#odd death

On the morning of 21st October 1988 in Caballito, Buenos Aires, a poodle was playing on an apartment balcony when it slipped through the failing and fell from 13 floors. The dog hit 75-year-old Marta Espina who was walking around the corner carrying her shopping, both were killed instantly.

Mary 'Molly' Elizabeth Royem was a 24-year-old woman from South Carolina, USA. On 12th January 1980, she was found dead in her apartment. An investigation found she had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death with an electric iron. Michael Anderson Sloan, who also used the name Godwin, was on work release from a local prison where he was serving a sentence for robbing a woman at knifepoint. Police quickly realised Sloan had murdered Mary and he was arrested.

In 1983, Sloan was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by electric chair. The death penalty was later overturned on appeal and he was instead sentenced to life in prison.

Garry Hoy was a lawyer for Holden Day Wilson in Toronto (pictured). While giving a tour of the centre to students, Hoy attempted to proved that the window glass in the building was unbreakable by slamming himself against the 24th-floor window, he had apparently demonstrated this many time previously. On this occasion, the glass did not break but the force caused the window to be removed from its frame causing the window and Hoy to fall from the building.

Growing up there was a homeless man that hung around the town.  This man was deliberately homeless and did not ask for money in return for nothing.  It was common to see him painting buildings or doing other odd jobs.  He would be seen chatting with people, and all in all he was a good guy. 

BRONX, NY — A 30-year-old Bronx man bled to death early yesterday after accidentally shooting himself while adjusting the illegal gun he had tucked in his waistband, cops said.

Michael Bent was sitting in a parked car with his 28-year-old girlfriend in a lot on Boston Post Road when the fatal shot rang out shortly before 3:30 a.m.

Bent accidentally shot himself in his upper leg, hitting an artery, police said.

He was pronounced dead a short time later at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

ALBERTA, CANADA — Josh Emard couldn't believe his eyes Tuesday when a local man dove under a slow-moving semi and was crushed to death under its rear wheels. All for a hat.

High morning winds blew the baseball hat off the man's head as he got out of his small white convertible in the parking lot of the UFA Farm Supply Store in the 2900 block of 2 Avenue North.

The wind carried the well-worn blue-and-white hat underneath a loaded semi trailer just as it started to move.

"The truck was rolling forward, and he dove under to grab the hat. He tried to grab it and wiggle out quickly," said Emard, a fuel delivery driver for UFA.

He wondered at first if what he was seeing might just be a stunt.

"It was just unbelievable that someone would go under a moving semi for a hat."

Derek Keenan, 44, of Lethbridge died at the scene after the truck's rear wheels rolled over his upper body. The truck came to a stop with Keenan's body underneath the flatbed trailer loaded with pre-cast concrete drainage pipe.

Emard watched the incident unfold from next door at the UFA bulk fuel plant where he was preparing to leave on a delivery. He watched as the driver got out of the truck, bent down to look underneath it and then ran into the farm supply store to call for help. Then Emard ran to get help, too.

"(Josh) came running in and said 'I think a guy just got run over by that truck over there'," said Ken Hofman, who called 911 from his cellphone after running to the scene with Emard and another staff member.

"You could see he got ran over by both sets of wheels on the back of the truck," Hofman said, adding the victim didn't appear to be breathing.

Moments later, emergency medical personnel from the Lethbridge fire department arrived and tried unsuccessfully to revive Keenan.

Afterward, the 40-year-old truck driver, looking visibly shaken, was helped into an ambulance and taken to Lethbridge Regional Hospital. He's from Beiseker, located east of Airdrie.

Lethbridge police Sgt. Tom Ascroft said no charges will be laid.