FT260

A couple were charged with battering a man to death with a statue of Santa Claus. Vuyelwa Motso, 45, allegedly beat her husband with the help of her boyfriend Williams Witbooi, also 45. Michael Grootboom, 48, died of head injuries outside his wife’s house in Uitenhage, South Africa. Sun, 22 Dec 2009.

The blackened body of Linda McGugan, 56, was found on the living room floor of her third-storey apartment in Calgary, Alberta, on 6 September 2009. A sofa nearby was burned down to the springs and some of the victim’s (unspecified) belongings had melted. Black marks extended to the outside of the building from the apartment’s windows and patio doors, but as firefighters walked through, there was neither smoke nor much heat inside. It was unclear when the fire broke out or (more mysteriously) how it had been extinguished. McGugan was a smoker and also used an oxygen tank to help her breathe, but it was nonetheless puzzling that the blaze didn’t spread to neighbouring apartments and no one nearby had heard, seen or smelled any sign of the fire as it raged. Spontaneous Human Combustion? Calgary Herald, 8 Sept 2009.

A boy of four was killed in church by a falling bullet that was fired at least half a mile away, at 12.20am on 1 January. It was shot up in the air outside by someone celebrating New Year in Atlanta, Georgia – and on its way down drilled through the roof and hit Marquel Peters in the head. The toddler collapsed at the feet of his parents, who had no idea what caused the gaping wound. More than 150 people were attending the church service. Ballistics expert Kelly Fite estimated the gun was an AK-47 assault rifle, fired from two to three miles away at an angle of 30 degrees (Sun, 4 Jan 2010) – or half a mile away at an angle of 40 degrees (D.Telegraph, same day).

After Alexander Alexandrov’s neighbour had played the Robbie Williams hit 'Angels' non-stop at full volume for a week, Alex­androv finally snapped and strangled him. The 45-year-old, from Pernik in Bulgaria, was jailed for 16 years. D.Mirror, 23 Dec 2009.

A Greek man dressed in goat skins as camouflage as he stalked wild boar in Chalkidiki was killed by a family shooting party. Christos Constantinou, 49, was sneaking through undergrowth when the group mistook him for a forest animal and opened fire. He died before reaching hospital. Metro, 21 Dec 2009.

Two bank robbers were killed after the explosive they were using to break into a safe blew up the whole building in Dinant, southern Belgium. One was buried beneath the rubble and the other died in hospital a few hours later. The safe was not opened. [AP] 29 Sept 2009.

A 48-year-old lorry driver who died on a beach in northern France last July might be the first victim of toxic seaweed fumes. He had carried three truckloads of sea lettuce away from the beaches at Binic in Brittany where it had been decaying, releasing pois­onous hydrogen sulphide gas. He was part of an annual operation to clear 2,000 tons of sea lettuce from the beaches. He had been working without a mask or gloves and died at the wheel of his vehicle when it crashed into a wall. Although the cause of death was originally given as a heart attack, French scientists now believe that he might have been killed by the toxic fumes. The alarm over the algæ was raised after a horse galloping along the beach at Saint-Michel-en-Grève coll­apsed and died. Its rider lost consciousness and had to be dragged from a metre-deep patch of rotting green sludge [FT258:11]. D.Mirror, 8 Aug; [R] 8 Sept 2009.