Dead Pool 10th January 2021

Welcome to a bumper edition of the Dead Pool. This week we learn the Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Hospital is the place to be to look out for ailing celebrities! Bet the staff there could tell a few stories! And because I don’t thank her enough, big shout out to Nickie who keeps sending interesting stories she’s found for the newsletter. Very much appreciated, as is all the donations so far. You all rock! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Tom Parker has revealed his stage 4 brain tumour has ‘significantly reduced’ and is ‘responding well’ to treatment. The Wanted singer, 32, took to Instagram on Thursday to update fans on his progress after receiving his terminal diagnosis of glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, in October. In a lengthy post, Tom said it was a ‘good fucking day’ after receiving the positive news about his battle and vowed to ‘keep fighting’ for the sake of his wife Kelsey Hardwick and their two children. He wrote: ‘SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION These are the words I received today and I can’t stop saying them over and over again. I had an MRI scan on Tuesday and my results today were a significant reduction to the tumour and I am responding well to treatment. Everyday I’m keeping on the fight to shrink this bastard! I can’t thank our wonderful NHS enough. You’re all having a tough time out there but we appreciate the work you are all doing on the front line.” Last month Tom has admitted his world was turned ‘upside down’ after he was told he has a stage four brain tumour. Thanking his wife Kelsey and their family for the support they have given him, Tom said he has ‘come a long way’ since being given the heartbreaking news. Tom revealed he’d reached the end of his latest day of treatment, admitting it had taken its toll. He also revealed he’d been suffering with bad short term memory loss after having chemotherapy and radiotherapy amid his brain tumour battle. Glioblastoma is considered the most aggressive tumor that can form in the brain. Patients have a 10 percent chance of surviving five years after their diagnosis, according to figures. The average lifespan is between 14 and 16 months.  

A representative of London Zoo has responded to Ricky Gervais’s wish that his body be consumed by lions in the aftermath of his death. The comedian and long-time animal rights campaigner had made the proposal to Conan O’Brien on the US late night chat show Conan, saying he wanted to “give back”. “I thought it would be good to be just fed to the lions at London Zoo,” said Gervais. “That would be useful, isn’t it? We never give anything back. We take everything from this world…everything we do is for us, we’re not even food for other things. At least then…I’d like the look on the tourists’ faces when they throw this dead, fat, naked, 73-year-old, maybe, if I’m lucky, to the lions, and as it lands some people go, ‘is that the bloke from The Office?’” London Zoo’s chief operating officer Kathryn England said: “I suspect Ricky may be a bit gristly for our lions.” She added: “We are struggling financially because of lockdown so if anyone wants to ‘give something back’ we welcome donations that will help us keep our lions fed on a more suitable diet.” We’re wondering why he wants to wait until he dies, feed the fucker to them right now!  

After days of false reports, it’s been confirmed that Tanya Roberts has died at the age of 65. Her partner, Lance O’Brien, told us that Roberts’ doctors called him just after 9:00 p.m. on January 4th to notify him of Roberts’ passing. The actress had been hospitalised for complications of a UTI that he claimed spread to her kidneys, liver and gallbladder before it “got into her blood.” The news comes shortly after a premature death announcement was made. The star was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after collapsing on Christmas Eve. Her rep, Mike Pingel, said that O’Brien claimed to have been asked by hospital staff to come in and say his final goodbyes on Sunday. Apparently O’Brien watched her close her eyes and assumed she had passed away. O’Brien reportedly called Pingel afterwards and told him Roberts had died. But during an interview with Inside Edition that morning, O’Brien received a phone call from the hospital informing him that Roberts had not passed away. “Now you’re telling me that she’s alive?” he said at the time. “Oh, thank the lord! Thank god.” O’Brien began to cry. “The hospital’s telling me she’s alive, and they’re calling me from the ICU,” he said, later adding, “I’m so happy.” However, the joy didn’t last long, it appears that Roberts is now dead, again. Roberts starred in many films over the course of her lifetime, including the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill. She also acted on a number of popular TV shows, including That ’70s Show and Charlie’s Angels.   

