Dead Pool 25th August 2019

Sadly another week without scoring, luckily for you we have a number edition of the newsletter to keep your hopes as alive as your lists. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

  • Richard Booth, 80, Welsh bookseller.  
  • Angelo Grubisic, 38, British astronautical engineer and wingsuit designer, BASE jumping accident.  
  • Junior Agogo, 40, Ghanaian footballer (Bristol Rovers, Nottingham Forest, national team).  
  • Gary Ray Bowles, 57, American serial killer, executed by lethal injection.  
  • David Koch, 79, American businessman and political financier, Executive Vice President of Koch Industries (1983–2018).  

In Other News

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been treated for a tumour on her pancreas, according to a court spokesperson. The tumour was determined to be malignant, a spokesperson said, adding that noe additional treatment would be required at this time. The 86-year-old justice reportedly began radiation treatment for the localised cancerous tumour on 5th August in New York City on an outpatient basis. The Supreme Court also said a bile duct was placed inside of the Supreme Court justice as part of her treatment. She has battled numerous bouts of cancer in past decades, including lung cancer last year, when she underwent surgery in December. Ginsburg “tolerated treatment well,” the statement said, adding: “She cancelled her annual summer visit to Santa Fe, but has otherwise maintained an active schedule.” “The tumour was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,” the statement read. “Justice Ginsburg will continue to have periodic blood tests and scans. No further treatment is needed at this time.” In a recent interview with NPR, Ginsburg shot down critics who have lambasted her amid numerous health scares. “There was a senator, I think it was after my pancreatic cancer, who announced with great glee that I was going to be dead within six months,” she said. “That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now himself dead, and I,” she added with a smile, “am very much alive.”    

The man who hoaxed detectives by claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper has died, police have confirmed. John Humble, who was dubbed Wearside Jack, sent police on a wild goose chase when he sent them hoax letters and an audio tape in the late 1970s. He was unmasked and sentenced to eight years in jail in 2006 after admitting perverting the course of justice. Northumbria Police said Humble, who had changed his name to John Samuel Anderson, died on 30th July. West Yorkshire Police detectives, headed by the force’s assistant chief constable George Oldfield, believed the letters and tape were genuine and diverted resources to Humble’s home town of Sunderland. When Humble was eventually prosecuted, Leeds Crown Court heard claims that delays caused by the hoax allowed Peter Sutcliffe to murder three more women. Sutcliffe was jailed in 1981 and given 20 life sentences for killing 13 women and attempting to kill seven more. Humble, 63, died at his home in South Shields, where he had lived since being released from prison in 2009. A force spokesman said his death was not being treated as suspicious and would not be investigated.  

Actor Ben Unwin, who played Jesse McGregor in Australian soap Home and Away, has died at the age of 41. The actor’s body was discovered last week, on 14th August, but the cause of death has not yet been confirmed. “Police attended Minyon Falls, Whian Whian (New South Wales), responding to a concern for welfare,” a police statement read. “The body of a 41-year-old man was located. The death is not being treated as suspicious.” Unwin played “bad boy” Jesse during two stints on the popular soap, between 1996 and 2000 and then from 2002 to 2005. His character was often in trouble with the law, with one storyline seeing his character sent to prison after he was accused of burning down Alf Stewart’s shop for insurance money. A spokesman for the Seven network, which broadcasts Home and Away, said: “Cast and crew from Home and Away are saddened to learn of the passing of former cast-mate, Ben Unwin. “Ben’s work in the role of Jesse McGregor is remembered with much affection. 

On This Day

  • 1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
  • 2001 – American singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, Bahamas.
  • 2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so.

Deaths

  • 1819 – James Watt, Scottish-English engineer and instrument maker (b. 1736)
  • 1822 – William Herschel, German-English astronomer and composer (b. 1738)
  • 1867 – Michael Faraday, English physicist and chemist (b. 1791)
  • 1900 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philologist, philosopher, and critic (b. 1844)
  • 1956 – Alfred Kinsey, American biologist and academic (b. 1894)
  • 1984 – Truman Capote, American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter (b. 1924)
  • 2012 – Neil Armstrong, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1930)
  • 2017 – Rich Piana, American bodybuilder (b. 1971)
  • 2018 – John McCain, American politician (b. 1936)

Last Meals

Teresa Wilson Bean Lewis was an American murderer who was the only woman on death row in Virginia prior to her execution. She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murders of her husband and stepson in October 2002. Lewis sought to profit from a $250,000 life insurance policy her stepson had taken out as a U.S. Army reservist in anticipation of his deployment to Iraq.

Teresa Wilson Bean first met Julian Lewis, her future husband, at work. He was a recent widower with three children. Julian’s older son was previously killed in a car accident, leaving his father $200,000 from a life insurance policy. Which might have sparked Teresa’s greed. Julian’s younger son, Charles J. Lewis, obtained a $250,000 insurance policy in preparation for his impending deployment to Iraq as part of the United States Army Reserve. Charles designated his father as the primary, and Teresa Lewis as the secondary beneficiaries.

In the fall of 2002, Teresa Lewis met 21-year-old Matthew Jessee Shallenberger and 19-year-old Rodney Lamont Fuller at a Wal-Mart in Danville and began a sexual relationship with both of them. In October 2002, Charles came home on a visit from Army training in Maryland. On October 23rd, Shallenberger and Lamont were given $1,200 by Lewis to purchase firearms and ammunition to kill Julian Lewis and his son Charles for the insurance money. A week later, on the night of October 30th, Shallenberger and Fuller entered the Lewis’ trailer through a back door that Teresa had left open. While she waited in the kitchen, Shallenberger shot the sleeping Julian several times, while Fuller shot Charles in his bedroom with a shotgun. After discovering Charles was not dead, Fuller shot him twice more. Teresa waited 45 minutes before calling for help, and while waiting for the police to arrive, she removed money from her dying husband’s wallet. Shortly after, Teresa Lewis was caught attempting to withdraw $50,000 from her dead husband’s account with a forged check. Within a week, she confessed to law enforcement officers that she had offered money to have her husband killed. During the investigation, prosecutors found that Lewis had been trying to gather the assets of her late husband and stepson even before they had been buried. During the murder trial, the judge deemed Lewis the mastermind of the crime and called her “the head of this serpent.” Barbara G. Haskins, a court appointed, board-certified forensic psychiatrist, stated that “Cognitive testing showed a Full Scale IQ of 72. Verbal IQ was 70, and Performance IQ was 79.” Dr. Haskins also stated that Teresa Lewis was and is able to make a plea agreement and enter pleas. Lewis’ lawyer stated that “She’s not mentally retarded, but she is very, very close to it.” Defence attorneys thought the evidence against Lewis was overwhelming and advised her to plead guilty to the capital charges in order to avoid a jury, and hope that the judge would show some leniency since Lewis had been cooperating with investigators. However, she was sentenced to death. 

Lewis’ last meal consisted of two fried chicken breasts, sweet peas with butter, a Dr Pepper and apple pie for dessert. Lewis addressed stepdaughter Kathy Lewis Clifton, who came to witness her execution, to apologize for killing her brother and father. Her last words were:

 “I just want Kathy to know that I love you, and I’m very sorry.” 

Lewis was executed on September 23rd, 2010, at 9 p.m. by lethal injection, at Greensville Correctional Center near Jarratt. This made her the 12th woman to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jared Harris (57), Steve Guttenberg (60), Rupert Grint (30), Stephen Fry (61), Ray Park (44), Charley Boorman (52), Kristen Wiig (45), Richard Armitage (47), Honor Blackman (93), James the cunt Corden (40), Ty Burrell (51), Carrie-Anne Moss (51), Hayden Panettiere (29), Kim Cattrall (62), RJ Mitte (26), Kenny Rogers (80), Amy Adams (44), Andrew Garfield (35), Ben Barnes (37), Jonathan Ke Quan (47), John Noble (70), Joan Allen (62), James Marsters (56), Misha Collins (44), David Walliams (47), Ray Wise (71), Demi Lovato (26), Sylvester McCoy (75), Matthew Perry (49), Jonathan Frakes (66), Ian McElhinney (70), Kevin Dillon (53), Diana Muldaur (80), Simon Bird (34), Roman Polanski (85), Edward Norton (49), Robert Redford (82), Christian Slater (49), Madeleine Stowe (60), and Denis Leary (61).

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