Here are some facts for this day. You are welcome to log your interesting, quirky or fun fact/s with your log.
On This Day - March 21st 1947
Two men die in the first documented case of death by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Collyer were two American brothers, born in 1881 and 1885 respectively. Intelligent and educated, the men were known to be reclusive, tending to shun company. They also suffered OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder - which caused them to hoard anything and everything. Their compulsive hoarding made them targets for thieves who believed valuables were also stocked in the home. This had the result of making the men more reclusive, boarding up windows and setting up booby traps. Homer also suffered many health issues which finally led to him becoming blind, paralysed and totally dependent on his younger brother.
On 21 March 1947, police were tipped off to the presence of a dead body in the house. Workers were unable to get in to the house by conventional means, due to large amounts of junk piled in the doorway and foyer, which included a wall of old newspapers, folding beds and chairs, half a sewing machine, boxes, parts of a wine press among other junk. Patrolman William Baker finally broke in through a window into a second-story bedroom. Behind this window lay, among other things, more packages and newspaper bundles, empty cardboard boxes lashed together with rope, the frame of a baby carriage, a rake, and old umbrellas tied together. After a two-hour crawl, Baker came across the body of Homer Collyer. A Medical Examiner ruled that death had occurred from malnutrition, and that Homer had died less than a day earlier. It was then necessary to find out where the stench in the house originated.
Returning to the house, the cleanup of the junk and search for Homer's brother Langley continued for several weeks. Finally, on 8 April, Langley's decomposing body was found just a few metres from where his brother's body had lain. Investigations showed that Langley had been crawling through a tunnel of newspapers to bring food to his paralyzed brother when one of his own booby traps fell down and crushed him. Homer, blind and paralyzed, starved to death several days later.