I hear stories like these all the time anymore, and worse about people brutally killing their partner or kids violently.

Here are just two of the milder examples that I hear too often that make me think people are really losing it.

New York 3 guys living in a Hell's Kitchen apartment. One is old and dies of natural causes. The other two guys come up with the genius plan of wheeling his corpse in a computer chair down to the check casher to collect on the dead dude's social security.

The cashier sees the body, bystanders see the body, cops see the body. Everyone realizes he is dead. Nobody is fooled.

The kicker is that the DA right now is trying to bring charges against the men but the most they can come up with right now is check fraud.

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HAYDEN, Idaho — A man who believed he bore the "mark of the beast" amputated one of his hands, put it in a microwave and summoned authorities, Kootenai County sheriff's deputies say.

The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when deputies arrived at his home in this north Idaho town Saturday afternoon, and neither he nor the severed hand bore any noticeable tattoo or other mark, sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger.

The man, whose name was withheld, was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d'Alene, where he and the hand were taken by ambulance. Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Johnson would not say whether an attempt was made to reattach the hand, citing patient confidentiality restrictions.

"He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death," Wolfinger said. " That kind of mental illness is just sad."

Is there any sanity left anywhere??

Depends on where you live I guess. That kind of stuff doesn't happen where I live.

Must be nice! Everyday on the news and the internet I hear these news stories and they seem to be happening everywhere.

I'm in a medium-sized Canadian city (around 85,000). Most of those stories seem to happen in more urban American cities, or our version of those here being Toronto and Vancouver. I've lived in large cities (Montreal, London UK) but I don't think I'd ever live in a large american city. My sis lives in Boston and we love to visit there but enjoy coming back home. Upstate NY and Vermont is beautiful, I'd go there in a heartbeat.

I don't think it is happening more frequently, I just think the internet allows us access to stories that would have never made it out of their community before.

If you want weird stories, try ebaumsworld.com I check there almost daily for stories of strange happenings.

I agree with Em that with the advent of the internet we have better access to these stories. Also, mental illness is not the hush hush issue it was decades ago. Many years ago we had state run mental hospitals that housed everyone from mild MR to the criminally insane, but those are fewer and farther between now.

These days we treat and street. Meaning we medicate and try to mainstream into society rather than lock up.

So, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that mental illness is no longer a hidden illness as it was in days gone by.

Many years ago we had state run mental hospitals that housed everyone from mild MR to the criminally insane, but those are fewer and farther between now.

These days we treat and street. Meaning we medicate and try to mainstream into society rather than lock up.


True they are out on the street and not easily detected.

not easily detected.

They are not easily detected because of the advances in medicine. We have a lady at a pharmacy in our area who is schizophrenic, truly a very lovely lady to be honest, but you can only tell when she is not on her meds.

Now, since medication compliance is a big issue, we have people that should be in hospitals because they don't take their meds, but we don't have the hospitals or they don't have the insurance to cover the private hospitals... So, we are seeing more problems like you mentioned above.

There are 300 million people in America... and instant communication with a public insatiable for strange and titillating stories!

Lots of bad stuff happened in the "olden days" but there was no television or internet, most people had to work hard just to survive, also, society tended to cover up really negative behavior.

They predicted that if the trains would go any faster then 18 m/h then we would go insane.

Parchally it has come to pass, Mental and fysical problems/ilness is growing and many times what it was in the 1800th.
It can be explained by the growth, more people makes more misstakes, or you can blame society for creating these nut jobs or physical problems most of our jobs gets us but no medical care for it.

In any case, it's only going to get worse, and finally Humankind will destroy itself, it's one of our natural tendencies.

That's what I think anyway :)

There are 300 million people in America....and instant communication with a public insatiable for strange and titillating stories!

Lots of bad stuff happened in the "olden days" but there was no television or internet, most people had to work hard just to survive, also, society tended to cover up really negative behavior.

This can't be any clearer. It's so perfect it deserves to be repeated.

Good one Choux!!