26+ Ways to Kill: G is for Gelation or Gyve

Welcome! Since I write culinary mysteries, “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” deals with food topics and with mysteries. This month I am sharing ways to kill people—in your mysteries, of course—and some tips on getting away with it! To avoid the pronoun problem, I’ll use heesh (he or she), shis (his or hers), and shim (him or her) throughout the entries. Tune in for murder and mayhem.

G was another fun one, but I am beginning to see patterns emerging. There really are only so many ways to kill people. Sure, the details result in different words describing the death, but start your own categorization of these terms, and you’ll see what I mean.

Of course, gun is an obvious murder method, so I rejected that for this post. While it is a common method for killing, it’s not unique. Not unless you obfuscate by using the term fusillate, like our hapless rookie did in yesterday’s post.

And a graip is another fourchette for foramination (see yesterday’s post). Graip is a pitchfork or dung fork. So foraminate away with a graip if it fits your story.

I rejected gyle (putting the victim in a fermenting vat for beer) because a beer barrel (rarely used size these days) only holds 36 gallons. I guess you could drown in that, but it would be tricky to get a person in along with enough liquid to kill. At least the victim would die happy, right?

I considered including gleed, which is a hot coal or burning ember. Sort of a slow burning kind of death and very painful. One would need a remote location to avoid detection. Not just the screaming, but the odor could give you away with this method.

So what’s left, you ask?

How about G is for gelation? Gelation is solidification by cooling. Think of floating away on an ice floe and drifting off to death. However, a killer might not leave the death to chance. What if someone rescued the victim and heesh just had frostbite? That could cause trouble for the killer. On the other hand, it might be a great method in your plot.

No, if I were going with gelation as my murder method, I would invest in a sub-zero freezer, large size, and tuck the body into that. Come back a couple of days later, and heesh is dead from gelation or maybe oxygen deprivation. Either way. Done! Now for the disposal of the body, you have a problem. A freshly dead, non-gelated body is more flexible. The gelated body is stiff as a board. And hard to hold because it’s like handling a giant ice cube.

Another G way to kill is gyve and walk away. This is another one of those slow deaths, one requiring a remote location as well. To gyve is to fetter or shackle a person. The person cannot escape. The chances of leaving evidence are minimized if the killer is methodical about wearing gloves and disposing of clothing that might carry trace evidence back to shis residence.

The victim will likely die of thirst in about 3-4 days, maybe up to two weeks. Toxins build up and attack the organs so they fail. The killer could return in a couple of weeks, move the body to the woods, maybe, and let the body be found and classed as a “natural” death by dehydration. The remoteness of this method is an advantage for the squeamish killer. Heesh just lets nature take its course in shis absence. BUT--How observant is that medical examiner who notes that the victim has concrete dust under the nails, not the dirt of the place where the body was found?

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#Mystery writer need ideas to kill? G is for Gelation or Gyve. Many killer tips this month #atozchallenge http://bit.ly/1RH7y6G

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Blogging from A to Z Challenge offers a wide range of topics. If you want to kill someone (in books of course), check out killing by Gelation or Gyve on “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” at http://bit.ly/1RH7y6G

Please come back tomorrow to see how to kill with H words!

Check out Sharon Arthur Moore’s culinary mystery, Mission Impastable