Sports
Beulah Gundling - Synchronized swimming pioneer, who was the winner of the first-ever U.S. National Outdoor Synchronized Swimming Championship in 1950, who was a leading force in the rapid development of synchronized swimming and water ballet in the U.S., Canada and Europe, who founded the International Academy of Aquatic Art, and who was a leading author of technical books in the field, as well as writing her autobiography "Dancing In the Water", died Oct. 1 of cancer in Fort Lauderdale, FL at age 87.
Webster Harris - Tenor who sang with the R&B vocal group Jive Five, who joined the group after their big hit "My True Story" but who sang on the group's other Top 40 hit "I'm a Happy Man", who was the brother of original Jive Five member Richard Harris, and who had previously recorded with the Persians on the Goldisc label, died Sept. 29 of diabetes complications. His age and place of death were not available.
Stu Hart - Patriarch of Canada's famous wrestling family, that includes sons Bret "Hitman" Hart and the late Owen Hart and his late son-in-law Davey Boy Smith, who founded Stampede Wrestling to promote wrestling in Canada, who was a renowned trainer who helped launch the careers of dozens of grapplers, including Andre the Giant, the British Bulldogs, and the Junk Yard Dog, and who is a member of Canada's Wrestling Hall of Fame, died Oct. 16 in Calgary, Alberta of pneumonia (which developed from an elbow infection) at the age of 88.
Michael Hegstrand (aka Road Warrior Hawk) - Professional wrestler best known as part of the legendary and dynamic tag team duo Road Warriors with Road Warrior Animal (Joe Laurinatis), who won many championships including two WWE Tag Team Champions, two WCW Tag Team Champions, and numerous championship reigns in the NWA and the AWA, and who were considered one of the most influential and revolutionary wrestling teams of all time, was found dead on Oct. 11 of undetermined causes (likely heart failure) in Tampa, FL at age 46.
Charlie "Choo-Choo" Justice - One of the greatest running backs in college football history as a standout at the University of North Carolina during the 1940's, who led his team to a 32-7-2 record during his four years there, who twice finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting, who spent four seasons in the NFL with the Washington Redskins, and who was the first athlete voted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, died Oct. 17 of undetermined causes at his home in Cherryville, NC at age 79.
Laszlo Papp - Hungarian boxing legend who won gold medals at the Olympics in 1948, 1952 and 1956, going from a middleweight to a super welterweight, who won three European championships in the 1960's and was 29-0 in professional bouts, but who was barred from competing for the world championship by the Hungary's communist government, died Oct. 16 in Budapest after a long illness at age 77.
Willie Shoemaker - One of the greatest jockeys in thoroughbred racing history, who racked up an astounding 8,883 victories in 40,350 races from 1949 to 1990, who won the Kentucky Derby four times, including in 1986 on Ferdinand as the oldest jockey to win the Derby, and who was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident in 1991, but remained in the field as a highly respected trainer, died Oct. 12 in his sleep at his home in San Marino, CA at age 72.

Art and Literature
Lee Bailey - Author and expert on entertaining, cooking and designing in the vein of Martha Stewart, who wrote 18 books in all with titles like "Lee Bailey's Country Weekends", "Lee Bailey's City Food" and "Lee Bailey's Country Flowers", died Oct. 16 in New York City after several strokes at age 76.
Benny Levy - French philosopher and author, who was leader of the most radical faction of militant socialist protesters during 1968 student unrest in France, who later embraced Judaism which became the focus of his later writings, but who may be best known as the secretary and spokesman of aging philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre during the 1970's, died of a heart attack on Oct. 15 in Jerusalem at age 58.
Manuel Vazquez Montalban - Poet, playwright and prolific political commentator and one of Spain's best-known authors, who was best known outside of Spain for his 20-book series of Pepe Carvalho detective stories, and whose 1990 novel "Galindez" was recently adapted into the Hollywood film "The Galindez Mystery" set for release soon in the U.S., died Oct. 18 of apparent heart failure at Bangkok international airport during a stopover at age 65.
John Darcy Noble - Leading museum curator, theorist, collector and creator of playthings, who wrote extensively on toys, particularly dolls in books like "A Treasury of Beautiful Dolls", and who was an important voice in the intellectual movement to interpret the artifacts of childhood as significant cultural symbols, died Sept. 21 of diabetes in Vista, CA at age 80.
Bill Silliker - Wildlife photographer known as "the mooseman", whose pictures appeared in magazines like Audubon, Field & Stream, National Geographic, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield, and who produced several books about moose, other wildlife and conservation, died of an apparent heart attack on Oct. 13 while leading a photography workshop in Baxter State Park, Maine. He was 56 years old.

Politics and Military
J.B. "Jet" Banks - Powerful Missouri legislator, who served 30 years in state government there, including a stint as Senate majority leader which made him Missouri's highest-ranking black elected official, but who was forced out of office in 1999 after pleading guilty to a tax felony (he was suspected of campaign finance improprieties), died Oct. 12 in Las Vegas of natural causes at age 79.
