A California woman is accused of murdering her boyfriend by beating him to death with various cans of food, KNBC in Los Angeles is reporting .
Linda Clarene Jackson, 59, of Lake Los Angeles allegedly used a can of peas, a can of carrots, and a can of chicken broth to bludgeon to death her boyfriend, David Ruiz, also 59. The alleged canned food murder took place on Tuesday; Jackson was arrested Thursday.
Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami confirmed that Ruiz died while he was at Jackson’s home, but gave no further details.
It is unclear exactly how Jackson used the canned goods to murder her boyfriend. One possibility is that she put the various canned goods into a cloth conveyance of some kind — perhaps a pillow case or a sock — and made a crude weapon out of them. Such improvised weapons are commonly fashioned in prison; usually using padlocks and a sock, according to Urban Dictionary , to make a device called a “slock.”
According to Info Please , the FBI reports that blunt objects accounted for a mere four percent of murders in 2012 (the latest year for which data is available); 518 murders out of 12,765 were committed with blunt objects (by far, the weapon used in the most murders was guns, at 69.4 percent). The FBI data does not, however, list which blunt objects (hammers, baseball bats, canned goods) were used in those murders.
It does not appear, based on news reports, that canned goods have ever been used as a murder weapon before. There has been, however, at least one case of a jar of pickles being used as a murder weapon: in 2010, then 17-year-old Daniel Kovarbasich took a 10-pound jar of pickles and bludgeoned 55-year-old Duane Hurley with it, according to the Chronicle-Telegram , and then stabbed him 55 times. Kovarbasich claimed that Hurley had been sexually abusing him — a claim that the judge believed was factual. Kovarbasich was found not guilty, but was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment.
And in a case that brought national attention, an Alabama school principal became something of a laughingstock after sending a note home with parents asking kids to bring in canned goods to the school, for a rather unusual reason, according to this Inquisitr report: to be used as a weapon that kids could throw at a school shooter, should the need ever arise.
As of this post, police have not released a motive for the L.A. canned goods murder.
[Image courtesy of: Shutterstock/ Anthony Berenvi ]
