Corpse and Robbers

Or

The Grave Train Robber

(Props to Don)

 

Or

Last Escape

(Additional accolades for Don)

 

Or

Derailed

Ronnie Biggs, who found there were ways to escape 1960s London besides using the TARDIS, has died at the age of 84. A minor member of the gang that pulled off England’s Great Train Robbery – taking £2.6 million (the equivalent of almost $66 million in 2013 terms) from the Glasgow to London mail train on Aug 8, 1963. He and several co-conspirators were quickly captured, and public outcry over the severe head injury dealt to the train’s engineer netted Biggs a 30-year sentence. Biggs disagreed with the ruling and paroled himself after 15 months. He blew most of his earnings from the robbery on plastic surgery by a hack surgeon in Paris, then spent a few years working like a schnook in Australia before sneaking into Panama on his way to South America and Rio de Janiero. Along the way, Biggs was frequently tipped off to his impending arrest by watching the breathless coverage of his exploits on the evening news and managed to escape justice for 35 years. Not that he didn’t have close calls - he was arrested in 1974, but by that time had knocked up his Brazilian girlfriend, so Brazilian law meant he couldn’t be extradited. A team of inept bounty hunters tried to kidnap him for the reward money, but their oceanfaring getaway was thwarted when their boat broke down and was towed to shore by the Barbados Coast Guard. Lacking an extradition treaty with the UK, Barbados set him free again. The British tabloids kept fanning the flames of his notoriety, and he relished his celebrity status. Mugs and T-shirts with his likeness were for sale throughout Rio, and for a price, any tourist could get a private audience at his home, with barbecue and tales of his life on the lam for entertainment. He even performed on a record with The Sex Pistols, with his single No One Is Innocent reaching Number 7 on the UK Singles Chart in 1978. Expecting a cushy sentence given his age and health, he gave up life on a Brazilian beach and returned to England in 2001. However, three decades of reading about Biggs’ extended vacation hardened the resolve of British authorities, who dumped him in a dark hole for 8 years. He got a compassionate release in 2009, with his death expected within months. Continuing to piss off the Man, he hung on for 4 years, attending gala events, the funerals of his co-robbers, and giving countless interviews to the British media, though his strokes and other ailments meant many of those interviews were done via short scrawled responses on messageboards.

Turned Estate’s Evidence

Or

Groundfillas

(Props to Don)
Henry Hill, Jr., who managed to buy off Boston College basketball, has died at the age of 69. An associate of the Lucchese crime family, Hill dropped more dimes than an epileptic cashier when he got pinched for drug trafficking in 1980. In his case, snitches got riches, as his story was turned into the book Wiseguy by Nick Pileggi, which begat Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s excuse to abuse Joe Pesci again. In addition to the stuff covered in the movie, Hill orchestrated a point shaving scheme by paying the sanctimonious punks from Chestnut Hill Community College to keep their scoring down to avoid beating the spread in a bunch of games in the 1978-1979 season. Having traded Omerta for Omaha, Hill let the Witness Protection Program take him on the worst Showcase Showdown ever, following Nebraska with Independence, Kentucky; Redmond, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. After repeatedly getting arrested while in witness protection, Hill was actually expelled from the program, but apparently la Cosa Nostra thought having been played by Ray Liotta was punishment enough and he was allowed to live the rest of his life like a schnook.

Tangled up in Blue

Edward Bunker, a convicted criminal who became an acclaimed writer and so-so actor, has died at the age of 71. A young man with a genius IQ, Bunker was the Doogie Howser of crime, starting law breaking at the age of 3, and was the youngest person to take up residence at San Quentin prison, where he ended up after stabbing a guard at the L.A. County Jail. His numerous bank heists and drug arrests earned him a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. In prison, he wrote his first novel, No Beast So Fierce, which became the basis for the 1978 movie Straight Time. He later wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated film Runaway Train. He served as a technical advisor on prison life in a number of films and played small roles in such films as Tango & Cash, but is best known for playing Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs, an experience he used as the title for his memoirs: Mr. Blue, Memoirs of a Renegade.

Last Supper

(Thanks to Touchdown Tammy Dotts for the header)

Or
Chef BoyRIP

Or
The Bidding is ClosedJeff Smith, the popular television cook known as the Frugal Gourmet before his career was derailed by a sex scandal, died at the age of 65. The cheap bastard, whose specialty was tossing salad, started on a Seattle PBS affiliate and was launched into the national spotlight after an appearance on The Phil Donahue Show, always signing off with his catchphrase, "I bid you peace." In 1997, seven men accused him of sexually molesting them as children. He was never charged, preferring the hush money route, but his television career was finished. Not surprisingly, Smith was also a Methodist minister, because you can take the boy out of the ministry, but you can’t take the minister out of the boy.