Alan Lake

Alan Lake - who was born on November 24th, 1940, in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England - was a British actor and occasional singer.  Studying acting at RADA, Lake began performing in television roles in 1964, and landed his first film role the following year.  In 1967, the casting director Pamela Brown gave birth to Lake's first child - a daughter, Catherine Emma - following a brief affair.  After numerous credits in various popular British T.V. programmes of the 1960s, and a handful of film roles, Lake met the actress Diana Dors on the set of the 1968 T.V. series The Inquisitors.  Initially disliking Dors, the two quickly fell in love, marrying on November 23rd, 1968.  In 1969, Dors gave birth to the couple's only child - a son, Jason David - and Lake even released a single that year, although the song failed to chart.  The couple appeared together in well-received stage plays in the early 1970s.  However, things began to go wrong in July, 1970, when Lake served one year of an 18-month for his involvement in a pub brawl.  On his release from prison, Dors presented Lake - a keen horseman - with a mare; however, Lake was soon left seriously injured when the horse ran into a tree, leaving him with a broken back, and unable to walk for several weeks.  Now in severe pain, and unable to work, Lake began drinking heavily, with Dors saying, "alcohol had unleashed a monster, uncontrollable and frightening."  He began having psychotic episodes, but was temporarily diverted from drinking by converting to Roman Catholicism, convincing his wife to join him in the faith.  In 1974, Dors was rushed to hospital with meningitis; she recovered, and months later became pregnant.  Advised by doctors to have an abortion, she went ahead with the pregnancy, motivated by her regret at two previous abortions.  Sadly, Dors miscarried, which led Lake to return to drinking.  For the rest of the 1970s, Lake's once-promising acting career was reduced to small parts in T.V. dramas and low-budget comedy films, although he did have a major role in a 1974 film promoting the band Slade, as well as a part in episode 1 of The Sweeney.  Lake and Dors separated for a time in 1980, reuniting after Lake agreed to receive treatment for his alcoholism.  From here on, Lake's work began to dry up, and Dors's health declined: she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1982, and died in May of 1984.  Devestated, Lake burnt all his wife's clothes, and fell into a deep depression.  On October 10th, 1984, Lake took their teenage son Jason to the railway station, before returning to the family home in Sunningdale, Berkshire, England, and took his own life by shooting himself in the mouth in his son's bedroom.  Alan Lake was 43 years old.

Michael Ryan

Michael Robert Ryan - who was born on May 18th, 1960, at Savernake Hospital in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England - was a British man who killed sixteen people and injured fifteen more during a shooting rampage in the town of Hungerford, Berkshire, in 1987.  At the time of his birth, his mother, Dorothy, was 34, and his father, Alfred, was 55.  An only child, he apparently had a distant relationship with his father, a building inspector, although he was very close to, and doted on by, his mother, who worked as a dinner-lady and a waitress.  As a child, Ryan was a loner with few friends, who developed an interest in toy soldiers and the military, which later spiralled into an obsession with guns.  He was bullied at school, singled-out for being different.  Ryan enrolled at college, but the bullying of him continued, and he dropped-out without gaining any qualifications, making it difficult for him to get a job and participate in society.  In 1978, he was granted a shotgun certificate, and subsequently began practicing shooting at local gun clubs.  In April of 1987, Ryan began employment as a labourer, working on footpaths and fences near the River Thames; he left the job that July, returning to claiming unemployment benefits.  By August, 1987, Ryan was the owner of eight legally-held firearms.  On the sunny afternoon of August 19th, 1987, Michael Ryan drove out to Savernake Forest, seven miles west of Hungerford, where he spotted Susan Godfrey picnicking with her two young children.  He locked the children into their mother's car, before shooting Godfrey dead with an AK-47 rifle.  Ryan then drove back to Hungerford, stopping off at a garage to fill his car with petrol, and shooting at the cashier, although he at first missed and then his gun jammed.  Back in his home town, he set his own home on fire, and attempted to flee in his car, but it wouldn't start.  Ryan then began walking around the neighbourhood, shooting apparently randomly at passers-by.  By the time he stopped shooting at 1.47 p.m., Ryan had killed sixteen people, including his own mother after she had told him to stop what he was doing.  He then ensconced himself inside John O'Gaunt Secondary School, where he had once been a pupil.  Ryan later became engaged in conversation with one of the police officers who had surrounded the building.  At one stage, he was heard to call out, "It's funny.  I killed all those people, but I haven't the guts to blow my own brains out."  At 6.52 p.m., a muffled gunshot was heard from within the school buildings, and Ryan became silent.  Around 8 p.m., armed police broke into a barricaded room, where they found Ryan lying dead from a gunshot to his right temple.  In the wake of the massacre, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed, banning the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles, and restricting the use of shotguns with a capacity of more than three cartridges.  Michael Ryan was 27 years old.

Thomas Hamilton

Thomas Watt Hamilton - who was born on May 10th, 1952, in Glasgow, Scotland - was a Scottish youth-club leader, shopkeeper, and mass-murderer, who shot dead seventeen people in the small town of Dunblane in 1996.  Hamilton's mother, Agnes Graham Hamilton, a chambermaid, was divorced from her husband, Thomas Watt, by the time Hamilton was born.  He never knew his father, and grew up with his mother's adoptive parents, believing they were his biological parents; they legally adopted him at the age of two.  He also thought that his mother was his biological sister, until he was told the truth when he was twenty-two.  At the age of eleven, Hamilton moved with his adoptive parents from Glasgow to Stirling.  As a teenager, he joined a rifle club and the Boys' Brigade.  He obtained a number of 'O'-Levels, and then attended college, becoming an apprentice draughtsman in 1968.  In 1972, Hamilton opened a D.I.Y. shop in Stirling, which he ran for thirteen years.  By then a Venture Scout himself, in July of 1973, Hamilton was appointed as Assistant Scout Leader of the 4th / 6th Stirling Troop.  Later that year, he was seconded to be leader of the revived 24th Stirlingshire Scout Troop.  However, concerns soon emerged regarding Hamilton's behaviour, including complaints of Scouts being forced to sleep in close proximity to Hamilton in his van during hill-walking expeditions.  In May of 1974, Hamilton's Scout Warrant was withdrawn, and he was blacklisted by the Association, with the County Commissioner saying that he was "suspicious of his moral intentions towards boys".  In February, 1977, he requested that the Scout Association hold a Committee of Inquiry into his complaint that he had been victimised, but the request was denied.  Hamilton persistently maintained that the Scouts had ruined his reputation by dismissing him, and that their actions were linked with those of other organisations such as the police.  From the late 1970s, Hamilton became increasingly involved in running boys' clubs, and he set up and organised fifteen of these from February, 1981, until his death.  Once again, there were many complaints about Hamilton's behaviour towards the boys, including that he was photographing and videoing them without their parents' permission.  In 1993, his shop business failed, which he blamed on the rumours circulating about his behaviour.  By 1995, Hamilton's boys' clubs were also in decline, partially due to dwindling attendance, as parents were reluctant to put their boys in his charge.  At this time, however, his interest in firearms was rekindled, and he purchased 1,700 rounds of 9mm and 500 rounds of .357 ammunition between September, 1995, and January, 1996.  He also bought a 9mm Browning pistol, and a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver, and began practicing regularly at the Stirling Rifle and Pistol Club.  In early 1996, several acquaintances described Hamilton as appearing depressed.  At around 9.30 a.m. on March 13th, 1996, Hamilton arrived in his van at Dunblane Primary School, immediately severing the cables on a telegraph pole which served local houses.  He then entered the school carrying four legally-held handguns.  During the next three to four minutes, Hamilton shot dead sixteen pupils and one teacher, injuring fifteen others.  He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the roof of the mouth.  The event, which became known as the Dunblane Massacre, was the deadliest mass-shooting in British criminal history, and led to the banning in Great Britain of all privately-owned handguns.  Thomas Hamilton, who was never married and had no children, was 43 years old.

