimed he had secretly married Inez (there is no evidence of this but the king's word is law), and had her body exhumed, dressed in royal robes and placed upon the throne of Portugal as their Queen. He then made the entire court swear allegiance to their new queen by having them kneel in front of the throne and kiss the hand of the corpse.
Inez was later laid to rest in the monastery at Alcobaca where the two are entombed facing each other "Até o fim do mundo..." (Until the end of the world).

HAHAHAHAHA!
I'm not completely sold on the prosecutor's rapid style, but he sure made the "expert" psychologist for the defense look like an incompetent boob!

This guy committed another (albiet milder) ethics violation :funny: by sending Arias a self-help book from Amazon "because she was suicidal" - he's not supposed to treat her in any fashion - he's supposed to impartially examine her. When she told him she was thinking of killing herself all he was supposed to do was tell the correctional facility. On top of that, he only told the defense lawyers.

The prosecutor also called him on switching from one type of amnesia to another diagnosis after his first day of testimony.

On top of that, the guy was missing a page of three different documents and tests he was supposed to have in his file. The prosecutor asked for him to show certain things to the court and he had to say, "I must have left it on my desk in the office. Ill have it tomorrow."

AND on one of the tests he figured out one of the scores as 6 instead of 4 as it should have been, but the test he was using was invalid for his conclusions about Arias' state of mind because he gave her the test when she was still telling "The Ninja Story" and failed to reissue the test after he found out she was lying with that one.

BOOM! Goes the dynamite!

He's asked him several times if he's had memory problems. Meanwhile, the jury has had 100 more questions for him and from the tone of them, they aren't buying his conclusions.

Time to move on to the next witness because the defense sure wasn't able to salvage him in redirect examination.

Dead Man's Hand

"Wild Bill" Hickock (May 27, 1837-August 2, 1876)
Born James Hickock in Homer, Illinois he became quite proficient at shooting from a very young age.
At 18 he moved to Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory after a fight in which he thought he had killed his opponent. He joined The Jaywalkers - a vigilante army that formed before the Civil War who roamed the countryside looting and causing havoc with pro-slave people. (Josie Wales' family from the Clint Eastwood movie were killed by Jaywalkers)

While in the "Free Kansas Army", as it was called, he earned one of the many nicknames and aliases he would have because of the slope of his nose and big upper lip - "Duck Bill". After a gunfight in which he allegedly killed David McCanies who was demanding an overdue payment he was owed at Rock Creek Station, he grew his trademark mustache in 1861 and began calling himself "Wild Bill" - he and another suspect were later acquitted and the shooting was ruled self defense. He would later recount the incident calling himself "Shanghai Bill" when telling the story to listeners.
He served as one of four constables in Monticello Township, Kansas and worked for the parent company of the Pony Express. Unfortunately during this time he was injured by a bear and managed to survive a crushed chest, shoulder and arm, and worked as a stable boy while recovering..

In the Civil War years he also used the alias William Haycock as well as William Hickock - he served as a teamster for the Union Army, and as a wagon master, but he was discharged just after a little more than a year for undisclosed reasons.
After that he may have worked as a Union spy, he was however, a police detective for a short time (mostly policing drunken soldiers) until the force went unpaid and some had quit and moved on.
At the time of his mustering out, he began carousing and drinking, as well as starting his gambling career. In 1865 he shot and killed Davis Tutt in the first recorded quick draw duel - although both drew and aimed before shooting. (The movie version of duels was hardly ever done in historical quick draw duels - usually it was more a matter of finding someone and shooting him before he found you) Hickock was also acquitted in court for this shooting as well.
Lawmen and outlaws often crossed paths and many even worked on both sides of the law - it was not uncommon for a former outlaw to become a sheriff and then after, go back to their outlaw activities after their term was finished. I bring this up because it was while serving as a lawman that Hickock met and befriended one of the most notorious cold killers of the Wild West - John Wesley Hardin - who once reportedly killed a man for snoring too loud. There is an unsubstantiated story where Hardin got the drop on Hickock, by pulling a Road Agent's Spin - whereby you surrender your pistols upon order, upside down and butt first - then while the other person reaches to collect them, you spin and reverse your pistols in hand and get the drop on your opponent while he is defenseless. In any case, this friendship ended when Hardin left town so as not to confront Hichcock over that snoring incident.
Hickock was relieved of his duties as a marshal over a gunfight where he saw movement in the corner of his eye and mistakenly shot and killed Deputy Mike Williams who was coming to help him.

