24 November 2020

So Many Murder Methods, So Little Time


How can I kill you? Let me count the ways.

Last month, I was on a Bouchercon panel titled What's A Weapon: Choosing Ways to Murder. We had a fun hour-long discussion of inventive ways to commit murder. You can watch it here. Knowing that my memory often isn't great, before the panel I made a list of all the murder methods I've used in my published short stories, as well as how many times I've killed someone that way. I read the list during the panel, omitting guns, knives, and poisons, because we'd been told the panel's focus was supposed to be unusual methods of murder. Guns, knives, and poisons were all been-there-done-that. But I like the usual methods, so here's my list, including guns, knives, and poisons (oh my!).

My preferred ways to kill (or at least go down trying)

Poison: Six times

Causing a fatal allergic reaction: Five times

Shoving/Tripping down the stairs/hill: Four times

Strangulation: Four times (three with your hands, once with twinkle lights)

Shooting: Three times

Hitting with a car: Three times 

Stabbing: Twice

Bashing with a rock: Once

Bashing with a shovel: Once

Carbon monoxide poisoning: Once

Chimney asphyxiation: Once*

Getting eaten by an alligator:  Once

Overdose of medication: Once 

* I would never kill Santa. Well, probably not. But it was a good illustration for chimney asphyxiation.

Takeaways

They say that poison is a woman's game. For me, at least, that seems to be true. It's my go-to method. It doesn't require brute force, just the sneakiness and will to do it and the patience to wait for it to work. I have all of those qualities in abundance. I mean, my characters do.

Trying to get someone to die from an allergic reaction is similar to killing via poison, since for the victim, the food or medicine would have a similar affect to poisoning. But while you could use a particular poison to kill anyone, killing via allergic reaction requires knowledge of the victim's allergy and how that allergic reaction could play out. Therefore, it requires more due diligence on the part of the killer. As such, I put it in its own category. You might categorize your murder methods differently, of course. I welcome your thoughts in the comments. Your local police department does as well.

Killing someone by shoving them down the stairs or accidentally tripping them is a wonderful method because it could be viewed as an accidental death. Of course, in fiction people probably die from falls much more often than happens in real life. In the real world, a person tumbling down a staircase might merely break a few bones and the would-be-murderer has to try again. So if you want to kill this way, make sure you have it in you to be persistent, because you very well may have to be.

Of course, some murders can't be planned. You have to take your opportunities when they come. So if you're lucky enough to have your stalker try to sneak into your house through your chimney and he gets stuck (look it up--people, burglars especially, get stuck in chimneys a lot), you could simply light a fire and wait for karma to play out. "I'm so sorry, officer. I had no idea someone was in the chimney. I was just cold." And sorry, I don't mean to make light of stalking. Funny how making light of murder doesn't bother me, but making light of stalking gives me pause.

Strangulation is another method of the would-be killer who's caught with an unexpected opportunity. You may not have a gun or knife on you when you find your evil mother-in-law alone, and she might not be loitering at the top of a staircase just waiting for you. But you always have your hands on you (I hope). Hands are so handy that way. (I know, that was terrible.) If you get the chance to strangle someone and you have a fun thing to do it with at your disposal--such as twinkle lights--I urge you to make use of it. Readers do want to be entertained.

Some murder methods only happen in Florida. When I was a newspaper reporter back in the '90s, you often would hear about weird news stories that came over the wire. Inevitably, 99 percent of the time, they happened in Florida. It was such a regular occurrence that I bet you could tell any person who's worked in the media about a weird news story, and the automatic response would be, "Florida, right?" So when I wrote a story for the 2018 Bouchercon anthology Florida Happens, I came up with what I thought was a quintessential Florida murder method: a man tries to train an alligator that lives in the lake behind their house to eat his wife. And like murder via twinkle lights, it was fun to write. (Hmmm. That Florida story also involved pushing the wife down the hill toward the alligator. I didn't include that in my list--pushing someone down a hill. It needs updating. ... Done.)

I have some more fun methods of murder coming up in stories not yet published. But I don't want to ruin the surprise, so you'll have to wait. 

In the meanwhile, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you don't murder anyone in your family. As much as you might be tempted, murder really is best left for fiction.

31 comments:

  1. It's a consoloting thought that I live in the Netherlands. Barb, I'm shaking in my chair. I can't tell you what an enormous relief it gave me to read that final sentence. Otherwise, I would have felt compelled to send you the shrink's bill. Pfew. In fact, I would send you so many bills, that I would drive you to the edge...

    Nah, I'd rather have you stay around safe, masked and, if necessary, restrained. ;)

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    1. LOL. Thanks, Anne. I'm glad I made you laugh. (You didn't say you were laughing, but I'm reading between the lines.) :)

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  2. The twinkle lights is a master-stroke. Especially if they are still twinkling! Very entertaining!

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    1. Thanks, Vicki. I had a lot of fun with that story. It's the one with the cows ... if you remember.

