Topic: That's no way to go

[holyzombiejesus]

My friend was an actor and in one of his films a heavy anvil fell off a cliff and hit him on the head. It was so heavy it squashed him like an accordion. The worst bit was that it didn't kill him and he just waddled off sounding like a sea shanty. Luckily, he was ok in time to shoot the next scene.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Ouchi by name...

Sorry that's horrible.

We were all thinking it.

[St_Eddie]

We were all thinking it.

I can assure you that I wasn't.

[St_Eddie]

The torture and death of Junko Furuta is beyond brutal and represents a gross injustice...

As far as Shinji Minato’s parents were concerned, Junko Furuta was their son’s girlfriend. The pretty young girl hung around with their son so often it seemed as if she were living at their home.

Even when they began to suspect that she was something more and that perhaps her perpetual presence wasn’t always consensual, they labored under the delusion that everything was fine, for they feared their son’s violence and his friend’s Yakuza connections.

As far as Shinji Minato and his friends Hiroshi Miyano, Jo Ogura, and Yasushi Watanabe were concerned, however, Junko Furuta was their captive, their sex slave and their punching bag.

In November of 1988, Junko Furuta was just a normal teenage girl. She was pretty, bright, and got good grades in her classes at Yashio-Minami High School in Misato, Japan. Despite her “good girl” reputation – unlike her classmates, she didn’t drink, smoke, or use drugs – she was quite popular at school and seemingly had a bright future ahead of her.

Then, she met Hiroshi Miyano.

Miyano was well known as the school bully, often seen bragging about his connections to Yakuza, a powerful Japanese organized crime syndicate. According to their classmates, Miyano had developed somewhat of a crush on Furuta and was enraged when she turned him down. After all, no one had ever dared to reject him, especially after he told them of his Yakuza friends.

A few days after taking his rejection, Miyano and Minato were hanging around a local park in Misato, preying on innocent women. As known and experienced gang-rapists, Miyano and Minato were experts at spotting easy targets.

Around 8:30, the boys noticed Furuta on her bicycle on her way home from her job. Minato kicked Furuta off of her bike, expertly creating a diversion, at which point Miyano stepped in, pretending to be an innocent and concerned bystander. After helping her up, he asked if she wanted an escort home, which Furuta unwittingly accepted.

She never made it home.

Instead, Miyano led her to an abandoned warehouse, where he told her of his Yakuza connections and raped her, threatening to kill her and her family if she made a sound. He then took her to a park, where Minato, Ogura, and Watanabe were waiting. There, the other boys raped her and smuggled her into Minato’s parents home.

Though Junko Furuta’s parents called the police and reported their daughter missing, the boys made sure they wouldn’t go looking for her, forcing her to call home and say that she had run away and was staying with a friend. Whenever Minato’s parents were around, Furuta was forced to pose as his girlfriend, though they eventually began to catch wind of what was really going on.

Unfortunately, the threat of the Yakuza was enough to keep them quiet, and for 44 days Minato’s parents lived in alarming ignorance of the horrors that were happening in their own home.

Over the course of those 44 days, Junko Furuta was raped over 400 times by Miyano and his friends, as well as other boys they knew, whom they invited over and encouraged to hurt her. They would insert iron bars, scissors, skewers, fireworks, and even a lit lightbulb into her vagina and anus, destroying her internal anatomy which left her unable to defecate or urinate properly.

When they weren’t raping her, the boys forced her to do terrible things, like eat live cockroaches, masturbate in front of them, and drink her own urine. Her body, still very much alive, was hung from the ceiling and beaten with golf clubs, bamboo sticks, and iron rods. Her eyelids and genitals were burned with cigarettes, lighters and hot wax.  They also tore off her left nipple with pliers and pierced her breasts with sewing needles.

Furuta begged them on several occasions to kill her and get it over with but they refused. Instead, they forced her to sleep outside on the balcony (it was winter at that time) and locked her in a freezer. Due to the severity of the torture, she eventually lost bladder and bowel control and was beaten for soiling the carpets. One of the kidnappers told the court that her hands and legs were so badly damaged that it took her over an hour to drag herself downstairs to use the washroom. She was also unable to drink water or consume food and would vomit after each attempt. She was also severely beaten for this.

