Dead Pool 3rd September 2023

We have a winner! With the passing of Mohamed Al-Fayed, Nickie scores 56 points! Well done her! Also my apologies, as this weeks edition has somewhat grown into epic proportions! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Mohamed Al-Fayed, 94, Egyptian hotelier and football executive, owner of Hôtel Ritz Paris, Harrods, and Fulham F.C.
• Jamie Crick, 57, British radio broadcaster (Classic FM, Jazz FM, Scala Radio). 
• Jack Sonni, 68, American musician (Dire Straits), marketing executive and writer. 
• Jimmy Buffett, 76, American singer (Coral Reefer Band) and songwriter (“Margaritaville“, “Cheeseburger in Paradise“). 
• Heath Streak, 49, Zimbabwean cricketer (Matabeleland, Warwickshire, national team), liver cancer. 

In Other News

Elton John has been treated in hospital following a fall at his French riviera home. The 76-year-old singer was treated overnight for minor injuries at the orthopaedic department of Princess Grace hospital centre in Monaco, close to his home in Nice. A spokesman told the Flying Monkeys that the 76-year-old was admitted “following a slip yesterday at his home in the south of France”. He added: “Elton visited the local hospital as a precautionary measure. Following check-ups, he was immediately discharged this morning and his now back at home and in good health.” The I’m Still Standing singer has been in France this summer with his husband David Furnish and their two sons, having completed his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. 

A caterer who pretended to be a plastic surgeon has been arrested after performing a fatal penis enlargement on a ‘patient’. Torben K, a 46-year-old man from Solingen, Germany, administered silicone injections into the victim’s penis and scrotum area. He reportedly refused to disclose the type of silicone oil. The 32-year-old patient died from sepsis seven months after the procedure in July 2019. An investigation found that  Torben had no medical qualifications and previously carried out the same procedure on another man earlier in the year. Judges in Wuppertal District Court found Torben guilty of causing death by grievous bodily harm. The sister of the unnamed victim said her brother had doubts about the treatment but Torben convinced him to go ahead. He was said to experience breathing difficulties as soon as he returned home. The man reportedly visited several hospitals but later died of blood poisoning and liver and kidney failure. Speaking to local media, High State Prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert said: “Unfortunately, the silicone oil ended up in the person’s bloodstream. This led to severe health complications and, eventually, to his death.” Torben claimed he had only done what the patient requested, to which Baumert responded: “The fact that the man asked for the treatment is irrelevant from our point of view. The defendant acted in a highly immoral manner.” Torben was jailed for five years, though the verdict is not yet legally binding.  

For the second time in just over a month, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze while speaking to reporters. At a press event in Covington, Kentucky, the 81-year-old paused for more than 30 seconds when asked whether he would run for-re-election in 2026. Aides attempted to prompt the senator, but it took several more seconds for Mr McConnell to recover. He then answered two more questions, which had to be repeated by staff. He made no comments about his health, before leaving with aides. “Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today,” a spokesperson said after the incident. A staffer later told the Flying Monkeys that the lawmaker “feels fine” but “will be consulting a physician prior to his next event”. Mr McConnell’s first verbal lapse occurred during a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington DC on 26th July. There, he paused mid-sentence for approximately 20 seconds, before being ushered away by his fellow Republican senators. He later returned and told reporters he was “fine” and had felt “lightheaded”. Mr McConnell, who leads the Republican party’s narrow minority in the upper chamber of Congress, was admitted to hospital for a week after suffering a concussion and a fractured rib following a fall outside a Washington area hotel in March. He was transferred to a rehabilitation facility and did not return to the Senate until mid-April. After the freezing incident in July, US media reported that Mr McConnell has endured at least three other falls since February. This latest episode will again raise questions about the health of the Kentucky senator heading into what will be a busy autumn legislative session. Concern over Mr McConnell’s health follows questions about the condition of 90-year-old California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was absent from the chamber for months after being diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. Unbelievably, the average age for members of the US Senate is 65!!!  

A Texas man known as “Polio Paul” has now spent more than 70 years living inside an iron lung. Paul Alexander contracted polio in 1952 when he was just 6 years old, just three years before the vaccine was invented. As polio attacks motor neurons in the spinal cord, Alexander was left paralysed from the neck down and was unable to breathe without assistance. Alexander was named as the longest-running iron lung patient by the Guinness World Records earlier in 2023. Alexander underwent an emergency tracheostomy after his diagnosis and was placed into an iron lung, an airtight machine that covers the entire body except for the head and allows the patient to breathe by using negative pressure to draw in oxygen and expand their lungs. For the most part, iron lungs are no longer in use and have not been manufactured since the 1960s due to more modern technology, but Alexander plans to stick with the machine due to its familiarity and because he does not want to undergo the procedures necessary to use more modern treatments. Instead, he learned a technique called “frog breathing,” where he uses the throat muscles to swallow oxygen and push the air into his lungs, enabling him to breathe outside of the iron lung. The technique allowed Alexander to live for a couple of hours at a time outside of the iron lung. He completed high school and graduated from college and law school, practicing law for several decades. He has outlived his parents, his older brother Nick, and several of his friends. Polio was eradicated from the United States in 1979. The World Health Organization declared that the western Pacific region and all of the Americas were polio-free by the year 2000. Now, there are only several dozens of cases in three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan.    

