Newark, DE "Lizard Man" Found Dead...and Partially Consumed
John Lupton
yesterday. He lived alone, and his passion was raising Nile monitor
lizards, he had 7 of them. When found, he had been partially consumed
by them.
Read all about it in the Wilmington News-Journal's online edition at:
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2002/01/17policemakegrisl.html
---------------------------------------
John Lupton (lup...@isc.upenn.edu)
Office of Information Security
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
John Lupton
wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:25:50 GMT, th...@space.for.rent (John Lupton)
>wrote:
>
>>Read all about it in the Wilmington News-Journal's online edition at:
>>
>>http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2002/01/17policemakegrisl.html
>
>The Wilmington article has several juicy tidbits that the AP article I
>posted doesn't. Like this gem:
>
>"Acquaintances described Huff as a quiet man who kept to himself,
>lived alone and had no telephone. Co-workers at Martin Oldsmobile in
>Newark said they knew Huff as "lizard boy" because he often talked
>about his pets."
>
>and this:
>
>"He talked about the lizards often at work and would show co-workers
>marks from when they had bitten him."
>
>and this:
>
>"Animal control officers from the Delaware Society for the Prevention
>of Cruelty to Animals took custody of the seven lizards, a cat and a
>large container of 2-inch-long hissing Madagascar roaches."
Appraently, he was breeding the roaches as food for the lizards. I
just keep wondering how the cat figured into all of this.
This is the second odd case the SPCA and the New Castle County Police
have encountered in recent times (I live in the county). Something
like 2 or 3 years ago, residents of an apartment building in Stanton
(about 5 miles or so east of the Newark location of this incident)
reported a foul odor coming from one of the apartments. Entering the
apartment, the police found a guy dead on the floor, obviously for
some time, and surrounded by cages with poisonous snakes in them - a
number of which were empty, with the lids were removed. Sure enough,
there were at least two snakes (one a rattler, I think) hiding in
crawlspaces and closets in the apartment. Took them several days
before they - and the neighbors - felt confident that they'd found all
of them.
Not sure they ever figured out exactly what happened - my recollection
is that none of the snakes were venomous enough to kill that quickly,
the guy should have had plenty of time to get medical help. Anyway, at
least he didn't end up as an hors d'ouevre for the snakes, like this
guy was for the lizards...
PirateJohn
>just keep wondering how the cat figured into all of this.
I'm not sure how large those nile monitors are, but I suspect that as the food
supply dwindled the cat was getting awfully nervous ;)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Dr. Rev. Chuck, M.D., P.A.
>
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 20:34:18 GMT, th...@space.for.rent (John Lupton)
> wrote:
>
> >>"Animal control officers from the Delaware Society for the Prevention
> >>of Cruelty to Animals took custody of the seven lizards, a cat and a
> >>large container of 2-inch-long hissing Madagascar roaches."
> >
> >Appraently, he was breeding the roaches as food for the lizards. I
> >just keep wondering how the cat figured into all of this.
>
> at least it would have, eventually. I'm pretty sure my cats would
> start gnawing on me at some point, if their food ran out and I stopped
> moving. I've seen that look in their eyes.
Been known to happen with dogs. Master dies, no one finds out for
say, a week, no food in the house; Fido, being descended from scavengers,
has to make do as best as possible. Every cop's heard variations on
the same story.
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
> Ron Huff, a resident of Newark, DE was found dead in his home
> yesterday. He lived alone, and his passion was raising Nile monitor
> lizards, he had 7 of them. When found, he had been partially consumed
> by them.
That'll teach the sonofabitch to spend way too much time reading
USENET posts instead of tending to the pets. He was obviously
living in a state of denial.
John Lupton
wrote:
>>Appraently, he was breeding the roaches as food for the lizards. I
>>just keep wondering how the cat figured into all of this.
>
>I'm not sure how large those nile monitors are, but I suspect that as the food
>supply dwindled the cat was getting awfully nervous ;)
There's a followup story in today's Wilmington News-Journal, it's
online at:
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2002/01/18newarkmankeptli.html
It seems the late Mr. Huff had at least one other cat that was not
inside the apartment at the time he was found. A neighbor found a cat
belonging to Huff and took it in. The cat shows signs of having been
at least bitten by a lizard.
As for the size, yesterday's story said the largest of the 7 lizards
in the apartment was 6 feet long. Today's story says they can grow as
long as 10 feet.
kelly
> That'll teach the sonofabitch to spend way too much time reading
> USENET posts instead of tending to the pets. He was obviously
> living in a state of denial.
Or maybe he was just an Ambrose Bierce fan....see:
http://atoledo.freeyellow.com/texts/johnmort.txt
--
Kelly
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http://www.justbeads.com/auction/SellerAuctions.asp?User=34503
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To a dog you're family...to a cat you're staff...
PirateJohn
Jeese! That's a big lizard!
I've got an adolescent Simamese that takes joy in torturing the local,
Floriduh, lizards. I've thought about bringing one of those big iguanas with a
shitty attitude back from Mexico just to give her some competiton. Now I think
that my sights have been set just a bit higher.
I can see it now. There's gonna be one nervous Siamese running around the
house and three older cats, who have enough sense to get on top of the
furniture, will be highly amuzed ;)