The brutality of the attacks drastically altered Furuta's appearance. Her face was so swollen that it was difficult to make out her features. Her body was also severely crippled, giving off a rotting smell that caused the four boys to lose sexual interest in her.

Twice, the police were alerted to Furuta's situation and twice they failed to intervene.

The first time, a boy who had been invited over to the Minato house by Miyano went home after seeing Furuta and told his brother about what was happening. The brother then told his parents, who contacted the police. The police showed up but were assured by the Minato family that there was no girl inside. The answer was clearly satisfactory enough for the police, as they never returned to the home.

The second time, it was Furuta herself who called, but before she was able to say anything, the boys discovered her. When the police called back, Miyano assured them it had been a mistake.

As punishment for calling the police, the boys doused Furuta’s legs in lighter fluid and set her on fire.

On 4 January 1989, the four boys challenged Furuta to a game of Mahjong, which she is said to have won. Out of frustration, the boys beat her with an iron barbell and kicked and punched her. They made her stand and struck her feet with a swinging stick. At this point, she fell onto a stereo and collapsed into a fit of convulsions. Since she was bleeding profusely, and pus was emerging from her infected burns, the four boys covered their hands in plastic bags taped at the wrists. They continued to beat her and then they poured lighter fluid onto her thighs, arms, face, and stomach and once again set her on fire. Furuta allegedly made attempts to put out the fire but gradually became unresponsive. The attack reportedly lasted two hours. Furuta eventually succumbed to her wounds and died that day. Scared of being charged with murder, the boys dumped Junko Furuta’s body in a 55-gallon drum, filling it with concrete before dropping it on a cement truck.

Two weeks later, the police arrested Miyano and Ogura on a separate gang-rape charge. During Miyano’s interrogation, the police mentioned an open murder investigation. Believing that it was the murder of Furuta and that Ogura must have confessed, Miyano told the police where they could find Furuta’s body.

In the end, the murder case which the police had been referencing had been unrelated to Furuta, and Miyano had unwittingly turned himself in. Within days, all four boys were in custody.

Despite their unspeakable torture of Junko Furuta, the boys received shockingly light sentences.

Hiroshi Miyano was sentenced to 20 years, Shinji Minato was sentenced to five-to-nine years, Jo Ogura served eight years, and Yasushi Watanabe served five-to-seven years.

Though they were juveniles at the time was attributed as the cause of their sentences, it is widely believed that the Yakuza had something to do with it. Had the case been heard elsewhere or had the boys been just one or two years older, they would have been dealt capital punishments.

Junko Furuta (1971-1989)

May she rest in peace.

[Twed]

Hate this thread.

[Mr Eggs]

Yeah. Bit Fred West.

[St_Eddie]

Hate this thread.

Probably best to steer clear of it in that case.

Yeah. Bit Fred West.

It's fine if you don't care to look into the darker side of what humanity is capable of but please don't tar those of us who do as perverted sadists.  I find these stories just as harrowing and upsetting as you do but I'd sooner know, rather than live in willful ignorance.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

I can assure you that I wasn't.

Fair Play. Who's clicked on to those two pictures, then ? There's no fucking way I'm going to look at them.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Hate this thread.

Don't blame you. It's very ghoulish.

[paruses]

Have skipped 90% of the posts in this. Awful stuff so this seems very mild (at least it was very quick).

No context needed

It is understood efforts are ongoing to remove the body from the engine of the Airbus.

If you get an airside pass from Dublin Airport part of the training is watching a man being sucked into a jet engine.

I identified that as the incorrect thing to do and passed the test.

[Mr Eggs]

Probably best to steer clear of it in that case.

It's fine if you don't care to look into the darker side of what humanity is capable of but please don't tar those of us who do as perverted sadists.  I find these stories just as harrowing and upsetting as you do but I'd sooner know, rather than live in willful ignorance.