In subsequent years he served as a scout - most notably for General Gorge Custer and the 7th Calvary - and was further elected to become the marshal or deputy marshal of Hays City, Kansas in different elections. And later served as Abilene, Kansas' Marshal all these years through several more gunfights.
In later years Hickock was diagnosed with vision problems of some kind or another and most of his shooting days were left behind. He married Agnes Lake, who ran a circus, and a few months later joined a wagon train headed for the promise of gold in South Dakota.
There in Deadwood he would meet his end playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon.
Hickock usually sat with his back against the wall but the only chair left to him exposed his back to the door. After sitting down to play he twice asked Charles Rich to change seats with him, but Rich refused. A short time later "Broken Nose" Jack McCall wandered in unnoticed, got very close behind Hickock, yelled, "Damn you. Take that!" and shot him in the back of the head - the bullet killed Hickock instantly and exited through his left cheek striking another player (Captain Massie) in the left wrist.

Hickock was holding two aces and two eights - all black - and this is what is now known as The Dead Man's Hand. The fifth card is lost to history - some speculate it hadn't been dealt yet.

Hickock was not the first, nor the last to die over a card game, but one man found a different way to die over cards - without using a gun.

October 1930

William Kugat had been sentenced to Death Row at San Quentin for the throat cutting slaying of Mayme Guthrie who ran a boarding house (and most likely gambling house) in Oroville, California.
He managed to rip the hollow leg off of his cot. He then ripped up a deck of playing cards, and soaked them in his sink. He stuffed the wet card pieces into the cot leg, and after plugging both ends of the hollow tube, he placed it near the heating source in his cell and laid his head on top - when the pipe got hot enough to cause the water to steam, it reacted with the nitrocellulose in the red dye of the cards - the resulting explosion drove shrapnel and card bits into Kugat's skull, killing him.
He left a note saying, "Do not blame my death on anyone because I fixed everything myself. I never give up as long as I am living and have a chance, but this is the end."

Today's red dye does not include nitrocellulose, but word to the wise...keep playing at your own peril.

Horrible tragedy that could have easily been avoided. Who the hell would keep that many pitt bulls? No way you can control them all if they're loose in the yard. I hope they do get charged with neglect or something - that's just idiotic.

Sheriff: Adults Home When Dogs Killed Ga. Toddler: Backyard attack happened while the girl's mom was home; seven dogs were euthanized.

A toddler who slipped outside through a doggie door was mauled to death by her family's seven dogs in the backyard while the attack went unnoticed by the child's mother and other relatives inside their home, a southeast Georgia sheriff said Thursday.

Bryan County Sheriff Clyde Smith said the child's grandmother told investigators she was lying in bed when she heard the pit bulls and pit bull mixes barking, and she looked outside her window to see them dragging the girl. Smith said she began yelling, "They're killing Monica!"

It was too late. Monica Renee Laminack, who would have turned 2 on June 1, was dead by the time an ambulance arrived Wednesday evening. Animal control officers used drugs to euthanize the dogs at the home on a rural road in tiny Ellabell, about 30 miles west of Savannah. Deputies found the girl's shoes, diaper and shredded clothing scattered across the fenced-in yard, Smith said.

"They had dragged the child all over the yard. ... They tore her clothes all up," Smith said.

The toddler lived in a modest, two-story house tucked away from the main road. The sheriff said four generations of the same family shared the home, including the child's 18-year-old mother, grandparents and two uncles who are still young boys.

