History Main / CementShoes

* Parodied in a Red Bull commercial where a Mafia victim asks for a last request. Too bad the gangster forgot that Red Bull Gives You Wings.

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'''As a DeathTrope, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

* Happens in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnlZtAYAOt8 this]] commercial for Tombstone pizza; the victim is told it's NothingPersonal before being asked [[TagLine what he wants on his Tombstone.]]

* A three-part ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story arc from the nineties ends with the Ventriloquist and Scarface inflicting this on a traitorous lieutenant, to go along with the whole TheBadGuyWins (sorta) ending.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' stories provide some examples:

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Hypnota tried to kill Wonder Woman by having her feet and wrists chained to heavy weights and then dropping her in a pit of water. It was not effective.

* Former Olympic boxer Felix Verdejo was convicted of [[https://www.justice.gov/usao-pr/pr/felix-verdejo-sanchez-found-guilty-kidnapping-resulting-death-and-intentionally-killing]] in April 2021 after she refused to have an abortion by punching her in the face, injecting her with fentanyl to knock her out, and with the help of an accomplice, tying a cement block to her limbs and throwing her off a bridge into a lagoon.

* Former Olympic boxer Felix Verdejo was convicted of [[https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2023/07/30/olympic-boxer-found-guilty-of-kidnapping-killing-pregnant-girlfriend-who-refused-to-get-an-abortion/ murdering his pregnant girlfriend Keishla Rodriguez]] in April 2021 after she refused to have an abortion by punching her in the face, injecting her with fentanyl to knock her out, and with the help of an accomplice, tying a cement block to her limbs and throwing her off a bridge into a lagoon.

* This goes back at least several more centuries and is alluded to by UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} himself (in relation to tempting others to sin) in [[Literature/TheFourGospels Luke 17]], making it OlderThanFeudalism.

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes Drownings at Nantes]] during UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution. A series of mass executions by drowning during the ReignOfTerror in Nantes, UsefulNotes/{{France}}, between November 1793 and February 1794, under the orders of National Assembly representative Jean-Baptiste Carrier. Anyone arrested and jailed for not consistently supporting the Revolution, or suspected of being a royalist sympathizer, especially Catholic priests and nuns, could be cast into the river Loire with weights and drowned (variants included "Republican marriages" with priests and nuns stripped naked, tied together and tossed into the river, or whole ships with people trapped inside being sunk). As many as 4000 or more people, including innocent families with women and children, died in what Carrier himself called "The National Bathtub".

* In the film adaptation of Creator/AlistairMacLean's ''When Eight Bells Toll'', Creator/AnthonyHopkins character, playing a British secret agent, shocks his ArmchairMilitary boss by necksnapping a member of a BoardingParty, wrapping his legs in chain and throwing the corpse overboard. Later they're pulling up the anchor on their boat and find a missing fellow agent has been tied to it.

* In the film adaptation of Creator/AlistairMacLean's ''When Eight Bells Toll'', the main character pulls up the anchor on his boat and finds his fellow secret agent tied it it. Not that his own character doesn't do the same; he {{Neck Snap}}s one mook, wraps his legs in a chain and throws the corpse overboard.

* In the film adaptation of Creator/AlistairMacLean's ''When Eight Bells Toll'', the main character pulls up the anchor on his boat and finds his fellow secret agent tied it it.

* In ''Literature/ASorceressInNewYork'', a mafia gang attempts to kill Zara this way. [[spoiler:Unluckily for them though, water is Zara's source of power; which naturally heals her and augments her power. Thus, she is able to teleport safely out of the water. (Though getting the cement block off her feet proves a bit of a challenge.)]]

* A sadistic variant is mentioned in ''The Alchemist'' by Ken Goddard -- the victim is thrown over the side in scuba gear, and so has [[AndIMustScream several hours at the bottom to contemplate his sins before running out of air]].

* E. L. Doctorow's ''Billy Bathgate'' opens with Dutch Schultz executing someone this way.

* In ''A Sorceress In New York'', a mafia gang attempts to kill Zara this way. [[spoiler:Unluckily for them though, water is Zara's source of power; which naturally heals her and augments her power. Thus, she is able to teleport safely out of the water. (Though getting the cement block off her feet proves a bit of a challenge.)]]
* ''Literature/TheLongShips'': King Harald decress that the punishment for violating the Christmas Peace in his hall is to have a stone tied around one's neck and be sunk in deep water.

