Dead Pool 6th April 2025

With the world falling into pieces, I bet those listed below are glad to be away from the  shit-show that is life. However, we must look at the bright side of things, like points! With the sad passing of Val Kilmer, I can award 85 points to Nicki H, Sarai K, and Ian K, well done all of you! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Lee Montague, 97, English actor (The Camp on Blood Island, Deadlier Than the Male, Jesus of Nazareth).  
• Sian Barbara Allen, 78, American actress (Scream, Pretty Peggy, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, You’ll Like My Mother), complications from Alzheimer’s disease
• Patty Maloney, 89, American actress (Star Wars Holiday Special, Far Out Space Nuts, The Little Rascals), complications from multiple strokes. 
• Val Kilmer, 65, American actor (Top Gun, The Doors, Batman Forever), pneumonia.  
• Gordon Faith, 94, British actor (Doctor Who, Adam Adamant Lives!, War & Peace). 
• Robert Trebor, 71, American actor (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Raise Your Voice, Jiminy Glick in Lalawood).

 In Other News

The Taliban is investigating an Afghan man’s claim that he is 140 years old – which would make him the oldest person ever to have lived. Aqel Nazir, who lives in the country’s eastern Khost province, says he was born in the 1880s. He claims to remember celebrating the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919 alongside King Amanullah Khan, the Afghan leader who launched a campaign against the British, while in his thirties. Nazir, who lives in the picturesque hills in Khost, said: ‘I was in the palace with King Amanullah Khan. I was over 30 at the time and I remember saying that the British had fled and knelt down. Everyone was happy and thanked King Amanullah Khan for chasing the British away. Many leaders accompanied us to the Arg [presidential palace], but now all of them have passed away.’ The great-great grandfather does not have any documents to support his claim, but his family are also on board with gaining official recognition of his status. Khyal Wazir, his 50-year-old grandson, said: ‘He is my grandfather, and I have my grandchildren as well.’ Another grandson, Abdul Hakim Sabari, said: ‘We request the government confirm our grandfather’s age using an ID or any other scientific method or documents, to prove he is 140 years old.’  In an attempt to solve the mystery, the ruling Taliban administration has dispatched a special civil registration team to assess his true age. Mustaghfar Gurbaz, a Taliban spokesman for the province, said: ‘If confirmed by documents or assessments, we will work to register him as the oldest person in the world. If verified, he would comfortably take the title of the oldest person to have ever lived.’ That record is held by Jeanne Calment, who was born in 1875 and passed away in 1997, 122 years later. The world’s current verified oldest living person is Inah Canabarro Lucas, a Brazilian nun who turned 116 last June.  

A familiar TV personality is said to be gearing up to enter the Celebrity Big Brother house on ITV, with the show set to premiere April 7th, just over a year after she faced a cancer diagnosis. TV host Trisha Goddard bravely announced this February that her breast cancer had made a comeback after previously battling and overcoming the disease in 2008. Sources, including The Flying Monkeys, suggest she’s thrilled about the chance to join the reality TV fray. Trisha was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer – also referred to as metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer – a condition treatable but incurable. She kept her diagnosis under wraps for 19 months until going public with it in February 2024. Renowned for her eponymous talk show on ITV which aired from 1998 to 2005 before transitioning to Channel 5, Trisha has been a familiar face on British television. Trisha has been vocal about her previous encounters with cancer and has cited the burden of carrying the secret of its return as the reason for disclosing it now. The TV star has candidly spoken out about not wanting to be seen as “frail” following her health issues. She told the Flying Monkeys that maintaining secrecy over her health became exhausting, saying: “I can’t lie, I can’t keep making up stories. It gets to a stage, after a year and a half, when keeping a secret becomes more of a burden than anything else.” Revealing her nervousness around public perception after her diagnosis, the icon shared: “My worry is that people will start seeing me as a frail little thing, and that if the news got out, I’d be judged, or people would change the way they are with me, or that I wouldn’t work.”  

