Source.The Judas Cradle was a torture device intended to slowly impale the victim. Forced down on the point of the pyramid by either ropes or weights, the orifice placed on the point would slowly stretch and rip. Judas Cradles were never washed, so if this slow torture didn’t kill, the infection afterward would.
My stepfather always hated me. When my mother married him and he moved into our house, my life turned into a living hell. He finds fault in every little thing I do, was constantly shouting at me and calling me names. For him, I can never do anything right.
Pretty soon, all of the chaos at home began to affect my school life. I found it impossible to study and my grades started slipping. At the dinner table, I was so nervous that I hardly ate a thing. I gradually withdrew into myself and stopped hanging around with my friends.
Things began to grow from bad to worse. I became my stepfather’s punching bag. He started beating me at the slightest excuse. He was a strong man and I was too small to fight him off. Each punch and kick he delivered hurt me both physically and emotionally. It wasn’t long before I was diagnosed with depression and the doctors put me on medication.
Through all this, my mother stood by and refused to intervene. She obviously chose her new husband over me. That hurt me more than anything else. I gave up hope and prayed for the day when I could escape.
One day, I couldn’t take it anymore and ran away from home. I made it as far as the city, when the police found me and brought me home. When they took me back to my house, my stepfather was standing at the door waiting for me. His face was twisted in anger and rage.
As soon as the police left, he turned to me and said, “Did you think you could escape?”
That night, he beat me twice as bad as before. I cried myself to sleep. After that, the violence escalated. Every evening when he came home from work, I tried to avoid him, but it was no use. He began inventing excuses to beat me up. I never understood how anyone could be so mean and cruel. It seemed like it was all a big game to him. Each time he hit me, I could see how much he was enjoying it. My body was covered in bruises that it hurt to breathe.
He eventually went too far. One evening, he beat me so badly that I couldn’t move anymore. I just lay on the floor of my bedroom, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know it at the time that I was bleeding internally. My mother begged him to bring me to hospital, but he just ignored her. He said I was faking it. During the night, I lay on the floor of my bedroom, moaning in pain and slowly slipping into unconsciousness. The next morning, my mother came in to check on me. However, it was too late. I was already dead.
Time passed…
I don’t know how much time passed…
Suddenly, I saw a bright light.
I heard a voice announce, “It’s a healthy baby boy!”
I started crying loudly.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I opened my eyes.
A man and a woman were staring at me.
They were smiling from ear to ear.
The man leaned down and touched my cheek.
In a gentle voice, he said, “Did you think you could escape?”
Photograph from 1873 of a body preserved in a bog. The body had been found in 1871 in the Heidmoor near de:Rendswühren and is now on display at Gottorf Castle, Schleswig Germany. Dated around 1st or 2nd century AD.
Judith Ridgway was married to serial killer Gary Ridgway, “The Green River Killer,” for 13 years before his capture. While in prison, Gary constantly sent Judith letters, sometimes up to three a day.
“I’d get ten letters and they’d get all stacked up and then I’d write maybe half a page back or something. And it was painful to write the letters to him. Because my life was gone.”
The words were so devastating to Judith that she stopped opening his letters. She took out a pen and wrote one final letter to him. She had a question - perhaps the most important question of all:
“One I was wanting to know about is if he was going to kill me too. But he never did answer that question.”
