Becky
The morbid side of garages
by Becky - September 28, 2007 - 12:56 AM

eeThis post is exactly what it sounds like, and it’s a sad corollary to Sandy’s compendium of celebrity suicide attempts. Tear-water tea was sad, but this is sadder: people who have committed suicide in their garages.

Before the prevalence of catalytic converters, there was a significant amount of carbon monoxide in car exhaust; even so, if you’re going to run a car in an enclosed space, there’s going to be CO (in response to which, there are patents to deactivate the ignition if CO is detected, much like the proposed BAC sensors). There’s really no proper segue into this, so here’s a list, albeit incomplete, of artists/celebs, RIP, who have died in their garages (or cars) this way.

  • Thelma Todd, Hollywood starlet aka “Hot Toddy,” 1935
  • Morris K. Jessup, author of “The Case for the UFO,” found inside his car at a nearby park; hose to exhaust
  • John Kennedy Toole, 1969
  • William Inge, 1973, found inside his car; hose to exhaust
  • Anne Sexton, 1974, found in backseat of her car wearing her mother’s fur
  • Jeff Ward, NIN drummer, 1993
  • Jim Ellison, frontman for punk band Material Issue, 1996

And then there is the tale of the woman who killed herself this way, and then killed her father, too. The carbon monoxide entered the house and he died in his bedroom.

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Comments (5)
  1. thats how my cousin did it. he was a kick-ass drummer.

  2. OK, Becky, now why the picture of 2 Corvairs? I’m about to take umbrage!

  3. John East (R-NC), US Senator, 1986

  4. Two weird cases…

    First, my uncle’s first wife committed suicide this way – in the garage of the house that my uncle and his second wife later lived in for the rest of their lives. Oddly enough the second wife’s first husband also had committed suicide, though with a bullet to the head.

    The other weird one I knew was a guy I worked with. He actually hung himself in the garage when he realized it was taking too long for the exhaust to do him in. I guess just to be sure, he left the car running. They found both him – and the car – dead. Though, the car was merely out of gas.

  5. “wearing her mother’s fur” – ??

    If my moms was a wombat I might gas myself too!

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