26+ Ways to Kill: V is for Venesect or Vesuviate

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.

Venom, of course, came up with the letter V. Venenation is poisoning, but we’ve done that a couple of times. Something virose is poisonous or foul.

Your villain might be vafrous (cunning, sly) or be consumed with vindictoviolence (desire to take revenge). Such a killer might use vastation (purification through destroying evil elements) thinking heesh could heal shimself by destroying evil in others. That such killing would also destroy the evil in shim. That could be an interesting psychological story.

Another flogging word came up: vapulate. Interesting how many words there are scourging.

And to vulnerate is to wound. Lots of options for that this month!

I played with using venography (injecting radioactive material into veins for medical examination) for your death method. It would be a medical mystery requiring much research on your part. How much radioactive material? What are the symptoms? I rejected using venography for V because I couldn’t quite see how it could be done and the death, if death resulted, would be easily detectable and traceable. Those controlled substances are hard to use surreptitiously.

So what do I have to offer for V murder methods?

Venesect (open a vein for blood-letting) would be pretty fast, I think. If enough veins were opened, the blood should spill out quickly. A scalpel run along a few veins would do it. Your phlebotomist takes blood samples from you with a sharp needle with a vacuum tube. Heesh can fill a few of those babies in just a few minutes. Imagine how fast it could go with long scalpel cuts.

Just so you know, you need a medical tool for venesection to be efficient. Veins are tough little guys. And they slip around a lot. You have to skewer it and slice. Sawing away with your kitchen knife will be a mess. You can get 10 scalpels on Amazon for under $10 (plus shipping) in case your killer is into serial venesection.

My search turned up vesuviation. Notice the similarity to Vesuvius. This word is so fun. It is surrounded by myth and paranormal interpretations. You may know vesuviation by its more common moniker: SHC-Spontaneous Human Combustion.

History has recorded incidents of seemingly unexplainable incidents of vesuviation, a human body bursting into flames, purportedly from the inside out. A study of recorded cases reported these commonalities: the victims are elderly, female, and chronic alcoholics; the hands and feet fall off; the residue is offensively fetid and greasy ashes; and, the fire caused little damage to other combustibles the body touched. Oh, and some lighted substance came into contact with the body so there is no such thing as SHC. Careless smoker anyone?

I considered that you could have a dumb murderer who read about and believes in vesuviation (SHC) and thus stages the murder to look like one. I think it could work with the right details, but heesh would be caught rather quickly. That might work for a minor subplot in your story or as the killing in a short story. I keep thinking you could play this one for some laughs. Dumb crook and all, if you know what I mean.

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#Mystery writer, need killer ideas? V is for Venesect or Vesuviate. Lots of tips this month! #atozchallenge http://bit.ly/1VxBEw5

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Looking for new, fresh ways to kill (in books of course)? Check out Venesect or Vesuviate on “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” at http://bit.ly/1VxBEw5

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