The thirteenth of June finds us in new, temporary quarters. Having abandoned the original
FirstNerve Manor in New Jersey, we are forced to compile this month’s collection of grim but morbidly fascinating odor-based discoveries from within the rickety remains of a farm building on the eastern plains of Colorado. We re-wired the windmill so that instead of filling the horse trough it recharges our battered Toshiba clamshell. And we manage to get a satellite internet signal using a rusty piece of barbed wire as an antenna. That’s the frontier life for you.
It has been a bountiful year for nominees of our coveted
Norman Bates Award™. The latest arrives from India, courtesy of the
Bangalore Mirror: “
Kolkata man’s Psycho act with sis’s body.” And by Psycho, they do mean the film. The man, Partha De, “kept the skeleton of his sister and two dogs in his apartment for the last six months and ‘fed’ them food believing them to be alive.” He also lit candles and played eerie background music, as well as recordings of his sister’s voice.
According to police, “Partha said that his sister loved the two [dogs] dearly. When the pets died in August/September 2014, she stopped eating and starved to death in December 2014.” That’s when Partha placed all three bodies on a bed.
And how was the Batesian circumstances discovered? Police stumbled on them while investigating the charred remains of Arabinda De, Partha’s father, which were found in a bathroom. Partha had left his job as a software engineer, and according to neighbors the entire family was reclusive. [
I'm shocked. Shocked.—Ed.]
Where’s grandpa?
Ninety-two-year-old Robert L. Sufana shared a house in Portage, Indiana with his grandson, the grandson’s wife, and the couple’s 7-year-old son. The grandson claims to have checked on the old man in his bedroom every other day, but that the last time he spoke to him was eight days before when he told the old man that dinner was ready and got no response. The grandson’s wife finally noticed a
foul smell and asked her husband to check. He found his grandfather sitting in a resting position in his chair, dead. Police who responded to the scene could smell the stench from 50 feet outside the house. “Police interviews revealed that there was little interaction between Sufana and the family members with whom he shared the home.” [
No shit.—Ed.]
This is a rather odd way to back into a nomination for the
Norman Bates Award, but the grandson definitely gets one. [
Anosmic or psycho?—Ed.] [Hard to say, maybe both.] We’ll ignore the seven-year-old who is currently in the care of Child Protective Services, but his mother gets a free ticket to the gala awards ceremony.
Southerly Breezes
An anonymous phone tip about a
foul odor led police in Jacksonville, FL to a decomposing body in a house on Janette Street on the city’s north side.
In Velda City, Missouri, worried neighbors called police after not having seen an 82-year-old woman take her usual daily walk. Police checked; when the lady said she had the flu and didn’t wish to be disturbed, they left it at that. Some days later, police received new
calls about an odor coming from the house.
“When we got there, we didn’t smell an odor,” said [Police Chief Daniel] Paulino. “It wasn’t until we opened up the mail slot that it was obvious that there was something bad inside.”
The something bad was the old lady’s decaying corpse.
Christopher B. Buchanan’s report for NBC-11 is a bit unclear, but evidently a
foul odor led someone to a dead body in the bushes off Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway in northwest Atlanta.
In Odessa, Texas, police responded to call about water and a
foul smell coming from a home. Inside they discovered the remains of an adult male and a running faucet. The man’s death does not appear to be suspicious.
In the vanguard
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department got a call about
foul odor emanating from a van parked by a TJ Maxx store in a shopping center in Norwalk. The caller noted the van had been parked there for several days. To the surprise of exactly zero fans of ISDP, a dead body was found in the back of the van.
Police in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, got a report of a
foul odor near West Manhattan Court and Hemlock Street. [
For realz?—Ed.] A caller claimed the smell was coming from a white van. However police found the badly decomposed remains of a man not in the vehicle, but wedged between two walls nearby. We note that localization by odor is a notoriously tricky thing, and given the number of van incidents that have appeared in ISDP over the years, we doubt the Hazelton caller deliberately misdirected the police.
Filthadelphia
Some four or five weeks ago, residents of Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania, noticed a suitcase tossed on the side of the road. Hey, no biggie, right? It’s Philly. Crap gets tossed on the road all the time. Finally a local man walking his dog noticed a “
very foul odor” coming from the suitcase and notified police, who found inside it badly decomposed human remains. The victim had injuries to his head, neck and jaw. Police are treating the case as a homicide. [
You can give ISDP cred to the dog walker, but dog probably deserves an assist.—Ed.]
The victim was
later identified as 40-year-old Scott Stephen Bernheisel. About a week later
a couple in their 20s was arrested in connection with Bernheisel’s murder.
