Man kills self, fails to burn down house after death
David Moore, 47, of Belmont, N.H., committed suicide sometime after Thanksgiving using a homemade guillotine. But his plans for his death went far beyond that. He had placed homemade Molotov cocktails in the walls of his home, and wired them up to electric power on a timer, set to go off shortly after he killed himself, to burn down his house.
The two bomb squad officers who came determined that they weren’t exactly bombs - they were Molotov cocktails made out of 12-oz. Aquafina water bottles that each contained about two ounces of gasoline. Whereas a bomb would cause an explosion, Molotov cocktails are simply incendiary, [state police bomb squad Sgt. Andy] Parsons said. Instead of blowing up, they would ignite with a loud pop or boom and start a fire, probably destroying the man’s house but not endangering any neighbors. . . .
“He had literally punched holes in the Sheetrock walls of his house and stuffed the bottles in there, but he had also punched holes in the bottom portion of the walls and stuffed them with newspaper,” he said.
The bottles were connected to wires that were plugged into an electric device timer, Parsons said. The timer was plugged into a power strip, like many people use for their computers. The power strip was plugged into an outlet, but the devices never ignited because the power strip was switched off. — Concord Monitor
That’s right, Moore’s plan for a posthumous house fire, which I can only speculate would be to cover up his suicide, failed, all due to not checking one simple little detail. And for that, Moore posthumously becomes today’s Stupid Person of the Day.
If you have regular thoughts of committing suicide, please call someone first. Even if you think they can’t understand what you’re going through. There is someone out there who does understand because they’ve been through something like it before. Everybody has problems, and suicide doesn’t make the problems go away; it makes you go away, which — even if you can’t see it — is going to hurt someone very much.
I have no problem with this. He wanted to kill himself, he did it in the privacy of his own home where he would not inconveniance others (say, by throwing himself off an overpass into oncoming traffic), and while he did not manage to burn down his house at least the molotovs would not have been likely to harm anything but his own property.
Comment by Blaine Moore — January 13, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
Wow, Manage to inconvenience anybody? How about the EMS workers? Police officers? and the people who have to clean it up, or what about the family? Did anybody give them a thought? Apparently not Mr. Moore. Suicide is a truly selfish act and to be so desperate to be dead with such grandiose included just shows that the man was truly not well at all. This is a sad story.
Comment by Ashley — January 16, 2006 @ 10:26 pm
“Suicide is a truly selfish act”
True, but most of us aren’t selfish enough to take care of ourselves enough that when we’re pushed to the edge we take drastic measures of desperation.
My cousin killed himself a number of years ago and what I’ll never forget is something my father told me at the time: “We didn’t ask God to be born, and I think we should have some right to decide when we want to leave.” (My parents are not surpisingly pro-assisted suicide.)
Having been low myself, I understand what it’s like to feel as if things are never going to get better, that this life is unbearable. Strangely, I sometimes see my cousin as much braver than myself because I did in fact worry about everyone else’s reaction rather than my own relief and my cousin had the courage to do what he needed to do for himself.
Then again, I’m glad I’m a coward because now I know that life has it’s ups and downs.
Comment by N. Mallory — February 27, 2006 @ 12:47 am