Dead Pool 8th November 2020

A fairly standard week with a few recognisable faces departing the mortal world. Despite their passing we can all be happy due to the news that the despicable Wotsits Hitler has been deposed. Yes, we can now breathe a little easier, even with Covid, as Trump is a loser! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• John Sessions, 67, British actor and comedian (Stella Street, Spitting Image, Whose Line Is It Anyway?), heart attack. 
• Luis Troyano, 48, Graphic designer (The Great British Bake Off finalist, series 5), oesophageal cancer.  
• Eddie Hassell, 30, American actor (The Kids Are All Right, Surface, Devious Maids), shot.
• Carol Arthur, 85, American actress (Blazing Saddles), Alzheimer’s disease
• Elsa Raven, 91, American actress (Back to the Future, Amen, Titanic).  
• Geoffrey Palmer, 93, British actor (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Butterflies, Mr. Men and Little Miss).   
• Joy Westmore, 88, Australian actress (Prisoner, Neighbours, Blue Heelers), dementia. 
• Jonathan Sacks, 72, British Orthodox rabbi, former Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue and member of the House of Lords, cancer.

In Other News

Diego Maradona, 60, was in recovery after a “successful” surgery to treat a subdural hematoma, a blood clot on the brain, a source close to the former World Cup winner said late on Tuesday. The operation was to address the clot, often caused by a head injury, and which can put pressure on the brain. “The operation proceeded normally and without complications and was successful,” the source told us, adding that the diagnosis was a chronic subdural hematoma. The person did not give details on the potential recovery period. The intervention, which was risky due to the ex-footballer’s delicate general health, lasted about two hours and was carried out by a team led by Leopoldo Luque, Maradona’s neurosurgeon and personal physician. Luque said earlier that the procedure was a “routine surgery” and that Maradona had been “lucid” and understood and agreed with the procedure. Maradona was admitted to the Ipensa clinic in La Plata, Argentina, on Monday for anaemia and dehydration, before being transferred to Olivos Clinic in Buenos Aires province.  

Jeff Bridges, the acclaimed actor who became a cult icon with his role in “The Big Lebowski,” shocked his legions of fans when he announced Monday he has been diagnosed with lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Bridges, 70, said his prognosis was “good,” adding that he was starting treatment. But he did not specify whether he had been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma or non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the two main subtypes of lymphoma. “As the Dude would say,” the actor tweeted, referring to his “Lebowski” character, “New SHIT has come to light. Although it is a serious disease, I feel fortunate that I have a great team of doctors and the prognosis is good,” Bridges said. Bridges expressed gratitude to his family, friends and medical team and promised to keep fans posted on his recovery. Bridges is a seven-time Oscar nominee known for his roles in Starman, True Grit, The Last Picture Show and many other films. He won an Academy Award in 2010 for Crazy Heart and was most recently nominated for playing a grizzled lawman in Hell or High Water. Bridges is the son of the former actors Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges, who died in 1998 and 2009, respectively. 

Al Roker shared on “Today” that he will undergo surgery following a prostate cancer diagnosis. The beloved American weatherman said it was discovered after a routine medical checkup in September. “It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” he said. “Good news is we caught it early. Not great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.” Roker said he wanted to go public with his illness because 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime “but for African American men that number’s 1 in 7 and is more deadly.” “So if you detect it early this is a really treatable disease and it’s why I wanted to take you along my journey so we can all learn together how to educate and protect the men in our lives,” he said. Roker is scheduled to have surgery next week at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Dr. Vincent Laudone is his surgeon and said the cancer “appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate” but given that it’s aggressive the decision was made to remove the prostate. Roker said his wife, journalist Deborah Roberts, has been his fiercest advocate and later added he doesn’t want people feeling sorry for him. Roker’s colleagues rallied around him Friday and he said he’s feeling optimistic about his cancer battle. “We’ll just wait and see, and hopefully in about two weeks, I’ll be back” on “Today,” he said. 

