Dead Celebrity Alert

ABUJA, Nigeria: A presidential candidate from a minor party died Thursday, raising the possibility that Nigeria’s landmark vote could be delayed, state media reported.

Radio Nigeria offered no details on the death of Adebayo Adefarati, a former state governor and the presidential candidate for the Alliance for Democracy. He had earlier been reported in the hospital. Adefarati was not considered a leader among the 24 candidates elections officials had cleared to run. … Read full obituary

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jacob O. Booher, who worked for The Associated Press for 35 years and retired as a bureau chief in Ohio, has died at age 69.

He died Tuesday at home in Maryville, Tenn. He had been hospitalized previously with congestive heart failure. …

“Jake was an ace high newsman and a real credit to the AP,” said Ed Heminger, chairman of the board of the Findlay Publishing Co. and a former AP board member. … Read full obituary

BOONSBORO, Md. (AP) — The last known surviving American female World War I veteran, a refined Civil War buff who met face-to-face with the Secretary of the Navy to fight for women in the military, has died. She was 109.

Charlotte Winters died Tuesday at a nursing home near Boonsboro in northwest Maryland, the U.S. Naval District in Washington said in a statement. Her death leaves just five known surviving American World War I veterans.

In 1916, Winters met with Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels to persuade him to allow women in the service, said Kelly Auber, who grew up on South Mountain, where Winters and her husband, John Winters, settled.

When the Navy opened support roles to women, Winters and her sister, Sophie, joined immediately in 1917, Auber said. By December 1918, the Naval District said more than 11,000 women had enlisted and were serving in support positions. … Read full obituary

Billy Martin Sr., head of one of the most influential wrestling families in America, died this afternoon of heart failure at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

He was 89.

Martin coached Granby High School to 21 state titles in 22 seasons, beginning in 1948, and invented the Granby Roll, a move that helped make him a national authority on high school wrestling. … Read full obituary

Oklahoma City-born country music singer Henson Cargill — known best for his hit “Skip A Rope” — dies at age 66 from complications following surgery.

The Northwest Classen High School graduate died Saturday. …

Cargill’s hit “Skip A Rope” topped the country charts in 1968 and crossed over onto the pop charts. His other hits included “Row Row Row,” “None of My Business” and “The Most Uncomplicated Good-Bye I’ve Ever Heard.”

In the 1980s, Cargill owned and operated a west Oklahoma City country music club known as Henson’s. … Read full obituary

Ed Bailey, an All-Star catcher with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1950s, died Friday. He was 75.

The cause was cancer, his family told The Knoxville Daily Sentinel.

A five-time All-Star, he started his major league career with the Reds in 1953. Bailey hit 28 home runs in 1956 for Cincinnati.

He went on to play for the San Francisco Giants, the Milwaukee Braves, the Chicago Cubs and the California Angels, appearing in his final game in 1966. … Read full obituary

The University of North Carolina student who served as the mascot for the men’s basketball team has died.

Steve Kirscher, UNC’s associate athletics director for communications, said Jason Ray, 21, died at 8:38 a.m. Monday. Ray was struck near his hotel in Fort Lee, New Jersey on Friday. …

Ray was in New Jersey for the NCAA men’s tournament game between the Tar Heels and Southern California at the Continental Airlines Arena.

Ray left his hotel to go to a nearby convenience store Friday afternoon and was walking back along Route 4 when he was struck from behind by an SUV. The driver stopped immediately to call 911. No charges have been filed. … Read full obituary

A spokeswoman announced the death of Andranik Margaryan, the Armenian prime minister, on Sunday.

“He has passed away,” Reuters reported her as saying, but no further information was given.

Margaryan, a member of the Republican party of Armenia, was became prime minister in May 2000.

He was appointed in a politically tense period that followed the October 1999 armed attack on parliament that killed eight politicians including Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian. … Read full obituary

Herman Stein, whose spooky music scores raised the hair on the back of moviegoers’ necks for decades, has died at his home in Los Angeles at 91. …

Stein had a cult following for his scoring work on nearly 200 films, including the horror films but also westerns, comedies and dramas, the Times said.

Some of his finest scores were “It Came From Outer Space” (1953); “Creature From the Black Lagoon” (1954); “This Island Earth” (1955); “Tarantula” (1955) and “The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957). … Read full obituary

Damian McDonald, 34, was killed when his Mazda sedan was involved in Friday’s fatal crash in the Burnley Tunnel.

Mr McDonald, who represented Australia at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, had just become a father. He was married to Melbourne Phoenix team manager, Bree McDonald. His brother-in-law described the deaths as “a tragedy for Melbourne”. …

The accident involving five light vehicles and three trucks happened when a broken down truck sparked a pileup on the cross city tunnel just before 10am (AEDT) on Friday.

A massive fireball erupted, forcing 400 people to flee the tunnel, leaving 200 cars stranded and causing traffic gridlock.

Police on Saturday confirmed the death toll at three. … Read full story

Robert E. Petersen, the publishing magnate whose Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines helped shape America’s car culture and who gave millions to a museum dedicated to his passion, has died. He was 80.

Petersen died Friday of complications from neuroendocrine cancer at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, said Dick Messer, director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. …

Petersen, the son of an auto mechanic, founded Hot Rod magazine in 1948 while trying to promote the custom-designed car show at the Los Angeles Armory. The following year, he launched Motor Trend for automobile enthusiasts.

A dozen other specialty consumer magazines followed, including Guns & Ammo, Sport, Motorcyclist, Hunting, Mountain Biker, Photographic, Teen and Sassy. … Read full obituary

Jamaican police are now saying Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered, with post-mortem results showing he died from asphyxiation due to strangulation. …

Scotland Yard detectives were called in to help Jamaican police and are appealing for information from the public. …

Mr Woolmer’s widow Jill is adamant the 58-year-old did not commit suicide.

Meanwhile, claims of match fixing have further fuelled suspicions Mr Woolmer was murdered. … Read full story

John W. Backus, who assembled and led the I.B.M. team that created Fortran, the first widely used programming language, which helped open the door to modern computing, died on Saturday at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 82.

His daughter Karen Backus announced the death, saying the family did not know the cause, other than age.

Fortran, released in 1957, was “the turning point” in computer software, much as the microprocessor was a giant step forward in hardware, according to J. A. N. Lee, a leading computer historian.

Fortran changed the terms of communication between humans and computers, moving up a level to a language that was more comprehensible by humans. So Fortran, in computing vernacular, is considered the first successful higher-level language.

Mr. Backus and his youthful team, then all in their 20s and 30s, devised a programming language that resembled a combination of English shorthand and algebra. Fortran, short for Formula Translator, was very similar to the algebraic formulas that scientists and engineers used in their daily work. … Read full obituary

The balding, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry “Bud” Melman on David Letterman’s late-night television shows has died after a long illness.

Brooklyn-born Calvert DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, the Letterman show announced Wednesday.

He made dozens of appearances on Letterman’s shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: singing a duet with Sonny Bono on “I Got You, Babe”; doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where her 1970s show was set; handing out hot towels to arrivals at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. …

DeForest’s gnomish face was the first to greet viewers when Letterman’s NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film “Frankenstein.” … Read full obituary

DENVER — Actor Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson, died of a heart attack in the Supermax federal prison where he was serving two life sentences for the murder of a federal judge, officials said Wednesday.

Charles Harrelson, 69, was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of March 15, said Felicia Ponce, a Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman in Washington. …

Charles Harrelson was convicted of murder in the May 29, 1979, slaying of U.S. District Judge John Wood Jr. outside his San Antonio, Texas, home. …

Charles Harrelson denied the killing, saying he was in Dallas, 270 miles away, at the time. …

Charles Harrelson was transferred to Supermax, the highest-security federal prison, after attempting to break out of an Atlanta federal prison in 1995. …

The actor was just 7 when his father was first sent to prison, for murdering a Texas businessman. He was in college when his father was convicted of the judge’s assassination. … Read full obituary