Herbert W. Mannon -- Death of a Really Bad Philosopher

Betty Montague Gottlieb, a divorcee employed as a photo retoucher in Hollywood's Austin Studio and a sometime film extra, maintained a torrid 18 month affair with Herbert W. Mannon, vice-president of the Tec-Art Studios, before he tried to end the relationship in mid-1927.  Although friends warned the film executive that the fiery 25 year old could be dangerous, he assured them, "Man is master of his destiny.  Nothing can ever happen to me, for I will it otherwise.  There is nothing to fear.  I shall hold the thought that it is impossible for her to harm me."  In the early morning of August 5, 1927, the pair were parked in a car near 1346 Formosa Avenue in Hollywood when Mannon, attempting to disentangle himself from Gottlieb, let her read a love letter from a woman he had become infatuated with during a recent trip to New York.  According to the police reconstruction, Gottlieb handed the letter back to her lover, then slipped her left arm around Mannon, and asked for a goodbye kiss.  As he leaned forward, the divorcee produced a small caliber pistol from her dress, pressed its muzzle against Mannon's ear, and fired an instantaneously fatal shot.  Seconds later the woman who had spent the earlier part of the day reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet shot herself in the head.  Gottlieb lingered for several hours before dying.

Nan Wyatt -- She Didn't Deserve This

Wyatt (legal name Nandray Ann Walicki) was the popular co-host of KMOX radio's "Total Information A.M.," the top-rated morning drive-time news show in St. Louis, Missouri.  Known for her winning personality and in-depth political analysis, the 44 year old won several journalism awards including the prestigious National Associated Press Award for Enterprise Reporting in 1995, and had been a regular since May 1998 on the KETC-TV Thursday night panel news show, "Donnybrook."  While briefly working at the Chicago radio station WBBM-AM during the mid-1990s, Wyatt met her husband, Thomas Joseph Erbland, Jr.  Despite numerous attempts to fix their troubled marriage, Wyatt confided to friends in 2003 that she planned to divorce the 43-year-old unemployed computer consultant and petition for custody of their seven-year-old son, Drake.

Missouri Department of Corrections

On the evening of February 18, 2003, Erbland phoned police and tearfully confessed, "I've just shot my wife."  He was kept on the line while officers rushed to the couple's home in the 1300 block of Woodland Oaks Drive in the St. Louis County suburb of Twin Oaks.  Wyatt, shot five times with a .357 Magnum handgun, was found dead in the master bedroom.  Erbland, threatening to take his own life, was arrested hours later in the parking lot of an optical store where he had agreed to meet police.  Under questioning, Erbland said that while his son was in the house at the time of the murder, he dropped him off without explanation at the home of Wyatt's parents prior to calling authorities.  Interviewed in jail while awaiting trial on a charge of first-degree murder, a contrite Erbland confessed that while the murder was premeditated he felt great remorse -- "I stole Nan from everybody.  I stole her from Drake.  She loved him so much.  I stole Drake from her.  She didn't deserve this."  According to Erbland, the murder was precipitated by his discovery of Wyatt's private journal in which she had written their marriage was irretrievably broken.  In an agreement with the prosecutor's office, Erbland escaped life imprisonment without the possibility of parole by pleading guilty to second-degree murder on March 13, 2004.  Sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison, he will be eligible for parole in 26 years at the age of 70.  As of March 2014, Inmate #1110940 was incarcerated at Missouri's Jefferson City Correctional Facility.

