Piece Of Art

An eighth person has died in the wake of the assassination attempt on the Dutch Royal Family. (See here for full details on the attack.) De Naald (in English The Needle ), is the obelisk monument in the Dutch city of Apeldoorn that became the final resting place for Karst Tates' automobile. A woman died of her injuries more than a week after a man plowed his car into a crowd during a parade, becoming the seventh victim of a failed attack (#8 when the attacker is counted) on the Dutch royal family, authorities said Saturday, May 9, 2009. The 46-year-old woman, whose identity was not released, was among about a dozen people struck down in the April 30 attack. Apeldoorn municipality spokesman Toon Schuiling said she died Friday night, May 8, 2009, in a hospital, the same evening as more than 1,000 people gathered for a memorial service. Five bystanders died on the day of the April 30 attack near Het Loo palace in Apeldoorn and another died the following day. The car's driver als...

The man who drove his car into a crowded Dutch royal parade, targeting Queen Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, had shaved his hair into a Mohawk, like the homicidal anti-hero of the film Taxi Driver before launching the attack. Investigators are focusing on the theory that 38-year old Karst Tates, who died of his injuries on April 30th, had embarked on a mission of vengeance against society after losing his job as a night-shift security guard earlier this year. His neighbors and locals in the town of Huissen have described an isolated but polite man whose dress resembled that of Travis Bickle, the loner played by Robert de Niro in the 1976 film Taxi Driver , in which he plots to assassinate Senator Palantine, a candidate for the American presidency. "He wore rolled trousers with high black boots. His hair was often very short and totally shaved at the sides," said one neighbor, according to the London Telegraph . It will be recalled that the film Taxi Driver formed part of the de...