Dr Dre says he is ‘doing great’ after being hospitalised in California for a suspected aneurysm. The rap mogul posted on Instagram that he hopes to leave Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and return home soon. “Thanks to my family, friends and fans for their interest and well wishes,” he wrote. “I’m doing great and getting excellent care from my medical team. I will be out of the hospital and back home soon. Shout out to all the great medical professionals at Cedars. One Love!!” Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, was taken to the hospital’s ICU on Monday where doctors ran tests to find what caused the bleeding on his brain. Luckily he wasn’t declared dead by his better half as he’s in the middle of a divorce from his wife, Nicole Young, who filed to end their marriage of more than 20 years. The rapper, who was born in Compton, California, rose to fame in the rap group NWA in the 1980s. After leaving the group he went on to huge solo success and won a Grammy for his 1993 album The Chronic. He went on to work as a hit music producer, and played an influential role in the careers of rappers such as Eminem and 50 Cent before selling his soul to Apple Inc. for $3 billion. Yup, you read that right, three billion dollars. The boy from Compton did good! 

On This Day

  • 1776 – American Revolution: Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense. 
  • 1863 – The Metropolitan Railway, the world’s oldest underground railway, opens between Paddington and Farringdon, marking the beginning of the London Underground.  
  • 1927 – Fritz Lang‘s futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.   

Deaths

  • 1862 – Samuel Colt, American engineer and businessman, maker of guns (b. 1814). 
  • 1917– Buffalo Bill, American soldier and hunter (b. 1846). 
  • 1971 – Coco Chanel, French fashion designer, founded Chanel (b. 1883).   
  • 2016 – David Bowie, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (b. 1947)

Last Meals

George Junius Stinney Jr., was a 14-year-old African-American boy who was convicted, of murdering two white girls, Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 7, in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was executed by electric chair in June 1944. Stinney is the youngest American to be sentenced to death and executed since Hannah Ocuish in 1786.  

A re-examination of the Stinney case began in 2004 after a judicial review. Stinney’s conviction was overturned in 2014, seventy years after he was executed, when a court ruled that he had not received a fair trial. 

In March 1944, Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 7, were riding their bicycles in Alcolu looking for flowers. When they saw Stinney and his younger sister Aime during their journey, they stopped and asked if they knew where to find maypops, the yellow edible fruit of passionflowers. That was reportedly the last time the girls were seen alive. 

Binnicker and Thames, who were white, never made it home that day. Their disappearance prompted hundreds of Alcolu residents, including Stinney’s father, to come together and search for the missing girls. It wasn’t until the next day when their dead bodies were discovered in a soggy ditch. When examined, their bodies, there was no clear sign of a struggle, but both girls had met violent deaths involving multiple head injuries. 

Thames had a hole boring straight through her forehead into her skull, along with a two-inch-long cut above her right eyebrow. Meanwhile, Binnicker had suffered at least seven blows to the head. It was later noted that the back of her skull was “nothing but a mass of crushed bones.” The wounds were likely caused by a round instrument about the size of the head of a hammer.  

A rumour floated around town that the girls had made a stop at a prominent white family’s home on the same day of their murder, but this was never confirmed. And police certainly didn’t seem to be looking for a white killer. 

When Clarendon County law enforcement officers learned from a witness that Binnicker and Thames were seen talking to Stinney, they went to his home. There, George Stinney Jr. was promptly handcuffed and interrogated for hours in a small room without his parents, an attorney, or any witnesses. Police claimed that Stinney confessed to murdering Binnicker and Thames after his plan to have sex with one of the girls failed. At the time, 14 was considered the age of responsibility – and Stinney was believed to be responsible for murder. 

