Carl Sargeant

Carl Sargeant - who was born in 1968 in St. Asaph, Flintshire, North Wales - was a Welsh politician, who was the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children in the Welsh Government.  Before becoming an Assembly Member, Sargeant worked as a process operator at a chemical manufacturing plant, as well as being a quality and environmental auditor, and training as an industrial firefighter.  He was married, to Bernie, had a son and a daughter, and was school governor.  Beginning his political career as a member of Connah's Quay Town Council, he was elected A.M. for Alyn and Deeside in 2003.  In 2007, he was appointed Chief Whip of the Labour Group and a Deputy Welsh Minister for Assembly Business, and in 2009 was made Minister for Social Justice and Local Government in the Welsh cabinet.  In 2014, the then-First Minister, Carwyn Jones, received an anonymous letter from someone, alleging that Sargeant was "not fit to be around women"; Joned warned Sargeant about his conduct, and told him to moderate his drinking.  In May of 2016, Jones was told by a party colleague that a woman had made complaints about Sargeant, although she did not want to pursue the matter.  Following the 2016 National Assembly election, Sargeant was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children.  In October, 2017, Carwyn Jones was told of rumours of inappropriate behaviour by Sargeant towards two women, involving "unwanted attention, inappropriate touching or groping".  Jones neglected to ask Sargeant for his side of the story, and sacked him from his position on November 3rd.  Devastated by the turn of events, Carl Sargeant was found dead, hanged, at his family home in Connah's Quay, Flintshire, on November 7th, 2017.  An inquest revealed the existence of text messages between two Labour councillors suggesting that Sargeant had done something that could have resulted in a prison sentence.  It was also revealed that another anonymous letter had been written after Sargeant was supposedly seen with a woman in a pub garden, and there was also talk of an incident at a wedding reception, although the coroner described these claims as "rumour, multiple hearsay, and speculation".  In 2019, Carwyn Jones told The Guardian that a total of nine women had made allegations of misconduct against them by Sargeant, although Sargeant's wife and family believe him to be innocent of all allegations, and suggested that there have been attempts to slur him after his death.  Carl Sargeant was 49 years old.

Robin Douglas-Home

Cecil Robin Douglas-Home - who was born on May 8th, 1932, in London, England - was an English-born Scottish aristocrat, jazz pianist, and author.  He was the eldest son of the Honourable Henry Douglas-Home from his first marriage to Lady Margaret Spencer; the nephew of the former British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home; and the older brother of Charles Douglas-Home, the editor of The Times newspaper.  Douglas-Home was a jazz pianist and a leading society figure in the 1950s and '60s.  In the 1950s, he had a relationship with Princess Margaretha of Sweden, but was apparently refused permission to marry her by her mother, Princess Sibylla.  However, Margaretha's nanny later stated in her memoirs that the reason for the couple's breakup was simply that the princess did not want to marry him.  Douglas-Home instead married the 18-year-old fashion model Sandra Paul in 1959, and in 1962 they had a son, Sholto, who was conceived at Frank Sinatra's mansion in Palm Springs, Florida.  A talented writer, Douglas-Home was invited by Sinatra to write his first authorised biography, which was published in 1962, and he subsequently wrote four novels, the first of which, Hot for Certainties, won the Authors' Club's Best First Novel Award in 1964.  He also wrote articles for journals and magazines such as Queen and Woman's Own.  Shortly after the birth of his son, Douglas-Home fathered a son by Nicolette Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the Marchioness of Londonderry, the truth about which would remain secret until the late 1990s.  In 1965, Douglas-Home divorced his wife, the breakup being the subject of a documentary by Alan Whicker.  Around this time, he began a relationship with Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II.  Margaret was at this time concerned about the deterioration of her own marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon, and sought solace in a one-month affair with Douglas-Home.  Their liaison ended rather abruptly, when the princess decided to try to salvage her relationship with Snowdon.  Eighteen months after his split with princess Margaret, and having suffered with clinical depression for some years, Robin Douglas-Home took his own life on October 15th, 1968, at his country home in West Chiltington, West Sussex, England.  He was just 36 years old.

Nicolette Powell

Nicolette Elaine Katherine Powell (née Harrison) was an English aristocrat and debutante, the first wife of the 9th Marquess of Londonderry, and later the wife of the musician Georgie Fame.  She was born in 1941, the daughter of the stockbroker Michael Harrison and his wife, the former Maria Madeleine Benita von Koskull, a Latvian baroness.  Following in her mother's footsteps, she was presented to the Queen as a debutante in 1958, the year this practice ended.  On May 16th, 1958, Nicolette married Alexander Vane-Tempest-Stewart at her parents' home of Netherhampton, and subsequently became known as the Most Honourable Nicolette Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the Marchioness of Londonderry.  The couple made their home at Wynyard Hall, and quickly had two daughters: Lady Sophia Frances Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart, born on February 23rd, 1959; and Lady Cosima Maria Gabriella Vane-Tempest-Stewart, born on December 25th, 1961.  In 1965, Nicolette's father died, and it was around this time that she began a relationship with the singer Georgie Fame (real name: Clive Powell).  She gave birth to a son - James Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh - in 1969.  In 1971, it was discovered that the father of her son was Georgie Fame, resulting in Powell's husband divorcing her, causing significant unwanted publicity.  Powell's daughter Cosima later revealed that her own biological father may have actually been Robin Douglas-Home (nephew of the former Prime Minister, Alec), who committed suicide in 1968.  On February 25th, 1972, Nicolette married Georgie Fame at Marylebone Registry Office, and gave birth to a second son, James Michael, in 1973.  Nicolette Powell (or "Nico", as she was known) and her new husband lived quietly, out of the public eye, with Powell enjoying her role as wife and mother.  However, as her children achieved independence and left home, she became increasingly depressed, feeling, as her husband said: "...redundant because all her children had grown up and no longer needed her constant attention."  In addition, her elderly mother's mental faculties began to decline.  On Friday the 13th of August, 1993, Nicolette Powell parked her car near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England.  After handing a note and her car keys to her two daughters, who were admiring the view, Powell plunged 250 feet to her death from the central span of the bridge.  Her suicide note said that she saw "no purpose in life" now that her children had grown up and left home.   A small group of mourners attended a brief memorial service for her in the parish church of St. Andrew in the village of Stoke Trister near Wincanton in Somerset, followed by a private cremation ceremony in Salisbury. Nicolette Powell was 52 years old.

