Dead Pool 21st March 2021

I don’t know about you, but I was very sure that Yaphet Kotto died about twenty years ago, but here we are! I’m wondering if this is another Mandela effect or am I just being bonkers? 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Prince Philip has left King Edward VII’s Hospital in London where he has been recovering after heart surgery. The Duke of Edinburgh spent 28 nights as an in-patient – his longest ever stay – after he was admitted on 16th February. He was initially taken to King Edward VII’s Hospital after feeling unwell at Windor and was moved to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City of London two weeks later. He underwent surgery for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s on 3rd March, before being transferred back to King Edward’s to recover and continue treatment. The duke left the private hospital in the back of a black BMW on Tuesday morning. Philip has been treated for heart problems in the past and in 2011 was rushed to hospital by helicopter from Sandringham after suffering chest pains as the royal family was preparing for Christmas. In the serious health scare, he was treated for a blocked coronary artery at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire and underwent a minimally invasive procedure of coronary stenting. 

The last male member of an indigenous Amazonian tribe has died from Covid-19, marking the permanent loss of his people’s traditions and rituals.  Aruká Juma, of the Juma tribe, died on 17th February due to complications caused by the virus in a hospital in Pôrto Velho, the capital of state of Rondônia in western Brazil. The coronavirus crisis has hit indigenous people in the Amazon hard, believed to have been spread by non-indigenous people entering their areas to carry out illegal activities such as logging and mining. Mr Juma, who was believed to be aged between 86 and 90, had three daughters, all of whom married into a different tribe and will be unable to carry on his lineage as it is descended from fathers. In the 18th century, there were an estimated 15,000 people in the Juma tribe, but the numbers shrank drastically due to disease and massacres. By 1934, only around 100 members remained. 30 years later, a massacre left just six members of the tribe alive, including Mr Juma. After the death of his brother-in-law in 1999, he became the last living male member of the tribe. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Rondônia said in a statement on Mr Juma’s death: “In the mid-60s, the Juma people were almost extinct due to the massacres that other relatives suffered in the previous decades by rubber tappers, loggers and fishermen in the territory, which is on the banks of the Assuã River, in Canutama. Aruká was one of the survivors of his ethnicity. The indigenous man leaves three daughters, the last people of the Juma ethnic group.” Groups advocating for the rights of indigenous people said Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro’s denial of Covid-19 and lack of policy, coupled with geographic challenges, pose a substantial threat to the survival of indigenous populations.  

Five-time world darts champion Raymond van Barneveld is being monitored by medics after collapsing at the Players Championship 8 on Friday. The Dutchman, 53, required medical assistance after becoming unwell soon after his first-round defeat at the event in Milton Keynes. Raymond collapsed as he marked a match between Jeffrey de Zwaan and Zoran Lerchbacher. He was seen by paramedics but did not require hospital treatment and returned to his hotel to be monitored. A spokesperson for the PDC said: “Raymond van Barneveld received medical treatment after being taken ill at Friday’s competition. He was treated by paramedics but has not required hospital treatment, and returned to his hotel room at the Marshall Arena to be further monitored. Play was suspended whilst Van Barneveld received treatment before resuming at 14:45 GMT.” Van Barneveld retired from the sport in 2019 but made his return earlier this year and won a two-year card through Q School.  

An Iranian woman who died of a heart attack while waiting to be executed was allegedly still hanged. The woman, named in reports as Zahra Ismaili, was reportedly made to watch as 16 men were hanged in front of her while waiting her turn at Rajai Shahr Prison, west of the capital Tehran. The mother-of-two had been  convicted of killing her husband, who was a senior official in the Ministry of Intelligence. Her lawyer, Omid Moradi, claimed her husband had allegedly been abusive to both her and their daughter and that she had acted in self-defence. Mr Moradi is said to have described how the events unfolded on Wednesday in a Facebook post, which claimed his client’s body was still hanged after she collapsed, to allow her husband’s mother to kick a chair away from beneath her. According to the Iran Human Rights Monitor, the post, which has reportedly since been deleted, said Ismaili’s death certificate gave her cause of death as “cardiac arrest”. Mr Moradi reportedly wrote: “It states cardiac arrest as cause of death because yesterday 16 men were hanged before her eyes. Zahra’s heart stopped and she died before she was taken to the gallows. “They hanged her lifeless body, and the victim’s mother personally kicked the stool from under her feet so she could see her daughter-in-law’s corpse on the gallows for even a few seconds.” Ismaili was one of three women to be executed in Iran in recent weeks in the prisons of Ardabil, Sanandaj and Karaj, according to the Iran HRM. This brings the total number of women executed during Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s tenure, which began in August 2013, to 114, the website, run by human rights activists, said. Hands up who would like a mother-in-law like that?

On This Day

  • 1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. 
  • 1963 – Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closes.  
  • 1983 – The first cases of the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic begin; Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of poison gas, but the cause is later determined mostly to be psychosomatic.  
  • 2006 – The social media site Twitter is founded.  