It's been done before. On here. Many fucking times.
I'm not having a pop at you, it' just gets more depressing every time.

[madhair60]

Yeah this thread is getting a bit leery innit. I'll lighten it a bit with a funny death

The death of Roland Compactdisc

Roland died from old age, peacefully in his sleep.

[Brian Freeze]

Ive just spent two hours clearing a blockage inside a large extractor.
This thread has been on my mind quite frequently.

[Cuellar]

Fair Play. Who's clicked on to those two pictures, then ? There's no fucking way I'm going to look at them.

I think I've seen them before, but I'm in no hurry to check by clicking them links.

[St_Eddie]

It's been done before. On here. Many fucking times.
I'm not having a pop at you, it' just gets more depressing every time.

Fair enough.  It certainly is depressing, yet I find myself compelled to look into tragic events and the darker corners of human nature.  Life is fleeting and death is something which we all must one day face.  I think a big part of my fascination with the subject matter is an attempt to come to terms with death itself.

I can't really disagree with Lisa Jesusandmarychain's assessment of this fascination as being "ghoulish".  I suppose that it is but I also know that I take no joy in reading about the tragedy that befalls others.  Quite the opposite in fact; I feel immense empathy for those who've suffered.  I don't know if any good can ever come of looking into this kind of thing.  Yet I do.  For better or worse, I am compelled to stare into the abyss...

[madhair60]

Not me. I will never die.

[thenoise]

[Mr Eggs]

Fair enough.  It certainly is depressing, yet I find myself compelled to look into tragic events and the darker corners of human nature.  Life is fleeting and death is something which we all must one day face.  I think a big part of my fascination with the subject matter is an attempt to come to terms with death itself.

I can't really disagree with Lisa Jesusandmarychain's assessment of this fascination as being "ghoulish".  I suppose that it is but I also know that I take no joy in reading about the tragedy that befalls others.  Quite the opposite in fact; I feel immense empathy for those who've suffered.  I don't know if any good can ever come of looking into this kind of thing.  Yet I do.  For better or worse, I am compelled to stare into the abyss...

Nowt wrong with it. Last thread I started on here was about an M.C Esher shite some trucker laid on a step and that turd was 30% blood.
But no cunt died. Not yet.

[a duncandisorderly]

I think a big part of my fascination with the subject matter is an attempt to come to terms with death itself.

the nearest I came to death, so far, was on a shoot involving helicopters. I was the video engineer, & responsible for the camera alignment & the operation of the VTR, but for the first few shots I couldn't travel with the helicopter (& frankly, didn't really want to) so I waited in a disused car-park for the helicopters to return. when the one with the camera mounted in it landed, I rushed out, m*a*s*h style, to rewind the tape & check the take. I ran under the tail-boom. you can't see the tail-rotor of a jet ranger when it's running.

anyway, the pilot gave me a good bollocking. if you have to approach helicopters while the engines are running, you're supposed to go at them from the front so the pilot can see you.

years later, I found a picture on 4chan or somewhere of some poor fucker on an aircraft carrier who'd been hit in the head by a tail-rotor. what was left of him. it haunts me yet, but I'm still staring into the abyss too.

[St_Eddie]

the nearest I came to death, so far, was on a shoot involving helicopters. I was the video engineer, & responsible for the camera alignment & the operation of the VTR, but for the first few shots I couldn't travel with the helicopter (& frankly, didn't really want to) so I waited in a disused car-park for the helicopters to return. when the one with the camera mounted in it landed, I rushed out, m*a*s*h style, to rewind the tape & check the take. I ran under the tail-boom. you can't see the tail-rotor of a jet ranger when it's running.

Egads!  It's scary to think how close you came to an untimely end there.

My closest brush with death was when I was around 5 years old.  My Mum took me to Paultons Park for the day.  She brought a ticket for a carousel ride and as I was walking up the metallic ramp onto the ride, I somehow managed to fall through a gap and under the carousel itself.  The staff hadn't noticed this and as my Mum was trying to reach me whilst shouting for help, the ride started up.  My Mum screamed at the staff to stop the ride, which they duly did.