Mary Millington

Mary Ruth Maxted (née Quilter) - who was born on November 30th, 1945, in Kenton, Middlesex, England - was an English model and pornographic actress.  Quilter was born out of wedlock, growing up without her father, and had to nurse her terminally-ill mother for more than ten years; she began her porn career to pay for her mother's care.  She was bullied at school due to the stigma of being 'illegitimate', and suffered from low self-esteem throughout her youth.  Quilter left school at age fifteen, and married Robert Maxted in 1964.  Being too short at four feet and eleven inches to be a fashion model, she became a glamour model instead, appearing in various pornographic magazines and films in the late 1960s and early '70s.  In 1974, she met the adult magazine publisher David Sullivan, with whom she began an adulterous affair, and took on the stage name Mary Millington.  She continued to appear in his films and magazines for the rest of the 1970s.  Millington's final film appearance was in the Sex Pistols' The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, which was released in March, 1980.  She had always been prone to neurosis and depression, which was exacerbated by her cocaine habit.  After reaching the age of 33, Millington found herself being replaced in Sullivan's magazines by younger models, and increasingly found herself working behind the counter in her own sex shop, which was frequently raided by the police.  Her mother's death in 1976 also affected her deeply, resulting in unpredictable mood swings and a breakup with Sullivan.  Millington's life thereafter descended into a downward spiral of depression and drug use.  A few months before her death, she received a large tax bill, which she was unable to pay, and she also became increasingly kleptomaniacal, with arrests for shoplifting in June of 1979, and another for stealing a necklace on the day before she died.  On August 19th, 1979, Millington was found dead on the bed of her home in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, by her husband.  She had taken an overdose of the tricyclic antidepressant anafranil, paracetamol, and alcohol.  Four suicide notes found near her body essentially blamed the police and the taxman for hounding her into an early grave.  Mary Millington was just 33 years old.

Tom Allin

Thomas William Allin - who was born on November 27th, 1987, in Bideford, Devon, England - was an English cricketer who played for Warwickshire County Cricket Club.  The younger brother of Matthew Allin (who played two matches for Devon), and the son of Tony (who played cricket for Glamorgan in the 1970s) and Beverley Allin, Tom began playing for Bideford and North Devon Cricket Clubs, before signing for Warwickshire in 2008.  A right-arm fast-medium bowler, who also batted right-handed, he made his debut for Warwickshire on August 17th, 2011, in the Clydesdale Bank 40 against Surrey, where he scored 2 not out, and bowled two overs without taking a wicket.  He played his only first-class game against Middlesex, starting on May 8th, 2013, but he failed to score a run, and bowled 17 overs without taking a wicket.  These were Allin's only two first-team games for Warwickshire, and he was released prior to the 2014 season, but continued playing Minor Counties cricket for Devon, with his last appearance being against Shropshire in August of 2015.  He became involved in coaching Primary School sport in Barnstaple and Bideford, and was head of cricket at Shebbear College, as well as a coach at Bideford College.  In the winter, Allin played soccer for Northam Lions.  In early October of 2015, his brother was taken into hospital with a serious illness which caused Tom a lot of worry.  Later that same month, Tom was involved in a high-speed traffic collision near Clovelly, in which he suffered severe leg injuries.  He recovered well physically, but in early December he told a nurse that his mood was "up and down", and he was advised to seek support from anxiety and depression services, but he declined.  On January 4th, 2016, Allin was dropped off by a friend at around 7.30-8.00 p.m.; the friend found it "a bit unusual" that he said "bye" and gave her a "long hug" before departing.  Around 9 p.m. the same evening, Allin's body was seen by a motorist at the base of the A39 River Torridge Bridge in Bideford, Devon.  Resuscitation was attempted by passers-by, and then by emergency services, but to no avail.  Three suicide notes were found by police when his home was searched after his death.  All Hallows' Church in Woolsery, Devon, was packed for Allin's funeral service, with former England cricketers, Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott, and Ashley Giles, among the mourners.  Tom Allin was just 28 years old.

Dickon Young

Dickon Young - who was born in January of 1963 - was an English stage manager, rigger, and carpenter, who worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  He was the first of two sons born to the actress Kate O'Mara, and was raised for a time by her first husband, the actor Jeremy Young, and took on Young's surname.  It only emerged after Dickon's death that his biological father was another actor, Ian Cullen, who had nothing to do with either Dickon or his mother after his birth.  As a child, Young was frequently taken around the country by his actress mother, and he was reported as resenting the more stable family life which seemed to be being lived by his biological father with his wife and three children.  Dickon had a brother, Patrick, who was born two years after he was, but at this time his mother was struggling to make ends meet, and so gave the boy up for adoption.  At the age of 21, Young met the actress Jenny Agutter - then ten years his senior - whilst working as a stage manager at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and they moved into her flat together in Pimlico, London.  He also worked as a rigger and carpenter at the R.S.C., before he moved to Los Angeles in the U.S. with Agutter, where he started a set-building company; he and Agutter separated in 1986.  Returning to England, he moved in with a girlfriend in Somerset and formed a company that built treehouses.  There were increasing signs that he was unwell, as he became a heavy drinker and cannabis user, at first becoming depressed and withdrawn, and then showing signs of manic depression; he was medicated for mental-health problems in the early 2000s.  His violent behaviour led to him splitting from his girlfriend, and he frequently thereafter returned to his mother's home, eventually moving in with her.  In 2010, Young was hit by a car whilst walking his dog (the dog died), resulting in multiple fractures, the subsequent brain damage he suffered affecting his balance and leaving him unable to work, and he began to drink more heavily.  In September of 2012, Young's mother was diagnosed with pneumonia, with which he struggled to cope.  That October, police were called to his mother's house after heated arguments between the pair, and he was also arrested for causing a breach of the peace whilst drunk at his flat in Stratford in November.  On December 31st, 2012, a neighbour smelt an "unpleasant odour" coming from Kate O'Mara's garage in Long Marston, Warwickshire, and opened the door to find Dickon Young's body hanging from the roof.  It is thought he may have been dead for nearly three weeks, as he had not contacted his mother since December 8th.  At the inquest into his death, his aunt Belinda Cochrane, also an actress, said: "He was a very troubled soul for a very long time.  He had a lot of talent that was wasted.  He was a lovely person."  Dickon Young was 49 years old.

Kelly Jean Van Dyke

Kelly Jean Van Dyke - who was born on June 5th, 1958, in Danville, Illinois, U.S.A. - was an American actress and adult film performer.  From an acting family, she was the daughter of Jerry Van Dyke and his first wife, Carol Johnson; the niece of Dick Van Dyke; and the first cousin once removed of Shane Van Dyke.  As a child actress in the 1960s, Van Dyke appeared in the television series My Mother The Car and Accidental Family.  Under the stage name Nancee Kelly, she later emerged as a star of various pornographic movies.  She married Jeffrey Archer in 1981, before divorcing, and then wedded the actor Jack Nance in May of 1991.  In an unpublished magazine interview from 1990, Van Dyke claimed she was raped by her father Jerry Van Dyke from the age of 12, and that he would bring over his actor friends, Robert Mitchum and Martin Landau, to join in the fun.  She claimed that she began taking sleeping pills at that time to numb the pain, and that she had been addicted to some kind of drug ever since.  It was reported that - on November 17th, 1991 - Van Dyke was expressing suicidal thoughts whilst talking on the phone to her husband.  Unfortunately, a lightning storm knocked out the telephone lines in Bass Lake.  Her husband called the police, who broke into her Los Angeles apartment forty-five minutes later, only to find that Kelly Van Dyke had hanged herself.  She was just 33 years old.

