Gruesome, Odd, And Some Unsolved: 16 Of The Most Unusual Deaths From History

Published December 20, 2012
Updated October 10, 2024

Jasmine Beever

Weird Deaths Jasmine Beever

Billie-Jo Ashwell/Just GivingJasmine Beever, left, with her friend Billie-Jo Ashwell.

By all accounts, Jasmine Beever was a normal college student. Except for one thing: her seemingly harmless habit of chewing and eating her hair. Which strangely led to one of the more unusual deaths.

The Skegness, England native was believed to have a condition called trichophagia, which causes a person to compulsively consume their own hair. Her family admitted that they knew she had this habit, but didn’t think anything bad would come of it.

Unfortunately, they were wrong. Over time, Beever had slowly ingested enough hair for it to form a hairball in her digestive tract. This happens often enough for it to have a name: Rapunzel Syndrome. The hairball infected the thin membrane of Beever’s stomach lining which led to a deadly infection.

This eventually burst an ulcer in her stomach which in turn caused her organs to shut down.

According to Lincolnshire Live, Beever was away at college when she noticed something was wrong. She had collapsed and noticed she was covered in red blotches. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, but the damage had already been done.

The tragic and strange death of Beever hit her small hometown hard. Donna Marshall, Beever’s best friend’s mom, told Lincolnshire Live that Beever had a way of making people feel special.

“Jasmine was amazing”, Marshall said. “She was one of those kids where she would make a sad face in the room smile. She was so bubbly”.

author
Caroline Redmond
author
Caroline is a writer living in New York City who holds a Bachelor's in science from the University of Florida. Her work has appeared in People, Yahoo, Bustle, Entertainment Weekly, and The Boston Herald.
editor
Maggie Donahue
editor
Maggie Donahue is an assistant editor at All That's Interesting. She has a Master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a Bachelor's degree in creative writing and film studies from Johns Hopkins University. Before landing at ATI, she covered arts and culture at The A.V. Club and Colorado Public Radio and also wrote for Longreads. She is interested in stories about scientific discoveries, pop culture, the weird corners of history, unexplained phenomena, nature, and the outdoors.
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Redmond, Caroline. "Gruesome, Odd, And Some Unsolved: 16 Of The Most Unusual Deaths From History." AllThatsInteresting.com, December 20, 2012, https://allthatsinteresting.com/unusual-deaths. Accessed January 31, 2025.