Dead Pool 4th July 2021

Deaths are certainly a bit sparse at the moment. However, I will send out the flying monkeys next week, so watch this space! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Stuart Damon, 84, American actor (General Hospital, The Champions), kidney failure.  
• Donald Rumsfeld, 88, American politician, secretary of defence, multiple myeloma.  
• Pete McGarry, 71, British electrician, (Gogglebox), colon cancer.  

In Other News

Blink-182 singer-bassist Mark Hoppus gave 153 concerned fans an encouraging update on his cancer treatment while on Twitch on Sunday. The 49-year-old still hasn’t specified what type of cancer he was diagnosed with, but he admitted he was ‘feeling much better’ than he had on Saturday. ‘I woke up today feeling better,’ Mark said. ‘I went for a walk, and I had a decent breakfast, and I haven’t felt like I was going to throw up today, so we’ll take it as a win. I’ve actually, like, watched movies and walked around and cleaned the house and hung out with my dogs, I didn’t just feel like a poisoned electrified zombie leaned up against an electric fence like I did the rest, the past couple of rounds.’ Hoppus said he was nauseated after his most recent round of chemotherapy treatments, which began in March. ‘I still have months of treatment ahead of me, but I’m trying to remain hopeful and positive,’ Mark said in his statement. ‘Can’t wait to be cancer free and see you all at a concert in the near future. Love to you all.’ 

Although not famous enough for our purposes, but sadly the youngest survivor of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster has died aged 34 after a long battle with drug addiction. Carly Zutic, from Dumfries, was just nine weeks old when her soldier father swam to safety with her ‘baby grow in his teeth’ from capsize tragedy which killed 193 people. The family held a small, private funeral for the Scottish mother due to current Covid restrictions on funerals. At about 6pm on March 6th, 1987, the Townsend Thoresen roll-on, roll-off ferry The Herald Of Free Enterprise turned over on its side outside Zeebrugge,  Belgium, as it set out for Dover, Kent. Carly’s father Petar reportedly carried Carly’s ‘baby grow in his teeth’ as she was so tiny when he rescued her, swimming to safety as the passenger ferry capsized. They were reunited with Carly’s mother Julie just six hours later. A friend said, ’Carly’s rescue was the stuff of legend around Dumfries. Her dad swam to safety with her baby grow between his teeth as she was so tiny. It was a story that made headlines around the world at the time and they are quite well known because of it.’

In a horrifying incident, a 25-year-old Iraqi chef fell into a giant vat of chicken soup, sustaining third-degree burns over 70 per cent of his body, several Middle Eastern outlets reported. He succumbed to his injuries five days later. Issa Ismail was making chicken soup for a wedding party on 15th June in Iraq’s northern district of Zakho, when he slipped and fell into the vat. Ismail, a father of three, was preparing food at the Hazel Hall for Weddings and Events when the accident happened. He was rushed to a hospital in the nearby city of Dohuk for treatment. After battling severe burn injuries for several days, Ismail succumbed on 21st June. His tragic death has led to an outpouring of grief on social media when news of this accident was finally out. One of his relatives, Zervan Hosni, was quoted in the local media as saying: “Issa cooked food at wedding parties, mourning boards and various ceremonies, and for two years he has been working in two-party halls for 25,000 dinars per day.” Which is roughly £12.50 a day. The local Kurdish media — Rudaw Media Network — quoted him as saying that Ismail had three children and the youngest was just six months old!! 

On This Day

• 1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted. 
• 1826 – John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively the second and third presidents of the United States, die the same day, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence. Adams’ last words were, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”  
• 1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.  
• 1910 – The Johnson–Jeffries riots occur after African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in the 15th round. Between 11 and 26 people are killed and hundreds more injured.  
• 1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities.  
• 1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family. 
• 1954 – Rationing ends in the United Kingdom.  

