Dead Pool 9th October 2022

Lets start this weeks newsletter by dispensing some points! Congratulations go to Laura for correctly guessing Loretta Lynn, 60 points! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Raymond Allen, 82, British television screenwriter (Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, Comedy Playhouse, The Little and Large Show). 
• Loretta Lynn, 90, American country singer-songwriter (“Coal Miner’s Daughter“, “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)“, “The Pill“).  
• Lenny Lipton, 82, American poet and lyricist (“Puff, the Magic Dragon“), brain cancer.  
• John Henry Ramirez, 38, American convicted murderer, lethal injection.  
• Ivy Jo Hunter, 82, American songwriter (“Behind a Painted Smile“, “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever“, “Dancing in the Street“).  
• Sara Lee, 30, American professional wrestler (WWE).  
• Jody Miller, 80, American country singer (“Queen of the House“), complications from Parkinson’s disease. 
• Judy Tenuta, 72, American comedian, actress (The Weird Al Show, Going Down in LA-LA Land, There’s No Such Thing as Vampires), and musician, ovarian cancer.    
• Peter Tobin, 76, Scottish serial killer.  

In Other News

Convicted paedophile Rolf Harris is “gravely ill” with neck cancer and receiving around-the-clock care, the flying monkeys have reported. The disgraced entertainer is unable to eat and only receives medical professionals at home. Harris was jailed for sexual offences in 2014 and released three years later under licence. His victims included two girls in their early teens and his daughter’s friend. Harris, 92, is now reported to be suffering from ill health that requires 24-hour care. “Only carers and nurses, who care for him 24 hours, come and go,” one of his Berkshire neighbours, Portia Wooderson,“I’m told he can’t eat anymore.” William Merritt, a private investigator who wrote a book on Harris’ trials, told the Flying Mokeys: “As far as his health goes, yes, he is very ill. But, Rolf keeps going. He’s still around but he’s not well at all.“ In 2019, two years after Harris was released from prison, reports suggested the convicted paedophile’s health had “declined rapidly”. Several years before, Harris was rushed to hospital in 2016 with suspected sepsis while serving his sentence at Stafford jail, which is specifically for men convicted of sex offences. He has not spoken in public since his release from prison. The 92-year-old was convicted of 12 indecent assaults spanning nearly two decades – 1968 to 1986 – at London’s Southwark Crown Court in 2014. One of these convictions was later quashed. He was stripped of his CBE – which he received after painting Queen Elizabeth II’s portrait – following his conviction.  

Necrophiliac murderer David Fuller, who sexually abused dead bodies in hospital mortuaries, has been charged with 16 further sexual offences. Fuller, 68, received two whole life sentences in December 2021 after admitting sexually assaulting at least 102 female corpses while working as an electrician in a hospital morgue. He filmed himself abusing the corpses, including a nine-year-old girl, two 16-year-olds, and a 100-year-old woman, over 12 years before his arrest in December 2020. He also beat and strangled Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, to death before sexually assaulting them in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987. The pensioner received the life sentences on December 15th 2021, after pleading guilty at Maidstone Crown Court to their murders, as well as 51 other offences, including 44 charges relating to 78 victims in mortuaries between 2008 and November 2020. His crimes first came to light after he was linked to one of Britain’s longest unsolved double killings more than 30 years ago. During the investigation, Fuller was linked to the 30-year cold cases by a DNA breakthrough that then led police to his stash of sickening recordings of himself abusing corpses. Now police have brought a further 16 charges against him in relation to sexual offences committed in a mortuary setting. Kent Police said on Tuesday: ‘An investigation by the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate has led to evidence which relates to a total of 101 victims in these mortuary settings. ‘The latest charges are connected to the 23 remaining victims, of all whom were deceased adult females. They cover a period between 2007 and 2020.’ Fuller will appear via video link before Medway Magistrates’ Court on Thursday facing 12 charges of sexual penetration of a corpse and four charges in relation to possession of extreme pornography. Nice chap! 

