MURDEROUS MONOPOLY
Man Confesses to Murders He Didn’t Commit Only to Avoid Playing Monopoly
Months of wrongful imprisonment reportedly “brutal, but worth it”
Harold Blump, a stay-at-home parent with no history of violence, stunned his family last year when he confessed to the Disney Disembowelments, a string of grisly murders that left a dozen central Floridians bowel-less. After serving seven months of a 183-year sentence, Blump was discovered to be guilty only of hating board games with his kids.
United States Penitentiary ADX Disney was built in the crypts of the Sleeping Beauty Castle to house the most violent criminals in the Disney penal system. The supermax prison has come under fire in recent years for its allegedly inhumane policies, which include playing the soundtrack to Mulan over the intercom 24/7. Each of its cells is outfitted with a solid steel door and a mouse head-shaped concrete bed, but not a single board game. That’s fine by Blump, who was imprisoned there as a respite from playing Monopoly.
“I couldn’t take another second of it,” said the soft-spoken father of three, who claimed the idea to get arrested came to him in the sixth day of a Monopoly game with his children. “If I had to watch my son, Liam, put one more hotel on Baltic Avenue, I was going to snap. Was falsely confessing to a string of unsolved disembowelments the best course of action? Absolutely not. But it did the trick.”
Prison life proved more harrowing than Blump anticipated. He recounted nightmares he suffered while incarcerated. “I’d wake up in a sweat every night,” he said. “I dreamed that my kids were fighting over who would play as the scottie dog and, when that was decided, the other two would fight over who’d play as the top hat. But the PHSD — Post-Hasbro Stress Disorder — resolved itself after a few months in the pen.”
After authorities arrested the real Disney Disemboweler in the act of removing the bowels from spectators at Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree, they sent Blump packing.
Blump’s wife, software developer Vivvy Hitchens-Blump, expressed no pleasure when she learned of her husband’s innocence. “What do you want me to say? That piece of crap lied and left me stuck with the kids for the better part of a year. If I don’t get out of here soon, I’ll be doing more than just confessing to murder,” she said, while piling infantry tokens onto Madagascar in a game of Risk with her children. Pressed for a more feel-good quote, she conceded, “The kids seem relieved their dad isn’t a serial killer.”
Orlando police say the false confession set back their investigation into the real Disney Disemboweler by months and probably resulted in the deaths of additional victims, and Blump agreed. “I deeply regret that my lies directly led to the disembowelment of those innocent jamboree-goers,” he said. “I should be held fully accountable for my actions.”
Orlando Chief of Police, Pam Iam, doesn’t buy it. “Nice try, Blump,” she said. “But we’re not gonna arrest you again. You’re going back to your family.”
MuddyUm Writers’ Challenge, topic 1, EXIT.