The girl's grandmother, Michelle McIntyre, sat weeping on the tailgate of a pickup outside the home Thursday. Summer Laminack, the child's mother, sat next to her staring silently at the ground.

"She's in shock," Barbara Brauda, a friend who was visiting the family, told The Associated Press before a man approached and asked a reporter to leave the property. "She hasn't been doing a whole lot of crying because she's still numb."

The sheriff said at least three adult relatives were inside the home when the dogs killed the girl outside. No criminal charges had been filed Thursday. Smith said he expects charges will be brought after he's had a chance to discuss the case with the district attorney and the girl's family has been given time to hold her funeral.

"I can see child neglect at the very minimum," Smith said.

Relatives told investigators the dogs that mauled the child were essentially family pets — a mother dog and six offspring from a litter she had about 16 months ago, the sheriff said.

The dogs had their own doggie doors that let them come in and out of the house as they pleased. The family told deputies the dogs had never attacked a person, though one of them might have killed a cat, Smith said. He said relatives insisted the toddler would play with the dogs and even "use them as pillows while watching TV."

Smith said the dogs looked healthy and well-fed, and investigators found no signs they were being used as fighting dogs by their owners.

"They said they have never been aggressive to other people," he said. "Why they got started I have no idea."

Christy Lamica lives across the street from the home where the girl was killed. She said she's seen neighbors walking pit bulls on leashes along the street but isn't sure where the owners live.

"Everybody on this street has dogs, and everybody pretty much keeps to themselves," said Lamica, who said she doesn't know the family of the mauled toddler. "Their dogs don't get out, and we never hear anything from them. I'm home all day, and I've never had issues."

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

Because it's Easter I thought I would write about raising the dead - specifically one instance of the classic Haitian Voodoo version.

1962

Clairvius Narcisse (born @1922) wandered into the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in April of 1962 complaining of body aches, fever, and being tired and listless, and said he had been sick for quite some time. He had finally gone to the hospital because he'd begun coughing up blood, but the doctor's saw him deteriorate rapidly - he was found to have digestive problems, his lungs were increasingly filling with fluid, he had trouble breathing, and his blood pressure was very low.
By May 1st Claivius' lips had turned blue and he complained about a tingling sensation all over his body. Later that day he was declared dead by two doctors (an American doctor, and one who was American trained) and his sister came in and identified his body to claim him for burial. He was buried the next day.

1980

Angela Narcisse (the sister) was walking through town and this elderly man wandered up to her and claimed to be Clairvius her brother - eventually he proved it by using a childhood nickname that no one had used for years and years.
He said he had felt a burning sensation with bugs crawling all over his body at the time he was declared dead in the hospital and he was conscious the whole time but could not move or speak. He remembered his sister crying as she identified his body, and was also fully aware when they put him in the coffin - even when one of the coffin nails was driven into his face - and buried him in the ground. He couldn't tell how long he spent in the dark, but eventually he was dug up by the bokor (voodoo master sorcerer) and his henchmen.
They beat him, gagged and bound him, and took him to a sugar plantation where other 'Zombies' were kept working as slave labor. There he spent the next two years working from sun up to sun down with only one meal a day, in a dream like state. One day one of the other zombies was being beaten for disobeying the Bokor, and the zombie turned on the Bokor and killed him. That day the zombies escaped their captives. Narcisse wandered about for the next 16 years and even tried to mail letters to his family but they went unanswered. He was afraid to go home because he'd figured out that his brother had made a deal with the Bokor to turn him into a zombie for breaking traditional codes.
When his brother had died he felt safe enough to go back to his village where he was found by his sister.

Two researchers heard of the story and investigated voodoo practices and analyzed a hard to get sample of Bokor medicine - they found it had elements of different things that could more than likely explain what had happened.
It contained a scratchy leaf substance that could cause abrasions and lead to things being introduced to the blood stream of a victim as this potion was only to be used on the skin and not taken internally.
It also probably contained the poison of a puffer fish, one of the most toxic poisons known to man, it causes malaise, paraesthesias, cyanosis of the lips, digestive disorders, pulmonary edema, hypothermia, respiratory difficulties, hypotension, aphonia, and complete paralysis. All symptoms exhibited at the time of Narcisse's death.

