Dead Pool 5th March 2023

Another week flies by, also the week I found out that Boybits is a real name. Yep…  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Betty Boothroyd, Baroness Boothroyd, 93, British politician, member (1973–2000) and speaker (1992–2000) of the House of Commons and member of the House of Lords (since 2001).  
• Ricou Browning, 93, American actor (Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature) and television director (Flipper). 
• Geneviève Lhermitte, 56, Belgian convicted murderer, assisted suicide. 
• Boybits Victoria, 50, Filipino basketball player (Pop Cola Panthers, San Miguel Beermen), heart attack.  
• Steve Mackey, 56, English bassist (Pulp) and record producer.  
• Tom Sizemore, 61, American actor (Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, Heat), complications from a brain aneurysm. 

In Other News

Dame Julie Walters has been forced to leave the cast of the forthcoming Channel 4 drama Truelove, due to ill health. The veteran star of stage and screen, 73, was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in 2018. In 2020, she gave an interview in which she revealed that she had got the all-clear and said that she felt like a “different person” after having cancer. Walters’ role as Phil in the drama Truelove was set to be her return to TV after a seven-year hiatus (she was last seen in the acclaimed 2016 Channel 4 drama National Treasure). Walters will be replaced on the show by Lindsay Duncan. Filming on Truelove was initially last year after Walters began suffering from severe back pain. A spokeswoman for Clerkenwell Films, which is producing the show, told the Flying Monkeys: “We wholeheartedly support her decision, and the entire cast, crew and production team wish her the very best and a speedy recovery. We are delighted that Lindsay Duncan will be stepping into the role of Phil. We’re excited to see what she brings to this complex and captivating character when we restart filming later this year.” Speaking about her decision to return to screens, Walters said last year: “I had basically withdrawn from acting and wasn’t sure that anything could tempt me back but then I read Truelove. I was completely bowled over by the writing – the dark humour, the love story and thriller element set against a backdrop of what happens to us all as we approach our later years. How often does one have the chance at my tender age to play a leading lady in a TV drama?” Walters, who was made a Dame in 2017 for services to drama, has been married to her husband Grant Roffey since 1997, and the couple share one child, Maisie Mae.  

I know it’s now March, but finding time to meet up with an old friend in-between childcare, parties, hospitalisations, and general life getting in the way, I’ve finally been able to present last years trophy to Mr Lee. Seconds after this photo was taken he dropped it and broke Mr Deaths wanking hand, however, nothing a little bit of superglue wont fix. Twat! So, as you see, living proof that the trophy is real, and you do get to keep it forever, unless you find it hideous and decide to bin it! Lee seemed over the moon to receive it, now his lovely wife needs to win this year so they can have a nice looking pair on the shelf. So now you can see, there’s loads to fight for, you cold have your very own trophy on your very own shelf, you just need to work harder on those lists! 

On This Day

• 1836 – Samuel Colt patents the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.
• 1940 – Six high-ranking members of the Soviet politburo, including Joseph Stalin, sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, in what will become known as the Katyn massacre.
• 1953 – Joseph Stalin, the longest serving leader of the Soviet Union, dies at his Volynskoe dacha in Moscow after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage four days earlier.
• 1963 – In what would have been an amazing Dead Pool day, American country music stars Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and their pilot Randy Hughes are killed in a plane crash in Camden, Tennessee.
• 1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 11⁄2 million units around the world.

Deaths

• 1829 – John Adams, English sailor and mutineer (b. 1766).
• 1953 – Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, 2nd leader of the Soviet Union (b. 1878).
• 1963 – Patsy Cline, American singer-songwriter (b. 1932).
• 1982 – John Belushi, American actor (b. 1949).
• 2000 – Lolo Ferrari, French dancer, actress and singer (b. 1963). 

The Killer Mother 

To the world, she looked like a doting mother smiling as she put her arms around her five young children as they opened presents.

But, months after this family photograph was taken, Genevieve Lhermitte went on to slit the throats of her children, aged three to 14, with a kitchen knife at their home in Nivelles, Belgium, in a case that shocked the country.

And exactly 16 years after Lhermitte, 56, slaughtered her children  – three-year-old Mehdi, Mina, seven, Myriam, ten, Nora, 12, Yasmine, 14 – on 28 February 2007, she was euthanised at her own request on Tuesday.