Mohamed Basri - Moroccan political opposition leader who was condemned to death on four occasions for organizing conspiracies against Moroccan monarch King Hussein II, and who spent 28 years in exile, died Oct. 14 in Chefchaouen, Morocco at age 76.
Edward "Ned" Breathitt - Democratic governor of Kentucky from 1963 to 1967, who was an outspoken proponent of racial harmony, and who oversaw the enactment of the Kentucky's civil rights law, the first such law in any southern state, died Oct. 14 in Frankfort, KY of heart failure at age 78.
William Brown - Nevada's oldest WWI veteran, who served with the U.S. Expeditionary Force in France in 1918, and who in 2001 was awarded the French government's Legion of Honor in recognition of his service in France during the war, died Oct. 5 in Las Vegas at age 109.
Jim Cairns - Controversial Australian politician who was deputy prime minister and treasurer in the Whitlam government of the 1970's, who was a leading opponent to Australia's participation in the Vietnam War, but many of whose accomplishments were overshadowed by the scandal of a high-profile affair with his personal secretary, died Oct. 14 of pneumonia in Melbourne at age 91.
Moktar Ould Daddah - The first president of Mauritania, a country in the African desert which became independent from France in 1960, who served three terms beginning in 1961 before being ousted in a coup in 1978, who spent many years in exile in France after the coup, and who had recently completed his memoirs entitled "Mauritania, Against All Odds", died Oct. 14 in Paris after a long illness at age 79.
Patrick Dalzel-Job - Scottish intelligence specialist and war hero, who as a member of the Royal Navy during WW2 successfully and single-handedly evacuated the Norwegian town of Narvic, moments before it was destroyed by enemy bombers, who served with future writer Ian Fleming, and is said to have been the inspiration for Fleming's most famous character, James Bond, died Oct. 13 in Plockton, Scotland at age 90.
Fathur Al-Ghozi - Top bomb maker for the al Qaeda-linked Philippine terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and one of the most-wanted terrorism suspects in Asia, who was responsible for several terrorist attacks including the Dec. 2000 bombing in Manila that killed 22 persons and injured more than 100, and who had escaped police custody in July 2003, was killed in a shootout with police and the military on Oct. 12 in southern Philippines at the age of 32.
Otto Günsche - SS officer and close personal aide to Adolf Hitler, who spent the last hours with the Nazi leader in the Fuehrer bunker in Berlin before Hitler and his companion Eva Braun committed suicide on April 30, 1945, and who burned the Nazi dictator's body to keep it from the advancing Soviets in the final days of World War II, died Oct. 2 of heart failure in Lohmar, Germany at age 86.

Social and Religion
David Garrity - Army sergeant who was a Gulf War veteran and had participated in the invasion of Panama, who had been deployed in Afghanistan over the past two years, and who had retired from the Army and had recently returned to his home in Tennessee, was killed on Oct. 12 when he jumped into the path of a falling tree that he was cutting down and was crushed after pushing his 5-year-old son, Charlie, who had wandered into its path, out of the way. He was 43 years old.
James Thomas Kelly - New Jersey man who came forward in 2002 with allegations that he was sexually abused as a child by his parish priest, Rev. James Hanley, and who helped found the New Jersey chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, committed suicide on Oct. 11 by stepping in front of a commuter train in Morristown, NJ at the age of 37.
Patric McCarthy - Massachusetts boy who celebrated his birthday with his family on Oct. 5 at their vacation condo in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, who challenged his stepbrothers to a race from a playground through the woods back to the condo, but who never arrived there, prompting a massive manhunt in the New Hampshire mountains, was found dead on Oct. 10 about 2 ¼ miles from where he was last seen. He was 10 years old.
Ben Metcalfe - Environmentalist who was a founding member and the first chairman of the Greenpeace Foundation, who was on the infamous fishing boat in 1971 that protested the U.S.'s nuclear testing at Amchitka Island, Alaska (that group of activists formed Greenpeace), died of a heart attack in Toronto on Oct. 14 at age 83.
Renato Rinino - Professional Italian thief who gained short-lived notoriety for stealing jewelry and other items from Prince Charles' London palace in 1994, was shot and killed on Oct. 12 at his home in northwest Italy, an apparent mafia hit (this was Italy after all) at age 41.
Robert L. White - Owner of one of the largest and most significant private collections of the memorabilia of President John F. Kennedy, who was willed numerous rare items from the estate of Kennedy's secretary Evelyn Lincoln, and whose collection included the two flags from the bumper of the presidential Lincoln Continental in which Kennedy was riding when he was shot in Dallas, died Oct. 11 of a heart attack in Baltimore at age 54.
