Murder by frying pan

[C K Dexter Haven]

Just to avoid people resurrecting and posting to a Zombie thread...

Cecil's column:
Guns don't kill people, frying pans kill people: Is the frying pan the #1 domestic weapon?? (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/061006.html) was based on a thread on the Message Boards (actually a couple of years back.)

Read it here: "The number one killer is domestic disputes is a frying pan." HUH?? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=241550), but post comments and follow-up thoughts in this thread.

Congrats, Hokienautic, if you're still reading our Boards... and, by the way, this is clear evidence that, although Cecil doesn't post much, he does read the SDMB from time to time.

[Fear Itself]

That's cool that Unca Cec' still pulls a question off the boards now and again. But a little more background is in order. The board thread is from February of 2004, so I am wondering what prompted The Master to hop in the Wayback machine and pick that particular thread? Or has he been pecking it out on the Underwood for two years?

[ColonelDax]

I am wondering what prompted The Master to hop in the Wayback machine and pick that particular thread?

Perhaps it's taken him this long to rent Eating Raoul (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083869/).

[C K Dexter Haven]

I've been sorting the mail for Cecil for several years, and I still have no clue what he's going to jump on, or when, or why. Sometimes he goes on a kick of responding to the most recent emails; sometimes, he goes looking through the backlog. He's an eccentric genius, he gets his moods, what can I say?

[bibliophage]

Here's a sneak peak at next week's question. Dear Cecyl,

Ys it true that Kyng George is mad?

Yr obdt srvnt, etc,
Geo. Washington

[Harry1958]

In a Frying Pan we fry, we use oil, and fat i.e.: cholesterol.

We are killing ourselves with our food more than we are killing each other with guns.
Murder Rate has got to be lower than death from Heart attacks. That does not even bring in the deaths from diabetes and other complications brought on by being over weight .

[JillGat]

I used to live in Trinidad and Tobago, where the two main ethnic groups are Indian and African. After repeatedly seeing articles in the paper about men beating women to death with a "bilna," I asked one of my (African) co-workers what this was. He told me it was the Trini-Indian word for a rolling pin. He said, "Is Indian men does beat they wives with a bilna." So of course I asked him, "What do African men use to beat their wives with?" He thought for a minute and said, "A rolling pin."

[MikeH0714]

All of this has reminded me of a country song I heard back in the seventies, with the following refrain:

"With my big iron skillet in my hand,
Gonna show you how a little woman can whip a great big man.
If you live through the fight we're gonna have when you get home,
You'll wake up and find yourself alone."

Funny they don't play that one these days...

Michael

[AskNott]

In a Frying Pan we fry, we use oil, and fat i.e.: cholesterol.

We are killing ourselves with our food more than we are killing each other with guns.
Murder Rate has got to be lower than death from Heart attacks. That does not even bring in the deaths from diabetes and other complications brought on by being over weight .
It's a fry pandemic, that's what it is! :p

[Kat]

All of this has reminded me of a country song I heard back in the seventies, with the following refrain:

"With my big iron skillet in my hand,
Gonna show you how a little woman can whip a great big man.
If you live through the fight we're gonna have when you get home,
You'll wake up and find yourself alone."

Funny they don't play that one these days...

Michael
But they do play:
She was standing at the front door
When I came home last night
With a Good Book in her left hand
And a rolling pin in her right

Any solid record of rolling pin murders in the US?

[Chez Guevara]

I have to take issue with this:

The most common female-on-male acts were "threw something" and "pushed, grabbed, or shoved," both at about 12 percent. (OK, you can throw a frying pan, but aerodynamic considerations argue for something more compact.)
I don't think that anyone looking for a suitable object to throw at somebody in a fit of temper is going to spend much time evaluating its aerodynamic properties. They are far more likely to grab a projectile that is close at hand. If the thrower is in the kitchen, he or she is hardly going to take a trip to the study where the African spears are kept in a glass cabinet then come back and throw one of them at the spouse.

Furthermore, aerodynamic considerations become less relevant the closer the weapon is to its target. The Guevara frying pan is fully effective over a distance of 12' and I'm sure I could hit a stationary spouse with it over this distance.

