Archibald: Alabama’s top 9 methods of murder

This is an opinion column.

I’ve been watching too many detective shows from England and New Zealand.

The death rates in fictional places there are as stunning as the scenery. And the means of death?

They really know how to cark it – as they say in New Zealand – over there, mate.

Unwitting victims in the Brokenwood Mysteries’ 10 seasons have died by acid burns, an arrow to the forehead, and a stiletto heel to the chest. They’ve been forced to drink gasoline, electrocuted by electric guitar, poisoned during Shakespeare plays and drowned, more than once, in giant vats of wine.

Vicious, these people.

Midsomer, the English version, is a death trap. Hapless victims die by giant cheeses, are drowned in tubs of eels and crushed by stacks of falling newspapers.

A guy figured out that the top way to die on Midsomer Murders’ 24 seasons was to be stabbed or beheaded, though it’s still pretty likely you’d be crushed, suffocated, pushed off something, poisoned, electrocuted or tied up in some strange ritual if you found a way to visit.

Nothing so simple as gunshots, though. What’s the drama in that? It lacks creativity. It’s just too easy, too cowardly some would say, to simply point and shoot.

Of course, things are a little different in those places, where you need some imagination to comprehend the killing.

The U.S. murder rate, after all, is 7 times that of England and New Zealand -- especially if you don’t count their fictional parts. And Alabama’s murder rate is almost twice as high as the U.S. in total and 13 times that of those other countries. Birmingham’s murder rate is off the charts.

I was curious how many stiletto killings or pitchforks in the back or Samurai sword slayings occurred in Alabama in recent years. After all, Alabama is one of the top three most murderous states in America – thank God for Mississippi and Louisiana – according to the CDC.

But alas, there is nothing dramatic about it. Nothing but hundreds of lives lost, that is.

In 2021 and 2022, the last two years available, the FBI counted 809 murders in Alabama. There are likely more, because all agencies don’t report. If you remove the 53 killings that listed the cause of death as “unknown” it leaves 756 deaths.

In two years. That’s more than the 34 combined seasons of Brokenwood and Midsomer. And I’ve been talking smack about their dangerous fantasy lands.

I would give you a top 10 list, but there aren’t really 10 standard causes of murder in Alabama. There were no incidents of homicide by spider or serpent, no strangulations, hangings or killings by club, blackjack or brass knuckles. There were no explosions or occasions where a victim was pushed off anything. Here are Alabama’s methods of death. I will give you the top nine, because that’s all there is.

9. Poison. There was one death by poison in the two year period. Life does not always imitate fiction. That comes to 0.1% of Alabama deaths.

8. Asphyxiation. There were two homicides by asphyxiation in Alabama in 2021 and 2022, according to the FBI. That’s 0.3% of killings.

7. Fire. Four intentional deaths were attributed to fire in the two-year period. That makes fire or some incendiary device responsible for 0.5% of murders.

6. Drugs/narcotics/sleepings pills. Just 10 homicides were attributed to drugs in the FBI data. That’s 1.3% of the deaths.

5. Blunt object. At least 16 people died by this cause in Alabama in 2021 and 2022. It seems like an awful lot, but it is just 2.1% of the killings. It is much more common in foreign fiction.

4. Personal Weapons. It is unclear what this means, but is listed as the cause for 23 deaths, or 3% of them.

3. Other. This category is also a mystery, but accounts for 28 killings, or 3.7%.

2. Knife/cutting instrument. Knives or sharp things were responsible for 38 killings in Alabama in the time period, or 5% of them all. That’s one in every 20 murders, which was high enough to rank them second overall.

And the No. 1 method of murder in Alabama is …

1. Guns. That’s handguns and automatic guns and rifles and shotguns and undescribed firearms. They accounted for 634 of the 756 known homicides in Alabama in 2021 and 2022, according to the FBI. That’s 83.9% percent of killings with known causes.

It’s a lot. In a state that is among the nation’s most deadly. In a nation that is among the most deadly. In a world that is all too deadly.

Kinda makes you long for death by wine vat. At least that’s a little harder to pull off.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner.