Dead Pool 27th October 2019

Thanks to some detective work from Doug, he’s found a couple of deaths I have missed. I’ve also run through everyones lists and found a few more, obviously I’ve scored you all accordingly. So, a few more points awarded to quite a few of you, which certainly makes things rather interesting at the top of the league table. 

However Trish has lost the accolade of getting the first death of the year as Lee managed to trump her with Sayed Ashraful Islam by five days. Sorry Trish! 

So, we’re pretty much up to date but I’d like to give an honourable mention to Abi, she’s listed quite a few Death Row inmates who have indeed been offed by the State, but alas they’ve not been listed on the Wiki page, thus not earning precious points. With five deaths under her belt she should be at the top of the table, but those pesky rules…. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

  • Kathleen Blanco, 76, American politician, Governor (2004–2008) and Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana (1996–2004), member of the Louisiana House (1984–1989), ocular melanoma. Died on 18/10/2019
  • Julie Gibson, 106, American actress (Nice Girl?, The Feminine Touch, Lucky Cowboy) and singer. Died on 02/10/2019 
  • Sayed Ashraful Islam, 67, Bangladeshi politician, MP (since 2008) and Minister of Public Administration (since 2009), lung cancer. Died 03.01.2019
  • Qin Hanzhang, 111, Chinese engineer and food scientist, heart attack. Died 15/08/2019

In Other News

Krept, one half of Krept and Konan, has cancelled his shows in October after a warning from his doctor. The pair were due to do seven shows back-to-back in November performing songs from their newest album Revenge is Sweet. He says he has been “back and forth” from hospital since he was attacked backstage at the BBC’s 1Xtra Live event in October. The rapper says his plans for the tour “require 100% strength”. Krept was “slashed” in a backstage scuffle at the event in Arena Birmingham and treated on site. Following the assault, the concert was called off early and the headliners didn’t get to perform. West Midlands police told Newsbeat no arrests have been made but investigations are ongoing. Krept says he made the decision to postpone the tour because he didn’t want to “collapse on stage”. He said: “All tickets remain valid of course and I promise it will be worth the wait… health is priority and I’m sorry for any inconvenience.” The show in London’s O2 will go ahead as planned in December. Shall we remind this tough rapper that 53 year old President Theodore Roosevelt once read a 50 page speech which took over 90 minutes after he was shot in the chest.  

Billy Connolly has opened up about some “awful” symptoms he has experienced after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, as the comedian admitted he recently “started to drool”. The 76 year old got candid about living with Parkinson’s disease in an interview with Chris Evans, 53, on Virgin Radio. The comedian, who was diagnosed with the condition six years ago, opened up about some “awful” symptoms he is currently dealing with. He told the presenter: “I’ve started to drool which is a new one on me. “This disease it gives you a new thing every now and again that you have to deal with and drooling is my latest.” Detailing other aspects of the disease, Billy added: “I walk unsteadily and my hearing is going and it’s bizarre that bits of me are fallen off but it’s interesting.” The Scottish performer went on to explain why he has been avoiding taking to the stage since his diagnosis. When Chris quizzed him on why he is reluctant to perform live, Billy admitted: “It would affect my performance. “I don’t think the way I used to, I don’t think at the same speed as I used to. And because I don’t need to. “I don’t really know if the performance bit has gone because I have to get into the performance mode to see that.” “And steadily more symptoms come and it’s incurable. It’s not going to end. “As a matter of fact I had a Russian doctor in New York who said, ‘You realise this is an incurable disease’. “And I said, ‘You’ve got to get a grip of yourself, stop calling it an incurable disease, say we have yet to find the cure’. Give the guy a light in the tunnel. Incurable is such an awful thing to say to somebody.” 