Mike Zepeda - Labor activist and civil rights leader, who was among those who sued in 1968 to desegregate Corpus Christi Independent School District classes, one of the first cases in the U.S. that identified Mexican-Americans as members of a distinct ethnic minority victimized by discrimination, died Oct. 12 in Corpus Christy, TX from complications from an aneurysm at age 78.

Business and Science
Bertram Brockhouse - Canadian physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics along with Clifford Shull in 1994 for their research on the structure and movement of atoms, which they conducted using groundbreaking 'neutron scattering' techniques, which are now being used by scientists to study virus and DNA molecules, died Oct. 13 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada at age 85.
Edward S. Donnell - Chairman and CEO of Montgomery Ward's from 1970 to 1982, who was credited with pulling the company through one of its toughest times during the economic recession of the 1970's, died Oct. 11 in Naples, FL after a stroke at age 84.
Ivan Getting - Founding president of the military research-and-development company The Aerospace Corp., who conceived the Global Positioning Satellite system, the system that uses satellites and extremely precise clocks to pinpoint locations anywhere on earth with extreme accuracy, and who made numerous science and technology contributions in the field of national defense, died Oct. 11 in Coronado, CA at age 91.
William Hugle - One of Silicon Valley's semiconductor pioneers who founded the companies SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International), Siliconix Inc., and Hugle Lithography among numerous others, who held 30 patents in semiconductor processing, and who in the early 1980's was implicated by the Reagan administration in a cash-for-missile-secrets scandal at the height of the Cold War forcing him to leave the country for 10 years, died Oct. 14 of cancer in Mesa, AZ at age 76.
Joan Kroc - Widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, who remained the largest single stockholder of McDonald's Corp., with a fortune estimated at $1.2 billion, who assumed control of the San Diego Padres baseball team at Kroc's death in 1984 and prevented it from being relocated to Washington, DC (she sold her interest in the team in 1990), and who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropic causes, died Oct. 12 of brain cancer in Rancho Santa Fe, CA at age 75.
Michael Perich - Medical entomologist and expert in infectious diseases, who was leading efforts in the study of the West Nile virus at Louisiana State University, was killed in a car accident on Oct. 11 near Walker, LA at the age of 46.
Richard T. Perkin - Founder and chairman of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation, a Connecticut company that manufacturers scientific instruments, but who is best known for his philanthropic efforts as founder of the VZV Research Foundation, which backs research and education about chickenpox, shingles and other infections caused by the varicella-zoster virus, died Oct. 16 in New York City at age 72.
Anthony Pople - Music theorist and researcher, who was a pioneer in the sub-discipline of musical research known as "music analysis", who founded the "Tonalities Project", where a sophisticated computer program was developed to help understand how listeners make sense of the music they hear, died Oct. 10 in Nottingham, England after a long illness at age 48.
William "Si" Redd - Innovative gaming pioneer who was founder of International Game Technology, the world's largest slot machine manufacturer, and who is credited with developing Megabucks progressive jackpots, which helped reshape modern gambling and popularize video poker, died Oct. 14 in Solana Beach, CA at age 91.
Earl Reeder - Organic chemist at Hoffman-La Rouche Laboratories, who in 1957 while researching chemical compounds to be used as tranquilizers, formulated the chemical compound benzodiazepine, which he had previously tested as a dye, and which he patented in 1961 as Valium, the multi-billion dollar relaxation drug, died Oct. 13 of congestive heart failure in Hackensack, NJ at age 79.
Leon Schwartzenberg - Prominent cancer specialist and one of France's most outspoken medical figures, who was a proponent of euthanasia and advocated giving syringes to drug addicts to control AIDS, and ordering mandatory testing of pregnant women for HIV, and who served as a lawmaker in the European Parliament from 1989-1994, died Oct. 14 of cancer in Villejuif, France at age 79.
Rose G. Schneider - Research scientist who is credited with helping to broaden the understanding of potentially fatal blood disorders such as sickle cell, who was among the first to prove that abnormal hemoglobin can be accurately diagnosed at birth, leading to mandatory newborn screening for the variants, died Oct. 8 in Galveston, TX from a stomach ailment at age 95.
Joel E. Segall - Economist who served as deputy assistant secretary for tax policy in the Treasury Department in the 1970's who became the president of Baruch College in New York from 1977 until 1990, died Oct. 9 in Branford, CT at age 80.
Preston Tucker, Jr. - Son of the legendary carmaker who created the Tucker Torpedo in 1948, who served as right-hand man and confidante to his father Preston Tucker, Sr., and who served on the board of directors of the ill-fated Tucker Corporation, died Oct. 12 in Scottsdale, AZ at age 78.
James Wiley - Inventor of Fantastik household cleaner, which he developed in a bathtub in his home and sold door-to-door in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who sold the formula to SC Johnson in the late 1960's, died Oct. 9 in Tulsa at age 75.