Dead Pool 15th August 2021

Unfortunately no points to award this week, but as always, plenty to read. It’s been a long time since anyone scored, so I reckon it’s time to send out the evil flying monkeys!  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

An envelope containing three bullets and addressed to Pope Francis has been found near Milan. Authorities are now investigating the source of the envelope and who could be behind it, according to Italian paramilitary police. It was sent from France and intercepted by postal employees working on sorting the mail overnight in the small sorting facility of Peschiera Borromeo in a Milan suburb, the carabinieri provincial command in Milan said. It reportedly contained three 9mm-calibre Flobert-type pellets, according to the Milan-based newspaper Affaritaliani. The envelope was addressed by hand in pen to: “The Pope, Vatican City, St. Peter’s Square, Rome,” and contained a message referring to financial operations at the Vatican, but further details were not disclosed. Last month, the Vatican indicted ten people, including an Italian cardinal, for several alleged financial crimes, including extortion, corruption, fraud, embezzlement, and abuse of power. The accusations included bleeding the Holy See of tens of millions of dollars in donations through bad investments, deals with shady money managers and apparent favours to friends and family. An investigation is ongoing by the carabinieri investigative unit after the command office in Milan has been notified about the envelope by the sorting centre manager, according to the Italian newspaper. There was no immediate comment from the Vatican. The 84-year-old pontiff had colon surgery last month. The Vatican declared after the surgery that the Pope had responded well to the treatment for “symptomatic diverticular stenosis” of the colon. Since then, he returned to his full-time duties.     

A prisoner in Washington state has been jailed for almost 25 years after unexpectedly being placed in the same cell as the man who raped his younger sister. As he spoke to his new cellmate in June 2020, Shane Goldsby, 26, grew certain that Robert Munger, 70, was the man who had repeatedly raped his underage sister. In an interview last year Goldsby said he requested to be assigned to a new cell, but he was never transferred. The inmate said Munger then described how he had violated his sister in detail. Munger had been sentenced to 43 years in prison for child molestation and possession of child pornography. “He kept… giving me details about what happened and what he did. About the photos and videos of him doing this stuff, and it was building up,” Goldsby said. The chance meeting behind bars took place at the Airway Heights Corrections Center in Spokane County in eastern Washington state. Hours later, Goldsby snuck up behind Munger in the common area and knocked him to the floor, punched him fourteen times and stomped on his head over and over, a Washington State Patrol investigation said. Munger died in hospital days later. Pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Goldsby was sentenced to 298 months in prison, which is just under 25 years. At a hearing last week, Goldsby’s lawyer read a statement on his client’s behalf: “I’m ashamed of my actions, I was put into a situation that I don’t wish on nobody. I got a lot of fixing to do.” Questions are now being asked about why Goldsby was put in the same cell as his sister’s rapist. “This stuff doesn’t happen. You’re talking the same institution, the same unit, the same pod in the same cell as this dude. That’s like hitting the jackpot in the casino seven times.” But the Washington State Patrol investigation found that protocols were followed and that “there is no evidence suggesting screening staff should have known about the conflict between Goldsby and Munger”. The report says part of the reasoning was that Goldsby and his sister don’t share the same last name. It also states that Goldsby made no attempt to be transferred out of the cell. Perhaps someone thought some swift justice was in order….  

Tony Bennett has announced the cancellation of all his tour dates through the autumn and winter of 2021. The 95-year-old singer had scheduled concerts in states across the US, including New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Arizona and Oklahoma, as well as Canada. Speaking to Variety, Bennett’s son and manager Danny said: “There won’t be any additional concerts. This was a hard decision for us to make, as he is a capable performer. This is, however, doctors’ orders.” He added: “His continued health is the most important part of this. It’s not the singing aspect but, rather, the traveling.” Earlier this year, Bennett publicly confirmed he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease back in 2016. The musician had continued to perform, however, and last week sung at New York’s Radio City for a two-night stint with Lady Gaga. The concerts were filmed, with the recordings to be released at a later date. Bennett and Gaga also recently announced that they would be releasing a new album together, entitled Love for Sale. The forthcoming record follows a similar collaboration between the pair on the 2014 duet release Cheek to Cheek.  

Christina Applegate revealed on August 10 that she has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The 49-year-old actress wrote on Twitter that she received her diagnosis “months ago,” calling her experience thus far a “strange journey” and “a tough road.” She also touched on her experience with the MS community, saying she’s been “so supported by people that who also have this condition.” One such supporter is actress Selma Blair — who was diagnosed with MS herself in 2017 and has shared many of her own experiences on social media and elsewhere. Blair tweeted, “Loving you always,” to Applegate after Applegate announced her diagnosis. In a second tweet, Applegate asked for privacy as she deals with her condition. In describing her health journey, she quoted a friend of hers who also has MS: “We wake up and take the indicated action.” Applegate faced another significant health issue in 2008, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy, or surgery to remove both breasts. Her experience with breast cancer makes an appearance in the Netflix series Dead to Me, in which Applegate stars. She plays the role of Jen Harding, who has a preventive double mastectomy after her mother dies of breast cancer. 