The vast majority of that anecdote comes from my Mum herself, as I was too young to really remember much of the incident.  The only thing that I still have a clear as day memory of, is the sight of dozens of gears and metal poles turning and spinning around me and above me, as I lay on the ground.  The park offered my Mum a free day pass but understandably she wasn't interested and chewed them out instead, before storming out of there with myself.  I don't know how much danger I was truly in there but I'm pretty sure that underneath an operating carousel, among the mechanics, is not a safe place for a five year old to be.

[touchingcloth]

I once went to London, which is where 7/7 happened.

[Hey, Punk!]

The torture and death of Junko Furuta is beyond brutal and represents a gross injustice...

Junko Furuta (1971-1989)

May she rest in peace.

This is probably the worst thing I've ever read, I feel physically sick.

[BlodwynPig]

The torture and death of Junko Furuta is beyond brutal and represents a gross injustice...

Junko Furuta (1971-1989)

May she rest in peace.

Are those fucks still alive. If they are, I'm going over there to kill them. That has made me desolate and enraged.

[imitationleather]

Are those fucks still alive. If they are, I'm going over there to kill them. That has made me desolate and enraged.

Yeah they are. I found reading about that very upsetting and I could not believe it when I learned how light their sentences were.

[BlodwynPig]

Yeah they are. I found reading about that very upsetting and I could not believe it when I learned how light their sentences were.

They should be hunted down and killed - fuck the law on this one.. I believe 3 of the 4 have committed rape/assault since, but all 3 are Yakuza affiliates so free to do their crimes.

The judge should also be imprisoned. 100 other boys/men were involved. Where is Neeson when you need him.

[St_Eddie]

One simply cannot fathom the extent of suffering that poor Junko must have gone through at the hands of those evil barbarians.  It's beyond comprehension.

Are those fucks still alive. If they are, I'm going over there to kill them. That has made me desolate and enraged.

At the risk of enraging you further, here's a more detailed account of the aftermath...

Despite the shocking brutality of their crime, the identities of the boys were sealed by the court since they were all considered to be juveniles at the time of the crime. Journalists from the Shūkan Bunshun magazine discovered their identities, however, and published them. They stated that, given the severity of the crime, the accused did not deserve to have their right to anonymity upheld. All four boys pled guilty to "committing bodily injury that resulted in death", rather than murder.

In July 1990, a lower court sentenced Hiroshi Miyano, the alleged leader of the crime, to 17 years in prison. He appealed his sentence, but Tokyo High Court judge Ryūji Yanase sentenced him to an additional three years in prison. The 20-year sentence is the second highest sentence after life imprisonment. He was 18 at the time of the murder. Miyano's mother reportedly sent Furuta's parents 50 million yen (USD 425,000), after selling their family home. In 2004 he tried to get parole but due to an incident, it was denied.

Nobuharu Minato, who originally received a four- to six-year sentence, was re-sentenced to five-to-nine years by Judge Ryūji Yanase upon appeal. He was 16 at the time of the murder. Nobuharu's parents and brother were not charged. Furuta's parents were dismayed by the sentences received by their daughter's killers and won a civil suit against the parents of Nobuharu Minato, in whose home the crimes were committed. After his release, Minato moved in with his mother. He has not worked since.

Yasushi Watanabe, who was originally sentenced to three-to-four years in prison, received an upgraded sentence of five-to-seven years. He was 17 at the time of the murder. After his release, he married a Romanian woman.

