“Fight Against Stupidity And
Bureaucracy”
Yesterday
the subject of my blog post was a rather nice story about a farmer in England
who had put a lot of thought, time and effort into creating a memorial tribute
to his late wife. I called it “Well done
Winston Howes, Who Says Romance Is Dead?”.
A bit out
of character for this blog perhaps, but I admire people who do things that are just
that little bit above and beyond the call of duty.
Today,
however, you could say that “normal
service” has been resumed. You could probably tell from the title, “Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Dead
But Your Wife Isn’t!“.
This is a
story about another Englishman. This time a Mr Peter Scott from Southsea who
has gone down in history as the least successful husband at trying to murder
his wife!
All in all Mr
Scott made seven attempts to kill his wife.
And
the strangest thing of all was that she never once noticed that anything was
wrong.
It
all started in 1980 when he took out an insurance policy on his good lady that
would pay out a quarter of a million British pounds in the event of her
accidental death.
Shortly
afterward, he made his first attempt to cash in when he placed a lethal dose of
mercury in her strawberry flan. Unfortunately for Mr Scott the heavy mercury all
rolled out.
Strike
attempt # 1.
However,
not wishing to waste this deadly substance, he next stuffed a mackerel with the
entire contents of the bottle. This time, to his delight, his wife ate it, but,
to his dismay, with no side effects whatsoever.
Strike
attempt # 2.
Warming
to the task, he then took his better half on holiday to Yugoslavia.
Recommending the
panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff, but she declined
to do so, prompted by what she later described as some "sixth sense."
Strike
attempt # 3.
He
tried the same type of thing a few weeks later when he urged her to enjoy the
view from Beachy Head, the famous 500 feet high chalk headland in the south of
England.
Strike
attempt # 4.
Then,
when his spouse was in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside her
bedroom door, but some interfering busybody put it out.
Strike
attempt # 5.
Undeterred,
Mr Scott started another fire but only succeeded in burning down the entire apartment.
The target of his arsonist adventures escaped uninjured.
Strike
attempt # 6.
On
yet another occasion he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so that he
could drive toward her and check if his brakes were working.
Strike
attempt # 7.
Unbelievably,
at no time did Mrs. Scott feel that the magic had gone out of their marriage. She
must have been sooooo dumb!
Finally,
since it appeared that nothing short of a small nuclear bomb would have alerted
this good woman to her husband's intentions, he eventually gave up and
confessed everything to the police.
After
the case, a detective said Mrs. Scott had been "absolutely shattered" when told of her husband's plot to
kill her.
