On the evening of October 31, 1990, thirty-two-year-old magician Joseph Burrus arrived at Blackbeard's Family Fun Center, an amusement park in Fresno, California.
On the evening of October 31, 1990, thirty-two-year-old magician Joseph Burrus arrived at Blackbeard's Family Fun Center, an amusement park in Fresno, California.
Dressed completely in white, that evening Amazing Joe would have performed an elaborate escapology trick in front of the local TV and hundreds of people: tied with ropes, handcuffed and chained, he would have tried to free himself from a plastic and glass coffin, buried almost a meter underground. He had already successfully accomplished the feat the year before in Oregon, but this time there would be an important difference: in addition to the earth, a layer of fresh concrete would also be added.
The man, after a brief interview for TV, settled into the transparent coffin that he had personally designed. Helpers lowered the coffin into the grave and nine tons of earth and cement were placed on top of him. A few seconds later, the crowd saw an unusual movement above the grave, a subsidence, as if the plastic coffin had been sucked by the ground: Amazing Joe had not calculated the actual weight of the concrete, which broke the coffin, burying him alive.
Rescue services were immediately launched to free Amazing Joe from the grave of earth and lime, but it took more than thirty minutes to get him out: every attempt at resuscitation was useless; Amazing Joe was pronounced dead from suffocation.
He left behind a wife and two children, who were present at the performance.
There is a video of the accident on YouTube, images taken from local TV. The magician, in the interview given before his death, defined himself as "a master of illusion and escape artist" and "that he was the new Houdini". While not particularly violent images, they are dramatic and sinister. Amazing Joe would not have known that the only thing in common with the great illusionist would be the day of his death: they both died on Halloween night.
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