For his participation in the crime, Jō Ogura served eight years in a juvenile prison before he was released in August 1999. He was 17 at the time of the murder. After his release, he is said to have boasted about his role in the kidnapping, rape and torture of Furuta. In July 2004, he was arrested for assaulting Takatoshi Isono, an acquaintance he thought his girlfriend may have been involved with. Jō tracked Isono down, beat him and shoved him into his truck. He drove him from Adachi to his mother's bar in Misato, where he allegedly beat Isono for four hours. During that time, Ogura repeatedly threatened to kill the man, telling him that he'd killed before and knew how to get away with it. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for the assault and has since been released. Ogura's mother allegedly vandalized Furuta's grave, stating that she had ruined her son's life.[citation needed] It has also been reported that Ogura has run through his father's savings (money which was originally meant for Furuta's family), buying and consuming a number of luxury goods.

The sentences were largely regarded as being far too light for the crimes committed, all four individuals were protected by special provisions applied to individuals 18 years old and younger.

During sentencing, the judge commented that "exceptionally grave and atrocious violence" had been inflicted upon the victim, and that Junko Furuta had been "murdered so brutally at the young age of 17, [that her] soul must be wandering in torment". Hearing the details of the brutal rape and torture, a spectator in the gallery fainted. Furuta's mother also reportedly had a mental breakdown, which required psychiatric treatment.

[Jittlebags]

Japan is generally weird towards women. Even the gov.uk website warns about chikan assaults.

[St_Eddie]

The torture and death of Robert-Francois Damiens in 1757 was a day which went down in history and infamy...

One case that made history was the execution of Robert-François Damiens in 1757 in France. He was a domestic servant, and he is described by contemporaries as mentally unstable. He attempted to assassinate the King Louis XV of France for unclear reasons, but he managed to wound him only slightly. He was condemned for regicide, which warranted a traditional and gruesome form of death penalty, culminating in drawing and quartering. The torture and execution on March 28, 1757, was a public event attended by many people.

"Day will be hard" ~ Robert Francois Damiens

Robert Francois Damiens was 42 years-old when he died his gruesome death. They killed him on a cold blowy day in March, my birthday month: the 25th for my birthing and the 28th for his dying.  The full horror of what they did to him has haunted me since I first read about it over forty years ago. The Place de Grieve, Paris 1757: I count back the years from my time to his, a total currently standing at 257. It isn’t very long when you think about it, and from 1955 when I was born it becomes a mere 198 years; a mere 172 before my mother was born in 1929; a mere 139 before my grandmother in 1896; and just 105 years before my great grandmother’s birth in 1862. And from that year the countdown resumes: only 77 years before her mother’s birth; the merest 43 before her grandmother entered the world, while for her great grandmother it’s …well, we are almost there, almost standing among the crowd in that windswept square on that fateful March morning.

You can see what I’m doing: I’m making it more real by connecting the threads that link me to the day; I’m destroying the myth that it’s all in the past, all long forgotten and can do us no harm. Think carefully, though, steep yourself in its details and the harm is there; it is real, a small-scale equivalent of the Holocaust and its death camps, and it hurts the soul like hell. Once read about and digested, your view of the world and its people, then or now, can never be the same. And there’s no getting away from the fact that it happened; that man’s inhumanity to man doesn’t get more grisly than this. Damiens’ execution was a low point, maybe the lowest point, of so-called civilised society; the powers that be lowered themselves to the nadir of judicial depravity because they wanted to; because, like the opposite of any mountain to be climbed, it was there to be sunk to. They did what they did to him because they could, because nobody was there to stop them.

The agenda for the day was well planned and the audience, who’d paid well for its seats, was not disappointed. Damiens didn’t let them down; he lingered for hours, for the whole duration. Man’s (and woman’s) taste for cruelty has no better example. It was a French affair, but not wholly. English sadists eagerly crossed the Channel, among them George Selwyn, who loved the spectacle of suffering, but whose daughter said was a kind and loving father! Be that is it may, he was one of them, those bewigged, knee-breeched and stockinged, three-cornered hatted men and their hooped-skirted women; living dolls male and female doing to another what no doll, and no human being, ever should do.

