"Two environmental micro-aggressions in a Westmere street this week," declares a local. "A giant orange single-use plastic bag, and a refusal to separate out soil, leaves, plastic, recyclables. Just chuck it all out."
Roll of dishonour
The main reasons people want to fake their own death are marital or financial.
People who follow through with the plan believe they can "leave themselves behind" and carry on as if their earlier self never happened. Samuel Israel was a hedge-fund manager who was facing 20 years for swindling US$450 million from investors after his company went bust. But he didn't want to go to jail. So he parked his SUV on the shoulder of the Bear Mountain Bridge on the Hudson River, left the keys in the car, and wrote "suicide is painless" on the bonnet. He fled to a campground in Massachusetts for several weeks before his mother convinced him to turn himself in.
It's not uncommon for a man to run away with his mistress, but John Stonehouse decided he had to stage his death in 1974 for the plan to work. Stonehouse, a member of Britain's Parliament, pretended to drown off the coast of Miami Beach, leaving his clothes in the sand to make it seem like he died while swimming. When he was later found in Australia, he had assumed the identity of Joseph Markham, a constituent's deceased husband. He returned to England, was found guilty of 18 counts of fraud, deception, and theft, and served three years in prison. (Via The Daily Beast)
Finger lickin' nails