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  3. Gee, Barb, I never counted the number of homicides in my mysteries, much less broke them down in "categories." I must say, you are very inventive.

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    1. Thank you, Marilyn. I appreciate that sentiment!

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  4. Barb, you present an interesting list. Next, you should think about doing a list of interesting places to hide or dispose of the victim. In furtherance of that list, one of my antagonists hid his victim under the ice in a buffet line.

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    1. Now that is inventive, R.T.! I just reviewed my published stories, and all I have are three instances of buried bodies (once in sand), and one body left in the woods. My characters don't usually try to hide the bodies.

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  5. I have used poison, head-bashing, shooting, shoving, and drowning. Drowning is a very useful way to kill someone, especially if they're drunk in a bathtub or in swimming in a lake, or... You get the picture.

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    1. Drowning--I haven't used that method ... yet. Thanks for the idea, Eve!

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  6. Good one. In my novel GREENFELLAS people die from gunfire (5), stabbing (2), poison, blunt object, and unknown (although I suspect that one involved a broken neck).

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    1. That's a lot of death in one book, Rob. I think you're the one Anne should be scared of! ;)

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    2. Yep, I am. Fortunately, Robert is also on the other side of the pond. But consider the fact that he's president of the SMFS. He may bump off us all in order to win in all categories next year. Isn't that a terrifying idea?

      (I hope I now inspired you to writing a new story, Barb)

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    3. So many story ideas, so little time!

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  7. Alligator no, sharks, yes. Fatal allergic reaction, yes. Bashing with a shovel, yes, also bashing with a frying pan. I like impromptu methods like beaning or strangling with whatever's handy that don't get in the way of the more interesting parts of the story, ie the people, their relationships, and what they have to say. Barb didn't mention drowning, though I see Eve did. I've used biting while in the form of a wild animal—try investigating that, Mr Detective!

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    1. A human's bite when in animal form -- I haven't used that one. It sounds a little specialized, Liz. And yes, I bet it would be hard to find the real killer with that one.

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  8. I've always felt the average flower garden was the best place to find murder weapons. After the garden comes the well-meaning friend who borrows tools or offers to "help" you with a renovation project. Perhaps it's time for me to make a list of the weapons I've used, just to keep up with the changing times, of course.

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    1. I love gardens too, Susan. They have so many weapons in them that look harmless to the layman.

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  9. A flower garden ... years ago in Montgomery County, Maryland, a man planted foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) flowers in his garden & brewed a pot of tea for his wife. She died & when the police came to the house, there were still a whole lot of foxgloves growing on the property! I think Agatha Christie used this murder method one time.

    In one of my stories a husband had heart failure & was awaiting a donor heart, as he would not consent to a pacemaker. The wife answered the phone in the middle of the night & it was the hospital saying a heart had just become available. Hubby asked who was on the phone & she said, wrong number.

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    1. That's a nice ending to that story, Elizabeth. (The fictional one, I mean.)

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  10. I always say: Never mess with a crime writer! We know 50 ways to kill you and not get caught - grin. Fun post, Barb! And now I'm going back to my 60 short stories to see what I favour...and I think you're right about the Borgia effect :)

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    1. It's true, Mel. Not only our are crime writers imaginative, but we're incentivized to do our research through tax deductions. Can't beat that!

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  11. Well… murder, and attempted murder:

    • CO₂
    • garroting
    • brake tampering
    • drowning
    • bomb
    • fire bomb
    • fire ants
    • snake bite
    • sharks
    • vehicular homicide
    • pacemaker hacking

    I heard my story was turned down for the Florida Bouchercon as not being realistically Florida… me, the Florida resident. (It took place in Indian territory rather than touristland.)
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  12. In my third novel in my series, I had an infiltrating skydiving instructor drop her client from a tandem jump into a lake 12,000 feet below, another assassin used chopsticks, another used a microwave "gun," another with a tiny drone that sprays poison into an ISIS leader's nostrils in his tent in the desert, a stake through the heart of a Swiss banker who pretends to be a vampire in his castle in Transylvania, and many others I can't remember at the -- oh, our lead assassin killed J. Edgar Hoover by feeding him bananas, which J. Edgar was allergic to, and Jimmy Hoffa with a plain ol' pistol, but it's what he did with the body that was fun. Oh, and a hacked pacemaker, Leigh; something about great minds ...

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  13. I admire your creativity, especially with the alligator!

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    1. Thanks, Adam! Writing about the alligator was lots of fun. (His name was Romeo.)

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    2. A very pleasant morning read and looking forward to reading your story in Florida Happens - your premise hooked me

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  14. Interesting list, Barb. But I better not make a similar list. My wife complains that I kill too many people in my books as it is. Most of my murders are by gunshots, though I've hanged one person, trampled another to death under a herd of cows, and ran a train over another victim. And I'm taking the female route and poisoning someone in my WIP.

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