I have to bring up the ice cube thing once again, given that it is January and we are in the middle of the big freezer. Which brings me to this. On this day, January 12, 1967, one Dr. James Bedford became the first person to be cryonically preserved. Yes, after Dr. Jim died away, he was put on the rocks with the intent of future resuscitation.
That was 55 years ago, mind you. Dr. Jim remains preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation to this very day. If they ever find a way to bring him back, I bet he has some freezer burn. I know our hamburger starts showing signs after just a few months.
Of course. Anytime I hear of cryonics, it reminds me of Mr. Freeze in the Batman series. (I know, I know. Batman, again.). But. Ironically, it was also on this date, January 12, 1966, that “Batman,” the TV show, the one starring Adam West as Batman, and Burt Ward as Robin, debuted on ABC. Mr. Freeze wasn’t in the first episode, but Cesar Romero played the Joker.
That show was always full of mystery.
But. The Queen of Mystery, Agatha Christie, also shares this date. Oh yes. She was the excellent and prolific writer of novels, short stories, and plays, with characters like Hercules Poirot and Miss Marple.
She died on January 12, 1976, at the age of 85. She passed from natural causes at her home at Winterbrook House, Oxfordshire, England. I don’t know if this was by her design or not. But. Her funeral services were very simple and only attended by about 20 newspaper and TV reporters, according to Wiki. Not much else has been written about it.
It surprised me because, according to Guinness World Records, Agatha Christie has the title of “world’s best-selling fiction writer.” She has amassed more than 2 billion books sold.
Most of those mysteries were speckled with murder after murder.
So it is fitting that another woman, a murderer named Ruth Snyder, also shares this date. She died, too, on this day, January 12, 1928. By electric chair. In fact, she was the first woman ever to die by electric chair. Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York.
She was 32 years old at the time. Ruth was found guilty of murdering her husband. Loosely, the details are as follows. Ruth Brown Snyder was a homemaker from Queens. Married to Albert Snyder. Together, they had one daughter.
Albert wasn’t such a great guy. He abused Ruth — mentally, emotionally, and physically. For instance. He insisted on hanging a picture of his late fiancée, a woman named Jessie Guischard, on the wall of their first home. Yep. And he named his boat after her.
He frequently lambasted Ruth for the birth of a daughter rather than a son. He demanded a perfectly maintained home. And he would beat both Ruth and their daughter Lorraine.
I won’t go into all the details of the crime, but things began when Ruth started an affair in 1925 with Henry Judd Gray, a married corset salesman. Not long after that, Ruth decided her life would be better without Albert and started to plan his murder. She and Judd tried seven different times before getting it right. Then on March 20, 1927, they killed him. Made it look like a burglary.
But. They bumbled. They both were convicted and sentenced to death.
Here is the thing about her execution on January 12, 1928. She went to the electric chair 10 minutes before Judd Gray.
Her electrocution was photographed illegally. At the moment she was getting zapped, a Chicago Tribune photographer, Tom Howard, snapped her photo with a miniature plate camera strapped to his ankle. It is the only photo of its kind. It is famous.
Yes, it sounds like an Agatha Christie story. But not even Batman could save her from her inevitable death. And. Finally, I know for a fact she isn’t frozen like our first guy, Dr. James Bedford, because she is buried in a cemetery in the Bronx.
Another day.
Another glimpse.
Of how we all come and go.
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Electricity can transform people’s lives, not just economically but also socially. — Piyush Goyal
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How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand one who’s cold?
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.
― Gabriel García Márquez
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The mysterious freezing cold current of electricity. Connected.