Elias Owen

Elias Owen - who was born in the first quarter of 1863, in Llanllechid near Bangor in north-west Wales - was a Welsh amateur footballer, who made three appearances for the Wales national team in 1884.  Ellis was one of thirteen children, and his elder brother, William Pierce Owen, and his cousins, Morgan Owen and Hugh Morgan-Owen, also played for Wales.  After grammar school, Owen studied theology at Lampeter College.  At Ruthin Grammar School, Owen was initially a half-back, before becoming a goalkeeper in 1882 when the regular 'keeper was unavailable for a match between Denbighshire and Liverpool F.A.  Impressing in this game, Owen was selected to play as a goalkeeper for Wales in the inaugural Home Championship match against Ireland on February 9th, 1884; Wales won this game 6-0, with Owen's brother William scoring two goals.  Owen played in Wales's following two games - a 0-4 loss to England, and a 1-4 defeat to Scotland - before being dropped from the team.  On September 19th, 1888, Owen returned to the family home at Efenechtyd.  The next morning, September 20th, he was discovered by his two sisters, Mary and Maggie, hanging from a tree in the churchyard.  Although he was still alive on being found, he died shortly after being cut down. Official reports say he was depressed over the results of his final examinations, although family sources claim he was depressed because his wife was having an affair.  Elias Owen was just 25 years old.

Zoe Tynan

Zoe Tynan - who was born on May 20th, 1998, in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, England - was an English footballer.  As a schoolgirl, Tynan excelled at rounders and cross-country running, as well as football.  Later concentrating on soccer, she was selected to represent England at under-15, under-17, and under-19 levels.  As a Youth player, she represented Liverpool Feds, Everton, and Manchester City, before signing for Manchester City's academy in 2015.  She was given her first-team debut when she played all 90 minutes of an F.A. Women's Cup quarter-final against Sporting Club Albion on April 3rd, 2016.  Though she wouldn't play any further games for Manchester City, her performance drew the attention of Fylde Ladies of the F.A. Women's Premier League.  Signing for Fylde, she played two games for them in 2016.  On August 30th, 2016, Tynan spoke to her sister, Beth, at the family home - saying she loved her, and that "everything would be okay" - before leaving at about 3.40 p.m.  At 4.09 p.m., she sent a text message to a friend, suggesting she was intending to end her own life.  C.C.T.V. cameras captured her "calmly" climbing down onto the railway tracks at West Allerton station at about 4.15 p.m., whereupon she was soon struck by a train travelling from Birmingham New Street to Liverpool Lime Street.  Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, and coroner Anita Bhardwaj later recorded a verdict of suicide.  Tynan had achieved good 'A'-level results, and hoped to become a professional footballer.  She was just 18 years old.  After her death, the Zoe Tynan's Spirit of Running award was set up in Liverpool to recognise similar children who lead others by example and encouragement; whilst her first football team, Liverpool Feds - whom she had joined as a six-year-old - created the Zoe Tynan Tournament for under-10 and under-12 7-a-side teams.  This tournament has been held each year since 2017 in her honour, played on May 20th to coincide with the date of her birth.

Martyn Rogers

Martyn Rogers - who was born on January 26th, 1960, in Nottingham, England - was an English association-football player.  After an outstanding record as a schoolboy, Rogers signed as a trainee for Manchester United in May, 1976, and as a professional in January, 1977.  He made his debut for United, at the age of 17, standing in for Arthur Albiston at left-back, on October 22nd, 1977, in a 0-4 away defeat at West Bromwich Albion.  This was to be Rogers's only first-team game for the club, and he was sold to Queen's Park Rangers - then managed by former United manager, Tommy Docherty - for £7,500 in July of 1979.  Rogers's career at Q.P.R. was equally short-lived, as he only made two first-team appearances, in the last two games of the 1979-80 season, both of which were won.  In May of 1981, he was given a free transfer to Australian club Sydney Olympic.  In five years at Sydney, Rogers helped the club win the Australian NSL Cup twice, in 1983 and 1985, before returning to England.  On Saturday, February 29th, 1992, Rogers made two phone calls: one to his mother, whom he told he was in Singapore; and one to a female friend, whom he told he was in Australia.  Later that same day, Rogers's lifeless body was found in a hire-car in a car-park in Ringwood, Hampshire, after he had fed the exhaust fumes through the window of his vehicle.  He had committed suicide at the age of 32.  Coincidentally, that same month, another Manchester United player of around the same age, Alan Davies, had killed himself in similar circumstances.

Pete Shaughnessy

Peter Anthony Shaughnessy - who was born on September 14th, 1962, in South London, England - was a British mental-health activist and the founder of the Reclaim Bedlam and Mad Pride organisations.  After studying drama at college, he worked in a children's home and as a carer for the disabled, before becoming a bus driver in London.  In April, 1992, Shaughnessy was struck on the head with an iron bar after coming to the aid of a bus conductor who was being assaulted.  Shortly thereafter, he went on a hunger strike outside his bus garage in protest at privatisation of the service.  By the end of the year, he was hospitalised, after being diagnosed with manic depression.  Shaughnessy's depressive tendencies were further exacerbated when his sister was murdered by her boyfriend in Brixton, and he was then sectioned after hitting a policeman.  In 1997, Shaughnessy organised a Reclaim Bedlam campaign, initially to protest against anniversary celebrations of the Bethlem Hospital, thinking that the many unhappy experiences of 'Bedlam' patients warranted commemoration rather than celebration.  In 1999, he founded Mad Pride, campaigning for greater understanding of the 'mentally ill'.  During 2000, they helped, with punk-style campaigns and humour, to prevent several unpleasant changes to the Mental Health Act.  On December 15th, 2002, Shaughnessy committed suicide by stepping in front of a train at Battersea Park Railway Station in London.  On Christmas Eve that year, more than three-hundred people packed into St. Thomas More Church in East Dulwich for his funeral service.  Pete Shaughnessy was just 40 years old.

Sophie Gradon

Sophie Hannah Gradon - who was born on October 25th, 1985, in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, north-west England - was an English model and marketing manager.  After graduating with a degree in Media, Culture, and Society from Northumbria University, Gradon won the Miss Newcastle title in 2008, and became Miss Great Britain in 2009.  Working as a marketing manager, she was a promoter of the NE1 campaign in Newcastle city centre, raising money for charities and soliciting financial support for the Great North Run.  In 2012, Gradon appeared on Sky Sports in support of "The Great North Fitness Revolution" campaign.  She was a contestant on Love Island in 2016, developing relationships with both a male and a female, and subsequently being referred to as "openly bisexual".  In 2008, she had dated Wayne Lineker (the brother of former footballer, Gary), and in 2013 had had a relationship with England rugby player, Danny Cipriani.  In an interview with Radio Aire in March, 2018, Gradon claimed she had been the victim of cyberbullying and internet trolls.  On June 20th, 2018, Gradon was found hanged at her home in Ponteland, Northumberland, England, by her boyfriend and his brother.  An inquest concluded she had taken her own life by hanging, after ingesting alcohol and cocaine; toxicology tests showed she had a blood alcohol level of 201mg per 100ml - about three times the legal driving limit.  Police said she had previously experienced mental-health issues - such as low self-esteem and anxiety (for which she was taking medication at the time of her death) - and had recently expressed suicidal thoughts.  About twenty days after Gradon's death, her boyfriend -  25-year-old Aaron Armstrong - also killed himself after ingesting cocaine and alcohol.  Sophie Gradon was 32 years old.