On This Day

• 1604 – Kepler’s Supernova is the most recent supernova to be observed within the Milky Way.
• 1967 – A day after his capture, Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.
• 1981 – President François Mitterrand abolishes capital punishment in France.
• 2012 – Pakistani Taliban attempt to assassinate outspoken schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai.

Deaths

• 1911 – Jack Daniel, American businessman, founded Jack Daniel’s (b. 1849)
• 1967 – Che Guevara, Argentinian-Cuban physician, politician & guerrilla leader (b. 1928)
• 1967 – Joseph Pilates, German-American fitness trainer, developed Pilates (b. 1883)
• 1974 – Oskar Schindler, Czech-German businessman (b. 1908)
• 1995 – Alec Douglas-Home, British politician, P.M. of the United Kingdom (b. 1903)
• 2006 – Paul Hunter, English snooker player (b. 1978)
• 2015 – Geoffrey Howe, Welsh lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1926)

Last Meals

John Henry Ramirez was executed this week, ten years after being convicted of murder, but unlike most death row inmates, he was not granted his final meal. The 38-year-old was killed by lethal injection at Huntsville State Penitentiary in Texas on Wednesday.

In 2009, he was sentenced to death for the murder of Pablo Castro, who he killed for just $1.25 during a violent robbery in 2004. 

Unfortunately for Ramirez he was unlucky enough to be charged in Texas, where Death Row inmates are no longer allowed to take part in the tradition since former prisoner Lawrence Russell Brewer, a white supremacist murderer, who was jailed alongside three other men for killing James Byrd Jr. by dragging him along behind a pick-up truck for three miles along a road. When his execution date came, he ordered a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, three fajitas, one pound of barbecue and a half loaf of white bread, pizza meat lover’s special, one pint of ‘homemade vanilla’ Blue Bell ice cream, one slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and three root beers. However, when it was served to him, he didn’t eat a bite, saying he wasn’t hungry.

That led to Texas senator John Whitmire ending the 87-year-old tradition, ordering everyone on death row to eat what everyone else ate. 

One request Ramirez did get, however, was to have a priest present and praying at his execution. His wish was ultimately granted by the Supreme Court, who ruled that denying the killer a priest would be a violation of his rights under the First Amendment. 

Before the lethal injection was administered, Ramirez also spoke directly to Castro’s family.

“I just want to say to the family of Pablo Castro, I appreciate everything that y’all did to try and communicate with me through the Victim’s Advocacy program,” he said. “I tried to reply back, but there is nothing that I could have said or done that would have helped you. I have regret and remorse. This is such a heinous act. I hope this finds you comfort. If this helps you, then I am glad. I hope in some shape or form this helps you find closure.” 

He was pronounced dead at 6:41 p.m. CT, 14 minutes after the injection of pentobarbital began.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Guillermo del Toro (58), Scott Bakula (68), Chris O’Dowd (43), Brandon Routh (43), Tony Shalhoub (69), Brian Blessed (86), Sharon Osbourne (70), Sigourney Weaver (73), Matt Damon (52), Chevy Chase (79), Kristanna Loken (43), Paul Hogan (83), Ardal O’Hanlon (57), Karyn Parsons (56), Jesse Jackson (81), R.L. Stine (79), Bruno Mars (37), Shawn Ashmore (43), Aaron Ashmore (43), Tim Minchin (47), Simon Cowell (63), Vladimir Putin (70), Thom Yorke (54), Elisabeth Shue (59), Emily Mortimer (51), Ioan Gruffudd (49), Britt Ekland (80), Kate Winslet (47), Guy Pearce (55), Jesse Eisenberg (39), Karen Allen (71), Clive Barker (70), Diane Morgan (47), Glynis Johns (99), Stephanie Cole (81), Alicia Silverstone (46), Dakota Johnson (33), Susan Sarandon (76), Christoph Waltz (66), Melissa Benoist (34), Liev Schreiber (55), Sarah Lancashire (58), Nick Mohammed (42), Lena Headey (49), Alicia Vikander(34), Neve Campbell (49), Denis Villeneuve (55), Seann William Scott (46), Clive Owen (58), Tommy Lee (60), and Gwen Stefani (53).