On This Day

• 1519 – Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration. This went well… 
• 1605 – Robert Catesby, ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot, is killed.  
• 1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray. 
• 1939 – In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes the assassination attempt of Georg Elser.  
• 1965 – The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 is given Royal Assent, formally abolishing the death penalty in the United Kingdom, except in cases of high treason, “piracy with violence” (piracy with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm), arson in royal dockyards and espionage, as well as other capital offences under military law. The death penalty would be abolished in all cases in 1998. 
• 1973 – The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper outlet along with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay $2.9 million.    
• 1987 – Remembrance Day bombing: A Provisional IRA bomb explodes in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland during a ceremony honouring those who had died in wars involving British forces. Twelve people are killed and sixty-three wounded.  
• 1999 – Bruce Miller is killed at his junkyard near Flint, Michigan. His wife Sharee Miller, who convinced her online lover Jerry Cassaday to kill him (before later killing himself) was convicted of the crime, in what became the world’s first Internet murder. 
• 2016 – Donald Trump is elected the 45th President of the United States, defeating Hillary Clinton, the first woman ever to receive a major party’s nomination. This went well… 

Deaths

• 1674 – John Milton, English poet and philosopher (b. 1608)  
• 1887 – Doc Holliday, American dentist and poker player (b. 1851)  
• 1978 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (b. 1894)  

1st Internet Murder 

Sharee Miller is an American woman convicted of plotting the murder of her husband, Bruce Miller, over the Internet with her online lover Jerry Cassaday, who later committed suicide. 

Miller’s husband, Bruce Miller, was killed by a shotgun blast inside his junkyard office on the evening of November 8, 1999. Believing at first the death was a result of a botched robbery, police failed to find a credible lead and the case went cold for months. In February the following year, Sharee Miller’s online lover, ex-cop Jerry Cassaday, killed himself in Missouri and left a suicide note in which he admitted to carrying out the murder and accused Miller of planning the deed. Cassaday’s accusation, and Fb instant chat message logs left behind by the former police officer as evidence of the set-up, eventually led Miller to be thrown in prison for life on conspiracy and second-degree murder charges.

The confession noted “I drove there and killed him. Sharee was involved and set it up, I have all the proof and I am sending it to the police, she will get whats coming. I have been so stupid, but now you know the real story of why I went into such a state of depression… because I just couldn’t tell anyone the truth… She just wanted all her money and no more husband, well she got her wish, but she is soon to learn that she cant do that to people… Now I know it was all just more lies and games from Sharee, she didn’t care what it took or who she hurt to get what she wanted.

In 2008, Miller won an appeal and was released from prison the following year, after a judge agreed with her lawyers’ argument that the suicide letter should not have been admitted as evidence against her because Cassaday was not available for cross-examination.

In December 2009, Sharee Miller was found using Facebook again. Miller’s lawyer David Nickola said that there was no reason for his client to be barred from using a computer, but Sharee’s Facebook page was temporarily deactivated when it attracted publicity. “I don’t think there’s anything inappropriate about it,” Nickola said. He states that Sharee used Facebook to keep in touch with her family members and her son who is overseas in the military. “She’s an innocent person out in society and she’s doing positive things,” Nickola said.

In 2012, still pleading innocence, Miller was sent back to prison to continue to serve her original sentence after a court re-interpreted the admissibility of the suicide letter. However 16 years after the murder, a remorseful letter was sent to Genesee Circuit Judge Judith A. Fullerton, where Miller admitted to arranging for her husband to be killed by her lover. “Judge Fullerton, I did it. Almost the way the prosecutor said I did,’ Miller wrote in a letter. “I knew it was going to happen and I allowed it. I allowed a man to kill another man based on my lies and manipulation.” 

In her letter, Miller also accused three different attorneys, including her current lawyer, David Nickola, of refusing to listen to her admission of guilt. Nickola denied the accusation, and said that if Miller’s confession had come sooner, she could have taken a plea deal offered before the trial, served 15 years in prison, and been a free woman by now, the Flint Journal reported.  Miller is currently still serving her live sentence at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Parker Posey (52), Tara Reid (45), Matthew Rhys (46), Gretchen Mol (48), Alfre Woodard (68), Richard Curtis (64), Gordon Ramsay (54), Jack Osbourne (35), Adam Devine (37), Ethan Hawke (50), Emma Stone (32), Rebecca Romijn (48), Thandie Newton (48), Taryn Manning (42), Sally Field (74), Lori Singer (63), Michael Cerveris (60), Maria Shriver (65), Nigel Havers (69), Conchita Wurst (32), Famke Janssen (56), Sam Rockwell (52), Tilda Swinton (60), Robert Patrick (62), Tatum O’Neal (57), Armin Shimerman (71), Tamzin Outhwaite (50), Elke Sommer (80), Eric Menyuk (61), Matthew McConaughey (51), Ralph Macchio (59), Olivia Taylor Dudley (35), Loretta Swit (83), Dolph Lundgren (63), Kate Capshaw (67), Tom Savini (74), Roseanne Barr (68), Dylan Moran (49), David Schwimmer (54), Stefanie Powers (78), and k.d. lang (59).