Arthur Woodcock

Arthur Woodcock - who was born on September 23rd, 1865, in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England - was an English cricketer.  When only a few months old, he moved to Leicestershire, where - as a right-arm fast bowler and a tailend batsman - he played 121 first-class matches for his adopted county between 1894 and 1908, as well as appearing for the short-lived London County Cricket Club in 1900. Woodcock's first engagement as a player was, in 1887, for Mitcham Cricket Club in Surrey.  His form there was so good that he was recommended as a cricket coach to Haverford College in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.; and he took up employment there between 1888 and 1894, continuing to play English County Cricket between July and September during these years.  In 1895, Woodcock became a member of the Lord's groundstaff, and during that season took 102 wickets at an average of just over 19 runs apiece; this was his most-successful season.  Woodcock was a poor batsman - averaging 8.31 over the course of his career, with a highest score of 62 against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 1898 - but was, during his prime in the late-1890s, considered the second-fastest bowler in England, shaded only by Charles Kortright.  In all, he took 548 wickets at an average of 22.28, with best figures of 9-28 against M.C.C. at Lord's in 1899.  As his county career wound down, he continued to play for M.C.C., and  also umpired some first-class matches in 1906. Woodcock was severely hampered by knee trouble during his later career; so much so that he was forced to drop out of the Leicestershire side in the 1903 season.  On May 14th, 1910, at Billesdon, Leicestershire, England, Arthur Woodcock committed suicide by "self-administered poison".  He was 44 years old.

Daniel Gonzalez

Daniel Julian Gonzalez - who was born on June 21st, 1980 - was an English spree killer, who murdered four people, and injured two others, during a two-day period across London and Sussex, in September of 2004.  The son of a Spanish father and an English mother, he was born in Frimley, Surrey, England, attending Gordon's School, a privately-run school near Woking, Surrey. Gonzalez passed eight GCSEs at school, becoming a talented actor and a chess champion, but was also described as a, "...dark and troubled boy...".  From the age of 17, Gonzalez received treatment for his psychological problems, but his mother was not happy with the care he received, writing a letter to her local M.P. saying, "...does my son have to commit murder to get help?"  By age 24, Gonzalez was unemployed, friendless, and using drugs, spending most of his time playing violent video games and watching horror films. On September 15th, 2004, he attacked 61-year-old Peter King in Portsmouth with a knife, but King fought him off. Gonzalez fled to Hove in Sussex, where, the same day, he stabbed to death 76-year-old Marie Harding whilst wearing an ice-hockey mask; the mask was later found to have his DNA on it, and was used to convict him.  On September 17th, Gonzalez travelled to Tottenham in the early morning, where he stabbed 46-year-old Kevin Molloy to death, before breaking into the house of Koumis Constantino, but was fought off before he could stab him.  He then went to Highgate, where he broke into the house of an elderly couple, Derek and Jean Robinson, murdering them - an experience he described as "orgasmic". Gonzalez was arrested after he was seen running naked from the Robinsons' house, covered in blood, and was sent for trial at Broadmoor Hospital.  Whilst awaiting trial there, he tried to kill himself by biting through an artery in his arm.  At the trial, Gonzalez pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but this was rejected, and he was given six life sentences, with a recommendation that he never be released.  On August 9th, 2007, Gonzalez committed suicide in his cell at Broadmoor Hospital, by cutting himself with the sharp edge of a broken CD case.  He was 27 years old.

Terence Donovan

Terence Daniel Donovan was an English fashion photographer and film director.  Born on September 14th, 1936, in Stepney, East London, England, he was famous, along with fellow photographers David Bailey and Brian Duffy, for capturing the mood of the 'swinging '60s'. Between the ages of eleven and fifteen, Donovan studied at the London County Council School of Photoengraving and Lithography, joining the Royal Photographic Society in 1963. He socialised with many celebrities of the time, often photographing his models against the gritty urban surroundings of his home town.  He shot for many top fashion magazines, branching out into film production in the 1970s, eventually directing over 3,000 commercials, as well as the rarely-seen 1973 cop film, Yellow Dog. Donovan also made documentaries, as well as music videos - the most famous of which was probably for Robert Palmer's song "Addicted To Love".  He was a black belt in judo, co-authoring a popular book on the subject, and also enjoyed painting.  Donovan was married twice: the first marriage, to Janet Cohen, was short-lived, and produced a son, Daniel Donovan - a keyboardist; the second, to Diana Dare, produced a daughter - the actress Daisy Donovan, and a son - the co-founder of Rockstar Games, Terry Donovan.  On November 22nd, 1996, Terence Donovan hanged himself in Ealing, London, England.  An inquest concluded that steroid drugs he had been taking for a skin condition had caused him to develop depression.  He was 60 years old.

Stuart Leary

Stuart Edward Leary - who was born on April 30th, 1933, in Green Point, Cape Town, South Africa - was a dual-code professional sportsman, who played soccer as a centre-forward, and cricket as an all-rounder.  Leary started his football career with Cape Town side, Clyde, before moving to English club, Charlton Athletic, in 1950, along with team-mate Eddie Firmani.  Making his debut in 1951, he became a prolific goalscorer, netting a record number of goals for the club: in total, Leary made 376 league appearances for Charlton, scoring 153 goals, until his departure for Queens Park Rangers in 1962.  At Q.P.R., he appeared in a further 94 league games, scoring 29 goals.  Leary played once for the England under-23 team in 1954, but was banned from playing for the full national team due to his foreign birthplace.  Leary had a parallel career as a county cricketer for Kent between 1951 and 1971.  A right-handed batsman, in first-class matches, he scored 16,517 runs at an average of 31.10, and took 146 wickets at an average of 33.80 with his leg-break bowling. Leary returned to South Africa after his sporting career ended.  Rumours circulated that he may have been homosexual, at a time when this was not widely accepted, particularly in sporting circles, although he had married, and then divorced, an older woman.  Fellow South African cricketer, Eddie Barlow, said that, at the time of Leary's death, he had, "...about five girlfriends on the go..."  In By His Own Hand, writer David Frith states that Leary had a fondness for resting his hand on a colleague's knee during team photographs; also, at the time of his death, three people who knew Leary apparently stated that he was concerned at the nationwide crackdown on juvenile vice, and that he was also worried he may have contracted the AIDS virus.  In 1985, Leary was replaced as coach of Western Province cricket team, and sometime thereafter began taking anti-depressant drugs.  Leary's body was found on Table Mountain near Cape Town on August 23rd, 1988. It was believed he committed suicide two days earlier, on August 21st, by throwing himself off a precipice.  He was 55 years old.