With unconfirmed reports of his death, the man known as “Purple Aki” who slowly gained notoriety in the North-West of England and became an urban legend for his strange compulsion’s, may be dead! Akinwale Arobieke’s notoriety began throughout the 80s, Aki had been seen stalking young rugby players, asking to touch their muscles to pose for him and even offering exercise advice. While this appeared harmless and humorous to start, it quickly turned sinister, after several incidents where Aki reportedly prayed on both teens and professional rugby players alike. For those growing up in the Northwest of England in the 1990s, ‘Purple Aki’ became an urban legend, where teenagers would share stories of a man who’d ask to feel your muscles. Aki was often seen travelling between northern train stations with his signature plastic bag in hand and soon Aki became little more than the butt of an inside joke across Liverpool, Manchester, and North Wales. Aki would occasionally resurface in local papers after various encounters with the law. In 2006, he was banned from touching, feeling and measuring muscles, and asking strangers to perform squats for him. Aki spent a lot of time in and out of prison due to his compulsions, having been charged and convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a young man he was pursuing died trying to escape from him. In 2010, Aki was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years for touching a 16-year-old boy’s muscles, then the judge referred to him as a “sexual predator”. The name Purple Aki is a name for someone who has been categorised as a ‘nonce’, which is a slang word for ‘paedophile’, according to the urban dictionary. However, for Purple Aki, it is believed to be referring to his dark skin tone.

On This Day

• 1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions almost completely destroy the island of Krakatoa and cause years of climate change.
• 1893 – The Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing between 1,000 and 2,000 people.
• 1955 – The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published in Great Britain.
• 1956 – The nuclear power station at Calder Hall in the United Kingdom was connected to the national power grid becoming the world’s first commercial nuclear power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale.
• 1979 – The Troubles: An IRA bomb kills British royal family member Lord Mountbatten and three others on his boat at Mullaghmore, Republic of Ireland.

Deaths

• 1965 – Le Corbusier, Swiss-French architect and urban planner (b. 1887).
• 1967 – Brian Epstein, English businessman and manager (b. 1934).
• 1975 – Haile Selassie, Ethiopian emperor (b. 1892).
• 1979 – Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, English admiral & politician (b. 1900).

Whole Life Orders

The worst child serial killer in modern British history, Lucy Letby, has been sentenced to a whole life term in prison. Just three other women have ever received whole-life tariffs – Myra Hindley, Rosemary West and Joanna Dennehy.

The sentence means the former neonatal nurse, who was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six more, has no chance of parole and will die in prison. Others to receive such a sentence include some of the most infamous killers in criminal history.

Home secretaries have had the power to impose whole-life orders since 1983. Judges were then given the power by the Criminal Justice Act in 2003. Since then it has been judges who have passed such sentences. Currently there are 75 prisoners serving whole-life sentences in the UK, lets take a look at a few… 

David Fuller: In 2021 former hospital worker David Fuller received two whole-life tariffs for murdering Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in 1987. He had also been sentenced for sexual offences against the corpses of 78 dead women and girls between 2008 and 2020. Fuller abused female corpses over a 13-year period at hospitals in Kent and Sussex. 

Wayne Couzens: Met Police officer Couzens murdered Sarah Everard, 33, after kidnapping her under the guise of an arrest. He abducted her as she walked home from a friend’s house in south London in 2021. Couzens admitted murder, kidnap and rape. In 2022 he lost an attempt to overturn his whole-life term. 

Damien Bendall: Bendall used a claw hammer to kill his daughter Lacey, 11, her brother John, 13, their pregnant mum Terri, 35, and friend Connie, 11, at their home in Derbyshire. He admitted the murders as well as raping Lacey. After calling police to tell them he had murdered four people, he met them outside the home to ask for a cigarette. He was given a whole-life tariff in 2022. 

Robert Maudsley: Also known as Hannibal the Cannibal, has been in jail since he was 21, after he was found guilty of murdering convicted child molester John Farrell in 1974. Following his imprisonment he killed three inmates. Initial reports claimed Maudsley ate part of the brain of a man he killed in prison, but a post-mortem report found the allegation was untrue, although it still led to the Hannibal nickname. He has spent more than 16,500 consecutive days in isolation, which the Flying Monkeys described as a world record. 

Arthur Hutchinson: Hutchinson crashed a wedding reception in 1983 and murdered the bride’s father, mother and brother, before raping her sister at knifepoint. He was issued with a whole-life tariff by Home Secretary Leon Brittan. 

Rosemary West: In 1995, Rose West was convicted of the murder of ten women and girls at her home in Gloucester. The victims included one of her daughters and a step-daughter. Her husband Fred West committed suicide in jail before he could stand trial for 12 murders. 