But what did they do to him? I hear you ask. No, why not rephrase that: what didn’t they do to him? I refuse to dwell on the details – the Gentleman’s Magazine for March 1757 will tell you everything you need to know. How – to paraphrase – the hand that had dared offend His Majesty was plunged into boiling pitch and sulphur. His flesh in his fleshiest parts was torn with red-hot pincers and boiling oil poured into the wounds. How next he was partially (how magnanimous of them!) broken upon the wheel till finally, hours later – he was dying to die by then but they wouldn’t let him – he was pulled apart by four horses flogged outwards in four different directions. The horses were in it for the long haul but they would need some help to rip him limb from limb.

‘Why not sever some tendons?’ Charles Henri Sanson, the 18- year-old assistant to his uncle the executioner suggested. ‘Good idea,’ said his uncle, pleased that his prodigy was learning fast, ‘but where best to make the incisions?’ A surgeon spectator told them. Soon (but not soon enough for Damiens) the victim was down to just an arm and a leg, and before long just his torso and they burnt what was left of him at the stake.

Suffice to say, then, that he was tortured to death over a period of several hours, alive still, the eyewitnesses said, till almost the last moment. Shock set in and his body shut-down, turned numb, leaving him to observe, somewhat detached, certainly dismembered, as they worked on him an inch at a time. They say he showed curiosity, fascination – ‘Is that really me? – really my body being dragged apart?’

And his crime? your next question is likely to be. Answer: to dare to wound (merely scratch) King Louis XV with a penknife in ‘a murderous attack’ that was never murderous in the first place. Damiens, humble domestic servant at the Jesuit college in Paris, a nobody who was easily led and even easier taken in, was hazy in his motives, something about the Jansenists, a heretic sect threatening Catholic dogma. I’m not sure he knew why himself, only that the king was somehow to blame and had to be eliminated.

But how they made him pay: not content with butchering him, they demolished his house, exiled his family and obliterated all record of his existence. It beggars belief who could construct such a menu and take it so far. Yet I can see them now, sitting round a table brainstorming while someone bullet-points their ideas on a flipchart:

‘How about if we did this to him…’

‘What about doing that to him…’

‘Great! And how about …’

Apparently the king was not in agreement. He didn’t want Damiens tortured (but he was tortured); didn’t want his death agonisingly prolonged (it was); and when he heard it was so (or so it’s said) he fell into a deep depression. His courtiers had got their way, an example must be made and justice – if we can call it that – seen to be done. Yet how did they live with themselves, these men and women of the French Enlightenment? Did they think their Catholic God would approve and applaud? Perhaps they salved their consciences by reflecting on what the culprit had done – dared to strike the inviolable royal person, the royal We. They’d convinced themselves the king was special, that for crimes against his person nothing was too cruel. Casanova tells us how it was. Characteristically touching up the women’s breasts while it all transpired, he had this to say before discreetly spewing into his kerchief:

We had the courage to watch the dreadful sight for four hours … Damiens was a fanatic, who, with the idea of doing a good work and obtaining a heavenly reward, had tried to assassinate Louis XV; and though the attempt was a failure, and he only gave the king a slight wound, he was torn to pieces as if his crime had been consummated. … I was several times obliged to turn away my face and to stop my ears as I heard his piercing shrieks, half of his body having been torn from him, but the Lambertini and Mme XXX did not budge an inch. Was it because their hearts were hardened? They told me, and I pretended to believe them, that their horror at the wretch’s wickedness prevented them feeling that compassion which his unheard-of torments should have excited.

Interesting? I think so, mainly in what it tells us about the women enjoying the spectacle (other accounts have them wagering on how far the blood would spurt when the executioner made his next cut) and what it says about women generally, not just men.