The researchers also found that the zombies were given a paste to eat - this paste had sweet potatoes, cane syrup, and something called Datura.
Datura is a plant which contains the hallucinogens atropine and scopolamine, and induces delirium, confusion, psychosis, and complete amnesia. This accounts for his being kept in the dream like state.

Although not conclusively proven to everyone's satisfaction, these certain elements and the widely accepted belief in zombies may have had a strong hold on the population's history and behavior for a long time but it seems as science had decreased the accounts of actual zombie events on the island.

Snow White was a battered woman? I didn't get to see yesterday's testimony after 3pm - I'll have to watch today.

In other news - wow these boys are seriously disturbed - they even wanted to rape the girl. :eek:

Fifth Graders Charged With Murder Conspiracy Are 'Danger to Others'

A Washington prosecutor who is charging two boys aged 10 and 11 with conspiracy to commit murder concedes that it is "very rare" to try someone so young, but said the felony charges were necessary because the boys' crime was premeditated and experts determined they were "a danger to others."

The fifth graders from Colville, Wash., were arrested in February and Steven County Superior Court judge ruled recently that the boys are competent to stand trial on murder conspiracy charges, witness tampering and juvenile possession of a firearm.

The boys allegedly plotted to shoot and stab a girl in their class because she was "really annoying," according to court documents.

Police noted in their report that the boys "did not display any emotion or remorse during the interview." When asked if he knew what he was going to do was dangerous, wrong and unlawful, the 10-year-old replied, "Yes, I just want her dead."

The boys said there were other students they were targeting, even providing officials with six additional names.

"I was a defense attorney for about 14 years in North Carolina and have been a prosecutor for about 12 years here in the state of Washington and I'm not aware of other cases like this," Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen told ABCNews.com. "I don't know that it's absolutely unique, but it's certainly very rare."

Rasmussen also has no qualms about the prosecution.

Referring to psychologists who examined the boys, Rasmussen said, "Both of these professionals believed that the boys presented a danger to other people and that was an important feature for the judge's decision."

The judge found that both boys had capacity to understand right from wrong and cleared the way for juvenile court. They remain in custody with a bond of $100,000 for each boy.

"We are very thankful that nobody was harmed," Rasmussen said. "But for the courage of a fourth grader to tell a teacher that he had seen a knife, this plot would have been carried out."

"As to why children do this, I wish I knew. It is very troubling. It's very scary," he said. "I don't have an explanation and the explanation that the boys gave for why they had planned to do this is entirely inadequate."

Defense attorneys Dee Hokom and Don Richter did not respond to requests for comment.

On Feb. 7, a Colville police officer responded to Colville Elementary School where a fourth grader had alerted a school employee that another student had a knife.

School officials searched the backpacks of the student and his friend who was with him and they found a knife, an ammunition clip and a "functioning" .45 caliber Remington 1911 semi-automatic handgun in 10-year-old's bag, according to court documents.

When a staff member asked the boy why he brought a gun to school, the said that he and his friend were going to "get" a female student identified as "S.L.T." in court documents. When the staffer asked what he meant, he said they "were going to get S.L.T. away from the school and do her in."

The 11-year-old stated that he was going to be the "knifer" and his friend was going to be the "shooter." A third friend was aware of the plot, but they planned to give him $80 to keep it a secret.

The 11-year-old told the administrator that they were planning on killing the girl "because she was really annoying," according to court documents.

"[The 11-year-old] stated that he had been friends with her [S.L.T.] for several months but that he hated her now," the filing said. "He also indicated that S.L.T. had recently become rude and would pick on him."

The younger boy said that he had been in a short "dating relationship" with the girl they were targeting, but would not go into any details, according to the court filing.

The younger boy told police that the had taken the gun from his older brother's room and that his brother had taken it from their dead grandfather's home a few months before.

