Florence May Chadwick (November 9, 1918 – March 15, 1995) was an American swimmer known for long-distance open water swimming. She was the first woman to swim across the English Channel in both directions, setting a time record each time. She was also the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Bosporus (one way), and the Dardanelles (round trip).
Bonny Lee Bakley (June 7, 1956 – May 4, 2001) was the second wife of actor Robert Blake, who was her tenth husband. Bakley was fatally shot while sitting in Blake's parked car outside a Los Angeles restaurant in May 2001.
In 2002, Blake was charged with Bakley's murder, solicitation of murder, conspiracy and special circumstance of lying in wait. In March 2005, a jury found Blake not guilty of the crimes. Seven months later, Blake was found liable in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against him by Bakley's children. Officially, Bakley's murder remains unsolved.
Kristen Heather Gilbert (née Strickland; born November 13, 1967) is an American serial killer and former nurse who was convicted of four murders and two attempted murders of patients admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Northampton, Massachusetts. She induced cardiac arrest in patients by injecting their intravenous therapy bags with lethal doses of epinephrine, commonly known as adrenaline, which is an untraceable heart stimulant. She would then respond to the coded emergency, often resuscitating the patients herself. Prosecutors said Gilbert was on duty for about half of the 350 deaths that occurred at the hospital from when she started working there in 1989, and that the odds of this merely being a coincidence was 1 in 100 million. However, her only confirmed victims were Stanley Jagodowski, Henry Hudon, Kenneth Cutting, and Edward Skwira.
Jessica Whitney Dubroff (May 5, 1988 – April 11, 1996) was a seven-year-old American trainee pilot who died while attempting to become the youngest person to fly a light aircraft across the United States. On day two of her quest, the Cessna 177B Cardinal single-engine aircraft, piloted by her flight instructor, Joe Reid, crashed during a rainstorm immediately after takeoff from Cheyenne Regional Airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming, killing Dubroff, her 57-year-old father Lloyd Dubroff, and Reid.: 6 Although billed by the media as a pilot, Dubroff was not legally able to be a pilot because of her age. She did not possess a medical certificate or a student pilot certificate, since they require a minimum age of 16 or a pilot certificate that requires a minimum age of 17, according to U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. At the time of her trip, there was no record-keeping body that recognized any feats by underage pilots. Nevertheless, local, national, and international news media picked up and publicized Dubroff's story, and closely followed her attempt until its tragic ending.The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the crash and concluded that the fatality was caused by Reid's improper decision to take off in poor weather conditions, his overloading the aircraft, and his failure to maintain airspeed. The three factors resulted in a stall and subsequent fatal crash in a residential neighborhood. The NTSB also determined that "contributing to the [instructor's] decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, in part, because of media commitments.": 53
Sarah McKnight Devens (November 17, 1973 – July 10, 1995) was an ice hockey player for the Dartmouth Big Green women's ice hockey program. The Sarah Devens Award for the player who best "demonstrates leadership and commitment both on and off the ice" is named in her honor. In addition to ice hockey, she also participated on Dartmouth's field hockey and lacrosse teams and was named a captain of all three.
Christine Chubbuck (August 24, 1944 – July 15, 1974) was an American television news reporter who worked for stations WTOG and WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida. She was the first person to die by suicide on a live television broadcast.
Hope Cooke (born June 24, 1940) was the Gyalmo (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་མོ་, Wylie: rgyal mo) (Queen Consort) of the 12th Chogyal (King) of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal. Their wedding took place in March 1963. She was termed Her Highness The Crown Princess of Sikkim and became the Gyalmo of Sikkim at Palden Thondup Namgyal's coronation in 1965.Palden Thondup Namgyal eventually was the last king of Sikkim as a protectorate state under India. By 1973, both the country and their marriage were crumbling; soon Sikkim was merged into India. Five months after the takeover of Sikkim had begun, Cooke returned to the United States with her two children and stepdaughter to enroll them in schools in New York City. Cooke and her husband divorced in 1980; Namgyal died of cancer in 1982.Cooke wrote an autobiography, Time Change (Simon & Schuster 1981) and began a career as a lecturer, book critic, and magazine contributor, later becoming an urban historian. In her new life as a student of New York City, Cooke published Seeing New York (Temple University Press 1995); worked as a newspaper columnist (Daily News); and taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Birch Wathen, a New York City private school.
Pearl Elizabeth Dobbins (April 14, 1926 – January 22, 2007), known professionally as Liz Renay, was an American stripper, author, and actress who appeared in John Waters' film Desperate Living (1977).
Geraldine Stutz (August 5, 1924 – April 8, 2005) was an American retail groundbreaker. She was appointed president of Henri Bendel in 1957, serving for 29 years until stepping down in 1986.
Dolly Sinatra (Italian pronunciation: [siˈnaːtra]; born Natalina Maria Vittoria Garaventa; [nataˈliːna maˈriːa ɡaraˈvɛnta]; December 26, 1896 – January 6, 1977) was an Italian woman, mother of American singer Frank Sinatra. She was born in Lumarzo (Province of Genoa), in northern Italy; she immigrated to the United States as an infant.
Dolly married Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra in 1913, and in 1915 the couple's only child, Frank Sinatra, was born. Dolly was influential in the Sinatras' neighborhood in Hoboken, New Jersey, where they later operated a tavern during Prohibition. She became involved in politics and worked as a midwife. It is believed that she also provided an illegal abortion service in the area. She died in a plane crash in 1977.