Sling Blade: The Sequel

The body of a 41-year-old Melvindale man, who went to extraordinary and bizarre lengths to kill himself by constructing a 7-foot-tall guillotine was discovered in a wooded area near a Detroit shopping center last week.

"It was the most deliberate suicide I've seen in my 28 years as a police officer," said Dale Covert, deputy chief of Allen Park Police. "It was one of those things where when you saw it, you couldn't help asking yourself, "What the heck?" Groundskeepers from the shopping center discovered the device and the body in a thickly wooded area in an undeveloped section of the retail parcel populated with hiking trails.

Police, who believe the man had been dead two days, declined to release his name to the press. Covert said the man had lived within walking distance of the spot where he died. Investigators believe the man made numerous trips to carry the wooden and metal parts of his contraption into the woods where he assembled it. Receipts for the materials used to build the device were found scattered on the ground, but a suicide note was not found.

"He spent some time doing this," Covert said. "This wasn't a spur of the moment plan." The machine utilized a "swing arm-type blade," according to police, instead of the typical falling blade guillotine used by French executioners in the 18th century. The device had a lever that allowed the man to trigger it himself, the deputy chief said.

Allen Park police and firefighters disassembled the machine after photographing it at the scene. Some of the metal parts, including the blade, were kept as evidence while the wooden parts were to be disposed of because they were soaked in blood and considered a biohazard, Covert said.

Although the device didn't completely decapitate the victim, Covert said he believes the man died instantly from his injuries. "It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in my life,"Covert said. "It probably didn't quite work the way he planned, but it succeeded in taking his life, probably instantly. I don't believe he suffered."