Deaths

  • 1617 – Pocahontas, Algonquian Indigenous princess (b. c. 1595). 
  • 1997 – Wilbert Awdry, English cleric and author, created Thomas the Tank Engine (b. 1911). 
  • 1999 – Ernie Wise, English comedian and actor (b. 1925). 
  • 2017 – Colin Dexter, English author (b. 1930). 
  • 2017 – Martin McGuinness, Irish republican (b. 1950). 

The Last Man Executed in The Isle of Man

John Kewish Jr. was the last person executed in the Isle of  Man. He was convicted and executed for the crime of patricide. Sentences of death would be continually issued, the last in 1992, on the Isle of Man, but Kewish’s sentence was the last to be carried out. 

Prior to his arrest John Kewish Jr. lived on a farm with his elderly parents. He was the oldest of seven siblings and was unmarried. Kewish’s father, John Kewish Sr., was found dead in his home on 28th March 1872. Kewish Jr., who had a history of crime including sheep stealing, was arrested and charged with patricide. He was described as mentally disabled. 

According to depositions, the body was found on the evening of 28th March by the victim’s wife, Mary Kewish, and a neighbour. The following day the family moved the body, washed it, and prepared it for burial. It was not until 30th March that someone decided to contact the police. On 31st March a police doctor examined the body and noted six wounds (four on the back and two on the chest) which he felt were caused by three thrusts from a small pitchfork. Thomas Kewish, John Jr.’s brother, also admitted there was an ongoing argument between John and his father. The police felt this was strong enough evidence to arrest John Jr. 

Kewish was tried twice before a jury. At his first trial his only defence was that he had not committed the crime. After 14 hours of deliberation the jury was unable to reach a verdict. A new trial was ordered when the jury foreman became ill and deliberations could not continue. There is evidence that a majority of this first jury believed Kewish to be either innocent of the crime, or so simple-minded that he was not responsible for the act. (According to one of the jurors, seven of the twelve believed he was not guilty.) At Kewish’s second trial his advocates added the further plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, submitting that either he had not committed the crime or if he had, his mental disability freed him of responsibility. Insanity was later supported by an examining physician’s statement that Kewish’s mind was unable to comprehend the moral turpitude of such a criminal act. After an hour’s deliberation the jury convicted him of patricide. The presiding deemster, William Drinkwater, sentenced Kewish to the mandatory punishment of death by hanging.  

Although convicted, Kewish hoped to receive leniency from the British Government. The Lieutenant-Governor received several sworn statements intended to encourage leniency, including from the jurors of the first trial, his examining physician, and others. Kewish’s post-trial statements were inconsistent. At one point Kewish’s gaoler stated that Kewish admitted he had accidentally shot his father and hid the weapon in the thatch of an outhouse (where a bird gun was later found). At other times Kewish repeated his claims of innocence and requested a free pardon. The pitchfork had not been clearly identified; however, the Home Secretary advised the Queen that he could not recommend mercy. He felt the crime was premeditated, and committed from greed, and added that neither the deemster nor the jury had recommended mercy at the trial.

Manx law at the time required the British Crown to order the execution by positive act. Queen Victoria was displeased with this, and she indicated this in a letter to the Home Secretary. He apologised and promised to bring Manx law into compliance with that of England, which did not require such an order. Although expressing personal doubts about the case, she took his advice and indicated that  the execution was to proceed. 

Locally there was reluctance to become involved in the execution. Craftsmen initially refused to build the gallows, and an executioner, William Calcraft, had to be brought over from England to carry out the sentence. Kewish was hanged in Castle Rushen at Castletown on 1st August 1872 and he is buried there. It was the only non-public execution to take place under Manx law. 

After the execution, Queen Victoria was petitioned to put an end to the death penalty. She declined, and it was not until 1993 that Tynwald abolished capital punishment in the Isle of Man. Five people were sentenced to death (for murder) on the island between 1973 and 1992, but all death sentences after Kewish’s were commuted to life imprisonment by the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom using the Crown’s Prerogative of Mercy.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Gary Oldman (63), Sonequa Martin-Green (36), Matthew Broderick (59), Timothy Dalton (75), Ruby Rose (35), Holly Hunter (63), Freema Agyeman (41), David Thewlis (58), Spike Lee (64), William Hurt (71), Bruce Willis (66), Glenn Close (74), Ursula Andress (85), Harvey Weinstein (69), Abigail Cowen (23), Queen Latifah (51), Brad Dourif (71), Luc Besson (62), Irene Cara (62), Rob Lowe (57), Kurt Russell (70), Gary Sinise (66), John Boyega (29), Patrick Duffy (72), Alexandra Daddario (35), Alan Tudyk (50), Aisling Bea (37), Jerome Flynn (58), Erik Estrada (72), Judah Friedlander (52), Jimmy Nail (67), Eva Longoria (46), David Cronenberg (78), Judd Hirsch (86), and Will.i.am (46).

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