Mark Hobson: In 2004, Hobson murdered his girlfriend at their home before luring her twin there and killing her too. He fled, then killed an elderly couple a few miles away before going on the run. He was given a whole-life tariff in 2005. 

‘Suffolk Strangler’ – Steve Wright: Wright was handed a whole-life prison term in 2008 after being found guilty of murdering five prostitutes in the Ipswich area during December 2006.  

‘The Bus Stop Stalker’ – Levi Bellfield: Now calls himself Yusuf Rahim, received a whole-life sentence in 2008 for murdering two young women and the attempted murder of another in random night-time attacks. In 2011 he became the first person to receive two whole-life sentences, after being found guilty of the 2002 murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler. He was also linked to the murder of Lin and Megan Russell. 

‘Crossbow Cannibal’ – Stephen Griffiths: Griffiths was convicted of murdering three woman in Bradford. One of the killings involved a crossbow. He dismembered his victims and dumped their remains. He also claimed to have cannibalised them, though this was never proven. Griffiths was sentenced to a whole-life term in 2010. 

‘The Bullseye Killer’ – John Cooper: Cooper was given four life sentences in 2011 for the double murder of brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas, and the 1989 double murder of married couple Peter and Gwenda Dixon. Cooper shot the Thomases at their remote mansion near Milford Haven in 1985. And in 1989, he shot the Dixons at close range as they strolled along the Pembrokeshire coastal path near Little Haven. For nearly three decades, their murders were left unsolved before a cold-case review brought Cooper to justice. He earned his nickname ‘The Bullseye Killer’ after appearing on the ITV darts-based quiz show hosted by Jim Bowen. 

Dale Cregan: Cregan killed police officers Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone, 32, while on the run for two other murders. He was given a whole-life order in 2013. 

Mark Bridger: Five-year-old April Jones was abducted and killed in 2012 by paedophile Mark Bridger, who was jailed for life the following year. She had been playing on her bike outside her home on the Bryn-y-Gog estate in Machynlleth when she was snatched by the killer. Her body has never been found. 

Jamie Reynolds: Pornography-obsessed Jamie Reynolds hanged 17-year-old Georgia Williams before filming himself carrying out sexual acts on her lifeless body in May 2013 in Shropshire. He dumped her body in Wrexham and went on the run but was caught by police. Reynolds had previously tried to strangle a girl but had only been given a police caution.

Michael Adebolajo & Michael Adebowale: The murderers of soldier Lee Rigby in south-east London 2013. They spotted Lee wearing a Help for Heroes hoodie and mowed him down in their car. They then jumped out and attacked him with knives and a meat cleaver, near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. Religious extremist Adebolajo tried to behead the ­fusilier. He was given a whole-life sentence, while Adebowale was sentenced to a minimum jail term of 45 years. 

Joanna Dennehy: She’s serving a whole-life sentence for the killing of three men in the space of 10 days in 2014. She was later reported to have described herself as a “fully committed psychopath” to her prison fiancée. 

Thomas Mair: Mair was convicted of murdering Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016. The MP for Batley and Spen was on her way to meet constituents at a routine surgery when Mair shot and stabbed her. A judge said he had no doubt Mair murdered Cox to advance a cause of violent white supremacism. 

Arthur Simpson-Kent: Brutally killed former EastEnders actress Sian Blake, 43, and their children, Zachary, eight, and Amon, four, after finding out she planned to leave him. In 2016 he was given a whole-life sentence after he pleaded guilty to the murders. 

‘The Grindr Killer’ – Stephen Port: Serial killer Port was given a whole-life sentence in 2016 after he drugged, raped and killed four gay men in east London. He had met his victims on the gay dating app Grindr. He was also convicted of raping four others. 

Leroy Campbell: Despite being jailed for attacking three women and being assessed as having “lifelong risk factors”, Campbell was released from prison in 2016 and four months later raped and killed Lisa Skidmore. He was handed a whole-life sentence after pleading guilty to murder, attempted murder, rape and arson with intent. 

John Taylor: Taylor was jailed for a minimum of 30 years for the 2000 murder of schoolgirl Leanne Tiernan. He is thought to have stored her body in a freezer for nine months before dumping it in woodland. Taylor was subsequently linked to a string of historic sex attacks in Leeds from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, which he admitted. He was handed a whole-life sentence in 2018.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Aaron Paul (44), Peter Stormare (70), Reece Shearsmith (54), Peter Mensah (64), Chris Pine (43), Melissa McCarthy (53), Macaulay Culkin (43), Alexander Skarsgård (47), Blake Lively (36), Tim Burton (65), Rachel Bilson (42), Joanne Whalley (62), Tom Skerritt (90), Gene Simmons (74), Billy Ray Cyrus (62), Jared Harris (62), Stephen Fry (66), Rupert Grint (35), Steve Guttenberg (65), Dave Chappelle (50), Ray Park (49), Charley Boorman (57), Dua Lipa (28), Kristen Wiig (50), Richard Armitage (52), Ty Burrell (56), James Corden (45), Alicia Witt (48), Kim Cattrall (67), Hayden Panettiere (34), Carrie-Anne Moss (56), and RJ Mitte (31).