Dave Clement

David Thomas Clement - who was born on February 2nd, 1948, in Battersea, south-west London, England - was an English footballer.  Clement signed as a professional with Queens Park Rangers in 1965, making his debut in the 1966-67 season - a memorable one for Q.P.R., as they won the Third Division Championship by a twelve-point margin, and became the first Third-Division side to win a major trophy - the League Cup - by defeating West Bromwich Albion 3-2 at Wembley.  A right-sided full-back, Clement played a total of 472 games for Q.P.R. between 1965 and 1979, scoring 28 goals.  During this time, he also won five full international caps for England.  He was sold to Bolton Wanderers in 1979, before moving on to Fulham in 1980.  He played a further nine games, scoring two goals, for Wimbledon during the 1981-82 season, leaving him with a career total of 532 league games and 30 goals.  As his football career wound down, Clement began to become depressed; and, on March 31st, 1982, he committed suicide by ingesting weedkiller.  He was 34 years old.  Dave Clement's son, Neil Clement, who was only three years old at the time of his father's death, also became a professional footballer, spending the majority of his career at West Bromwich Albion.  His eldest son, Paul, became a non-league footballer, and later a professional coach and manager, becoming head coach at Swansea City in Wales.

Stephanie Parker

Stephanie Parker - who was born on March 29th, 1987, in Brighton, East Sussex, England  - was an English-born Welsh actress.  She was best-known for playing the part of Stacey Weaver in the long-running BBC Wales television series, Belonging - a programme which revolved around the trials and tribulations of the Lewis family and the changing environment of modern Wales in their town of Bryncoed.  Parker also starred as Zoe in Doc Martin, Phoebe Mitchell in Casualty, and Debbie Hargrove in Doctors, as well as appearing in dramas on BBC Radio 4. The final episode of Belonging - in which Parker had played a central part since the age of 15 - was broadcast on Thursday, April 16th, 2009.  The following Saturday, April 18th, at 6 a.m., a passer-by  found Parker's dead body on open ground near Pontypridd, south Wales.  The death was ruled a suicide by hanging.  She was described by her agent, Mark Jermin, as, "...a great talent..."; and by Clare Hudson, BBC Wales's head of English-language programmes, as, "...an immensely-talented actor...".  Stephanie Parker was just 22 years old.

Mike Thalassitis

Michael Thalassitis - who was born on January 19th, 1993, in Edmonton, London, England - was an English footballer and television personality.  Starting his career with Stevenage in Division Two of the Football League, Thalassitis, a striker, subsequently played for several non-league teams. In all, between 2011 and 2017, he played 151 games, scoring 36 goals, for various teams.  Of Greek-Cypriot descent, Thalassitis also played  three games for the Cypress under-19 side, and four for their under-21s. He was called up for Cyprus's senior team in May, 2014, but was unable to travel to the game against Japan, as he had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in the final game of the league season whilst on loan from Stevenage at Ebbsfleet United.  On May 29th, 2017, Thalassitis was announced as part of the cast for the third series of the reality television show, Love Island.  He and fellow contestant Jessica Shears, along with their respective partners Olivia Attwood and Dom Lever, emerged among the three couples with the fewest public votes for Favourite Couple.  In 2018, he joined the fourth series of Celebs Go Dating.  On March 15th, 2019, Mike Thalassitis hanged himself in a park in Edmonton, north London, England.  He was 26 years old.

Lynette Davies

Lynette Vaynor Davies - who was born on October 18th, 1948, in Tonypandy, Glamorgan, Wales - was a Welsh actress of stage, television, and film.  The daughter of a Customs and Excise officer, she was educated at Our Lady's School, Cardiff, before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and then going into repertory at the Bristol Old Vic.  In 1974, she appeared as Regan in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear, as well as playing Yulia in the R.S.C.'s first British production of Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk at the Aldwych Theatre.  Her highest-profile role was as Davinia Prince, the central character in The Foundation, a British television series produced by ATV from 1977 to '78, about the widow of a business tycoon, although she had previously appeared on television in The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Clayhanger, and Will Shakespeare, and subsequently acted in Tales of the Unexpected and Inside Story.  Throughout the 1980s, Davies continued to appear in British T.V. roles, including starring as Jenny Swanne in 32 episodes of Miracles Take Longer, in The District Nurse with fellow actress Nerys Hughes, and in episodes of Tales of the Unexpected, No Place Like Home, Inside Story, Bergerac, and The Watch House. Her final two television appearances were both in 1992: as Dr. Renata Berger in Street Legal; and her last-ever role, as Nerys Jones, in the Welsh production, The Christmas Stallion.  In 1986, Davies joined the English Shakespeare Company.  From then until 1988, she toured first the U.K. and then around the world with the company, at first performing The Henrys, and then The Wars of  the Roses.  However, whilst on this gruelling touring schedule in the U.S.A., Davies displayed signs that she was increasingly "out of kilter", and she eventually returned to Britain, where she was hospitalised, presumably with a stress-related illness.  In 1989, Davies played Doll Tearsheet in an English Shakespeare Company production of Henry IV, Part 2.  Most of her later years were spent on stage: in the West End, and in New Zealand, Canada, and America.  Davies was married twice, the second time to set designer Jose Furtado, with whom she lived in Toronto, while working in theatre and on radio there.  In 1992, Davies was cast in a starring in The Lifeboat, a new BBC series by Lynda la Plante, which was to be filmed in Pembrokeshire in Davies's native Wales.  Unfortunately, soon after shooting started in 1993, Davies's psychiatric illness returned, and the programme had to be recast and some scenes reshot.  Davies herself returned to Cardiff in a state of despondency.  On December 1st, 1993, a bag containing Davies's shopping was found on the beach at Lavernock Point, near Penarth, Wales.  Her fur-coat was found a little further away.  Later that day, Lynette Davies's body was found, drowned, also at Lavernock Point, on the coast of the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales.  Upon her death, which was ruled a suicide, Davies left an estate valued at £251,073.  She was 45 years old.

John Lyons

John Patrick Lyons - who was born on November 8th, 1956, in Buckley, Flintshire, north-east Wales - was a Welsh footballer, who played for several teams in the Football League between 1974 and 1982.  As a youngster at Elfed High School, Lyons excelled at basketball, playing for the Wales under-15 team at that sport, before signing as a professional footballer with Wrexham in September of 1975. Playing as a striker, he scored 23 goals in 86 games for Wrexham, helping them to the Third Division title in the 1977-78 season.  He subsequently played for Millwall, Cambridge United, and Colchester United; in total, playing 195 league games, and scoring 58 goals.  Whilst at his last club, Colchester, Lyons befriended his fellow striker and notorious hardman, Roy McDonough.  Lyons had replaced fan-favourite, Kevin Bremner, in the side, and thus became unpopular with his own side's supporters, and began to suffer from depression. Lyons had apparently said several times to McDonough that, if the crowd abuse didn't stop, he would hang himself.  On November 9th, 1982, Lyons played in a home game for Colchester United against Chester City at Layer Road, which his team won 1-0.  Two days later, on November 11th, 1982, Lyons went out for a drinking spree with McDonough.  He thereafter returned to his home in the village of Layer de la Haye, Essex, England, and hanged himself.  John Lyons was just 26 years old.