Ted Moult

Edward Walker Moult - who was born on February 11th, 1926, in Derby, England - was a British farmer, who later became a well-known television- and radio-personality in the United Kingdom.  The eldest of the six children of William Moult, Ted grew up on the family's farm in Derbyshire.  He left Derby School in 1944 at the age of 17, and by the age of 22 had his own dairy farm at Sinfin on the outskirts of Derby.  Moult first came to public attention in the 1950s, when he appeared on BBC Radio's general knowledge quiz, Brain of Britain.  Despite being knocked out in the first round, his quick wit and "gift of the gab" was noticed by BBC producers.  This quirky mixture of eccentric farmer, sharp intelligence, and comedic timing, proved a hit with audiences, and he was invited onto discussion programmes such as Any Questions?, and panel games such as Ask Me Another and What's My Line?  By the mid-1960s, Moult had become a household name.  He was credited with introducing the concept of "pick-your-own"  strawberries at his farm in 1961, and was the subject of This is Your Life with Eamonn Andrews in February of 1964.  Moult's media appearances continued throughout the 1960s and '70s, being a regular guest on Call My Bluff and Celebrity Squares.  He was the presenter of the Farming documentary programme from 1959-'69, as well as playing the Story Teller in the children's show Play School from 1964-'71.  Moult also took small parts as an actor, appearing in a 1980 episode of the television series All Creatures Great and Small, and playing the part of Bill Insley in the BBC Radio 4 farming-themed soap opera, The Archers, from 1983-'86.  In 1976, he starred in a popular television commercial for Jacob's Cream Crackers, and in the 1980s fronted a series of adverts for Everest double-glazing.  Moult's autobiography, Down To Earth: The Life and Views of Ted Moult, was published in 1973, and in 1983 he appeared as a celebrity guest on darts-themed gameshow, Bullseye, winning £180 for charity.  In 1986, several weeks of wet weather lead to worry for arable farmers like Ted trying to gather their harvests.  His wife said that the normally cheerful Ted had become withdrawn, and that, "he suddenly became massively depressed, and his judgement seemed to fail.  All his optimism seemed to evaporate.  It was almost as though a curtain fell over his life."  Moult had persuaded himself that he was never going to get his grain into the barn.  On the morning of September 3rd, 1986, he locked himself into his office and shot himself dead.  He was survived by his wife, Marie Rose - known as Maria - (1932-2014), and several (at least four!) children.  After a private funeral, his life was celebrated at a public ceremony in Derby Cathedral.  He was buried in the parish churchyard in Ticknall, the small village where he farmed.  Ted Moult was 60 years old.

Albert Trott

Albert Edwin Trott - who was born on February 6th, 1873, in Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia - was an Australian cricketer, who had the unusual distinction of playing international cricket for both Australia and England.  One of eight children of Adolphus and Mary-Ann Trott, Albert's older brother, Harry, also played Test cricket for Australia.  A keen and determined cricketer from a young age, after only three first-class games for Victoria, Trott made his debut for Australia in the Third Test against England at Adelaide in 1895.  Playing with his brother Harry, and batting at number ten, Trott scored 110 runs without being dismissed in this match, whilst also taking 8 for 43 in England's second innings.  At the end of this series, which England won 3-2, Trott's Test batting average stood at 102.5, making it surprising he was not selected for the 1896 tour of England under the captainship of his brother, Harry.  Instead, Trott sailed to England independently, playing for M.C.C. from 1896, and for Middlesex from 1898.  In late 1896, he briefly returned to Australia, where he married 21-year-old Jessie Rice in 1897, before settling with her in England permanently.  In 1898, Trott became the leading wicket-taker in England, and in 1899 was one of Wisden's cricketers of the year after achieving the double of 200 wickets and 1,000 runs in the season.  Between December, 1898, and April, 1899, Trott played two matches for England against South Africa in South Africa which were retrospectively awarded Test status.  In those games, he scored 23 runs at 5.75, and took 17 wickets at 11.64.  When the Australians toured Britain in 1899, Trott, playing against them for M.C.C., achieved the feat for which he is still best-remembered: batting against Monty Noble, he hit a delivery over the Lord's pavilion and out of the ground, something not matched by any batsman since.  At this stage, Trott was considered the leading bowler in the world, and one of the top all-rounders, although he never played Test cricket again because both Australia and England both considered him, essentially, a foreigner.  He settled into a comfortable terraced house in Willesden, with his wife bearing him two daughters, Jessie and Mabel.  Trott's bowling quickly declined from its peak in 1899, when he took 239 wickets, to 1905, when he took only 62.  He drank heavily, and his weight increased rapidly, and he became known for his extramarital liaisons with women.  He had a brief renaissance in 1907, when, in his benefit match against Somerset, he took four wickets in four balls, and then took a hat-trick later in the same innings - the first time that two hat-tricks had been taken in the same first-class innings (and something that has only been achieved once since).  However, the subsequent early finish meant that the game only raised £800, leading Trott to comment that he had "bowled himself into the poorhouse".  Retiring in 2010, Trott took up umpiring, although by this time his wife had left him and returned to Australia with their children.  Trott himself left the family home, moving into lodgings.  In August of 1913, Trott received news that his father had entered an asylum, where he died that November.  His own health was also declining, as he developed dropsy, as well as a heart condition which was complicated by kidney pains.  In July of 1914, Trott's heart problems lead to him being hospitalised, but he discharged himself on July 28th.  On July 30th, he asked his landlady to bring him sleeping pills, but the chemist refused to supply them without a prescription.  Trott reportedly said, "I don't think I can get through another night", and proceeded to write his will on the back of a laundry ticket.  Following this, broke and broken, and wracked by days of pain, Albert Trott shot himself in the temple with a pistol at his lodgings in Harlesden, Middlesex, England.  He was 41 years old.       

