Dead Pool 23rd January 2022

A week to be glad that you’re not a hamster in Hong Kong, and to be fair, a year in which we all should have guessed Meat Loaf. He wasn’t the fittest fiddle in the orchestra and he had a dubious medical history. But as always, we almost never list people we like. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Police are investigating reports a man’s body was brought into a post office before an attempt was made to claim his pension. According to local reports, a man entered a post office in County Carlow on Friday morning and tried to collect a pension on behalf of another man. After being told the man would have to be present for pension payment to be claimed, he reportedly left and two people later returned with a man in his 60s, who appeared to be propped up. The Flying Monkeys reports the body of the man was left at the scene after the two men fled when a woman reported suspicions. Carlow mayor Ken Murnane said the local community is absolutely shocked by the reports. “The whole town is in shock that anyone could actually think of doing something like that, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “It’s just mind-boggling that anyone could happen to do something like that, it beggars belief. It’s like a Hitchcock movie.” A Garda spokesperson said officers are investigating all the circumstances surrounding the unexplained death of a man in the Carlow area on Friday morning. “The services of the Garda Technical Bureau and the Office of the State Pathologist have been requested,” they said. “A post-mortem will be conducted by the Office of the State Pathologist, the results of which will determine the  course of the investigation. “No further information is available at this time.”    

Arnold Schwarzenegger has reportedly been involved in a “multi-car” accident which saw his vehicle flip onto the top of another car. According to a reports by The Flying Monkeys, another driver, a woman, was “badly injured” in the crash, and is currently being treated in hospital. The incident occurred on Friday afternoon (21st January) in Los Angeles, around a mile from the Terminator star’s home. Schwarzenegger’s car, a Yukon SUV, collided with a red Prius at roughly 5pm local time. The vehicle then began to roll onto the top of the Prius, and continued to roll onto another car, a Porsche Cayenne. It is said that Schwarzenegger is “deeply concerned about the injured woman” and “wants to personally check up on her”, after she was seen bleeding heavily from her head. “There was a collision about 4.35pm on Sunset and Allenford Avenue,” a spokesperson for the LAPD confirmed to PA. “It was a four vehicle traffic collision and fire departments and paramedics transported one female to a local hospital with an abrasion to her head. Neither alcohol nor drugs are suspected as a factor in this and all parties remained at the scene.” A full investigation into the incident is being conducted by authorities.    

A folk singer from the Czech Republic has died after deliberately catching Covid, her son has told The Flying Monkeys. Hana Horka, 57, was unvaccinated and had posted on social media that she was recovering after testing positive, but died two days later. Her son, Jan Rek, said she got infected on purpose when he and his father had the virus, so she could get a recovery pass to access certain venues. The Czech Republic reported a record number of Covid-19 cases on Wednesday. Mr Rek and his father, who are both fully vaccinated, both caught Covid over Christmas. But he said his mother had decided not to stay away from them, preferring instead to expose herself to the virus. “She should have isolated for a week because we tested positive. But she was with us the whole time,” he said. Proof of vaccination or recent infection from the virus is required in the Czech Republic to gain entry to many social and cultural venues, including cinemas, bars and cafes. His mother was a member of one of the oldest Czech folk groups, Asonance. She had wanted to catch Covid so there would be fewer restrictions on her movement, Mr Rek explained. Two days before she died, she wrote on social media that she was recovering: “Now there will be theatre, sauna, a concert”. On Sunday morning, the day she died, Ms Horka said she was feeling better and dressed to go for a walk. But then her back started hurting, so she went to lie down in her bedroom. “In about 10 minutes it was all over,” her son said. “She choked to death”. Although she was unvaccinated, Jan Rek stressed that his mother did not believe in some of the more bizarre conspiracy theories about Covid vaccines. “Her philosophy was that she was more OK with the idea of catching Covid than getting vaccinated. Not that we would get microchipped or anything like that,” he said. There was no point in trying to discuss the issue with her as it would just get too emotional, he added. Instead, he hoped that by telling his story he could convince others to get vaccinated. “If you have living examples from real life, it’s more powerful than just graphs  and numbers. You can’t really sympathise with numbers.”