About a month after the girls’ deaths, George Stinney Jr.’s trial began at a Clarendon County Courthouse. Court-appointed attorney Charles Plowden did “little to nothing” to defend his client. During the two-hour trial, Plowden failed to call witnesses to the stand or present any evidence that would cast doubt on the prosecution’s case. The most significant piece of evidence presented against Stinney was his alleged confession, but there was no written record of the teen admitting to the murders. 

By the time of his trial, Stinney hadn’t seen his parents in weeks, and they were too afraid of getting attacked by a white mob to come to the courthouse. So the 14-year-old was surrounded by strangers — up to 1,500 of them. 

Following a deliberation that took less than 10 minutes, the all-white jury found Stinney guilty of murder, with no recommendation for mercy. On April 24th, 1944, the teen was sentenced to die by electrocution. 

On June 16th, 1944, George Stinney Jr. walked into the execution chamber at the South Carolina State Penitentiary in Columbia with a Bible tucked under his arm. 

Weighing in at just 95lbs/43kg, he was dressed in a loose-fitting striped jumpsuit. Strapped into an adult-size electric chair using a Bible as a booster seat because Stinney was too small for the chair. The state electrician also struggled to adjust an electrode to his right leg due to his size. A mask that was too big for him was placed over his face. 

An assistant captain asked Stinney if he had any last words. Stinney replied, “No sir.” The prison doctor prodded, “You don’t want to say anything about what you did?” Again, Stinney replied, “No sir.” 

When officials turned on the switch, 2,400 volts surged through Stinney’s body, causing the mask to slip off. His eyes were wide and teary, and saliva was emanating from his mouth for all the witnesses in the room to see. After two more jolts of electricity, it was over. Stinney was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. In a span of just 83 days, the boy had been charged with murder, tried, convicted, and executed by the state. He was buried in an unmarked  grave in Crowley. 

In 2004, George Frierson, a local historian who grew up in Alcolu, started researching the case after reading a newspaper article. His work gained the attention of South Carolina lawyers Steve McKenzie and Matt Burgess. Together they filed for a re-trial. 

Frierson stated in interviews, “There has been a person that has been named as being the culprit, who is now deceased. And it was said by the family that there was a deathbed confession.” Frierson said that the rumoured culprit came from a well-known, prominent white family. A member, or members, of that family had served on the initial coroner’s inquest jury, which had recommended that Stinney be prosecuted. 

New evidence in the court hearing in 2014 included testimony by Stinney’s siblings that he was with them at the time of the murders. In addition, an affidavit was introduced from the “Reverend Francis Batson, who found the girls and pulled them from the water-filled ditch. In his statement he recalls there was not much blood in or around the ditch, suggesting that they may have been killed elsewhere and moved. 

Rather than approving a new trial, on December 17, 2014, circuit court Judge Carmen Mullen vacated Stinney’s conviction, thus not exonerating Stinney, but voiding the verdict. She ruled that he had not received a fair trial, as he was not effectively defended and his Sixth Amendment rights had been violated. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jemaine Clement (47), William Sanderson (77), Evan Handler (60), Fran Walsh (62), Rod Stewart (76), Imelda Staunton (65), Joely Richardson (56), Rachel Nichols (41), Michelle Forbes (56), Amber Benson (44), Nicolas Cage (57), Jeremy Renner (50), Erin Gray (71), Linda Kozlowski (63), Brett Dalton (38), Steven Williams (72), Helen Worth (70), Eddie Redmayne (39), Kate McKinnon (37), Norman Reedus (52), Rowan Atkinson (66), Angus Deayton (65), Clancy Brown (62), Bradley Cooper (46), January Jones (43), Diane Keaton (75), Robert Duvall (90), Shea Whigham (52), Hayao Miyazaki (80), Vinnie Jones (56), Marilyn Manson (52), Mandip Gill (33), Dafne Keen (16), Julia Ormond (56), Graham McTavish (60), Matt Frewer (63), Emma Mackey (25), and Julian Sands (63).

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