Faron Young

Faron Young was an American country music singer, songwriter, and producer, as well as an actor, who was active from the early 1950s until the mid-1980s.  Born on February 25th, 1932, he was the youngest of six children born to Harlan and Doris Young in Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.A.  Starting to perform whilst still at school, he initially imagined a career as a pop singer, before switching his allegiance to country music after watching Hank Williams on T.V.  After leaving college, Young's first releases were on Gotham Records, although by early 1952 he had signed for Capitol Records, where he was to record for the next ten years. Moving to Nashville, his first hit, Goin' Steady, reached number 2 on the U.S. Country Charts in October, 1952.  The following month, Young was drafted into the U.S. Army.  Whilst stationed at Fort McPherson, he met his future wife, Hilda Macon, whom he married in November, 1954, after being discharged.  The couple had three sons and a daughter together.  From 1954 to 1962, Young recorded mainly honky-tonk records for Capitol, the most famous being Willie Nelson's Hello Walls, which was a crossover hit in 1961, and won a gold disc for selling over a million copies.  In the mid-1950s, he also appeared as an actor in four low-budget films.  After drifting for a while musically, Young had a renaissance in 1971, when his song Four in the Morning gave him his fifth and final number-one hit on the U.S. Country chart, and was also a surprising number-three hit on the U.K. pop charts.  In 1972, he was charged with assault for spanking a girl in the audience whom he claimed had spat at him whilst he was singing on stage.  Young's later life was plagued with depression and alcoholism.  In 1984, he fired a pistol into the roof of his home.  When he refused to seek help for his drinking problems, Young's wife divorced him in 1986 after 32 years of marriage.  On December 9th, 1996, Young shot himself in the head at his home, dying in Nashville, Tennessee, the following day.  A combination of feeling he had been abandoned by the music industry, as well as despondency over his declining health, were cited as reasons for his suicide.  His ashes were spread by his family on land owned by singer Johnny Cash and his wife, whilst the Cashes were away.  Faron Young was 64 years old.

Larry Walters

Lawrence Richard Walters - who later became publicly-known by the nickname "Lawnchair Larry" - was an American truck driver who was born on April 19th, 1949, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.  After failing to become a pilot in the U.S. Air Force due to poor eyesight, Walters took employment as a driver for a television commercial production company.  He had dreamed of flying in an air balloon since the age of thirteen, and, on July 2nd, 1982, attempted to make his dream reality.  Walters strapped 43 helium-filled weather balloons to his garden chair in the backyard of his home in San Pedro, Los Angeles, before settling himself in, carrying only sandwiches, drink, a camera, a C.B. radio, a parachute, and a pellet gun which he intended to use to shoot out some of the balloons so he could descend gently to the ground after floating for a while over his property.  Unfortunately, the wire holding the chair to the ground broke prematurely, sending Walters shooting upwards, eventually reaching a height of about 16,000 feet (over three miles).  He had planned to fly 300 miles into the Mojave Desert, but instead found himself drifting into the approach path to Long Beach Municipal Airport, where he was spotted and reported by two passing aircraft.  Feeling cold and dizzy at such an altitude, Walters shot some of the balloons, and began descending, eventually becoming entangled in power lines in Long Beach, about ten miles from where he took off, and having been airborne for around an hour.  He was cut free by rescuers, the broken power line blacking out parts of Long Beach for twenty minutes.  Walters received a $4,000 fine for his troubles, which was reduced on appeal to $1,500.  He subsequently became a minor celebrity for a while, quitting his job as a driver, and guesting on mainstream American talkshows, and was briefly in demand as a motivational speaker.  Timex watches paid him $1,000 in 1992 to appear in print advertisements.  However, his girlfriend of fifteen years left him, and Walters could only find sporadic employment as a security guard, as well as doing volunteer work for the United States Forest Service.  He had a love of nature, and spent time hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains.  On October 6th, 1993, Larry Walters walked to one of his favourite spots in the Angeles National Forest, and took his own life by shooting himself through the heart.  He was 44 years old.