You’ll all be glad to hear that the Brighton cat killer who terrorised cats and pet owners during his deadly rampage has died behind bars. Security guard Steve Bouquet was jailed after claiming the lives of nine cats and wounding seven. The former Royal Navy gunner carried out his bloody spree in the East Sussex city between October 2018 and May 2019. He was finally brought to justice after being caught on CCTV set up by the owner of a dead moggy. On Tuesday, the Prison Service confirmed that he had died at hospital on January 6th. At his sentencing hearing the court was told Bouquet had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which had spread to his liver and lungs. The pet killer was jailed for five years and three months at Hove Crown Court last July after being found guilty of 16 offences of criminal damage in relation to the cats, as well as possession of a knife. During his trial, jurors heard accounts from several cat owners who had found their pets bleeding on their doorsteps. Nine cats – Hendrix, Tommy, Hannah, Alan, Nancy, Gizmo, Kyo, Ollie and Cosmo – were killed, while another seven were injured. Emma O’Sullivan, owner of Gizmo, wept as she told the court: “I miss Gizmo every day. After it happened it could not sleep. I spent many months in therapy working through what had happened.” Katerine Mattock, who lived with Alan the cat, said: “This was a murder of an innocent and much-loved cat called Alan. Alan was my family. He made my house a home. One minute he was running round the kitchen then next he was dead, covered in blood. Sentencing Bouquet, Judge Jeremy Gold QC said his behaviour was “cruel, it was sustained and it struck at the very heart of family life”. He added: “It is important that everyone understands that cats are domestic pets but they are more than that. They are effectively family members. They are much loved by the adults and children who live with and care for them. Cats and all domestic animals are a source of joy and support to their owners, especially during lockdown.” Bouquet served in the Royal Navy for 22 years, including in Northern Ireland and Iraq.  

Singer and actor Hazel O’Connor is recovering after a “serious medical event”, her family have said. The 66-year-old, who rose to fame as a pop star in the Eighties  after appearing in the film Breaking Glass, was found at her home in southern France on Sunday 9th January. After being rushed to hospital, she was found to have suffered a bleed on the brain and was placed in an induced coma for 24 hours while receiving treatment, according to a blog post by her brother, Neil O’Connor. He said that the artist has been showing “a lot of progress” since being taken out of the coma on Monday 17th January, and while her recovery would take time, “she is tough and is responding to stimuli and treatment”. “She’s receiving the best of care and I thank the French medical service there for taking such good care of her,” he wrote. “She’s going to need patience from us and from herself, I’ve already learned that she’s started to show her usual feistiness.” 1O’Connor was due to tour the UK from March this year. Her brother said an announcement will soon be made by her management regarding the shows.

On This Day

  • 1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
  • 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States’ first female doctor.
  • 1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the “Frisbee”.
  • 2020 – The World Health Organisation declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Deaths

Last Meals

Douglas Franklin Wright was an American serial  killer who murdered at least seven people between 1969 and 1991. He was sentenced to death for three of these murders and was executed in 1996 at the Oregon State Penitentiary, becoming the first person to be executed in Oregon since 1962. He was also the first person executed in Oregon by lethal injection.  

Wright was born on March 25th 1940, in Spirit Lake, Iowa. His father was an alcoholic and his mother neglected him. According to psychological reports, Wright endured repeated physical and sexual abuse as a child. He became a high school dropout and was kicked out of the Marines for sexually assaulting a 5-year-old boy in California. Wright admitted to a probation officer that he had sexually assaulted more than 70 young boys. In the early 1960s, Wright was arrested for multiple burglaries and was sentenced to eight years in prison.    

In September 1969, Wright broke into the home of 71-year-old Margaret Rosenberry, and her granddaughter, 27-year-old Gail Snelling, in Portland, Oregon. Wright was a friend of the family and was known to them. Upon entering the home, Wright murdered both Rosenberry and Snelling with a pistol. He killed Snelling via two fatal gunshot wounds to the head and fatally shot Rosenberry three times in the head. He then abducted Snelling’s 5-year-old son, taking him to several motels in the area where he sexually molested him. Wright eventually let the boy go and abandoned him. Police launched a manhunt for Wright who evaded them for over a month. He was eventually captured after he shot and wounded a man at a billiards hall in Banks, Oregon. Wright was found guilty of the murders of Rosenberry and Snelling and was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. When asked why he killed them, Wright said he had always wanted a son of his own. 

