Posted on 02/15/2002 8:14:22 PM PST by gd124
DETECTIVES were last night trying to unravel the circumstances in which a leading university research scientist was found dead at his blood-spattered and apparently ransacked home.
The body of Ian Langford, 40, a senior Fellow at the University of East Anglias Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, was discovered on Monday night by police and ambulancemen. The body was naked from the waist down and partly wedged under a chair. It is understood that doors to the terraced house were locked.
A post-mortem examination failed to establish how Dr Langford, who lived alone in the house in Norwich, died.
Dr Langford began working at the university in 1993 after gaining his PhD in childhood leukaemia and infection following a first-class honours degree in environmental sciences. He worked most recently as a senior researcher assessing risk to the environment.
Professor Kerry Turner, director of the centre, said: We are all very shocked by this appalling news. Ian was without doubt one of Europes leading experts on environmental risk, specialising in links between human health and environmental risk. He was known for his work on the effects on health of bathing water and air pollution, for example. He was one of the most brilliant colleagues I have ever had.
Reminds me of the three deaths that were initially ruled "homosides/suicide" in Houston many years ago. A man, his wife and their baby were found shot to death. Ruling was, the man shot his wife and baby and then shot himself. But there was no gun at the scene.
First off, I thought I read he went off the old bridge, next you go west to leave Memphis.
Memphis is on the east bank of the river.
Long distance information give me Memphis, Tennessee
Help me find the party that tried to get in touch with me
She could not leave a number but I know who placed the call
'cause my uncle took a message and he wrote it on the wall
Help me information get in touch with my Marie
She's the only one who'd call me here from Memphis, Tennessee
Her home is on the south side, high up on the ridge
Just a half-a-mile from the Mississippi bridge....
Here's a year-old pic of the bridge taken downriver from the Memphis side, from Memphis' Tom Lea Park. Arkansas is to the left, Memphis to the right.
I think I've got some shots that may show the guardrails back around October/November, but most of my bridge photos are of the Harahan Bridge. The Frisco Bridge is the classy one. recent Memphis/Arkansas bridge news story *here*>.
-archy-/-
Leni
That was exactly my reaction. (I stopped reading beyond "Naked below the waist".)
'AUTOEROTIC DEATH' OF YOUTHS CAUSES WIDENING CONCERN (New York Times, 1984)
Happens all the time -- just not reported that way.
Just a history note, in 1972 the Mississippi River was 26 miles wide at Memphis from November to January of '73.
Here's my guess: Whoever is responsible has resources. A determined person with normal resources might be able to off one or two scientist, but it would take someone or some organization with plenty of resources to off lots of scientists who live in several nations--all in a relatively short peroid of time. Any group with these resources would probably already be known, so a good guess would be that these actions are state sponsored. Iraq?
Well, I have heard of incidents where entering an area filled with nitrogen has killed several people. At Cape Canaveral (Kennedy), I recall one incident where two men went into an area that had been "purged" with nitrogen. No alarm sounded. They collapsed. Others, seeing what had happened, rushed in and were themselves killed.
If there is a 100% nitrogen atmosphere in an enclosed area, incapacitation can be very swift.
Ever see a sign in an industrial facility: "ENCLOSED SPACE. NO ENTRY WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION."? There is a reason for such notices.
--Boris
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