So where does it leave us? Morbid, but not, I hope, wallowing. My writer’s eye, like John Eagle’s conscience, darts from place to place – Damiens in his cell in the days before – and then the night before – his execution. Why didn’t he try to end it beforehand, surely something sharp was to be had? Or maybe not, maybe they’d chained him, heavy-duty swaddled him so they could kill him in the way they’d chosen. OK, that’s probably how it was, but did he find it in him to sleep, and if he slept did he manage to dream? Were his dreams of past freedoms? – of future freedoms after death? Did he dream that it all been a dream, a nightmare about a nightmare?  And what about next morning when he woke to find it all so horribly true? Was he hungry? Did he eat breakfast knowing what lay in store for him? Did the food stick in his throat? And when he knew they were coming for him and he had to get ready, when he uttered his heartbreakingly ironic remark that the ‘day will be hard,’ did he think about what to wear? Was he worried about his modesty if he ended up naked on the block? And what did he think about while they tortured him? Did he look at the sky and wonder if God was looking down? Did he try to focus on faces in the crowd, searching for one that held any vestige of pity? And what did his poor mother, his poor wife and his poor daughter think when they learned of his fate? They may have known that he was (probably) mentally unstable, but did they believe he felt less pain? Surely his screams of Sweet Jesus! and Jesus Maria! are contrary proof?

Before I finish, the psychology of executioners comes to mind, particularly these executioners. Asked by an eye-witness whether he could bear to do what he did the elder Sanson replied, ‘If they can bear it …’ – his employers – ‘ …then so can I.’ Significantly, though, he resigned his post shortly afterwards and was replaced by his nephew Charles Henri, who would rather have had a different career but family pressure ruled otherwise. He too, the story goes, found the work distasteful at first (and what a hell-fire baptism he’d had that day!) but case-hardened himself in the future and notched up over two thousand victims before his retirement in 1795.

I sometimes think of Damiens now. Has heaven put him back together again after some of the king’s horses and some of the king’s men had torn him apart? I doubt it, though perhaps there was justice of sorts in that his execution, as John Eagle tells us, was still being talked about in France in 1789; it was symptomatic, quoth blood-drinking sans-culottes out for revenge, of the cruel injustices of the hateful ancien regime. It’s sobering too how Dickens approaches the subject in A Tale of Two Cities. We get the heartless endeavours of the French nobility, the downtrodden lives of the peasants, but when the peasants get the whip hand and take their terrible revenge, our allegiances switch to their former oppressors – a classic case of two wrongs don’t make a right.

On 2 March 1757 Damiens the regicide was condemned ‘to make the amende honorable before the main door of the Church of Paris’, where he was to be ‘taken and conveyed in a cart, wearing nothing but a shirt, holding a torch of burning wax weighing two pounds;’ then, ‘in the said cart, to the Place de Grève, where, on a scaffold that will be erected there, the flesh will be tom from his breasts, arms, thighs and calves with red-hot pincers, his right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide, burnt with sulphur, and, on those places where the flesh will be torn away, poured molten lead, boiling oil, burning resin, wax and Sulphur melted together and then his body drawn and quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds.’

“Finally, he was quartered,” recounts the Gazette d’Amsterdam of 1 April 1757. ‘This last operation was very long, because the horses used were not accustomed to drawing; consequently, instead of four, six were needed; and when that did not suffice, they were forced, in order to cut off the wretch’s thighs, to sever the sinews and hack at the joints.. .

‘It is said that, though he was always a great swearer, no blasphemy escaped his lips; but the excessive pain made him utter horrible cries, and he often repeated: “My God, have pity on me! Jesus, help me!” The spectators were all edified by the solicitude of the parish priest of St Paul’s who despite his great age did not spare himself in offering consolation to the patient.

Bouton, an officer of the watch, left us his account: “The Sulphur was lit, but the flame was so poor that only the top skin of the hand was burnt, and that only slightly. Then the executioner, his sleeves rolled up, took the steel pincers, which had been especially made for the occasion, and which were about a foot and a half long, and pulled first at the calf of the right leg, then at the thigh, and from there at the two fleshy parts of the right arm; then at the breasts. Though a strong, sturdy fellow, this executioner found it so difficult to tear away the pieces of flesh that he set about the same spot two or three times, twisting the pincers as he did so, and what he took away formed at each part a wound about the size of a six-pound crown piece.