Deon Van der Walt -- They Killed Him Years Ago

South Africa's most famous opera star, Van der Walt (born July 28, 1958 in Cape Town) studied voice at the University of Stellenbosch making his debut as "Jaquino" in Fidelio while still a student.  In 1981, the lyric tenor was studying abroad on scholarships when he won the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg playing "Tamino" in The Magic Flute.  In 1985, the 27 year old made his Covent Garden debut as "Count Almaviva" in The Barber of Seville.  In addition to these professional accolades, he became the first South African-born singer to complete the "operatic grand slam" -- performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan, and London's Covent Garden.  A familiar face on the international festival circuit, Van der Walt performed in Salzburg, Vienna, Barcelona, and Zurich and was regarded as one of Mozart's most skilled interpreters.  After years of almost nonstop touring, the tenor decided to spend more time in South Africa to help train young singers and oversee his winemaking business.  In 1988, Van der Walt purchased property near Paarl in a valley near the Klein-Drakenstein mountains 35 miles outside of Cape Town, christened the estate Veenwouden (after the Dutch village of his ancestors), and started producing highly regarded "boutique wines" known for their excellent taste and limited production.  The tenor left the management of the estate to his father, Charles, and the winemaking to his brother, Marcel, a former professional golfer.  When not performing internationally, he returned to Veenwouden to host intimate musical dinners in the winery's fermentation cellar.

The relationship between Van der Walt, 47, and his father had always been stormy, but it quickly deteriorated after the singer informed the 78-year-old man of his plans to move his parents off the estate when he took up permanent residence.  Around 2:00 P.M. on November 29, 2005, Van der Walt's mother, Sheila, returned to Veenwouden to find her son in his bedroom dead from two gunshot wounds to the chest.  Husband Charles was found in another bedroom with a fatal bullet wound in his right temple, a .38-caliber pistol next to his body.  Lore Schultz, Van der Walt's agent, said the constant bickering between father and son about the farm led directly to the murder-suicide.  "It really wore Deon down," Schultz told the international press.  "He may have been shot on Tuesday, but they (his family) killed him years ago.  Sometimes when he told me about it I just couldn't bear to listen to the horrible stories any more."

Nat Ross -- The Man from Rag-Town

Ross (born in San Francisco, California, on June 13, 1902) directed several pictures for Universal Studios in the 1920s (Ridin' Wild, 1922; Pure Grit, 1923; The Slanderers, 1924; College Love, 1929) before turning to producing in the 1930s with films like The Man from Gun-Town (1935), The Outlaw Deputy (1935), and Crash Donovan (1936).  The one-time assistant to producer Irving Thalberg was out of the movie business by 1941 and was the co-owner-night foreman at a rag factory on S. Broadway in midtown Los Angeles.  On the night of February 21, 1941, Ross was informed by a co-worker that Maurice ((M.) L. Briggs, 25, was outside waiting to speak with him.  A few weeks earlier, Ross fired the man, an ex-convict who served three years in a South Carolina prison for bank robbery.  Less than two weeks earlier an intoxicated Briggs had turned up at the factory and threatened Ross with a pocket knife.  Complicating the situation was the ex-con's 21-year-old estranged wife, Betty Susan Briggs, a worker at the rag factory supervised by the 38-year-old former film director.  After only two weeks of marriage, the woman left Briggs in December 1940.  Convinced that Ross was "chasing around" with his wife, the jealous ex-con decided to confront him.  When Ross went outside to meet the disgruntled former-employee, Briggs fired two rounds from a .25-.35 caliber rifle into the man's chest killing him instantly.  Twenty-five horrified employees witnessed the murder and saw the assailant flee the scene on foot.  Briggs was arrested a few minutes later after he was observed tossing the rifle on a lawn.  Stopped by a pedestrian and asked why he was discarding the gun, Briggs reportedly answered, "Oh, I just killed a guy.  Better call the cops."