While the boys were waiting to be taken to a juvenile detention center, the older boy allegedly said to the younger, "If I find out who told them about our weapons I'm going to kill them. I don't care, when I get out of jail I'm going to come back and kill them."

The boys' names are not being used because of their young ages.

Why Fifth Graders Were Charged With Murder Conspiracy

In the state of Washington, a child under the age of 8 is not capable of being charged with a crime because they don't have the capacity to comprehend things and have criminal intent. From ages 8 to 11, that presumption of no capacity exists but can be overcome if the state can provide evidence that proves otherwise.

In this case, the court looked at whether the boys understood the consequences of the act and determined they understood the consequences of what they planned and tried to keep it secret.

If convicted, the boys face a maximum guideline sentence time of about two-and-a-half years, Rasmussen said. However, if the judge finds that the guideline sentence is unjust he can potentially decrease or increase it. Confinement until the age of 21 is the maximum.

Late, but better than never....

Well, so far I have covered monsters real and imaginary. From corporations to people, from fiction to the realities of the supernatural. And in that later vein (pun intended) I have touched upon vampires, witches, zombies....and I now bring you...

The Real Frankenstein

Read on...

Darmstadt in southwestern Germany was settled by the Franks in the 6th century. There were probably other castles (at least one) built on the hill top site overlooking the Rhine, most likely around the 11th century, But that is where some took the name Frankenstein (meaning stone of the Franks) and in the 13th century the Castle Frankenstein was built. Lord Konrad II. Reiz von Breuberg. being the first to take the name, and possibly was who commissioned the building of the castle.

Several knights served the Lord of the castle well through the Middle Ages - one even fought along side (or against according to some sources) the forces of Vlad The Impaler (Frankenstein meets Dracula anyone? heh-heh).
The most famous knight was Georg Frankenstein who, as legend says, was felled by a dragon near Odenwald when he could not shed his armor fast enough to stop the deadly poison delivered by the beast's spiked tail. In any case, he was very well liked and posed a compassionate and brave character.
The castle was held by the Frankenstein family until the true line eventually died out after a few hundred years - the castle itself was eventually destroyed by the French and is still in ruins today I believe - there is a Town of Frankenstein which has a castle Frankenstein (by my research) that has been restored and now stands as a restaurant and tourist trap, but it is not the true castle Frankenstein.

So where does that leave us? The Mary Shelley story has a basis most probably with this location - she is said to have stayed in the area, but not in the location, and most probably never set eyes on the castle itself.
The story is also about the quest for immortality, experimenting with the dead, and grave robbing. There is some truth to these elements as well.

Science was rather slow in its discovery of the human anatomy and how everything worked within the human body. The earliest studies were primarily examination of sacrificial subjects and victims of war, or those who were the subject of executions.
The first written study of anatomy that still exists is the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus (@1600 BC) which features the heart, its vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder, however, the Egyptians still had no great understanding of how these things worked - For example they thought that the heart was responsible for carrying all fluids of the body to all areas, and not just the blood.

The earliest body of work by a known scientist is that of Hippocrates a Greek physician of the late 4th century BCE (The Hippocratic Oath of physicians is named after him - it contains many words but it is most frequently boiled down to the phrase "Do no harm." by those who speak of it in passing.). In any case, Hippocrates was first to separate some of the beliefs normally held by people that diseases and illnesses were caused from environment and diet and not curses by the Gods. He didn't get everything right though, he was a strong proponent of the idea of Humors. Humors were the four elements thought to be used by the body - blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. The imbalance of these humors, or so it was imagined, would be the reason for any number of maladies that people would suffer.

Quite a bit of research was done on bodies of animals at first, and it was not really until about the latter half of the 4th century BCE that permission was given to perform vivisections on criminals - a vivisection differs from a dissection in that the subject is alive while the internal examination is conducted. This is the way great advances in knowledge of how things actually worked within the human body in ancient times, but there were still errors in their conclusions,

By the 12th century dissections were conducted in Italy more systematically than before, and their findings became more detailed in description and function.
By about the 16th century a much better understanding of the circulatory system was finally gained - which brings us to...