Boon Gould

Rowland Charles Gould - usually known as Boon Gould - was an English musician and songwriter.  Born on March 4th, 1955, in Shanklin, Isle of Wight, England, he was a guitarist and occasional saxophone player with the pop band, Level 42; his brother, Phil Gould, was the drummer in the band.  Boon Gould played on Level 42's first seven studio albums, before leaving the band, along with his brother, in 1987.  Gould had had a period of sustained illness, resulting in nervous exhaustion and suffering from panic attacks whilst on stage.  After leaving Level 42, Gould recorded two solo albums under the name Zen Gangsters.  In October, 2012, he performed in public with Level 42 for the first time in 25 years, at a one-off show in Bristol, U.K.  In 2018, Gould was asked to perform jury service, which caused him to become very agitated and damage the family home, before disappearing, sparking a police search.  On April 30th, 2019, Boon Gould's body was found hanged at a friend's house in Uffculme, Devon, England.  An inquest found a small amount of alcohol was in his body at death, although he had been drinking quite heavily for many years.  He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and had suffered from depression for much of his life.  Boon Gould was 64 years old, and left behind a wife, Moira.

Mark Speight

Mark Warwick Fordham Speight - who was born on August 6th, 1965 - was an English artist and children's television presenter.  Born in Seisdon, Staffordshire, England, he was raised in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands. Speight's father was a property developer, and his mother an art teacher.  Speight stated that he was a slow learner at school, and was bullied, which led to him becoming the class joker.  With ambitions to become a cartoonist, he left school at age 16 to take a degree in commercial and graphic art.  In 1994, Speight became a presenter on the children's art show, SMart, a role in which he continued until 2008.  He also presented the children's game show, See It Saw It, on the set of the which he met his future fiancée, the actress and model, Natasha Collins.  Collins was hit by a car in 2001, causing her to leave See It Saw It, but began dating Speight in 2003, and they got engaged in 2005.  On January 3rd, 2008, Speight awoke, after a night of partying, to find his fiancée's deceased body in the bath of their shared flat in St. John's Wood, north-west London.  Initially a suspect in Collins's murder, Speight was later found to have nothing to do with her demise.  She was ruled to have died from cocaine toxicity and immersion in hot water.  After failing to turn up to a meeting with Collins's mother on April 7th, 2008, Speight's body was found hanging from the roof of MacMillan House, adjacent to London's Paddington Station, on April 13th, apparently six days after he had died.  He was 42 years old.

Mark Saxelby

Mark Saxelby was an English cricketer who was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, on January 4th, 1969.  A tall left-handed batsman, who bowled right-arm medium-pace, Saxelby started his career with his native county, Nottinghamshire, where he enjoyed several successful seasons, often averaging in the mid-thirties as a batsman, although continual shoulder and back injuries gradually curtailed his bowling.  He then moved to Durham, where he scored 181 on his County Championship debut for his new team.  However, patchy form saw him drop down the batting order, and he soon moved into Minor Counties cricket, winning the MCC Trophy whilst playing for Cheshire in 1996. He played one game for Derbyshire in 2000.  After suffering from depression, Mark Saxelby died in the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, England, on October 12th, 2000, after ingesting weedkiller.  He was 31 years old.

Sarah Kane

Sarah Marie Kane was an English playwright, whose plays deal with the themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture, and death.  Born on February 3rd, 1971, in Brentwood, Essex, England, she produced five plays, one short film (Skin), and two articles for The Guardian newspaper.  A committed Christian in her teenage years, Kane later rejected those beliefs.  She worked briefly as literary associate for the Bush Theatre, London, and for a year was writer-in-residence for Paines Plough, a theatre company promoting new writing.  A lesbian, Kane suffered from severe depression for many years, and was twice voluntarily admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in London.  Two days after taking an overdose of prescription drugs, Kane hanged herself by her shoelaces - on February 20th, 1999 - in a bathroom at King's College Hospital in Camberwell, London, England. She was 28 years old.

Susan Fassbender

Susan Fassbender - who was born as Susan Kathryn Whincup, in Wibsey, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on April 30th, 1959 - was an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Fassbender was classically trained in piano, clarinet, and timpani, and later also played synthesizers.  In early adulthood, she teamed up with guitarist Kay Russell (later Kay Brown), who had been a member of Bradford-based New-Wave outfit Ulterior Motives; the two became songwriting partners for the rest of Fassbender's career.  After impressing their future manager Alan Brown at a record shop in Bradford, the duo signed up with the independent record label, Criminal Records, and released the single, Twilight Cafe, in 1980.  Following two appearances on Top of the Pops in January, 1981, the song climbed to No. 21 in the British Charts that February.  Despite appearing on various television programmes in Britain and Germany to promote two follow-up singles, Stay and Merry-Go-Round, they both failed to chart.  This disappointment led to the band's second manager to split up Fassbender-Russell, thinking Susan would be more successful as a solo act, with his own musicians as a backing band.  Demos were made, with a view to releasing them as an album at the time, but nothing came of it.  Fassbender and Russell then faded from the music industry, both marrying.  Fassbender married in 1983, raising three children, and taking on her new husband's surname, Baggio.  The two women wrote further songs, both together and apart, but they received no interest from the recording industry.  Tragically, Susan Fassbender committed suicide on May 2nd, 1991. She was just 32 years old.  A collection of early Fassbender-Russell songs - Twilight Cafe (The Demo Collection 1981-1985) - was finally released on Platform Records in 2012; with a follow-up collection - Building A Dream - issued on the same label in 2016.

Dana Plato

Dana Plato - who was born as Dana Michelle Strain, on November 7th, 1964, in Maywood, California, U.S.A. - was an American actress and model.  She was born to Linda Strain, an unwed teenager, but was adopted by Dean and Florine Plato in June, 1965.  At the age of three, her adoptive parents divorced, and she was raised by her mother.  Plato was included in a list of VH1's "100 Greatest Kid Stars", and became best-known for playing Kimberley Drummond in the popular television sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes, which aired from 1978 to 1986.  From the age of seven, Plato began appearing in T.V. commercials - over 100 in all - before going into acting.  Whilst a teenager starring in Diff'rent Strokes, she struggled with drug and alcohol problems, using cannabis and cocaine, and taking an overdose of diazepam at the age of 14. Later in her career, Plato appeared in various B-movies, while also posing for Playboy, and starring in softcore pornography films.  In December, 1983, she moved in with her boyfriend, rock guitarist Lanny Lambert, and married him on April 24th, 1984; she gave birth to her only son soon afterwards, which led to her being written out of Diff'rent Strokes.  After a series of personal problems, including her mother's death and her own divorce, Plato held-up a video store in 1991 with a pellet gun, demanding she be given the money from the cash register.  For this, she was given five years' probation.  In 1992, she was arrested again, this time for forging a diazepam prescription, serving 30 days in jail, and entering a drug rehabilitation programme.  Plato subsequently moved to Las Vegas, where she struggled with unemployment and poverty, and twice became engaged, including to her manager, with whom she lived in a motor-home in Florida.  On May 7th, 1999, Plato appeared on the Howard Stern Show, talking about her personal problems.  The following day - May 8th, 1999 - Plato took a lethal overdose of Lortab (a painkiller) and Soma (a muscle-relaxant), whilst visiting her fiancee's mother's home in Moore, Oklahoma, U.S.A.  She was 34 years old.

