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Smuggling Severed Heads
A friend sent me this recently, from the SF Gate:
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP) –
Airport baggage screeners found a human head with teeth, hair and skin in the luggage of a woman who said she intended to ward off evil spirits with it, authorities said Friday.
Myrlene Severe, 30, a Haitian-born permanent U.S. resident, was charged Friday with smuggling a human head into the U.S. without proper documentation.
Customs and Border Protection officials found the head Thursday, after Severe arrived at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on a Lynx International Airlines flight from Cap Haitien, Haiti, said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami.
“It still had teeth, hair and bits of skin and lots of dirt,” Gonzalez said.
Severe told authorities she had obtained the package in Haiti for “use as a part of her voodoo beliefs,” ICE Special Agent Erick Hernandez wrote in an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint.
“Severe also stated that the purpose of the package was to ward off evil spirits,” Hernandez wrote.
Severe, who also was charged with failing to declare the head and transporting hazardous material in air commerce, faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted of all charges, prosecutors said.
Severe remained held Friday in lieu of a $100,000 bond. She is due back in federal court March 2.
You know what the craziest part of this article is to me? It’s not the fact that this woman was smuggling a head or that she was going to use it to ward off evil spirits. It’s that she’s being charged with “smuggling a human head into the U.S. without proper documentation.” So it’s really just a paperwork snafu! How in the hell, I wonder, do you get proper documentation to smuggle human heads?
Also, it’s crazy that her last name is “severe,” which is so close to “severed.” I wonder if the spirits are going to get her now that she lost the head…
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February 15th, 2006 at 6:48 am
there is the suggestion within the charge that there is a proper procedure for obtaining the proper paperwork……….mind you, it`s probably reserved for coroners and the like. in canada there would be some stink over religious freedoms or somesuch. i imagine the aclu could work up a head of steam over this.
February 15th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
That reminds me of a story I heard about a guy who had traveled up to canada from the us to pick up some pieces of Einstein’s brain. He related it far better than I can after a few days with no sleep, but the gist of it was his musings on just what channels one is supposed to go through to get official permission to drive into America with Einstein’s brain. The whole concept, especially the deceased participant, struck me as wonderfully surreal.
February 16th, 2006 at 9:28 am
How would you get a permit fro ah uman head? Do you need a note from the head or the head’s family? Does it have to pass inspection? - - LIke ok this is a healthy voodoo head. No lice, clean scalp, limited maggots…etc…
February 16th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Are you saying you don’t go on vacation and bring back trinkets?
We had a hell of a time hiding our deer skull (we tripped over the antlers on a walk in the woods) on our way back from a Canada vacation. The deer skull was old and bleached white, though.
She probably would’ve needed health docs to prove she wasn’t bringing in any diseases, and where she got it, etc.
February 16th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Shrunken heads!!! I have a shrunken head whenever I see fat hairy men play with headless dolls. Doo dee hee wee my lil’ puppy just pooped out astronauts from an imaginary planet that lives in the memory of my past life brain. Now, when I take my lil’ puppy for walks in the enchanted landscape on my arms I don’t expect to be swallowed by floating funhouses, but indeed that is what happened two nights ago.
Now, I know God won’t believe me when I told myself I surrealized I was a real estate agent living in the suburbs of LALA Land but the truth is these floatring funhouses can do a number on your form. I used to have a normal body but now I have zombie appartments for a torso and my legs are vampire totem poles. I was shot by stream of of conscious rays by a futuristic novice dream machine. I believe the floating funhouses were created in 1964.
February 16th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
To me, the point of the story is that the head didn’t do its job. Those ICE agents are minions of the evil spirit residing in the shadow government. The head didn’t keep them away.
February 17th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
creepy!