On This Day

  • 1914 – A servant of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright murders seven people and sets fire to the living quarters of Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin. 
  • 1939 – The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California. 
  • 1941 – Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower of London at 07:12, making him the last person to be executed at the Tower for espionage. 
  • 1947 – India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of British company and crown rule, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations. 
  • 1952 – A flash flood drenches the town of Lynmouth, England, killing 34 people. 
  • 1963 – Execution of Henry John Burnett, the last man to be hanged in Scotland. 
  • 1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era. 
  • 1977 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the “Wow! signal” from the notation made by a volunteer on the project. 
  • 1998 – The Troubles: The Omagh bombing takes place; 29 people (including a woman pregnant with twins) killed and some 220 others injured.

Deaths

The Last Execution in The Tower of London

Josef Jakobs was a German spy and the last person to be executed at the Tower of London. He was captured shortly after parachuting into the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Convicted of espionage under the Treachery Act 1940, Jakobs was shot by a military firing squad. He was not hanged because he was captured as an enemy combatant. 

Jakobs, who was a German citizen, was born in Luxembourg in 1898. During the First World War, he served in the German infantry, rising to the rank of Leutnant, in the 4th Foot Guards. In June 1940, ten months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Jakobs was drafted into the Wehrmacht as an Oberleutnant. However, when it was discovered that he had been imprisoned in Switzerland from 1934–37 for selling counterfeit gold, he was forced to resign his commission in the Wehrmacht. Jakobs was demoted to a Feldwebel and placed in the Meteorologischen Dienst (meteorological service) of the German Army. Shortly afterwards, he also began working for the Abwehr, the intelligence department of the German Army. 

On 31st January 1941, Jakobs was flown from Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands to Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. He parachuted from the aircraft and landed in a field near Dove House Farm, but broke his ankle during the process. The following morning, Jakobs attracted the attention of two farmers, Charles Baldock and Harry Coulson, by firing his pistol into the air. Baldock and Coulson notified members of the local Home Guard, who quickly apprehended Jakobs. He was caught still wearing his flying suit and carrying £500 in British currency, forged identity papers, a radio transmitter and a German sausage.

On his person was also found a photo purportedly of his lover, a German cabaret singer and actress named Clara Bauerle, who became a spy because she had spent a few years performing in the West Midlands and could speak English with a Birmingham accent. Jakobs said Bauerle was meant to join him after he had made “radio contact,” but then doubted she would now be sent since he was arrested before he could communicate with his team. Bauerle’s whereabouts remained unknown for several decades, and it was theorised that she may have died under suspicious circumstances in England. In 2016, it was discovered that Bauerle had died in a Berlin hospital on 16th December 1942.

Jakobs was taken to Ramsey Police Station before being transferred to Cannon Row Police Station in London, where he gave a voluntary statement to Major T.A. Robertson of MI5. Due to the poor condition of his ankle, Jakobs was transferred to Brixton Prison Infirmary for the night. The following day he was briefly interrogated by Lieutenant Colonel Stephens of MI5 at Camp 020 before being transferred to Dulwich Hospital where he remained for the next two months. 

Jakobs’ court martial took place in front of a military tribunal at the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea, London SW3, on 4–5th August 1941. The trial was held in camera because the German agent had been apprehended in a highly classified intelligence operation known as the Double Cross System. The British were aware that Jakobs was coming because his arrival information had been passed on to MI5 by the Welsh nationalist and Abwehr double agent Arthur Owens. After a two-day trial which involved hearing the testimony of eight witnesses, Jakobs was found guilty of spying and sentenced to death. 

Jakobs’s execution took place at the miniature rifle range in the grounds of the Tower of London on 15th August 1941. He was tied and blindfolded in a brown Windsor chair. Eight soldiers from the Holding battalion of the Scots Guards, armed with .303 Lee–Enfields, took aim at a white cotton target, about matchbook size, pinned over Jakobs’ heart. The squad fired in unison at 7:12 a.m. after being given a silent signal from Lieutenant-Colonel C.R. Gerard (Deputy Provost Marshal for London District). Jakobs died instantly. A postmortem examination found that one bullet had hit Jakobs in the heart and the other four had been on or around the marked target area. As three members of the eight-man firing squad had been issued with blanks, only five live rounds were used. 

He was the last person to be executed at the Tower of London.

Following the execution, Jakobs’ body was buried in an unmarked grave at St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, London. The location used for Jakobs’ grave has since been re-used, so the original grave site is difficult to find.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Ben Affleck (49), Jennifer Lawrence (31), Natasha Henstridge (47), Debra Messing (53), Joe Jonas (32), Jim Dale (86), Tony Robinson (75), Mila Kunis (38), Steve Martin (76), Halle Berry (55), James Buckley (34), Joseph Marcell (73), Sebastian Stan (39), John Slattery (59), Cara Delevingne (29), Jim Beaver (71), Chris Hemsworth (38), Anna Gunn (53), Ian McDiarmid (77), Hulk Hogan (68), Antonio Banderas (61), Rosanna Arquette (62), Anna Kendrick (36), Ashley Johnson (38), Sam Elliott (77), Dan Levy (38), Gillian Anderson (53), Rhona Mitra (45), Eric Bana (53), Melanie Griffith (64), and Audrey Tautou (45).

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