Alexander McQueen

Lee Alexander McQueen, C.B.E., was a British fashion designer and couturier.  Born in Lewisham, London, England, on March 17th, 1969, McQueen was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001, and founded his own fashion label in 1992.  He was four-times British Designer of the Year, and the CFDA's International Designer of the Year in 2003. McQueen's early collections earned him a reputation as the "enfant terrible" and "hooligan" of English fashion.  He became notorious for creating the "bumster" low-rise jeans. A homosexual, McQueen had an unofficial marriage ceremony with his partner George Forsyth on a yacht in Ibiza in 2000, although the pair split up a year later; he also discovered he was HIV positive.
On the afternoon of February 11th, 2010, McQueen's housekeeper found his body at his home in Green Street, Mayfair, London.  At the age of 40, he had hanged himself. A friend claimed McQueen was doing a lot of drugs and was very unhappy at the time of his death, and his psychiatrist said he had suffered from anxiety and depression for at least three years prior to his death, and had twice taken drug overdoses, as well as missing several psychiatrist's appointments.  Blood samples taken after his death showed significant levels of cocaine, sleeping pills, and tranquillizers.  

James Whale

James Whale - who was born on July 22nd, 1889, in Dudley, Worcestershire, England - was a theatre director, film director, and actor.  His first directing success was the 1928 play, Journey's End, which led to his move to the U.S.A.  In Hollywood, he directed a dozen films for Universal Pictures between 1931 and 1937, developing a style characterised by the influence of German Expressionism, and also becoming associated with the horror genre, with films such as Frankenstein (1931).  The peak of Whale's career was directing The Road Back (1937), but a series of box-office disappointments followed, and by 1941 his directing career was effectively over.
Very unusually for the 1920s and '30s, Whale was openly homosexual, and it was claimed that his refusal to remain 'in the closet' may have hastened the end of his career.
In the Spring of 1956, Whale suffered a small stroke, and was then hospitalised after a larger stroke occurring a few months later.  While in hospital, he was treated for depression with electric shock treatment.  Suffering from mood swings, and becoming increasingly frustrated that he was becoming dependent on others as his mental faculties diminished, Whale committed suicide by drowning himself in his swimming pool in Pacific Palisades, California, U.S.A., on May 29th, 1957, at the age of 67.  Initially thought to have been accidental, Whale's death was only revealed to be suicide in a suppressed suicide note which was not released until the death of Whale's long-term partner, David Lewis, in 1987.

Willie Llewelyn

William Dillwyn Llewelyn - who was born on April 1st, 1868, in Aberdulais, Glamorgan, Wales - was a Welsh cricketer, who played sixteen first-class matches for Oxford University between 1890 and 1891. An old Etonian, and the son of Sir John Dillwyn-Llewelyn and Caroline Julia Hicks-Beach, he played four further first-class matches, in 1893, for the Gentlemen of England and Marylebone Cricket Club, after his graduation from Oxford.  Llewelyn also became treasurer of Glamorgan County Cricket Club, then a second-class county side, in 1893.  Just a week before he was due to marry the daughter of Lord Dynevor, Llewelyn's body was found in woodland near his home in Penllergare House near Swansea.  He had shot himself in the head the previous day - August 24th, 1893.  Willie Llewelyn was just 25 years old.

Wendy O. Williams

Wendy Orlean Williams was an American singer, songwriter, and actress, who was born on May 28th, 1949, in Webster, New York, U.S.A.  At school, where she played the clarinet, Williams was recalled as a "shy and pretty girl" and "an average student".  She had the first of many run-ins with the law for sunbathing topless at the age of fifteen, and left R. L. Thomas High School in Webster before graduating.  Apparently feeling like an outcast, and misunderstood by her strict parents, Williams left home at age sixteen, hitchhiking to Colorado, and then onto Florida and Europe, taking several jobs on her travels, and also being arrested many times for shoplifting and possessing counterfeit money.  Arriving back in New York City in 1976, she met radical artist Rod Swenson, who became her manager, and she began performing in his live sex shows, and later in adult films.  Swenson and Williams became romantic partners for the rest of her life, with Swenson recruiting her to front his punk-rock band, The Plasmatics, in 1977.  Williams became known for her theatrical and sexually-provocative on-stage antics, resulting in several arrests and obscenity charges.  Although she drank and experimented with mind-altering drugs in her early-adult years, Williams later became more "straight-edge", giving up drug use and smoking, as well as being teetotal.  She had been a vegetarian since 1966.  Between 1984 and '86, Williams released two solo albums.  In 1985, during the height of her popularity, Williams was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.  In 1986, she starred in the indie-film, Reform School Girls, and in 1987 in the television show, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter.  Williams toured for the last time with The Plasmatics in 1988, and put out another solo album that same year.  She retired from the music business in 1990, and moved to Storrs, Connecticut, with Rod Swenson the following year, working as an animal rehabilitator and in a food co-op.  Williams attempted suicide in 1993 by hammering a knife into her chest, which lodged in her sternum; changing her mind, she asked her partner to take her to hospital for treatment.  In 1997, she tried again, this time by taking an overdose of ephedrine.  On April 6th, 1998, Swenson returned home to find Williams missing, having left a package for him containing some of his favourite things and sealed letters from her, including suicide notes.  Swenson began searching nearby woods for her, eventually finding Williams's dead body after about an hour as darkness fell.  She had shot herself in the head with a pistol, and had apparently been feeding wild squirrels moments before she died, as well as putting a bag over her head to spare her partner the horrible sight.  Wendy Williams was 48 years old. 

Screaming Lord Sutch

David Edward Such, who was born on November 10th, 1940, in Hampstead, London, England, was an English musician and serial parliamentary candidate.  In the 1960s, inspired by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he changed his stage name to "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", despite having no connections to the peerage.  Such released a series of records throughout his life, with little commercial success, and despite a self-professed lack of vocal talent; he and his band The Savages had a horror-themed stage show in which Sutch would dress up as Jack the Ripper or appear out of a coffin. Sutch's 1970 album, Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, was voted in a 1998 BBC poll as the worst album of all time.
Sutch appeared as an election candidate for various political parties in the 1960s and '70s, before forming the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983, and declaring himself leader.  In all, he appeared in 40 elections between 1963 and 1997, winning none, with his highest vote share being in the Rotherham by-election of 1994, when his party received 1,114 votes, for a 4.2% votes share.
Such had a history of depression, and committed suicide by hanging on June 16th, 1999, at his mother's home in Harrow, Greater London, England.  He was 58 years old.  At the inquest, his fiancee Yvonne Elwood said he had, "manic depression".  Such was survived by a son, Tristan Lord Gwynne Sutch, who was born in 1975 to American model, Than Rendessy.

Del Shannon

Charles Weedon Westover was an American rock 'n' roll and country musician and singer-songwriter, best-known for his 1961 U.S. Billboard No.1 hit, Runaway. Born on December 30th, 1934, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A., Westover had several jobs, and played guitar and sang in several bands, before changing his name to Del Shannon, whereafter he had his biggest hit with his co-written song, Runaway, which hit number-one in several countries. After several more hits, Shannon's career began to stall in the 1970s, partly due to his alcoholism; and, despite continuing to record and perform, he began to suffer from depression during the 1980s.  On February 8th, 1990, Shannon shot himself dead with a .22 calibre rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California, U.S.A.  He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered.  He was 55 years old.