Her ex-husband Bouchaib Moqadem, who was visiting his parents in Morocco when Lhermitte launched her attack, revealed he still struggles to cope following his children’s ‘massacre’.

‘I keep my feelings to myself, I can’t share them. It’s a massacre 16 years ago, I have nothing more to say,’ the grieving father told the Flying Monkeys, adding that the murders of his children remains a ‘difficult ordeal’ for him to deal with. 

On 28th February 2007, Lhermitte stole two knives from a supermarket before cooking what would be a final meal for her five children. She locked the door and began slitting each child’s throat.

Lhermitte, who was 40 at the time of the murders, told her trial in 2008 that her eldest daughter, Yasmine, 14, was too big for her to handle so she tricked her into putting a blindfold on for a ‘surprise’.

When when the teenager was unable to see, her mother hit her over the head with a heavy marble tabletop, knocking her out before also killing her with a knife.

Lhermitte then tried to end her own life by stabbing herself, but the attempt failed and she ended up calling the emergency services.

Police found her body spread-eagled in the hall. Lhermitte later told police she felt ‘desperate and trapped’ at having to be at home with the children while her husband was away, the court heard.

Lhermitte was sentenced to life in prison in 2008, before being moved to a psychiatric hospital in 2019.

Her lawyer Nicolas Cohen said his client had died through euthanasia on the sixteenth anniversary of the killings on Tuesday. 

Belgian law allows for people to choose to be euthanised if they are deemed to be suffering from ‘unbearable’ psychological, and not just physical, suffering that cannot be healed. 

The person must be conscious of their decision and be able to express their wish in a reasoned and consistent manner.

Her funeral took place on Wednesday.

Her trial was told that Lhermitte’s role as wife and mother was disturbed by the presence in the family home of a middle-aged Belgium doctor, Michel Schaar who paid most of the family’s bills.

‘He lived with us he even went on our honeymoon and slept in our room. We had to wait until he fell asleep before we could make love,’ Lhermitte said in court. She began to resent Schaar for this and the fact that they depended financially on him.

It was revealed during her trial that Lhermitte laid the dead body of her 13-year-old daughter Nora in the bathroom used by Dr Schaar.  

When Lhermitte was asked why she said this, she said: ‘I wanted to hurt him. Nora was his favourite.’

Lhermitte, previously described as a ‘perfect’ mother, and Moqadem have since divorced. She said: ‘I gave him a son and killed him. I’ve lost all children through my own fault. They never deserved it.

‘I shall suffer to the end of my days – that is my punishment.’

Lhermitte’s lawyers argued that their client, who had regularly seen a psychiatrist, was mentally disturbed and should not be sent to prison.

But the jury found her guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced her to life in jail after hearing conflicting medical expertise. 

Lhermitte died at the Léonard de Vinci hospital in Montigny-le-Tilleul. In 2021, she reportedly attempted to end her life herself.

Last year 2,966 people died via euthanasia in Belgium, an increase of 10 percent compared to 2021, according to the authorities. Cancer remains the number one reason cited, but officials said for nearly three out of four requests the patient presented ‘several types of suffering, both physical and psychological’.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jolene Blalock (48), Eva Mendes (49), Jake Lloyd (34), Matt Lucas (49), Paul Blackthorne (54), Fred Williamson (85), Patsy Kensit (55), Catherine O’Hara (69), Dominique Pinon (68), Julie Bowen (53), Jessica Biel (41), Miranda Richardson (65), Charlie Brooker (52), Bryce Dallas Howard (42), Gates McFadden (74), Nathalie Emmanuel (34), Daniel Craig (55), Rebel Wilson (43), Jon Bon Jovi (61), Chris Martin (46), Lupita Nyong’o (40), Jensen Ackles (45), Javier Bardem (54), Ron Howard (69), Zack Snyder (57), Dirk Benedict (78), Harry Belafonte (96), Justin Bieber (29), Roger Daltrey (79), John Turturro (66), Rae Dawn Chong (62), Stephanie Beacham (76), Kate Mara (40), Adam Baldwin (61), and Timothy Spall (66).