Wright was paroled in 1982 as he was considered a model prisoner. However, upon his release, he returned to his life of crime and committed several armed robberies, threatening to kill anyone who got in his way. On May 23rd 1984, Wright abducted 10-year-old Luke Tredway from Portland. He grabbed Tredway off the streets as he walked home from a friend’s house. He then drove Tredway back to his apartment and molested him for the next thirty-six hours. He murdered Tredway at dawn on May 25th, fatally shooting him six times. Wright then disposed of the body and the case went unsolved for over twelve years. Wright was later arrested in 1984 for the armed robberies and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. However, he was released early once again in June 1991, and served less than seven years of his thirty year sentence.   

In October 1991, Wright advertised work to homeless men in Portland, offering them ten dollars an hour to clear brush at a youth camp. On October 20th, two homeless men, 26-year-old Randy Scott Henry and 31-year-old Anthony Shawn “Tony” Nelson, accepted Wright’s offer for work. Wright drove them out of Portland to a remote area on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and bought them food. He then drove to the desert and offered them alcohol. As the men drank the alcohol, Wright fatally shot Nelson in the head with a pistol. Henry jumped out the car and escaped while dodging bullets fired at him by Wright. He managed to get to the highway and returned to Portland where he alerted the authorities. With the help of another witness, they led the police straight to Wright, and he was apprehended.

It was then learned that Wright had killed three more people in a similar fashion to Nelson. The victims were identified as 27-year-old Anthony Barker, 23-year-old William Marks, and 37-year-old William Davis, all murdered in October 1991. All three victims were homeless men whom Wright had lured to a remote area of Wasco County on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation with a false promise of work. He then murdered each of them by fatally shooting them in the head with a pistol. He would later be convicted in Wasco County of these murders.   

 In total, Wright was convicted of five murders, but was linked to seven. He reportedly also hinted at additional killings in other states prior to his execution, but he was only ever confirmed to have killed seven people.   

Wright was convicted of the murders of Barker, Marks, and Davis. He was also indicted in the murder of Nelson in a federal court. Because Nelson was a Makah Indian, Wright was never officially charged with his murder, as he would have to be tried in a federal court based on the law. If Wright had not quit his appeals process, he would have been tried before a federal court in the Nelson case, because killing a Native American on an Indian reservation is a federal crime, under the Major Crimes Act. 

On June 25th 1993, Wright was convicted of aggravated murder for the three killings. On October 11th 1993, he was sentenced to death for the murders of Barker, Marks, and Davis. After being sentenced, Wright waived his appeals and asked to be executed, speeding up his execution.

Shortly before his execution Wright sent a letter to The Oregonian in which he confessed to the abduction, molestation, and murder of Luke Tredway back in 1984, which was still unsolved by 1996. Wright claimed he confessed to the murder because he wanted to do one good thing before he died. He also invited Tredway’s family to attend his execution but they declined. Wright asked for one honey bun as his last meal, which was granted. 

He was executed by lethal injection on September 6th 1996. It was the first execution in Oregon in thirty-four years and the state’s first post-Gregg execution. Wright remains the first of only two people to be executed in Oregon since the resumption of the death penalty.  The other was convicted murderer Harry Charles Moore in 1997. Both waived their appeals and asked that the execution be carried out. Wright was executed on the same day as Michael Torrence, another serial killer who was executed in South Carolina.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Gil Gerard (79), Olivia d’Abo (53), Linda Blair (63), Piper Laurie (90), Geena Davis (66), Martin Shaw (77), Emma Bunton (46), Rainn Wilson (56), David Lynch (76), Tom Baker (88), Will Young (43), Elizabeth Tulloch (41), Katey Sagal (68), Rob Delaney (45), Dolly Parton (76), Tippi Hedren (92), Michael Crawford (80), Pasha Kovalev (42), Mark Rylance (62), Kevin Costner (67), Dave Bautista (53), Jason Segel (42), Jane Horrocks (58), Jim Carrey (60), Zooey Deschanel (42), Kelly Marie Tran (33), James Earl Jones (91), and Jake Paul (25).

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