Dead Pool 9th March 2025

No points this week, so the Flying Monkeys have been flown, watch this space next week! Big thanks to everyone who shares news stories and deaths, keep ‘em coming! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Tim Kruger, 44, German pornographic film actor and director, domestic accident. 
• Angie Stone, 63, American singer (“No More Rain (In This Cloud)“, “Wish I Didn’t Miss You“) and rapper (The Sequence), traffic collision. 
• Jack Vettriano, 73, Scottish painter (The Singing Butler). 
• George Lowe, 67, American voice actor (Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Robot Chicken). 
• Kathryn Apanowicz, 64, British actress (Angels, EastEnders) and television presenter (Calendar).  
• Carl Dean, 82, American businessman, husband of Dolly Parton. 
• Roy Ayers, 84, American musician and composer (Everybody Loves the Sunshine). 
• Pamela Bach, 61, American actress (Baywatch), suicide by gunshot.  
• Brian James, 70, English punk rock guitarist (The Damned, The Lords of the New Church) and songwriter (“New Rose”). 
• Brad Sigmon, 67, American convicted murderer, execution by firing squad.

In Other News

Prominent adventurer Andrew Cross has died aged 36 after being taken off life support a month after he was involved in a ‘severe’ car accident in Colorado. Andrew, known as ‘Desert Drifter’ to half a million fans on YouTube, died peacefully on Tuesday, having sustained a serious brain injury in the January 31st crash. ‘Andrew’s spirit is free, surrounded by light and love,’ the explorer’s sister, Jenna Spooner, announced on the CaringBridge website. She told how those with Andrew before his passing put him on a mobile ventilator and walked a loop around the ICU with him, staff lining the hallway to ‘honour him’. Then in the room, friends and family read scripture, prayed, and sang during the process of removing life support and for over an hour afterwards.’ The family said earlier this week they had made the ‘difficult decision’ to remove Andrew from life support, after acknowledging his discomfort in late February. Andrew described his vlogging as ‘exploration and adventure with a historical twist’, documenting desert tours and mountain climbs for hundreds of thousands of viewers. The Virginia-born adventurer was tragically involved in a two-car accident at the end of January, when he was rear-ended at high speed while stopped. The Mesa County Coroner’s Office in Colorado confirmed to the Flying Monkeys on Wednesday that Andrew had died from injuries sustained in the crash.  

The autopsy of Gene Hackman revealed that the 95-year-old Oscar winner died of a combination of “advanced Alzheimer’s disease” and severe heart disease, the New Mexico Chief Medical Examiner announced last week. “It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman died on February 18th,” Dr. Heather Jarrell said in a press conference with Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza and other county officials. “He was in very poor health,” Dr. Jarrell also noted of Hackman, adding that there was evidence that he hadn’t eaten for a number of days. His wife, Ms. Arakawa is assumed to have died on or around February 11th, officials estimated. “The cause of death for Mr. Gene Hackman, aged 95 years, is hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributory factor,” Dr. Jarrell explained in greater detail. “Autopsy examination and a full body post mortem CT examination demonstrated no acute findings of internal or external trauma, and showed severe heart disease, including multiple surgical procedures involving the heart, evidence of prior heart attacks and severe changes of the kidneys due to chronic high blood pressure.” Hackman’s heart issues were well-known and the actor had spoken about them on numerous occasions before retiring from public life in the early 2000s. Last week it was unveiled by Santa Fe County Sheriff’s department that Hackman’s pacemaker appeared to cease functioning around February 17th, a timeline that tracks with the details offered Friday. New Mexico health authorities also said that Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa seems to have passed away from Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. A rare-ish disease, Hantavirus is spread mainly by rodents’ faeces, and is not spread from person-to-person, according to the CDC. Hackman did not have Hantavirus all tests have shown.

On This Day

• 1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.  
• 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a dog and a human dummy, and demonstrating that the Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight. 
• 1976 – Forty-two people die in the Cavalese cable car disaster, the deadliest cable car accident in history. 

Deaths

• 1847 – Mary Anning, English paleontologist (b. 1799). 
• 1996 – George Burns, American comedian, actor, and writer (b. 1896). 
• 1997 – Terry Nation, Welsh author and screenwriter (b. 1930). 
• 1997 – The Notorious B.I.G., American rapper, songwriter, and actor (b. 1972). 
• 2006 – John Profumo, English soldier and politician, Secretary of State for War (b. 1915). 
• 2023 – Chaim Topol, Israeli actor (b. 1935). 

Last Meals 

Brad Sigmon was an American convicted murderer who was executed for the 2001 double murder of his ex-girlfriend’s parents in South Carolina. Sigmon was convicted of battering David and Gladys Larke, aged 62 and 59, respectively, to death with a baseball bat on 27th  April 2001, a week after he and his former girlfriend had broken up.

Subsequently, Sigmon was found guilty and given two death sentences for the double murder. He was also given a 30-year jail term for first-degree burglary for stealing from the Larkes on the day of the murders. Sigmon was executed by firing squad on 7th March 2025, becoming the first person in almost fifteen years to be executed by this method as well as the oldest person executed in the state. 

Sigmon was put to death by firing squad in the Broad River Correctional Institution. The firing squad fired at 6:05 pm, and Sigmon flexed his arms and heaved in the chair for a few seconds before he fell motionless, and he was pronounced dead at 6:08 pm.

Sigmon became the fourth person in the United States to be executed by firing squad since 1976, and the first since the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah in June 2010. As a result of Sigmon’s execution, South Carolina became the second state in the United States to carry out a firing squad execution; the country’s first three firing squad executions (including Gardner’s) were all conducted by Utah since 1976. 

For his last meal, Sigmon ordered a KFC, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake and sweet tea. Sigmon originally asked for three buckets of the fried chicken and wanted to share them with the other inmates, but his request was denied by the prison department.

In his final statement, Sigmon hoped for the end of the death penalty and found it unjustified under the New Testament for him to pay with his life for the murders of David and Gladys Larke, stating that they were no longer living under the Old Testament and no one had the authority to take lives except for God. Reportedly, Sigmon’s lawyers, the family members of the Larkes, the prosecution, religious counsellors and three reporters were present to witness the execution

Last Week’s Birthdays

Oscar Isaac (46), Juliette Binoche (61), Cynthia Rothrock (68), Bryan Cranston (69), Rachel Weisz (55), Alan Davies (59), Shaquille O’Neal (53), Eva Mendes (51), Jolene Blalock (50), Matt Lucas (51), Paul Blackthorne (56), Fred Williamson (87), Patsy Kensit (57), Catherine O’Hara (71), Charlie Brooker (54), Miranda Richardson (67), Jessica Biel (43), and Julie Bowen (55).