I’ve known The Great Throwdini for about twenty years now, having first met him while writing American Sideshow. He’s often jokingly said, “Don’t mess with the knife thrower.” Good advice—a knife thrower is not someone you’d ever want to anger. In December 1950, a man named Raiffe Lilly learned this the hard way after goading a man who claimed to be “the greatest knife thrower in Mexico.”
Throwdini is the world’s fastest and most accurate knife thrower. The Mexican knife thrower, despite his claim, was not. And messing with an inaccurate knife thrower is an especially bad idea.
Lilly was with his pals, John Hamer and Carl Strong, in a San Francisco hotel hallway when the knife thrower entered with a hunting knife in hand. Without being asked, he announced his claim to fame.
Amused, Hamer offered to stand against the wall and let the man prove his prowess. He missed by a few feet as the knife clanged off the wall.
After that debacle, Lilly opted to join in on the fun and gave the knife thrower a second chance. This time the knife missed again. A knife thrower throws around a target, not at the target. This knife struck Lilly right in the neck. The impaler rushed to his victim’s aid, pulled the knife out, then ran off.
Lilly did not survive.
