The World’s Most Famous Toilet Deaths: Hollywood stars, Japanese warlords and a South Carolina murderer

Earlier this week, a Kentucky woman glued herself to a toilet seat at Walmart, which got me thinking about toilets, and dying on them.

Of course I initially thought of Elvis, but it turns out there is a long list of colorful characters who have died on the can. Some have had heart attacks, some have overdosed on pills and some have been assassinated by ninjas..

Edmund Ironside, King of Southern England in the year 1016 – Edmund ruled during a war-ridden time. The King of Denmark, Cnut the Great, waged a series of vicious attacks against England. By drawing support from the English Midlands Edmund raised a large army and resisted the relentless Cnut in April 1016 during the Battle of Assandun. This earned him his Ironside nickname, but Cnut survived the battle and continued to attack. In October of the same year Edmund sat down one day on the wooden seat of his royal lavatory, unaware that an enemy knight named Eric Streona was hiding in the pit below. Streona thrust his sword up the latrine, what turned out to be a fatal jab deep into the king’s bowels.

Other Great Reads: How to recover after an accidental death

Uesugi Kenshin, 16th century Japanese warlord – At the age of 14 Kenshin’s father, ruler of Echigo, was killed on the battle field. Kenshin wrestled control of the kingdom from his older brother, who promptly commit suicide. Kenshin was a martial arts master and a fearsome warrior. His reign was marked by war, chiefly against his long lasting rival, Takeda Shingen, known as The Tiger of Kai—Kenshin’s nickname was The Dragon of Echigo. Kenshin and Shingen fought five epic battles at a famous site called Kawanakajima. Scholars are divided as to who the winner was. In the fourth and largest battle Kenshin lost 3,000 men; Shingen lost 4,000 plus two of his most important generals.

Despite their rivalry the two exchanged gifts on various occasions. When Shingen died in 1573 Kenshin reportedly wept out loud. During the winter of 1577-1578 Kenshin became quite ill. He continued waging war on Kaga province but come spring suffered a seizure and four days later died. Some scholars believe a lifetime of heavy drinking finished him off, but the most popular story says that Kenshin was assassinated by a ninja who hid with a short sharp spear in the cesspool beneath his latrine. His last words were a poem: “My 49 years have passed like one night’s dream, the glories of my life are no more than a cup of sake.”

Other Great Reads: Japan’s mummy monks rise again

Lupe Velez, Mexican actress – Lupe was born in Mexico and moved to the US to work in Vaudeville. She acted in several hit comedies and also worked in Broadway productions. She had a series of highly publicized romances, including a marriage to the famous Austro-Hungarian swimmer actor Johnny Weissmuller, star of the Tarzan series. Lupe was given numerous nicknames, such as The Mexican Spitfire and The Hot Pepper. In the mid-1940s she began a relationship with the actor Harald Maresch and became pregnant with his child. Unable to face the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child she decided to take her own life. Her suicide note read: “To Harald: May God forgive you and forgive me, too; but I prefer to take my life away and our babys, before I bring him with shame. – Lupe.”

She took an overdose of sleeping pills and went to bed. According to newspaper reports her body was found by her longtime friend and secretary, on a bed surrounded by flowers. But Andy Warhol painted a much less pretty picture in his 1965 film, Lupe, which starred Edie Sedgwick as Lupe. In Warhol’s version, feeling nauseous from the pills Lupe got up and went to the bathroom, where she died with her head in the toilet.

Michael Anderson Godwin, South Carolina felon – During the late 1980s Godwin was convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed by the state of South Carolina. A retrial found Godwin not guilty on several charges and he was resentenced to life in prison. One day he was sitting on the steel toilet in his cell, trying to repair earphones connected to his TV—at the time inmates were allowed to have small television sets but needed to use earphones. Godwin bit into the wire and received terrible burns to his tongue and mouth. The shock ended up killing him, what was formally declared as death by electrocution. “It was a strange accident,” said a South Carolina Department of Corrections spokesperson.