Creepy Playing Card Deaths
Being an excellent card player is a mixture of luck and skill, but what happens to you when you’re all out of luck? You might fold after going all-in or, if your luck has really taken a turn, someone just might pull out a six-shooter at the end of the game!
While you may not have had this experience personally, card games do occasionally land people in the morgue! Don’t believe us? In the spirit of the season, here’s a few creepy examples.
No Poker Here
Larry Rosenberg living at Heritage Court Apartments in Cheyenne, Wyoming was really, really tired of the constant poker games going on at his retirement home.
According to an article posted on the New York Post in September 2016, the seventy-seven year old was so tired of the poker games that he took a gun and shot three people, killing one, during their regular poker game.
A witness noted, “His problem really was about that damned poker gambling.”
The Death of Wendy Brown
According to an article from the Telegraph, bridge player and Premier Life Master Wendy Brown from Cornwall died after a rare 29 point hand. She was 80 years old at the time, and she “slumped over in her chair” at the end of the game at a community centre in Cornwall, England.
Attempts to revive her were unsuccessful. Her children commented that “at least she died doing something she loved”.
There’s an excellent reason to make sure everyone around the bridge table has basic first-aid training and the numbers of the local ambulance.
William Kogut’s Suicide Solitaire
William Kogut was a prisoner from the California Department of Corrections who ended his life on the 20thof October 1930. He’s remembered for the strange way he chose to do it.
He was originally from Poland, and had been sentenced to death row for killing Mayme Gurthrie, a woman known for running a local gambling house and brothel – a sort of gentleman’s club.
It’s believed that he killed Mayme over a moral disagreement.
His game of choice was Solitaire, and nobody thought much of him until a huge explosion came from his cell. Guards found what must have been a rather gruesome scene. Some sources report that a note was found.
Simply explained, he used a deck of playing cards and cut out the red hearts and diamonds, then stuffed these into a pipe attached to his bed and set it alight. The red dye, made from highly-flammable nitrocellulose, turned the pipe into a pipe bomb instead.
He was buried in the San Quentin Prison Cemetery, plot number 301, in case you want to visit.
Killed for MTG Cards
What would you do for the right Magic: The Gathering cards? Well, apparently a man named William Joseph Cornier thought them valuable enough to kill for.
According to an article published in the Daily Mail, journalist Sean Dugas was beaten to death and his collection of rare cards was sold off “in Georgia and Tennessee” for as much as $100, 000, and kept his body in a box with some potpourri for over a week.
Stories like this add to the rich and varied history of our plain ol’ deck of cards. We trust that most of your games won’t turn out this way!
