I blame the pope

The book with blood on its binding:

A painter fascinated with best-selling conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code committed suicide after becoming convinced she was the subject of a real-life murder plot. Caroline Eldridge, 38, moved to Italy to pursue her interest in Leonardo Da Vinci, but her mind became “muddled” by the mysteries surrounding his work, her father said.

Caroline Eldridge, a Da Vinci scholar and artist, who killed herself after becoming obsessed with the mysteries surrounding the artist and the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. She suffered paranoid delusions that she and her family were in danger “because of the knowledge that she had” of Leonardo after working on an exhibition about his paintings.

After repeatedly telling her family, “I’m not going to let them take me alive,” she took an overdose of paracetamol.

I have to admit, I am kind of curious what sort of knowledge of Leonardo she could have possessed that convinced her she was in danger. I mean, what with the Jesus Institute or some other pseudo-scientific foundation declaring its possession of proof that Jesus was actually a gay amphibious alien from Alpha Merovingus every six months, it’s not like the “secret” of the Da Vinci Code was anything that anyone hasn’t heard before.