Johan Conrad Dipple (1673-1734)

Dipple was born in castle Frankenstein - he felt he was a Frankenstein, although nor related by blood, and so eventually took the name Johan Conrad Dipple Von Frankenstein. he earned a masters degree in theology from the University of Giessen in 1693, and published many books on the subject. By 1700 he turned to Hermetic studies (a combination of theology and magic) to understand the natural world.

He parted from conventional theological thinking and doctrine in his belief that it was time for reexamination of practices and policies within the church's thinking. This caused a rift between him and the Catholics of the day and gained favor from those proponents of the Protestant reforms. But even then, one of his believers disassociated with him calling him a "most vile devil ...who attempted wicked things" when Dipple began to talk about a more personal faith, and rejection of the Bible. They felt that what he was preaching smacked of a cultish opportunity to gain riches and social influence. His expression of this thoughts and philosophies brought to him a charge of heresy and a seven year prison sentence.

After this time he began to experiment with alchemy (largely a bit of quackery that was the precursor of chemistry and medicine) created what he called "the Elixir of Life" he named it after himself - Dipple's Oil. This was a darkly colored and very vile smelling concoction which included charred animal bones. This substance did have some uses later in history - most notably it was used in World War II to spoil the drinking supply in the desert campaign. For the most part it has become obsolete in its other uses. Dipple and a dye maker named Diesbach used the oil and potassium carbonate with the intention of making red dye, but to their surprise, they accidentally created what is now known as Prussian Blue.

Amidst numerous crazy rumors, Dipple did experiments and dissection on dogs quite frequently, and in his dissertation Maladies and Remedies of the Life of the Flesh he claimed to have created that 'Elixir of Life' and discovered a way to exorcise demons and devils from the body using potions made from animal bones and flesh. He also claimed then that souls could be transferred from one corpse to another by the use use of a funnel.

As I said, rumors surrounded Dipple, and in his later years he more than likely promoted some of these ideas to gain interest in his work and find audiences eager to pay for his services as an alchemist and 'Dark Wizard'. Some of the most notable rumors after his life included - having blown up one of the towers of Castle Frankenstein by the reckless experimentation with nitroglycerin - which had not been invented yet - and the tower had not been destroyed in his lifetime. Other rumors were that he was a grave robber, and performed those gruesome experiments with human cadavers, and was in league with the devil.

He died at Whittgenstein Castle near Bad Laasphe in Germany - possibly of a stroke, but another rumor has it that he was poisoned. Ironically in 1733 he wrote a paper about a potion that he claimed would allow him to stay alive until the age of 135 - he was 61.

Whether or not he really was Mary Shelley's inspiration for Victor Von Frankenstein is still uncertain, but the connection remains very strong to this day.

Hmmm.... Witches...Vampires...Zombies...oh yeah, Skeleton Queens..what's next?
How about Spirits?

Someone in the literary world who brushes up someone else's story in order for it to be readable and more interesting to the public is called a 'ghost writer'. They pretty much do not receive any credit, and remain unseen and unheard of by the public, meanwhile the book gets published with the original person's name on it, and they also get all the praise and fame for the work.
But on one occasion in the early part of the 20th century, the literary world would be turned upon its head....

The Ghost Writer

Pearl Lenore Pollard was born in Illinois in February of 1883, but the family moved to Texas when she was about eight months old. She started school when she turned six but always seemed uninterested and dropped out during her first year of high school, stating that the academic strain was too much for her - it's possible she even had a break down. She did return to St Ignatius Catholic School later.

She was an average girl no real ambitions except to be a singer, she had a short attention span and read very little in those years. Her family once again picked up and moved to St Louis when she was 14 where she made another attempt to attend school but when she was placed in a lower grade based on her performance, she was discouraged but she took lessons in voice and piano.

