It was another busy weekend, and there were several obits that meet at the intersection of crime and death. I’m trying to tread very carefully here, and I think I’m going to put the more crime related ones after a jump.
A.E. Hotchner has passed away at 102. Interesting guy: he was a close friend of Ernest Hemingway (“…Mary Hemingway, Ernest’s widow, tried unsuccessfully to stop publication of what turned out to be Mr. Hotchner’s most famous book, “Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir” (1966), which included closely observed and painfully revealed details of the paranoia and distress that preceded Hemingway’s suicide.“) and of Paul Newman: the two men co-founded Newman’s Own.
He was a five time All Star player.
He was a .288 hitter with 94 homers and 844 RBIs in 2,158 big league games. He remains the last Yankees player to hit for the cycle in a home game, accomplishing the feat in 1995.
Fernandez finished with 2,276 hits, 1,057 runs, 414 doubles, 92 triples, 246 stolen bases.
He did at 57 of kidney failure.
For the hysterical record: Barbara Remington. (Previously.)
Father George Coyne, former director of the Vatican Observatory.
Recognized among astronomers for his research into the birth of stars and his studies of the lunar surface (an asteroid is named after him), Father Coyne was also well known for seeking to reconcile science and religion. He applauded Pope Francis for addressing the role that humans play in climate change, and he challenged alternative theories to evolution like creationism and intelligent design.
“One thing the Bible is not,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 1994, “is a scientific textbook. Scripture is made up of myth, of poetry, of history. But it is simply not teaching science.”
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“God in his infinite freedom,” he wrote, “continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity. He is not continually intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves.”
He went further by finding fault with intelligent design.
“If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research,” he wrote, “religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly.”
He added, “Perhaps God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words.”
He was the director from 1978 until he retired in 2006.
In the Times Magazine interview, Father Coyne was asked, “How can you describe the universe as a vast empty infinitude, largely uninhabited, and still believe in — ”
“The centrality of man in the universe?” he interjected, completing the reporter’s thought.
“There’s no doubt about it,” he went on. “To our own knowledge of ourselves, we are unique in creation because of our self-reflexivity. I can know myself knowing. I am having a conversation with you, and I can remember that conversation. To this, the Catholic Church comes along and says, ‘The reason this is true is because you have an individual soul.’”
Caroline Flack. I had never heard of her, but apparently she was the host of a British reality TV show called “Love Island”. In December, she was charged with domestic assault of her boyfriend and suspended from the show.
She was 40 years old, and apparently committed suicide.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.
After the jump, the more legal related entries…
Charles O’Brien, one of Jimmy Hoffa’s close friends and the other guy suspected of being involved in his death.
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The suspicions, though, persisted. They even made it into Martin Scorsese’s recent film “The Irishman,” in which Mr. O’Brien is portrayed by Jesse Plemons. Professor Goldsmith, who wrote the 2019 book “In Hoffa’s Shadow: A Stepfather, a Disappearance in Detroit, and My Search for the Truth,” has been a strong defender of his stepfather and has fought to counter the longstanding assumption that he was involved in the crime.
“The circumstantial case against Chuckie fell apart long ago,” he wrote last month in an essay for The New York Times that was critical of the film, “and his known whereabouts on the fateful day make it practically impossible that he picked up Mr. Hoffa. Unfortunately, the government never made this information public. And so Chuckie’s innocence in one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century remains mostly hidden, his guilt remains publicly presumed, his honor remains soiled.”
(I haven’t seen “The Irishman” yet, but I have read the book it is based on. I don’t have an opinion on Mr. O’Brien’s involvement one way or the other, but I don’t find Frank Sheeran’s claims convincing.)
Daniel Lee Martin. I’d never heard of him, but he was apparently a musician and host of a couple of shows on the Sportsman’s Channel. He was also an alleged child molester: he was charged in 2018 with abuse in Tennessee, arrested this January in Pasco County, Florida, and then killed himself on Friday when the police tried to serve additional warrants on him.
Amie Harwick, who I’d also never heard of until Lawrence sent me the story. She was affianced at one point to Drew Carey. and was supposedly a well known “sex therapist” in Hollywood. The police are saying they responded to a domestic violence call, and found Dr. Hardwick badly injured under a third floor balcony at her home: she died at the hospital.