In custody, Briggs told police he would have killed Ross ten days earlier, but had to wait for his unemployment check before purchasing the weapon for $8.00  "Am I sorry I shot him?," Briggs allegedly told detectives, "Yes -- I'm sorry I can't do it again."  A distraught Betty Briggs denied ever having a relationship with the murdered man.  Following months of bragging about the murder, Briggs pleaded "not guilty by reason of insanity" when told that he faced the death penalty if convicted of capital murder.  At trial in July 1941, Briggs testified he was driven into a deep depression by the breakup of his marriage and suspicions Ross was "chasing around" after his unhappy wife.  The situation reached its crisis, according to Briggs, when he allegedly learned the woman had obtained an abortion, perhaps funded by Ross.  Briggs bought the gun with the intention of killing himself at the rag factory, not Ross.  To no one's surprise, a jury found Briggs to be both sane and guilty of first-degree murder on July 21, 1941.  His appeal for executive clemency rejected by the governor, Briggs was executed in the gas chamber in San Quentin on August 7, 1942.

Jackie Neal -- Gone Too Soon

Daughter of internationally renowned Baton Rouge blues man Raful Neal, "Jazzy Jackie" was born on July 7, 1967, the eighth of ten children.  A hairdresser and owner of Jazzy Jackie's Beauty Salon in Baton Rouge, Neal released four CDs on small independent labels (The Blues Won't Let You Go, 1995; Lookin' for a Sweet Thang, 2000; Money Can't Buy Me Love, 2002; Down in da Club, 2005) all characterized by an eclectic blend of soul, pop, funk, and blues.  Since the mid-1990s, Neal's career was steadily building in the Southeast thanks to airplay on black radio stations in cities such as Mobile, Birmingham, and Baton Rouge.  In support of songs like "Nooky Thang," "Right Thang, Wrong Man," and "Twurk It," Neal crisscrossed the region by bus often playing weekend gigs.  In early-2003, Neal met James Haskell White at her concert in Baton Rouge.  White wooed the singer with flowers and for a time drove her tour bus until his increasing jealousy over her access to fans prompted the entertainer to end their relationship in December 2004.  Unwilling to accept the breakup, the 39 year old threatened to kill Neal and, in early March 2005, punched the windows out of her car in the parking lot of a local nightclub.

On March 10, 2005, Neal, 37, was getting a manicure at T'Nails and Hair Salon on 4369 Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge prior to a weekend tour in Alabama.  At 6:00 P.M. White entered the crowded shop and calmly talked to Neal before leaving without incident.  He returned ten minutes laters, however, fired a shot from a .45-caliber revolver into the ceiling, and yelled "Get the fuck out of here!"  During the mass exodus out the front door, White shot customer Angela Myers, who survived the attack.  Neal, now alone with White in the shop, was not so fortunate.  The singer's estranged lover shot her three times, laid on her body, then shot himself in the chest.  Neal was pronounced dead at the scene while White, briefly hospitalized under police guard, survived and was charged with first-degree murder (Neal) and attempted murder (Myers).

As the killer recuperated in hospital with a cop posted outside the door of his room, Baton Rouge said goodbye to a performer many felt was just beginning to be recognized as a major talent.  Nearly 3,000 mourners thronged Neal's funeral service in the Great Hall at the Bellemont where the singer, her lips and eyelids painted red and her hair close-cropped on the sides and spiked on top, lay in state for hours.  The massive turnout led one family member to comment, "I just wish they could have turned up for her like that while she was living.  If she could have had this much love when she was living, how great would that be?"  Neal was buried in Roselawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum.

Photo:  William Tatum

Found mentally competent to stand trial in December 2005, White was advised by counsel to accept the D.A.'s offer of life imprisonment rather than risk a proceeding where death by lethal injection loomed as a probable outcome.  In January 2006, Neal's family (who approved the plea offer) was in a Baton Rouge courtroom where they expected White to accept the generous deal.  At the last minute, however, the killer stunned everyone by insisting that he go to trial.  White's attorneys were busy preparing for a pre-trial hearing in February 2006 when he informaed them that he was now ready to accept the deal.  Later that month, White pleaded guilty to the original charges and was sentenced to a prison term of life plus 50 years.  As of March 2014, Inmate #507066 was incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