Virginia Giuffre has spoken publicly for the first time since sparking alarm with a social media post claiming she had just “four days to live.” Giuffre — who has accused Prince Andrew of abusing her when she was a teenager, a claim the royal denies — shared the disturbing update last Sunday, writing: “I’ve gone into kidney renal failure, they’ve given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology.” Now, the 40-year-old has broken her silence about her health battle, telling the Flying Monkeys the issues began following a serious episode earlier this year. “I was able to fight back against Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein who abused and trafficked me… I can no longer stay silent,” she said in a statement. “Again, I thank everyone for their support.” Giuffre’s condition is said to have worsened after a bus crash in rural Western Australia on March 24th. However, police, the bus driver, and several witnesses have since said the collision was not as severe as she had suggested online. Her brother, Sky Roberts, later clarified the viral post, saying doctors had warned Giuffre she could have died within four days without treatment. “Let’s be clear, she never stated in the bus accident the cause of all her other injuries,” he told us. “Nobody ever said her liver issues and kidney failure were ever from that. We still don’t know if it is, I’m not a medical professional. That’s up to her doctor to determine.” He added that while he didn’t know the exact cause of her internal injuries, they were “consistent” with a car crash. Giuffre remains in a Perth hospital, where a spokeswoman said she is “marginally better but still in serious condition” after undergoing treatment. The update comes amid growing scrutiny of Giuffre’s private life, following reports that she has become increasingly isolated since splitting from her husband earlier this year. She now lives alone on a secluded 40-acre farm north of Perth — a property she bought following her settlement with Prince Andrew in 2022, reportedly worth millions. The Duke of York made the payment with no admission of liability. While the farm is equipped with stables, a brook, and a dirt bike track, neighbours say it has become a “gilded cage,” with high-security fences and surveillance cameras. “You don’t know the half of it,” one neighbour told us. “I can’t really say anymore, but none of this surprises me.” Giuffre is also facing a court appearance on April 9th, accused of breaching a family violence restraining order. It is unclear whether she will be discharged in time, with hospital sources saying, “It looks like she may be here for a few more days still.”

On This Day

• 1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
• 1974 – In Brighton, United Kingdom, ABBA wins the 1974 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo“, the first of a joint-record seven Swedish wins.
• 2018 – A bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior ice hockey team collides with a semi-truck in Saskatchewan, Canada, killing 16 people and injuring 13 others. 

Deaths

• 1199 – Richard I, king of England (b. 1157).
• 1528 – Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (b. 1471).
• 1992 – Isaac Asimov, American science fiction writer (b. 1920).
• 1998 – Tammy Wynette, American singer-songwriter (b. 1942).
• 2014 – Mickey Rooney, American soldier, actor, and dancer (b. 1920).
• 2015 – Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter and conductor (b. 1918).

Death Row’s Youngest

The youngest woman ever to be sentenced to death in the US is still on death row almost 30 years later.

On 12th January 1995, then-18-year-old Tennessee woman Christa Pike lured a 19-year-old classmate named Colleen Slemmer to a secluded location and murdered her.

Pike thought that Colleen was trying to ‘steal’ her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and the three of them, along with 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, signed out of their dormitory and went into the woods. 

The 18-year-old told her victim that she wanted to make  peace with her by offering her some cannabis, but she and Shipp attacked Colleen while Peterson acted as a lookout.

A court heard that Colleen was beaten, slashed, and had a pentagram carved into her chest for around 30 minutes before Pike killed her by smashing her skull with a chunk of asphalt.

Pike kept a piece of her victim’s skull, and started showing it to other people in her class.

It wasn’t long before she, Shipp and Peterson were arrested. 

Though she confessed to torturing and killing Colleen, Pike insisted that she had only intended to scare the 19-year-old.

Charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, Pike was found guilty on 22nd March 1996, and shortly afterwards was sentenced to death by electrocution.

Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 25 years, while Peterson had become a state witness and was given a six-year probationary sentence.

Pike became the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in the US, but almost 30 years on, she is still on death row.

The reason for that is that there are very long processes involved with carrying out an execution. Many death row inmates will spend years appealing and challenging their death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, prisoners in the US who have been sentenced to death will normally spend more than 10 years before they get executed or are found to be not guilty. 

They said that since 2013, more than half of death row inmates who are exonerated had to spend over 25 years awaiting execution before their names were cleared.

The group added that over half of US inmates sentenced to death have spent at least 18 years on death row.

Over time, Pike has appealed her verdict, cancelled her appeal, and then re-issued it, as well as had legal representatives attempt to commute her sentence.

At one point, she did have an execution date set for 19th August 2002, but a month before that, she said she changed her mind and her appeal continued.

While behind bars in 2001, she attempted to murder fellow inmate Patricia Jones by strangling her with string, and was convicted of attempted murder in 2004.

In 2012, a plan to break her out of prison was discovered, with a man named Donald Kohut, who had been writing letters to her in prison, and corrections officer Justin Heflin coming up with a plan.

The two men were arrested, with Kohut sentenced to seven years in prison and Heflin being fired from his job. Pike wasn’t charged as it was not clear how much involvement she had with the plan.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Paul Rudd (56), Michael Rooker (70), Zach Braff (50), John Ratzenberger (78), Billy Dee Williams (88), Lily James (36), Hayley Atwell (43), Mitch Pileggi (73), Pharrell Williams (52), Robert Downey Jr. (60), Natasha Lyonne (46), Hugo Weaving (65), David Blaine (52), Graham Norton (62), Adam Scott (51), Alec Baldwin (67), Sofia Boutella (43), Eddie Murphy (64), Amanda Bynes (39), Paris Jackson (27), Pedro Pascal (50), Michael Fassbender (48), Emma Myers (23), Penelope Keith (85), Mackenzie Davis (38), Asa Butterfield (28), Ali MacGraw (86), Michael Praed (65), Christopher Walken (82), Ewan McGregor (54), Rhea Perlman (77), and William Daniels (98).