The Hopetoun Quarry Murders

In 1913, bodies of two children were discovered in the Hopetoun quarry near Edinburgh. Although the bodies had been in the water at least eighteen months, a man named Sir Sydney Alfred Smith was able to provide the police with vital information. He determined how much time before their deaths the two boys had eaten their last meal, proved that they must have walked to the quarry, and hypothesised that they had been killed by someone they knew. The two boys had never been reported missing, but Smith’s evidence led to the arrest of the children’s father, Patrick Higgins, and to The first execution in Scotland of the century.

Smith, a committed scientist to the last, during this case Smith secreted away the heads of both children, a leg and an arm from each of them, and all their internal organs. He installed them as specimens in the Forensic Medicine Museum at the University, where they are still used as teaching examples of advanced adipocere - a form of decomposition that happens to dead bodies subject to moisture.

Image gallery of historic photos and oil paintings of famous executions and beheadings.

This is the “Field of Skulls” from the war. This is not the Jews, these are the skulls of Chinese citizens that were slaughtered by the Japanese. Japan went through China and killed every man, woman and child in its path.

Rape of Nanking

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Charles Beheaded below

More famous and historic executions

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Back 13 years to the Rwanda Massacres and the angry mobs that missed a commandment or two, or three… and murdered thy neighbors….

Last month the Rwanda government started releasing people by the thousands whoRwanda Genocide - 800,000+ dead in 90 days"> took part in one of the worst, if not the worst massacre in modern times, the genocide of the Tutsi people in Rwanda.

The people released are the same ones who massacred 800,000 + men women and children in the course of 90 days as a mob and most wanting only the property of the people they killed in mass.

The release of these killers has angered the people of Rwanda who are still trying to heal 13 years later. They are afraid the mob mentality and greed may again set into the poverty stricken and killings may begin again.

The world watched the slaughter and some estimates say 1 million may have been killed in Rwanda before the UN stepped in and sent in a few more troops.

The Hutu, now without opposition from the world community, engaged in genocidal mania, clubbing and hacking to death defenseless Tutsi families with machetes everywhere they were found. The Rwandan state radio, controlled by Hutu extremists, further encouraged the killings by broadcasting non-stop hate propaganda and even pinpointed the locations of Tutsis in hiding. The killers were aided by members of the Hutu professional class including journalists, doctors and educators, along with unemployed Hutu youths and peasants who killed Tutsis just to steal their property.

Many Tutsis took refuge in churches and mission compounds. These places became the scenes of some of the worst massacres. In one case, at Musha, 1,200 Tutsis who had sought refuge were killed beginning at 8 a.m. lasting until the evening. Hospitals also became prime targets as wounded survivors were sought out then killed.

In some local villages, militiamen forced Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors or face a death sentence for themselves and their entire families. They also forced Tutsis to kill members of their own families.

By mid May, an estimated 500,000 Tutsis had been slaughtered. Bodies were now commonly seen floating down the Kigara River into Lake Victoria.

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In the course of a few months in 1994, around 1 million people were killed in Rwanda, slaughter on a scale not seen since the Nazi extermination program against the Jews. The killing rate in Rwanda was five times that achieved by the Nazis.

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Those ancient people of Antiquity were very creative in the methods of murder and execution. Here are a few famous executions and murders. These fools did not get an easy death at all. In some I wonder if it took more planning or executing time. The full list of bizarre and grisly deaths, murders and executions may be found on Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths, but the ones below are my picks for the odd and deranged.

• 845 BC: Ancient records were discovered in North Africa describing the death of a ruler named Vondracek Beeir who was sacrificed by cutting an inch off his body starting at the bottom of his feet and working up. talk about a torture… yikes

• 454 BC: The rebel pharaoh Inarus, leader of the rebellion in Egypt against Persian rule, was taken captive to Susa after being defeated by the satrap Megabyzus. There, after five years, he was impaled on three stakes and flayed alive.

• 53 BC: Following his defeat at Carrhae at the hands of the Parthians under Spahbod Surena, Marcus Licinius Crassus was executed by having molten gold poured down his throat. Some accounts claim that his head was then cut off and used as a stage prop in a play performed for the Parthian king Orodes II.

• 48 BC: The Roman general Pompey, fleeing to Egypt after being defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus by his rival Julius Caesar, was stabbed, killed, and decapitated: his head was then preserved in a jar by the young king Ptolemy XIII and presented to Caesar, to whom he intended to ingratiate himself. Caesar was not amused.

• 43 BC: Cicero, the great Roman statesman, was labeled an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate. Like all those proscribed by the Triumvirate, he was hunted down and killed; his severed hands and head were then displayed on the Rostra in the Forum for several days, during which time Fulvia, wife of Mark Antony, is supposed to have stabbed his once-skilled tongue several times with a hairpin.

• C. 98 Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamum, was roasted to death in a brazen bull during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian. Saint Eustace, as well as his wife and children supposedly suffered a similar fate under Hadrian. The creator of the brazen bull, Perillos of Athens, was according to legend the first victim of the brazen bull when he presented his invention to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum.

• 258: St Lawrence was executed by being burned or ‘grilled’ on a large metal gridiron at Rome. Images of him often show him holding the instrument of his execution. Legend says that he was so strong-willed that instead of giving in to the Romans and releasing information about the Church, at the point of death he exclaimed “I am done on this side! Turn me over and eat.”

• 415: The Greek mathematician and philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was murdered by a mob by having her skin ripped off with sharp sea-shells and what remained of her was burned. (Various types of shells have been named: clams, oysters, abalones. Other sources claim tiles or pottery-shards were used.)

This is Mussolini getting executed by a firing squad - a very famous execution. I had this video up in the small video pane and did not realize it was not complete. This is the complete video of the Mussolini execution.

Click here to Download the Mussolini firing squad execution