Tom Evans

Thomas Evans, Jr., was an English musician and songwriter.  Born on June 5th, 1947, in Liverpool, England, Evans was a guitarist and vocalist for the British band, Badfinger, and co-wrote the classic song, Without You, with Pete Ham.  After great success with Badfinger in the 1970s, financial problems led to lead singer Ham committing suicide in 1975.  Evans later joined other reincarnations of Badfinger, but without much commercial success.  After a disastrous U.S. tour in 1982, Evans returrned to Britain, where he was sued for $5 million in damages for abandoning his touring contract. On November 19th, 1983, following a dispute with former bandmate Joey Molland over royalties to the song Without You, Evans hanged himself in his garden in London, England.  He was 36 years old.

Pete Ham

Peter William Ham, who was born on April 27th, 1947, in Townhill, Swansea, Wales, U.K., was a Welsh singer, songwriter, and guitarist.  The son of William and Catherine Ham, he formed his first rock group, The Panthers, around 1961.  Undergoing several name changes, they became The Iveys in 1965, moving to London the following year after being talent-spotted by The Mojos' manager, Bill Collins.  With Ham becoming the band's chief songwriter, they toured around the U.K. for the next three years, coming to the attention of both The Kinks' Ray Davies (who produced some of their early tracks) and The Beatles' personal assistant Mal Evans (who signed them to The Beatles' Apple Records label).  Changing their name to Badfinger, the band's first single release was a Paul McCartney composition, Come and Get It, which became a worldwide top-ten hit.  They followed this with three more Ham-composed singles in 1970 and '71, which all did well around the world.  Ham's greatest success as a songwriter came with the song Without You, co-written with bandmate Tom Evans, which became a worldwide number-one hit for Harry Nilsson in 1972, and has become a widely-covered standard; Ham received two Ivor Novello songwriting awards related to the song in 1973.  In 1974, Badfinger transferred to Warner Brothers Records, releasing possibly their finest album, Wish You Were Here.  Shortly thereafter, Warner Bros. sued the band's manager, Stan Polley, after an advance payment vanished, and, after Polley disappeared, the band were left penniless.  Ham found himself unable to pay mortgage payments on the new house which he shared with his pregnant girlfriend, Anne Herriot, and her son.  Believing that his finances had been wiped out, Pete Ham hanged himself in his garage in Weybridge, Surrey, England, on April 24th, 1975.  Five weeks after his death, Anne gave birth to Ham's daughter, Petera.  Fellow bandmember, Tom Evans, also committed suicide by hanging in 1983.  Only three days before his twenty-eighth birthday, Pete Ham was just 27 years old.

Tony Hancock

Anthony John Hancock - who was born on May 12th, 1924 - was an English comedian and actor. Born in Hall Green, Birmingham, England, Hancock was the son of John Hancock, who was also a comedian and entertainer. Hancock had a high profile in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, with his show, Hancock's Half Hour, being popular on radio and later television.  After parting with his scriptwriters, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock's career went into gradual decline, and he began to turn to drink in an attempt to cope.  His alcoholism started to affect his performance, and he collapsed after suffering a liver attack on January 1st, 1967; and, in December of the same year, while recovering from a broken rib after a drunken fall, he became ill with pneumonia.
Hancock arrived in Austalia in March, 1968, under contract to make a 13-part series for the Seven Network.  However, only three episodes were completed, and these remained unaired for nearly four years.  On June 25th, 1968, Hancock committed suicide by overdose at his flat in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, Australia.  An empty vodka bottle and a scattering of amylo-barbitone tablets were found by his side. He was 44 years old. 

Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian.  Born in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., on July 21st, 1951, Williams rose to fame in the 1970s in the sitcom Mork and Mindy.  He subsequently had a very successful career as a stand-up comedian and a film actor, including being nominated for four Academy Awards, winning the award for Best Supporting Actor in the 1997 film, Good Will Hunting.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams was addicted to cocaine, and later identified as an alcoholic.  In 2009, he had heart problems, having surgery to rectify the defects.
On August 11th, 2014, Williams committed suicide by hanging at his home in Paradise Cay, California, U.S.A., at the age of 63.  After Williams's death, his publicist, Mara Buxbaum, stated that Williams had been suffering from severe depression before his death; and his third wife, Susan Schneider, stated that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease shortly before he died.  An autopsy revealed he had diffuse Lewy body dementia, which may have contributed to the sudden appearance of anxiety, insomnia, memory loss, paranoia, and delusions, which became apparent in the year before his death.

Margaux Hemingway

Margot Louise Hemingway was an American fashion model and actress.  She was the daughter of Byra Louise (nee Whittlesey) and Jack Hemingway, the eldest son of the writer Ernest Hemingway, and was the older sister of actress Mariel Hemingway.  Born on February 16th, 1954, in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., she became a successful and popular supermodel in the mid-1970s, appearing on many magazine covers, and becoming the spokesmodel for Babe perfume. She also had a career as an actress, appearing in various films between 1976 and 1996.  After a skiing accident in 1984, Hemingway gained 75 pounds in weight, ending up at nearly 200 pounds (about 14 stone), and became increasingly depressed.  In 1987, she checked into the Betty Ford Center for persons with substance dependence.  Attempting a comeback, she appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in May, 1990, and took roles in several B-movies.  She was married twice, the first at age 21, the marriages lasting only three and six years, respectively.  Hemingway had fraught relationships with family members, and struggled with alcoholism, depression, bulimia, and epilepsy, as well as suffering from dyslexia.  It was also variously alleged that she had been molested by her Godfather and father. On July 1st, 1996, Hemingway's badly-decomposed body was found at her penthouse apartment in Santa Monica, California, U.S.A. The coroner's toxicology report ruled she had died from an overdose of phenobarbital, an epilepsy medication. Hemingway, who was the grand-daughter of Ernest Hemingway and the grand-niece of Leicester Hemingway - whose family had a history of drug abuse and suicide - was 42 years old.

Robert Enke

Robert Enke, who was born on August 24th, 1977, in Jena, East Germany, was a German football goalkeeper.  He played most-notably for the German club Hannover 96, as well as winning 8 caps for the German national team.  He was also team captain of Hannover 96 from the 2007-8 season until the end of his career, and was twice voted best goalkeeper in the German Bundesliga.  Enke had been expected to be Germany's number-one 'keeper during the 2010 World Cup, but he had been struggling to cope with the death of his daughter in 2006, and had been treated by a psychiatrist after suffering from depression.  On the night of November 10th, 2009, Enke committed suicide by standing in the path of a regional express train at a level crossing in Eilvese, Neustadt am Rubenberge, Germany. He was 32 years old.

Revilo P. Oliver

Revilo Pendleton Oliver was an American professor of classical philology, Spanish, and Italian, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Born on July 7th, 1908, in Corpus Christi, Texas, U.S.A., he later became a writer, becoming known as a polemicist for white-nationalist and right-wing causes. Oliver attracted national notoriety in the 1960s, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, when he wrote an article suggesting that Kennedy's murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was part of a Soviet conspiracy against the United States, for which he was called to testify before the Warren Commission investigating the murder.  On August 20th, 1994, suffering from leukemia and extreme emphysema, Oliver committed suicide in Urbana, Illinois, at the age of 86.