Two Faces of Evil
It’s been a strange week in Britain. My other great interest, after current affairs, is the world of the occult and related strangeness. I may even make a seperate page for such things, as they don’t really fit in with what has turned out to be a current affairs page. In any case, the darkest corners of the human psyche have been shown to us of late.
The BBC brought us this tale:
Allan Menzies, 22, from Fauldhouse in West Lothian, claimed he was told to kill Thomas McKendrick by a character from the film Queen Of The Damned. The court was told that Menzies said he had drunk some of his victim’s blood and eaten part of his head.
In evidence, he said the female vampire Akasha, who was played in the film by the late US singer Aaliyah, had visited him at home.
Menzies had watched the film more than 100 times and claimed he was told he would be rewarded with immortality and become a vampire “in the next life” if he carried out the killing.
The unemployed security guard had attacked Mr McKendrick with knives and a hammer after the victim had called at his home in Lanrigg Avenue on the Saturday morning. Menzies said he launched the attack after Mr McKendrick had insulted his vampire heroine. He then alleged that he had drunk some of the man’s blood and eaten some of his flesh.
He told the court: “At the end of the day I knew I would have to murder somebody anyway. It was the only way you could do it. If you don’t murder somebody you couldn’t become a vampire.” Menzies said he was convinced he was now a vampire and became immortal after the killing.
In the same week, The Times reported:
Detectives believe part of a poisonous African bean was ground down and given to the �Thames torso� boy to paralyse him before his throat was cut and he was dismembered in a black-magic ritual. The chocolate-coloured bean grows in southern Nigeria, close to where police believe the child was born.
The body of the boy � aged between four and seven, and named �Adam� by police � was found floating in the Thames near Tower Bridge two years ago.
Detectives believe he was the victim of a muti killing, in which a victim�s body parts are used to create spells. Now food samples from the boy�s stomach and intestine sent to experts at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew have been identified as the remains of a calabar bean, used in Nigeria in witchcraft rituals.
The powdered bean has no smell or taste and medical and forensic scientific evidence suggests that the boy was fed the bean in the 24 hours before he was murdered. He may have been given the powdered bean in a drink.