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. 

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.

Leicester Hemingway

Leicester Clarence Hemingway was an American writer.  Born on April 1st, 1915, in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A., he was the youngest of six siblings, his older brother being the writer, Ernest Hemingway.  Leicester Hemingway wrote six books, including his first novel, The Sound of the Trumper, in 1953, based on his experiences in France and Germany during World War II.  In 1961, he published a well-received biography of his brother - My Brother, Ernest Hemingway.  This book brought Leicester recognition in his own right as a writer, as well as significant financial rewards.  In July, 1964, with the money earned from his work, Hemingway created the micronation of New Atlantis on a barge 12 miles off the coast of Jamaica.  He utilised the 1856 Guano Islands Act to claim half of the barge as a new nation, and half for the United States.  Hemingway also "wrote" a constitution, which was a copy of the U.S. Constitution with the words "New Atlantis" substituted for "United States".  New Atlantis's purpose was to generate money for oceanographic research by selling coins and stamps.  In 1966, the micronation was ravaged by a storm and then ransacked by fishermen.  After suffering for some years from Type II diabetes, which necessitated several amputations, Leicester Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on September 13th, 1982.  His sister, Ursula, his brother, Ernest, as well as Ernest's grand-daughter, Margaux Hemingway, also committed suicide.  He was 67 years old.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American writer, who was born in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A., on July 21st, 1899. Renowned for an economical and understated writing style, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.  Hemingway almost died after two plane crashes in 1952, which left him in pain and ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway - whose brother, Leicester, and sister, Ursula, also committed suicide - killed himself with a shotgun in the early-morning hours of July 2nd, 1961, at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, U.S.A.  He was 61 years old.

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer, songwriter, and musician, who was born on February 20th, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.A.  One of two children of Margaret (a waitress) and Donald (a mechanic) Cobain, Kurt came from a musical and artistic family, becoming interested in drawing and music from an early age.  At the age of nine, his parents divorced, which had a profound negative effect on Cobain.  Initially living with his father and his new wife, for the next few years he had an unsettled life, spending periods also living with his mother and with other family and friends.  When he failed to graduate from high school, Cobain's mother threw him out, and he subsequently had periods of homelessness in his late teens.  After forming musical bands with friends, Cobain eventually founded the group Nirvana in 1987.  They produced their debut album, Bleach, in 1989, although it failed to chart on initial release.  However, the 1991 follow-up, Nevermind, propelled by its lead single, Smells Like Teen Spirit, entered the mainstream, popularising what became known as "grunge" music.  Following relationships with Tracy Marander and and punk-rocker Tobi Vail, Cobain met Courtney Love of the band Hole in 1989 or 1990.  The pair married on February 24th, 1992, with Love giving birth to their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, on August 18th of that year.  The Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services took the couple to court, claiming that the Cobains' drug use made them unfit parents.  Cobain had chronic bronchitis and severe pain from an undiagnosed stomach condition.  He began dabbling in drugs at the age of thirteen, and became addicted to heroin by the end of 1992, claiming the heroin helped alleviate his stomach pain.  In 1993, Nirvana released their third and last studio album, In Utero, which topped both the U.S. and British charts.  Despite these successes, Cobain continued his alcohol, drug, and solvent abuse.  He overdosed on heroin several times.  Whilst on tour in Munich, Germany, in March of 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis, and flew to Rome for medical treatment.  The next morning, March 4th, his wife awoke to find Cobain had overdosed on champagne and Rohypnol.  After five days in hospital, Cobain was released and returned home to Seattle.  His wife claimed this was his first suicide attempt.  On March 18th, Cobain's wife called the police, saying he was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun; police arrived, and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills.  A week later, Cobain's wife organised an intervention, with Cobain eventually agreeing to travel to a rehabilitation centre in Los Angeles.  On March 31st, after one night at the centre, Cobain absconded from the facility and flew back to Seattle.  Over the next couple of days, Cobain was spotted at several locations around the city.  On April 8th, 1994, an electrician, who was visiting Cobain's property in Lake Washington Boulevard, Seattle, Washington, found the singer's dead body lying on the ground.  He had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.  A high concentration of heroin and traces of diazepam were found in his body.  A coroner's report suggested he probably died on April 5th.  Kurt Cobain was just 27 years old.