Theodore "Rocky" Salanti -- Silk Stalkings Trunk Murder

Following the advice of his doctor, the Pittsburgh native relocated to San Diego in a bid to find relief from an acute sinus condition.  A draftsman by trade, Salanti apparently gave up the profession in San Diego and, as a member of the Screen Actors Guild, briefly pursued a career in the early 1990s appearing in bit parts on the television shows Silk Stalkings (filmed in the city) and Renegade.  By 2005, the 57 year old was allegedly a drug user who dealt methamphetamine.  On September 30, 2005, a friend (unable to reach Salanti after repeated phone calls) drove to the former actor's condominium in the San Diego suburb of Santee.  Confronted at the door by an overwhelmingly foul odor and suspecting the worst, the man immediately called 911.  Paramedics forced their way into the residence and were overcome by what one called "the smell of death" emanating from a large green suitcase covered in a blanket by the front door.  The place had been ransacked, blood was everywhere, the carpet torn up in several areas, and holes punched in the wall.  Drag marks on the bloody floor from the suitcase led from a back room to the front door.  The case was opened to reveal a badly decomposed "Rocky" Salanti, bound and gagged with duct tape, stuffed inside.  Amid obvious signs of a struggle inside the condominium, several items appeared to be missing including Salanti's car.  An autopsy confirmed Salanti had been dead for several days with death attributed to "homicidal violence including asphyxiation."  Simply stated, the duct tape over Salanti's face caused him to suffocate as his assailant searched the residence for items to steal.

Photo:  KGTV

On October 12, 2005, police arrested Amy Heather Davis, 25, an "escort" Salanti had met two years earlier in an internet chat room.  Addicted to meth, Davis once stole $30,000 from Salanti, but he forgave her despite being warned by friends to terminate the relationship.  In custody, Davis told authorities she was standing outside Salanti's condo smoking a cigarette on September 23, 2005, when two men approached and forced her at knifepoint to help the rob the former actor.  She did so under duress and the influence of her drug addiction.  At trial in San Diego on March 12, 2007, Davis faced a first-degree murder charge with special circumstances (murder committed during a robbery).  If convicted, she would receive an automatic sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.  Rather than an unwilling participant in the crime, Davis was painted by the prosecution as a woman who betrayed Salanti's friendship for the opportunity to rob him of drugs and cash.  She knew the combination to Salanti's safe, and more damningly, her fingerprints were found on the duct tape used to bind the Silk Stalkings bit player.  Three days into the proceedings, a mistrial was declared after the evidence of a polygraph test administered to Davis was inadvertently entered into the trial record.  A new jury was quickly impaneled and after deliberating for three days found Davis guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances on April 11, 2007.  As of March 2014, Inmate #X28708 was incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.

Paul Alan Ott -- The Grip Ripper

On the afternoon of January 19, 2004, a scantily clad barefoot woman with duct tape hanging from her wrists and ankles pounded on the door of a house in the 13900 block of Sherman Way in Van Nuys, California, frantically screaming, "He's going to kill me, he's going to kill me!"  According to police who responded to the homeowner's 911 call, the hysterical woman said she was kidnapped by a white man in the Rampart area of Los Angeles, forced to help him load a dead body into an SUV, driven to an apartment in Van Nuys, and forced to commit oral sodomy on him.  Left alone when her attacker went to buy beer, she escaped her bonds and fled the scene.  Police located the plastic-wrapped corpse of Edith I. Mejia, a 42-year-old mother of ten, in a Ford Explorer parked in the carport of a Van Nuys apartment building in the 7100 block of Costello Avenue.  The parking space was registered to Paul Alan Ott, a 35-year-old Hollywood grip on films including The Breaks (1999), Michael Jordan:  An American Hero (1999 -- made-for-television movie), The Puzzle in the Air (1999), Brother (2000), and Sueno (2003).  Ott matched the victim's physical description of her attacker (bald, 5'9", 170 pounds, heavily tattooed, white) and police sought him for questioning.  The man with a devil's head and the word "Otter" inked on his upper body remained at-large until the early morning hours of January 22, 2004 when detectives assisted by the FBI arrested the unarmed film grip after he jumped from the second-floor window of an apartment building at 7130 Hollywood Boulevard.  Ott was charged with the knife murder of Mejia, the rape of the escaped woman, as well as the sexual assault of another woman on January 15, 2004, who stepped forward after seeing the laborer's photo on television.