The family moved once again to Missouri where her musical talents bloomed and the family sent her to Kanakee, Illinois for more training but shortly moved to Chicago for more music education. She did some office work addressing envelopes for one music company, and selling music for another. She worked various jobs in Chicago and taught music back in Missouri in the summer months until the age of 24.

She met and married John Howard Curran, and they weren't well off by any means, but they were afforded some leisure time to see movies once in a while, and play cards, as well as entertain friends a bit. The couple had average educations for the times, but they didn't own many books, and neither had traveled too extensively.

About seven years into the marriage, Pearl and her friend Emily Grant Hutchings were sitting in the parlor with a brand new Ouija board. they had been at another friend's house where Emily had some communication with a relative of hers using the board at that time, so she bought one herself to try and continue the conversation.

They had some sporadic communication to begin with in June of 1913, and then eight days later come the following from the board
"Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name. Wait, I would speak with thee. If thou shalt live, then so shall I. I make my bread at thy hearth. Good friends, let us be merrie. The time for work is past. Let the tabby drowse and blink her wisdom to the firelog."

They asked when she had lived and the board replied, "1649-94 across the sea". Apparently this entity had come from England and arrived in America by ship, finding no landing on the jagged coast they had launched several flat boats. Pearl began to see images in her mind's eye of all of this and described Patience as, "...probably about thirty years. Her hair was dark red, mahogany, her eyes brown, and large and deep, her mouth firm and set, as though repressing strong feelings. Her hair had been disarranged by her cap, and was in big, glossy, soft waves." Eventually it was revealed that she had been killed by Indians in the new world.

After time the words came rather quickly and with great fluidity - Patience it seems had a great unfulfilled desire in life to become a writer, and soon many guests would be drawn to the recitations, two poems about Russia and The Red Cross were recited in rapid succession. Poet Edgar Lee Masters was among the astonished guests. “There is no doubt...she is producing remarkable literature." The prestigious Braithwaite anthology listed five of her poems among the nation’s best published in 1917, and the New York Times hailed her first novel as a “feat of literary composition.”

Curran once said, "I am like a child with a magic picture book. Once I look upon it, all I have to do is to watch its pages open before me, and revel in their beauty and variety and novelty....When the poems come, there also appear before my eyes images of each successive symbol, as the words are given me....When the stories come, the scenes become panoramic, with the characters moving and acting their parts, even speaking in converse. The picture is not confined to the point narrated, but takes in everything else within the circle of vision at the time....If the people talk a foreign language, as in The Sorry Tale, I hear the talk, but over and above is the voice of Patience, either interpreting or giving me the part she wishes to use as story."

For the next 25 years, Patience Worth dictated a total of about 400,000 words. Her works were vast and consisted of not only her personal messages, but creative writings as well. She passed along nearly 5,000 poems, a play, many short works and several novels that were published to critical acclaim. These would be written down or typed by Curran's husband or others, but later, Pearl was able to type them out herself.

In researching for the historical Patience Worth, there were vivid descriptions of places in Dorsetshire England and about the countryside, but no real solid evidence was ever found to verify that she had existed there in the late 17th century - several Patience Worths were found on registers of ships that set sail for America but none could be verified as having been this Patience.

Still, experts were astounded that a little educated woman who suffered from frequent anxiety attacks could ever have written such works. Many of the words were unfamiliar to Pearl herself, but every word of the language was so exact that only someone extremely familiar with the time of 1649 - 94 could have recited so fluently the vivid descriptions, and prose of the time.

Their collaboration continued, but tapered off in about 1921 when Pearl's husband and mother passed away, and Pearl had given birth to her only child. After that it was infrequent that they would communicate, however they did right up until Pearl caught pneumonia and died in December of 1937.

Today the works of Worth are largely forgotten and out of print, but they gained worldwide acclaim from many people and organizations within the world of literature - and captured the fancy of millions. To this day, no one has come up with any other conclusion as to how the vast collection of literary works were produced, other than a gift from beyond this reality.

Wow :omg: