Dead Celebrity Alert

HILLSBORO, W.Va. — White supremacist William Pierce came to this isolated town nearly 20 years ago for the cheap land and its live-and-let-live attitude. He left behind an international organization based on hate.

Pierce, the author of “The Turner Diaries” and founder of the right-wing National Alliance, died Tuesday of cancer at his 400-acre compound. He was 68. …

Pierce’s novel, written under the pen name Andrew Macdonald and published in 1978, depicts a violent overthrow of the government by a small band of white supremacists who finance themselves through counterfeiting and bank robbery.

It has long been standard reading among supremacist groups and gained notoriety as a book favored by Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh.

Set at the end of the 20th century, it describes a fictional truck bombing of FBI headquarters in Washington — a scene that roughly prefigures the Oklahoma City bombing. … Read full obituary

John Gotti, who swaggered, schemed and murdered his way to the pinnacle of organized crime in America only to be toppled by secret FBI tapes and a turncoat mobster’s testimony, died at a prison hospital Monday. He was 61.

The U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., announced the death of the former Mafia boss. Gotti had suffered from throat cancer and had been moved to the prison hospital from the maximum-security federal prison in Marion, Ill. …

Once known as the “Dapper Don” for his fine double-breasted suits and confident bearing, and as the “Teflon Don” after a series of acquittals, Gotti was sentenced to life in 1992 for racketeering and six killings. … Read full obituary

Frederick [Maryland] author Harold Weisberg, considered one of the country’s leading experts on the John F. Kennedy assassination, died Thursday afternoon at his home on Old Receiver Road. … Read full obituary

Another one from the TV news (no Web links yet):

Nikolay Soltys, the 27-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who in August, 2001, stabbed six members of his family to death in Sacramento, CA (and whose high-profile case was knocked off the front pages by the 9-11 attacks), was found hanged to death in his prison cell. There’s some talk about this apparent suicide being “suspicious” — but no details yet.

Read background info

Lawrence Singleton, who chopped off a teen-age hitchhiker’s forearms in California and was later sent to death row in Florida for killing a prostitute, has died of cancer behind bars. He was 74. … Read full obituary

Eunice Simpson, the mother of O. J. Simpson, was found dead in her home of natural causes on Friday morning, the medical examiner’s office said. She was 80 and lived in the Bayview District of San Francisco. … Read full obituary