Deaths

• 1826 – John Adams, American lawyer, 2nd President of the United States (b. 1735). 
• 1826 – Thomas Jefferson, American lawyer, 3rd President of the United States (b. 1743). 
• 1831 – James Monroe, American lawyer, 5th President of the United States (b. 1758). 
• 1934 – Marie Curie, French-Polish physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1867). 
• 1995 – Bob Ross, American painter and television host (b. 1942). 
• 2003 – Barry White, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (b. 1944).  
• 2012 – Eric Sykes, English actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1923). 
• 2013 – Bernie Nolan, Irish singer (b. 1960). 

 Last Meals

Keith Zettlemoyer was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the 1980 murder of his friend Charles DeVetsco.

In the early hours of the morning on October 13th 1980, two police officers were out on patrol in Harrisburg in an unmarked car. They heard gunfire coming from a nearby wooded area which was unlit and often used for dumping trash. As they approached the scene they found a 1967 Ford van parked on a dirt road near some bushes. After hearing rustling noises coming from the bushes they ordered the person making the noise to come out. Zettlemoyer emerged from the woods holding a handgun and a flashlight. He claimed he had been shooting rats, but the officers were not convinced. Zettlemoyer was ordered to drop the gun and was then secured. 

One of the officers searched the area and came across the body of 29-year-old Charles DeVetsco. He had been shot a total of four times. It later emerged he had been shot twice in the van while handcuffed and was then dragged from the van to the woods where two more fatal shots were fired. The cause of death was confirmed as a massive haemorrhaging of the heart, which had been penetrated by .357 magnum bullets. 

DeVetsco had worked with Zettlemoyer at a retail store and had been scheduled to testify against him in an upcoming robbery trial in Snyder County. In May 1980, Zettlemoyer and an accomplice had carried out a robbery, in which they had bound a security guard at a RadioShack near Sunbury and had stolen electronic equipment worth thousands of dollars. The accomplice was later caught trying to return the equipment for money and had named Zettlemoyer as his partner. Zettlemoyer had then confided in DeVetsco about the heist. DeVetsco contacted the authorities, and had planned to testify against him. Zettlemoyer had kidnapped DeVetsco near Selinsgrove and had driven him to Harrisburg to kill him in order to prevent his testimony.

On April 24th 1981, Zettlemoyer was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. After spending fourteen years on death row, Zettlemoyer fired his lawyers and dropped his efforts to live. He begged the courts to let him die because he claimed “brain disease” was making his life hell. Doctors reported that Zettlemoyer was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Lawyers for the Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Defender Organization argued that Zettlemoyer was not mentally competent, however, three psychiatrists testified he was sane. DeVetsco’s mother also argued that Zettlemoyer was mentally ill and was, therefore, not competent to be executed for the murder  of her son.

However, Zettlemoyer was executed by lethal injection on May 2nd 1995, at State Correctional Institution – Rockview. His last meal was two cheeseburgers, french fries, chocolate pudding and chocolate milk. He became the first person to be executed by the state of Pennsylvania since the resumption of the death penalty in 1976 and the first inmate put to death in Pennsylvania in thirty-three years. He remains the first of only three people to be executed in Pennsylvania since the resumption of the death penalty. The others were Leon Moser in August 1995 and Gary M. Heidnik in 1999.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Gina Lollobrigida (94), Post Malone (26), Neil Morrissey (59), Tom Cruise (59), Connie Nielsen (56), Patrick Wilson (48), Kurtwood Smith (78), Yeardley Smith (57), Margot Robbie(31), Lindsay Lohan (35), Larry David (74), Jerry Hall (65), Peter Kay (48), Liv Tyler (44), Pamela Anderson (54), Geneviève Bujold (79), Dan Aykroyd (69), Debbie Harry (76), Vincent D’Onofrio (62), Marton Csokas (55), Katherine Ryan (38), Mike Tyson (55), Cheryl (38), Gary Busey (77), Amanda Donohoe (59), Aleks Paunovic (52), Katherine Jenkins (41), Mel Brooks (95), John Cusack (55), Kathy Bates (73), Alice Krige (67), Felicia Day (42), and Elon Musk (50).