Page 40 - 201006 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - June 2010

June 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 30/06/2010 11:48 PM Page 40 40 5 Crazy Diseases 5 Crazy Diseases On Nov. 13, 1974, six members of an he was the only one brave enough to go beyond Amityville, New York, family were killed by the chest and wax his groin, The Sun reported. Continued from Page 36 one of the family's sons, Ronald Jr. ("Butch") "One of the peelers just got too enthusiastic and DeFeo. In his legal defense, DeFeo claimed that he was pretty apologetic afterwards," Harlequin ichthyosis demonic forces in the home drove him to kill. Cooper said. "I ended up at the hospital. The new owner of the home at 112 Ocean You can imagine how much everyone was Type of Disease: Genetic skin disease Avenue later claimed a variety of ghostly laughing at me. It was ironic. I was meant to be Crazy Because: Causes the skin of newborns to phenomena, and the story was further helping them -- and they ended up helping me. become hardened with diamond-shaped scales fictionalized into a best-selling novel and horror They told me if any more skin had come off, Cure: None film. Yet the supernatural events were never that would have been it. I was very lucky proven, and DeFeo's lawyer later admitted that really." Despite the injury, Cooper said he and Harlequin-type ichthyosis is the most severe the story was a hoax. his friends earned $4,443 for the Leicester form of ichthyosis, a congenital skin disorder Royal Infirmary children's ward. affecting newborns. Like a scene right out of the Alcatraz bizarre, infants with this condition are born with The San Francisco Bay's resident rock, Stripping sailor turned over hard, thick skin that forms large diamond- and perhaps the most famous prison island in shaped plates or scales that are separated by the world, Alcatraz has captured the public's to captain deep cracks. Almost all areas of the skin can be imagination in many films and books. The affected disrupting the protective barrier prison, a cold, dank hellhole, saw many VICTORIA, British Columbia - between the body and environment. Infants murders, riots, and suicides during its 29 years Canadian police said a rowdy French sailor who have difficulty controlling water loss, regulating of service. Along the way it spawned tales of drunkenly shed his clothes in public twice was body temperature and fighting off infections. inexplicable sounds, cell doors closing on their turned over to his commanding officer. Victoria Many newborns thus succumb to dehydration or own, disembodied screams, and scary police said there were few problems among the infection shortly after birth. For those who do apparitions. 5,000 sailors visiting the city for the Canadian survive, the outlook is pretty bleak; only a few Navy's centennial, but one French sailor had a patients survive into adolescence and very The Fox Sisters Cabin bit too much to drink and took off his uniform rarely into adulthood. Though less well-known than the other in the lobby of a hotel, CanWest News Service Back in 2005, the "Real Families" haunted places, the Fox Sisters cottage is reported. Deputy Police Chief John Ducker said documentary series in the U.K. exposed the perhaps the most important haunted house of officers escorted the sailor back to his ship lives and hardships of two pairs of sisters all, since the phenomena here in many ways set where he again slipped out of his clothing while afflicted with the condition: Lucy and Hannah the standard for later hauntings and even waiting to board. Ducker said the ship's captain Betts, and Dana and Lara Bowen. The girls launched a religion. In 1848 Hydesville, was standing behind him during the second went through daily routines sometimes hours on western New York, two young sisters named incident. "The punishment a sailor would get end applying moisturizer and removing dead Maggie and Katie Fox began supposedly from his commanding officer is much worse skin. The Bowen’s pediatrician, professor John communicating with the ghost of a murdered than anything we can do," police spokesman Harper, summed up the outlook of sufferers of peddler. The sisters, in a sort of crude seance, Sgt. Grant Hamilton said. this rare condition saying that they are "just not would ask questions of the spirit, who would compatible with living." answer back with mysterious knocks or raps. Deputies find goat in trunk at Many people, including their mother, were That's crazy amazed at what seemed to be genuine contact checkpoint with the dead. Both sisters eventually admitted What isn’t normal tends to be intriguing. People that they had actually faked the sounds--there BEDFORD, Va. - Authorities in Virginia generally crave anything that breaks the cycle of had been no murdered peddler, it had all been a said they found a goat bound in the trunk of a everyday life, and who could blame them? prank. The women even demonstrated how they car stopped at a drunken- driving checkpoint. However, what’s crazy to some might not be had done it. But by then the belief had taken on The Bedford County Sheriff's Office said a crazy to others. Every disease, no matter how a life of its own as a religion called Spiritualism, deputy heard knocking sounds coming from the crazy, has a victim. And sometimes, just which is still practiced today. trunk of a car being driven by Fiona Ann recognizing that these victims exist is a step in Enderdy, 32, of Washington at the Bedford the right direction.[] The White House County-Campbell County line checkpoint, the The Washington, D.C., home of Lynchburg (Va.) News Advance reported The Top 5 Haunted Places America's presidents has surely seen untold Tuesday. Deputies said Enderdy told deputies in America tragedy through the centuries, from being the sounds were coming from a goat and the burned down in 1814 by British troops to animal was found panting heavily in the trunk. several attempted (and accomplished) The sheriff's office said an animal control The Winchester Mystery House assassinations. Among the White House's officer working at the checkpoint measured the In 1881, Sarah Winchester, the widow of spooky stories include the appearance of temperature in the trunk at 94 degrees after it famous gun maker Oliver Winchester, became Abraham Lincoln's ghost. Lincoln's widow, had already been open for 10 minutes. The goat convinced that she needed protection from the Mary Todd, dabbled in the occult and held was given water and taken to the Bedford evil spirits of all the people killed by Winchester seances in the White House. Other reputed County pound, deputies said. Enderdy, who was rifles. A psychic advised her to continually add ghosts include Andrew Jackson, Dolley charged with cruelty to an animal and released, rooms to her San Jose, California, mansion to Madison, and Abigail Adams, though they are told deputies she purchased the goat from a confuse any ghosts that may try to find her. (It's rarely seen today. farmer for the passengers in her car, four not clear why ghosts, which can supposedly Lynchburg residents originally from Kenya. move through walls, would be confused by the Pub waxing event nearly takes rooms, but it apparently made sense to testicle Winchester.) She did so for nearly forty years, adding more than 100 rooms and staircases, until her death in 1922. After Sarah's death, her BIRSTALL, England - Doctors said a own ghost was said to haunt the halls of her man who let friends give him a "male Brazilian" mazelike mansion. Today the building remains a waxing in a pub nearly lost a testicle when six popular tourist attraction, a bizarre monument of his seven layers of skin were removed. Joe to superstition and paranoia. Cooper, 24, said he and 10 of his friends were waxing themselves at The Trees pub in Birstall, The Amityville Horror England, as a fundraiser for a local hospital and