Obit watch: December 6, 2024.

I’m going to put a jump here, because both of these obits have a macabre element to them. I’d prefer not to disturb anyone’s sensibilities (and I’m leaving some details out), but I do think they are significant enough to note.

Shalom Nagar. He was with the Israel Prison Service for 28 years, and was the man who executed Adolf Eichmann.

To prevent a retaliatory attack on Eichmann, all the guards were Sephardic Jews unrelated to victims or survivors of the Holocaust, and his food was delivered in locked containers.
“Before I gave him his meal, I had to taste it myself,” Mr. Nagar said. “If I didn’t drop dead after two minutes, the duty officer allowed the plate into his cell.”

In an official account, another guard was said to have been assigned to simultaneously perform the hanging — to obfuscate responsibility — but Mr. Nagar said he was unaware of any other participant.

Prince Yormie Johnson, also known as “Prince Johnson”, Liberian politician/”warlord”/”rebel leader”. As the obit notes, “Prince” was his first name, not his title.

Mr. Johnson’s name was the first on Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s list of “notorious perpetrators” during the country’s two civil wars, from 1989 to 2003, which introduced the world to the sight of child soldiers wearing fright masks and wedding gowns and brandishing automatic weapons. His crimes, according to the commission, included killing, extortion, massacre, destruction of property, forced recruitment, assault, abduction, torture, forced labor and rape.

Prince Johnson was somewhat infamous for having captured Liberian President Samuel K. Doe, and having him tortured and murdered while he videotaped the whole thing. Apparently you can find the video on the Internet if you know where to look, but I’ve chosen not to watch it.

2 Responses to “Obit watch: December 6, 2024.”

  1. You forgot to mention Johnson cut off Doe’s ears, then cooked them and served them to Doe.

  2. Pigpen51 says:

    As a Bible believing Christian, I have to point out that ever since the account of Cain killing Able, human atrocities have been the norm, not the exception. As a sort of student of history, I have seen horrific cases of human behavior from as far back as one can look to even today.
    One of the cases that for some reason stuck out to me involved Winnie Mandela, who liked to “necklace” her enemies. That involved putting car tires on their necks and filling them with gasoline, then setting the thing on fire.
    Human nature seems to never fail to come up with more horror for their eneimies.

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