* In the 1920s and 1930s, many real-life gangsters in the USA had this practice.

* The body of John Roselli, a [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Chicago Outfit hitman]], was found in a 55-gallon drum floating in Dumfoundling Bay near Miami in 1976. The oil drum might have stayed on the bottom indefinitely — except that the gases oozing out of his corpse gave it buoyancy and floated it back up to the surface. Many speculate Roselli was killed for gobbling up the Mob's gambling interests in Las Vegas without giving them a cut of the proceeds, but others think it was because he testified in front of Congress on the CIA's attempts to overthrow UsefulNotes/FidelCastro.

* The body of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roselli John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli]], a [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Chicago Outfit hitman]], was found in a 55-gallon steel drum floating in Dumfoundling Bay near Miami, Florida in 1976. His body was sealed in the oil drum, heavy chains were coiled around the container, and holes were punched in the sides, so it could be disposed of. It might have stayed on the bottom indefinitely — except that the gases caused by Roselli's decomposing body gave the drum buoyancy and floated it to the surface. Federal investigators speculate that he was killed for keeping an unfair share of the Outfit's gambling interests in Las Vegas, but another theory suggests that either TheMafia, Cuban dissidents, or the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}} ordered his death in retaliation for testifying in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975 in regards to the attempts to overthrow UsefulNotes/FidelCastro in the 1960s and if he had any knowledge as to who may have been involved in the assassination of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pasila}}'': {{Inverted|Trope}} in the first episode of this Finnish animated series. The bad guys are trying to brainstorm a fate worse than death for their former associate turned informer. One of them suggests not doing anything and leaving him to wonder for the rest of his life when and how they're going to strike. The leader of the group likes this idea, but then suddenly says they're getting too complicated and orders the others to get standard cement shoe accessories. Then they sail out to the sea, where he reveals that they're now going to use them to drown ''themselves'' so that their bodies will never be found and the snitch will be left in fear for the rest of his life. They do it, too. [[InsaneTrollLogic And it works, too.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MakingFiends'' has Vendetta tricking [[TooDumbToLive Charlotte]] into wearing concrete shoes and taking a dive off the pier. Charlotte's response when she reaches the bottom of the sea? [[http://www.makingfiends.com/fiend19.htm Sing a song]] about the joys of concrete shoes, of course!
--> '''Charlotte:''' So much to see, so much to do/ You can see it all in concrete shoes!/ So why don't you GET concrete shoes!

->''[[Series/TheSopranos Anyway, four dollars a pound]].''

** This was also referenced in the episode "Mayor Mask." When Stanley is taken to see the mayor, he asks, "You wanted to see me, Mr. Mayor?" to which the mayor (really the villain, Pretorius, in disguise) replies, "That's right, I do want to see you - wearing concrete boots at the bottom of Edge City Harbor!", before viciously chasing after him.

This is largely a DiscreditedTrope, as gangland murders are not actually performed in this manner as frequently as all that -- in fact, according to Website/ThatOtherWiki's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement_shoes page on the subject]], there's just ''one'' single solitary case documented from real life. Most real gangland murders are [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim simple bullet/tire iron to the head affairs that generally lack the torture]] (or opportunity to escape or be rescued JustInTime, if you're a main character) that fiction demands. What is more common, though, is for gangsters to kill someone in a more prosaic way, ''then'' weigh the body down and toss it over, making this a way of DisposingOfABody. It may also be related to a similar method of execution supposedly once used by the Freemasons against oath-breakers.[[note]]"Never to reveal our secrets under no less a penalty than my throat be cut across, my tongue be torn out by its root, and that I be buried in sand a cable's length from shore.”[[/note]]

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' has a particularly disturbing example of this: because Dallas Genoard turns out to be unkillable by any normal means, the Gandor brothers cement him into an oil drum and drop it in the Hudson River, leaving him to drown continuously for the next seventy years or so until old age finally gets him. Fortunately for Dallas, someone else fishes him out well before that.

* Calamity Mary tries to do this to Hardgore Alice in ''LightNovel/MagicalGirlRaisingProject''. She blows Alice to bits with explosives, pours acid over the remains, mixes them with concrete in a barrel, and throws the barrel into a river. Unfortunately for her, Alice has an incredibly powerful HealingFactor and makes it out alive by essentially seeping out of the barrel. She turns up later, in one piece, and Weiss Winterprison wonders what the salty smell is.