ISDP in the Cruelest Month

Whaa, whaa, whaa? It’s the thirteenth of the month again? And it’s Friday? That can only mean one thing: an extra special edition of ISDP, FirstNerve’s compilation of the latest in ghoulish malodor. Each story begins with a foul odor and arrives inevitably at the macabre discovery of a dead body. We suspect that some sort of universal cancellation principle is at work here: one ISDP episode for the launch of every new celebrity fragrance. Just a hunch.

We begin with a case that we somehow missed when it happened last year. It’s a two-fer: a classic “body under the motel bed” episode, and a Norman Bates Award™ nomination. In June, 2011, a 25-year-old Utah woman was murdered in a room at the Capitol Motel in Salt Lake City by 27-year-old Thomas Kumulac. Her body was found “after a guest who checked into the room complained of a foul odor.” After killing the woman, Kumulac “then slept in the same room with her body for several days before checking out of the motel.” He pleaded guilty to first degree murder and has been sentenced to life without parole.


Thomas Kumulac, Norman Bates Award™ Nominee

Florida continues to set the pace for ISDP. First this report near Pensacola, on March 14:

The body of Everett James Bass IV was found Saturday in a wooded area near railroad tracks at Airport Boulevard and Memory Lane. . . . Two people found Bass’ body after walking along a path and smelling a foul odor, [Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Mike] Ward said.

Really? Strolling down Memory Lane? How Proustian.

A few weeks later from Broward County, comes this report:

An unidentified body was found Friday in a rented room in Lauderhill, and the police are looking for the tenant.

After hearing complaints of a foul odor coming from a bedroom, officers found a corpse in “advanced stages of decomposition,” according to the Lauderhill Police Department.

The guy who had been renting the room, 36-year-old Marlon Woodstock, is being held for questioning.

Woman Pulls a Semi-Norman

We turn to Gray, Georgia, where the body of Doug Coker, age 67, was found. Murder charges have been brought against Pamela Moss, age 54.

Jones County sheriff’s deputies went to Moss’ home Sunday because Henry and Bill county authorities investigating Coker’s disappearance wanted to speak to her about their business relationship, Reece said. No one was home but a foul odor led them to discover Coker’s body under the porch, he said.

Ms. Moss previously spent eight years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of her mother.

Guy Pulls a Semi-Norman

The Big Apple’s tabloids retain their flair for brisk headlines: “Killer hacked up friend with hand saw: cops”. New York Daily News reporter Philip Caulfield has the gist of the story:

A 27-year-old Washington man strangled his drug buddy and then cut up his corpse with a hand saw before getting caught by his mother, authorities said.

John Jones Jr. was caught with the mutilated remains of Wayne Williams, 54, on March 21 after his mom noticed a foul smell coming from the bedroom of his Tacoma home.

The Olympian has the gruesome details. Here’s a photo of the suspect, courtesy of KIRO-TV.



Say, what ever happened to Morris Day? We always liked him in that Prince movie.



Sixteen-year-old Kit Darrant of Miami, Florida, becomes the youngest-ever Norman Bates Award™ nominee.

Darrant faces a second-degree murder charge. Miami-Dade police said Darrant told them he choked his mother unconscious, stabbed her in the back of the neck, turned her over and stabbed her in the torso and arms several times.

Then, police said, Darrant lived in the home with his 3-year-old brother for eight days while his mother’s body decomposed.

Marie Altidor, the dead woman’s sister-in-law, became suspicious and broke down the bedroom door.

“I already smelled it,” she said. “I knew there was a dead body in there. . . . (It was) covered up with some sheets and smelled really bad, like dead rats,” Altidor said.

Our young nominee was particularly brazen:

Miami-Dade police said Darrant tried to cover up the smell with laundry detergent and deodorant so he could invite friends over for a party.

More depraved details here.


Kit Darrant, Norman Bates Award™ Nominee


Always Trust Your Nose.

It was one of those awkward ISDP times: neighbors in a public housing project argued about whether or not the bad smell was coming from the utility sink. One resident insisted it was a dead body.

“People kept saying it was the slop sink where they wash the mops out. I kept saying, ‘No, that’s a dead body.’ Then they wanted to say it was the sewer and it was making me nauseous every day,” said one building resident.

Well, he was right. A one-legged man in a wheelchair had been stabbed to death in his apartment in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

Always Trust Your Nose, part deux.

“In the summer it always stunk really bad in that house. You would tell the landlord but he didn’t live around here,” Maier said. “You would get the smell really bad in the bathroom. We thought it was something to do with the plumbing.”

Turns out the former owner of the house in question had left the remains of his 23-year-old daughter in the crawlspace of the Keansburg, New Jersey residence back in 2008. A week ago a cleaning service called to the now-foreclosed property discovered the remains of Kimberly Adler.

Dennis L. Adler has been charged with second-degree disturbing of human remains for allegedly moving her remains on multiple occasions beginning in August 2008. He is being held in Monmouth County Correctional Institution on $100,000 bail.