After these tearings with the pincers, Damiens, who cried out profusely, though without swearing, raised his head and looked at himself; the same executioner dipped an iron spoon in the pot containing the boiling potion, which he poured liberally over each wound. Then the ropes that were to be harnessed to the horses were attached with cords to the patient’s body; the horses were then harnessed and placed alongside the arms and legs, one at each limb.

Monsieur Le Breton, the clerk of the court, went up to the patient several times and asked him if he had anything to say. He said he had not; at each torment, he cried out, as the damned in hell are supposed to cry out, “Pardon, my God! Pardon, Lord.” Despite all this pain, he raised his head from time to time and looked at himself boldly. The cords had been tied so tightly by the men who pulled the ends that they caused him indescribable pain. Monsieur le Breton went up to him again and asked him if he had anything to say; he said no. Several confessors went up to him and spoke to him at length; he willingly kissed the crucifix that was held out to him; he opened his lips and repeated: “Pardon, Lord.” ‘The horses tugged hard, each pulling straight on a limb, each horse held by an executioner. After a quarter of an hour, the same ceremony was repeated and finally, after several attempts, the direction of the horses had to be changed, thus: those at the arms were made to pull towards the head, those at the thighs towards the arms, which broke the arms at the joints. This was repeated several times without success. He raised his head and looked at himself. Two more horses had to be added to those harnessed to the thighs, which made six horses in all. Without success. ‘Finally, the executioner, Samson, said to Monsieur Le Breton that there was no way or hope of succeeding, and told him to ask their Lordships if they wished him to have the prisoner cut into pieces. Monsieur Le Breton, who had come down from the town, ordered that renewed efforts be made, and this was done; but the horses gave up and one of those harnessed to the thighs fell to the ground. The confessors returned and spoke to him again. He said to them (I heard him): “Kiss me, gentlemen.” The parish priest of St Paul’s did not dare to, so Monsieur de Marsilly slipped under the rope holding the left arm and kissed him on the forehead. The executioners gathered round and Damiens told them not to swear, to carry out their task and that he did not think ill of them; he begged them to pray to God for him, and asked the parish priest of St Paul’s to pray for him at the first mass.

After two or three attempts, the executioner Samson and he who had used the pincers each drew out a knife from his pocket and cut the body at the thighs instead of severing the legs at the joints; the four horses gave a tug and carried off the two thighs after them, namely, that of the right side first, the other following; then the same was done to the arms, the shoulders, the arm-pits, and the four limbs; the flesh had to be cut almost to the bone, the horses pulling hard carried off the right arm first and the other afterwards. ‘When the four limbs had been pulled away, the confessors came to speak to him; but his executioner told them that he was dead, though the truth was that I saw the man move, his lower jaw moving from side to side as if he were talking. One of the executioners even said shortly afterwards that when they had lifted the trunk to throw it on the stake, he was still alive. The four limbs were untied from the ropes and thrown on the stake set up in the enclosure in line with the scaffold, then the trunk and the rest were covered with logs and faggots, and fire was put to the straw mixed with this wood.

In accordance with the decree, the whole was reduced to ashes. The last piece to be found in the embers was still burning at half-past ten in the evening. The pieces of flesh and the trunk had taken about four hours to burn. The officers of whom I was one, as also was my son, and a detachment of archers remained in the square until nearly eleven o’clock.

There were those who made something of the fact that a dog had lain the day before on the grass where the fire had been, had been chased away several times, and had always returned. But it is not difficult to understand that an animal found this place warmer than elsewhere.

(1715-1757)

[Hey, Punk!]

Is that the guy Foucault mentions at the start of Discipline and Punish, I can't quite remember?

[Chollis]

The torture and death of Junko Furuta is beyond brutal and represents a gross injustice...

Junko Furuta (1971-1989)

May she rest in peace.

Yeah GT put me onto that story a week or so ago and it's so fucking dark, disgusting and terrifying that it's still popping into my head regularly and probably still will do for some time. I haven't read anymore than the Wikipedia page because I just couldn't stomach it but it seemed like they got off after 5 or so years in prison. Makes me angry just thinking about it.