Killer Questions - Ways to Kill People with Holiday Related "Weapons"

Killer Questions – Ways to Kill People with Holiday Related “Weapons”

The holidays are time of joy and happiness. They also are a time when people commit murder. The Writers Who Kill members thought we would help by sharing ways to kill people with holiday related “weapons.”

Lori Roberts Herbst - Well, the easy and most obvious answer involves clubbing someone with a hard-as-a-rock fruitcake. Perhaps a victim could be suffocated with a Christmas stocking? Waterboarded with eggnog? Hmmm...interesting thoughts...

Molly MacRae - You can strangle your target with a string of lights. You can sabotage an upper rung of the ladder your victim will climb to hang outdoor decorations. You can include an inland taipan, deadliest snake in the world, in the beautifully wrapped package under the tree.

Sarah Burr - With a fruitcake, you can bash someone over the head quite effectively. Those things are like bricks!

Grace Topping - How about ground glass in the fruitcake or explosives in the Christmas crackers? They might work. 

James M. Jackson - Depending on who cooked the fruitcake and how many times it has been regifted, I can see clonking someone on the noggin could be fatal. Shoving a wad down their throat could suffocate anyone.

Debra H. Goldstein – Surprise gifts that explode, candles that are really firecrackers or rockets, and, of course, traditional fruitcake.

Connie Berry - Just wait a year or two. That fruitcake will become a hunk of cement to drop on someone’s head.

Margaret S. Hamilton - A very stale fruitcake could cause blunt force trauma. Raw eggs contaminated with salmonella could form the basis of homemade eggnog. Out of season shellfish or poisonous mushrooms work well too.

Nancy Eady - If the fruitcake came in a tin, you could bludgeon someone to death with it.  And I suppose someone could set up an elaborate electrocution scheme with Christmas tree lights or outdoor lights.  

Paula G. Benson - Didn't Barb Goffman have someone (an elf maybe) get caught in a chimney on Christmas Eve? Kinda gruesome for the victim and for those who discovered him. 

Teresa Inge - I would use a Christmas tree ornament to stab someone or strangle them with holiday lights. 

Korina Moss - If it’s fruitcake, you might be able to knock someone out with it. 

E.B. Davis - My victim slid on a blob of cranberry jelly and was electrocuted after he knocked into a TV, on which he was watching football away from the family dinner. He and the TV landed in a jacuzzi. 

K.M. Rockwood - Of course we could freeze the fruitcake and beat someone over the head with it. Then serve it so the murder weapon is nowhere to be found. I suppose Grandfather might fall asleep with his mouth gaping open and someone could shove a large hunk of fruitcake down his throat, then hold him down while he choked on it. Or include peanuts in it if a character had a serious peanut allergy. We could also moisten pieces of the fruitcake, making it very slippery, and coat the top of a steep staircase into the basement with the slippery substance. Once the victim fell, and was hopefully deceased, we could put a large, broken slice of it in his hand, clean up some of the top step, and maintain that he had dropped some of it and slipped on it.

Shari Randall - I can't say - I'm saving it for a short story! But I do think some fruitcakes I've had would make great tripping hazards. Or perhaps hiding places for incendiary devices.

Kait Carson - Almond allergy? Serve gin based cocktails made with Bombay Saphire gin. Talk about a killer cocktail. Or serve Harp Lagar. Many tropical drinks are sweetened with orgeat syrup. It’s made from almonds.

Lisa Malice- Impaled by reindeer horns. Tossed out of a flying sleigh. Squashed by a fat man in a red  suit. Strangled by gift wrapping ribbon. 

Martha Reed - What a topical and interesting suggestion. I can imagine someone falling off a ladder and getting impaled by a Christmas tree. Or rigging a gas log fireplace to explode. Or tripping over a cat and falling down the basement stairs to the cement floor. I’d better stop now. It's not healthy. I could noodle around with this idea all day. 

Susan Van Kirk - You could start a fire with candles, use the hatchet that chopped down the Christmas tree, secret away the sharp scissors used to open the ribbons on presents, run over Grandma with a reindeer (oh, that’s been used), or maybe have a present explode when opened.

Mary Dutta - Many old Christmas ornaments have mercury in them--that's a handy way to poison someone.

Marilyn Levinson - Your victim could always be bopped over the head with a fruitcake or electrocuted with holiday lights. Or strangled with a string a holiday lights.

Heather Weidner - Kitchens are dangerous places. You can always find a weapon handy. Sharp knives, cake cutters, and kebob sticks are easy ones. If you had a really big and well-preserved fruit cake, you might just be able to use that to konk someone on the head. (In my Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe mysteries, I once had someone strangled with a string of holiday lights.)

Annette Dashofy - A stale fruitcake could be used to bludgeon someone to death, I would think. How about strangulation with a string of Christmas lights?