VICTIMS AND WIVES

Does your wife want to kill you? The National Police Gazette tells you how she'll do it.

Those scamps at The National Police Gazette are at it again in this issue from November 1971, the cover of which screams: The 3 Ways Wives Murder Their Husbands—and get away with it! What ways would those be, we wonder? Well, murder method one is: Feed Him To Death. Here’s the juicy bit from that section: Women prepare the meals. If the husband is overweight, has high blood pressure, and has been warned by his doctor to avoid certain foods, the truly concerned wife will follow the instructions. But we know of case after case where the wife insidiously fed her husband what he shouldn’t have had, worsening his condition until the fatal heart attack. The scenario runs on for a bit, but you can imagine the rest.

Murder method two is: Nag Him To Death. Our favorite line is this: Nothing can weaken a man’s will to live as much as a nagging wife, a leading psychiatrist has stated. She can undermine his health just as surely as an invading virus. What follows are some quotes from various quacks supporting the thesis, backstopped by a bogus study. But we aren’t buying. The Pulp Intl. wives are nothing but rays of sunshine. And we’re not saying that because they’d beat us if we didn’t. Murder method three is: Sex As a Weapon. The money quote: Sexologists have long known that certain acts associated with love play are super tension-producing. Oral sex, for example, can make dangerously inordinate demands on the husband’s blood pumping system. Heh. Blood pumping system.

Gazette asserts that the vast majority of murders committed by wives fall into the three categories listed, making them impossible to prosecute. Their advice? Know about the deadly weapons at your wife’s disposal, and develop the proper defenses. No word on what those defenses might be, though not being an asshole and making your wife want to kill you comes readily to mind. Did we mention our girlfriends are rays of sunshine? Elsewhere in this Gazette you get Jean Harlow, Jacqueline Bisset, and more. We’ve uploaded a few scans, and of course we still have a stack of Gazettes to post later.

Police Gazette, Jean Harlow, Jacqueline Bisset, tabloid

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.

March 21

1963—Alcatraz Closes

The federal penitentiary located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes. The island had been home to a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison over the years. In 1972, it would become a national recreation area open to tourists, and it would receive national landmark designations in 1976 and 1986.

March 20

1916—Einstein Publishes General Relativity

German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity. Among the effects of the theory are phenomena such as the curvature of space-time, the bending of rays of light in gravitational fields, faster than light universe expansion, and the warping of space time around a rotating body.