As you will have seen from the lists above, Ivan Milat, the notorious Australian serial killer who kidnapped and murdered hitchhikers, has died aged 74. Milat had been serving a life sentence for killing seven backpackers between 1989 and 1992 and dumping their bodies in a New South Wales forest. He died of cancer in a Sydney hospital early on Sunday local time. Police said Milat’s lifelong refusal to admit his crimes had hampered further investigations into the killings and other unsolved cases. His murder victims were three Germans, two Britons and two Australians. All were aged between 19 and 22. Milat was arrested after targeting another backpacker, British man Paul Onions, who escaped and alerted police. The 2005 Australian film Wolf Creek is based on the backpacker murders of  the two British females. It’s sequel was based on the murders of the two Germans.

On This Day

  • 939 – Æthelstan, the first king of all England, dies and is succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I.
  • 1962 – By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war.
  • 1992 – United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating debate about gays in the military that results in the United States’ “Don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy.

Deaths

  • 939 – Æthelstan, English king (b. 894)
  • 1988 – Charles Hawtrey, English actor, singer, and pianist (b. 1914)
  • 2013 – Lou Reed, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (b. 1942)

Last Meals  

Brandon Astor Jones was an American criminal who was executed by lethal injection by the state of Georgia on February 3rd, 2016. Jones, aged 72, was the oldest person on Georgia’s death row at the time he was executed. He was first sentenced to death on October 17, 1979 for his involvement in the felony murder of Roger Tackett on June 17 of that year during a robbery of a Tenneco convenience store, of which Tackett was the manager. According to evidence at his trial, Jones and Van Roosevelt Solomon were arrested at the scene by a Cobb County policeman who had driven a stranded motorist to the convenience store to use a pay phone. The officer knew the store usually closed at midnight and was suspicious when he saw a car out front with the driver’s side door open and lights still on inside the store. In the storeroom, the officer found 29-year-old Tackett, the station manager, who had been shot in the legs and arms and beaten before the fatal contact shot was fired behind his left ear. Both Jones and Van Roosevelt Solomon were apprehended in the storeroom, literally caught red-handed. Tests showed each man had recently fired a gun or handled a recently fired gun. The cash drawer had been removed and was found wrapped in a plastic bag. Jones was convicted in relation to this murder along with Van Roosevelt Solomon who was executed in 1985 by electrocution at age 41. In 1989, a federal court ordered Jones to be re-sentenced because the jurors who had convicted him had improperly brought a Bible into the deliberation room. He was re-sentenced to death in 1997. e 

Jones was to be executed early on February 3, 2016 by lethal IV injection, ten days before his 73rd birthday, he declined to make a final statement and did not make a special meal request so was given the standard issue menu of chicken and rice, rutabagas, seasoned turnip greens, dry white beans, cornbread, bread pudding and fruit punch. Following his meal, he waited in a holding cell a few steps from the death chamber as the appointed time came and went amid a flurry of last-minute court filings for mercy. The executioner team struggled for an hour to insert the IV into Jones’ veins, spending 24 minutes trying to get it into a vein in his left arm, another eight minutes trying his right arm and then they asked a doctor in attendance to insert it into Jones’ groin which took 13 minutes. Jones fought death. His eyes closed within a minute of the warden leaving the execution chamber, but 6 minutes later his eyes popped open. He looked at a clock on the wall, and then appeared to look at the man who prosecuted him in 1979, former Cobb County District Attorney Tom Charron, who was sitting on the front row. Jones was pronounced dead at 12:46 AM.

Last Week’s Birthdays

John Cleese (79), James Cosmo (71), Robert Picardo (65), Kelly Osbourne (34), Cary Elwes (56), Seth MacFarlane (45), Jon Heder (41), Roger Allam (65), Keith Urban (51), Nancy Cartwright (61), Katy Perry (34), Glynis Barber (63), Kevin Kline (71), F. Murray Abraham (79), Sarah Greene (61), Emilia Clarke (33), Ryan Reynolds (43), Ang Lee (65), Sam Raimi (60), ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic (60), Cat Deeley (43), Christopher Lloyd (81), Bob Odenkirk (57), Saffron Burrows (47), Jeff Goldblum (67), Derek Jacobi (81), Catherine Deneuve (76), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (44), Ken Watanabe (60), Kim Kardashian West (39), Everett McGill (74), Viggo Mortensen (61), Danny Boyle (63), and Snoop Dogg (48).

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