At trial in May 2004, Ott insisted he acted in self-defense when Mejia, a casual friend, lunged at him with a knife.  Jurors discounted the idea in favor of the prosecution's characterization of Ott as a murderer acting under a week long "drug-induced rampage."  On May 11, 2006, the 38-year-old grip was found guilty of second-degree murder in Mejia's death and of the sexual assault of his escaped captive.  The earlier sexual assault case was dropped before trial.  He was sentenced to a combined prison term of 61 years to life (31 years for murder, 30 years for forcible oral copulation).  "It was one of the sickest cases I have known," Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels, prosecutor in the Robert Blake murder trial said.  "It's a sad case for everyone involved because [Ott] has two little girls, but I'm happy with the sentence."  In July 2007, a state appellate court upheld Ott's conviction.  As of March 2014, Inmate #F35486 was incarcerated at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, California.

Gito Baloi -- Bad Night in Joburg

One of South Africa's leading jazz musicians, Baloi was born in Maputo in the war-torn country of Mozambique in 1964.  Learning to play music on discarded paraffin tins and water reeds, Baloi was 14 when he borrowed a bass guitar for his first public concerts.  He toured extensively in Mozambique with the band Afro 78, and formed Pongola in 1986 ultimately settling in South Africa to escape the strife in his home country.  In 1987, the bassist-vocalist co-founded the jazz/jive fusion trio Tananas with drummer Steve Newman and guitarist Ian Herman.  Combining Baloi's knowledge of traditional African music with the co-members' innovative jazz fusion background, Tananas became a hit with both black and white South Africans.  The group signed with independent South African label Shifty Records in 1988 and later that year released their revolutionary self-titled debut album, Tananas.  A skillful blend of several musical styles (jazz, township jive, Mozambican salsa), the record cemented the group's cult status in South Africa, and led to tours on the African continent as well as in Japan, France, and Sweden.  Other successful albums on different labels followed (Spiral, 1990; Time, 1992) prior to the group;s disbanding in 1994 to pursue different musical paths.  Tananas briefly reformed with its original members in 1996 to release the album Seed, but Baloi spent most of the 1990s as either a solo performer, a founder and encourager of other groups, or in collaboration with international artists like Sting and Tracy Chapman.  In 1992, the bassist toured France with musicians from Zaire and Mali, and formed the bands Skabenga and Somewhere Else.  Baloi's first solo album, Ekaya, was released in 1996 and peaked at Number 2 on the Johannesburg Metro Radio charts.  Albums Na Ku Randza and Herbs and Roots followed in 1997 and 2002, respectively.

Baloi, 39, was returning from a poorly attended show with Landscape Prayer's Nibs van der Spuy in Pretoria's Lucit Candle Gardens to his home in the Kensington district of Johannesburg when he was shot three times by two gunmen in a central street in that city in the early morning hours of April 4, 2004.  Struck in the neck, the musician managed to drive his car fifty yards before getting out, staggering a few feet, then collapsing dead on the pavement.  The robber's took Baloi's wallet, but left his instruments in the car.  South Africa, long known as the murder capital of the world, has a crime rate estimated at eight times the overall homicide rate of the United States.  A spokesman for the African National Congress Youth League characterized the dead musician as "an icon for millions of young people" who contributed "to the creation of a free South Africa through art."  Acting on a public tip in late April 2004, police arrested four men (ages 21-28) in connection with the murder and confiscated three guns, two of them unlicensed.  As of May 2005, however, no one has been charged with Baloi's murder and the case remains open.