Death by Ice

[Paul A. Toth]

I've always wondered: Is it possible to kill someone with one of those ice daggers that plunge from eavestroughs during winter? It would seem a perfect weapon since it would, of course, melt in hot water.

[Grant McKenzie]

Sure, just go for a nice soft spot - eye socket, throat, inner thigh, stomach. The chest has too many rib bones guarding it that could deflect or shatter your weapon.
Cheers,
Grant

[Paul A. Toth]

See, OJ: Don't kill in California.

[Karyn J. Powers]

I once killed a character by strapping her in the drivers seat of a pick-up and placing a block of ice on the excellerator. The truck went into a lake and the ice melted before the police found it. The girl was behind the wheel so she must have driven herself intot the lake.

[Paul A. Toth]

Nice. That's a good twist.

[I. J. Parker]

I have a vague memory that that was used by John Dickson Carr in one of his locked room mysteries.

[I. J. Parker]

Oops. I should have said the icicle trick.

[BrianLindenmuth]

There was an old story where ice was used as the murder weapon. Its been bugging the shit out of me since I first saw this topic. Unless I can place the story I may very well not sleep tonight.

[Kerrie]

I'm sure I've read a murder mystery where the weapon was an icepick inserted at the back of the skull- at the base. The bleeding was minimal and covered by the hair and so the cause of death was not immediately obvious

[Bill Mehlman]

Is that true? Every head wound I've ever seen - not in crime scenes, more like athletic mishaps - has bled like hell. And even if that's not so, it doesn't seem like it would get past the first few minutes of an autopsy, or am I wrong?

[Ashley McConnell]

I remember vividly the time a VERY large icicle hit the pavement about eighteen inches in front of me as I walked between two five-story buildings. The shards cut my face. I am convinced that it could easily have killed me.

It wouldn't even have had to melt to be a perfect weapon--if it had actually been a murder attempt it would have looked like a freak accident.

[JANE PADRUTT]

In the book, The Tail of the Tip-off, author Rita Mae Brown uses poison on the tip of an icicle (just like a needle) to inject it in the victim's neck. The idea was to allow the ice to melt without any real evidence of a weapon and of course to baffle the cops who can't solve a case without the help of a local amatuer sleuth.

[Tom Cain]

As a matter of fact, there was a recent BBC TV documentary about 'How to commit the perfect murder' which basically reversed the whole CSI concept and looked at whether it was possible to carry out a crime that was undetectable with all the methods now available to the cops. The show looked at ice-daggers and was very sceptical at first until - to their own surprise - two eminent foreensic scientists found that they could penetrate deep into a joint of pork (the standard substitute for human flesh) using a short stabbing-spear of ice. It evern snuck between ribs. So the answer was, yes, ice kills.