Unfortunately I don't have a cite for this assertion. However, purely in the interests of fighting ignorance, I intend to buy a dozen blow-up dolls from the local pornographer and hang them from the washing line in my back garden. I plan also to purchase several frying pans of varying size and weight.

Then, one afternoon when nobody is around, I intend to have a lot of fun with these dolls. I will report on my experiences at a later date. If I fail to do so it may be safely assumed that I have been detained by the police, and that I am being interviewed by them yet again regarding my current obsession with bizarre sexual practices.

[samclem]

Then, one afternoon when nobody is around, I intend to have a lot of fun with these dolls. I will report on my experiences at a later date. If I fail to do so it may be safely assumed that I have been detained by the police, and that I am being interviewed by them yet again regarding my current obsession with bizarre sexual practices. That'll be like "out of the frying pan and into the fire" so to speak.

[susan]

And this is why we don't keep guns in the house. Or rolling pins. And the frying pan is stored really inaccessibly.

[Charlie Tan]

Maybe I'm missing something, but why would it be the woman who swings the skillet? Because she takes care of the house and cooks the food? :rolleyes:

[Chronos]

Then, one afternoon when nobody is around, I intend to have a lot of fun with these dolls.OK, but what are the frying pans for?

[Chez Guevara]

Simple.

If the dolls refuse to submit to my demands I'm going to give them all a severe thrashing.

[chappachula]

hey, boys and girls, are we talking about teflon frying pans, or iron skillets?
'Cause nowadays, most fryin' pans are lightweight aluminum-and-teflon jobs. Not like back in the good ol' days, when real men smoked Marleboro around the campfire, and they used a real, old-fashioned, black cast iron skillet.

Now, if you knock somebody upside the head with a skillet, you're gonna hit him hard, and maybe kill him.The sheriff 'll send out a posse of cowboys to chase you and hang you from a tree.
But if you hit somebody with an aluminum/teflon jobie bought at Bed Bath and Beyond, then you're not gonna kill him. Maybe a bump on the head, but not a murder. So you won't be included in the murder statistics. You're more likely to get sent for counselling in anger management.








(disclaimer: I'm not denying the seriousness of domestic abuse. I just don't think that a frying pan is likely to be the weapon of choice in the murder statistics.)

[gabriela]

hey, boys and girls, are we talking about teflon frying pans, or iron skillets?
'Cause nowadays, most fryin' pans are lightweight aluminum-and-teflon jobs. Not like back in the good ol' days, when real men smoked Marleboro around the campfire, and they used a real, old-fashioned, black cast iron skillet.

Now, if you knock somebody upside the head with a skillet, you're gonna hit him hard, and maybe kill him.The sheriff 'll send out a posse of cowboys to chase you and hang you from a tree.
But if you hit somebody with an aluminum/teflon jobie bought at Bed Bath and Beyond, then you're not gonna kill him. Maybe a bump on the head, but not a murder. So you won't be included in the murder statistics. You're more likely to get sent for counselling in anger management.

(disclaimer: I'm not denying the seriousness of domestic abuse. I just don't think that a frying pan is likely to be the weapon of choice in the murder statistics.)

Couldn't agree more. In all the domestic violence murders I have seen over the years, a frying pan has figured in exactly none. Most of them involve guns. Many of them involve stabbings (usually kitchen knives, but at least one with the stem of a smashed-off wineglass). One was from a box of tiles which somehow fell on his wife's head - repeatedly - he tried to pass it off as accident - we were wondering if the box was springloaded and kept jumping back on the shelf and falling on her head again, or if somehow the safety was off - sorry, morgue humor. Same disclaimer as chappachula above.

Probably the most horrendous DV murder I have seen was many years ago in Memphis. Wife versus husband after long history of husband beating on wife in episode after episode of domestic violence. He's alcoholic, too, and in his fifties, and she's in her twenties. No idea why they married...

Anyhow, he comes home drunk and beats her and then passes out in a drunken snooze in bed, and she sits there nursing her injuries and thinking: That was the last time. And she gets a big cooking pot (no frying pan) and a five pound sack of sugar, and she puts the pot on the stove and heats it up real good, and she pours in the sugar and stirs it with a wooden spoon until it all melts and you're starting to try to figure out if it's in the "soft ball stage" or "hard ball stage" depending on whether you're making fudge or hard candy. And she picks up that pot with potholders on the handles, walks into the bedroom, and dumps it all over him.

He lasted two months in the burn ICU before succumbing. He said while he was still conscious that he didn't want to press charges. But the police pressed them after he died of the burns, because it was homicide.

Sugarcide.

I've decided it was "hardball" after all.

[jjimm]

If the dolls refuse to submit to my demands I'm going to give them all a severe thrashing.If the dolls refuse to submit to your demands, may I recommend charm school?

[John W. Kennedy]

Real cooks use cast-iron, even if they have to travel to Kidron, Ohio to get them.

(Handy household hint: visit your local Renaissance faire and get a scrap of chain mail; it's great for cleaning 'em.)

[Beadalin]

I used to work with an ex-cop named R. The reason he was an ex-cop when I knew him was this:

He and his partner were sent to a house with the report of domestic violence. They went into the house where the husband was in the middle of beating up the wife. They grabbed the husband and put him in cuffs, not watching the wife. As R was turning toward the wife again, she smashed the side of his face with a cast-iron skillet, breaking his jaw, cracking his skull and shattering all the teeth in the right side of his face. He spent two months with his jaw wired shut and decided to quit the force after that.

She hit him for daring to lay hands on her husband. There's no understanding some people.

[Chronos]

Sheesh, I'd have expected someone to pick up on the straight line (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=198659) in my last post...

[Kalhoun]

Couldn't agree more. In all the domestic violence murders I have seen over the years, a frying pan has figured in exactly none. Most of them involve guns. Many of them involve stabbings (usually kitchen knives, but at least one with the stem of a smashed-off wineglass). One was from a box of tiles which somehow fell on his wife's head - repeatedly - he tried to pass it off as accident - we were wondering if the box was springloaded and kept jumping back on the shelf and falling on her head again, or if somehow the safety was off - sorry, morgue humor. Same disclaimer as chappachula above.

Probably the most horrendous DV murder I have seen was many years ago in Memphis. Wife versus husband after long history of husband beating on wife in episode after episode of domestic violence. He's alcoholic, too, and in his fifties, and she's in her twenties. No idea why they married...

Anyhow, he comes home drunk and beats her and then passes out in a drunken snooze in bed, and she sits there nursing her injuries and thinking: That was the last time. And she gets a big cooking pot (no frying pan) and a five pound sack of sugar, and she puts the pot on the stove and heats it up real good, and she pours in the sugar and stirs it with a wooden spoon until it all melts and you're starting to try to figure out if it's in the "soft ball stage" or "hard ball stage" depending on whether you're making fudge or hard candy. And she picks up that pot with potholders on the handles, walks into the bedroom, and dumps it all over him.

He lasted two months in the burn ICU before succumbing. He said while he was still conscious that he didn't want to press charges. But the police pressed them after he died of the burns, because it was homicide.

Sugarcide.

I've decided it was "hardball" after all.
Wow. That's horrifying.

My ex's wife was carrying on with some pretty bad guys after the ex died. The boyfriend had been smacking her around pretty bad and when he was asleep, she buried an axe in his face. Took his eye out, but he lived. There was also talk of someone planning to inject him with air. Somehow she got out of it. They got back together.

A short time later, he tossed her out a 3rd floor window. She lived.

She remarried a few years ago and was arrested for trying to run her husband over with her pickup truck. Somehow she beat that one, too.

[Chez Guevara]

In all the domestic violence murders I have seen over the years, a frying pan has figured in exactly none.
Until I read this invaluable piece of information, I had formed the opinion that your view of violent fatalities was focused primarily on the humorous aspects of such premature expiries, regrettable though these may be.

My opinion has changed.

Instead of contaminating this thread with facts, you could have invented at least one frying pan related autopsy for us to discuss. Or is it now the case that this forum is to be a domain forever and exclusively confined to matters factual from now on?

I also take this opportunity to Pit all murderers of the modern era for lack of invention in their choice of weapon. I fully believe that murderers in the 'good old days' would have used frying pans more often than is currently the case.