Mrs. Anthony (Liana) Burgess

The Telegraph really does the best obits. Check out these juicy tidbits:

Liana’s sister, Grazia, died young in a mountaineering accident, and her mother, who claimed to be descended from Attila the Hun, spent years mourning her dead daughter by painting countless portraits of her and writing bad poetry in her memory.

They arranged to meet for lunch in Chiswick, and immediately began a clandestine affair. “I fell in love with the work,” she said later. “Anthony was never a good-looking man.”

Burgess was powerfully attracted by her dark-haired beauty, and by her passionate hatred of the Italian state and the Roman Catholic Church. He was unhappily married to his first wife, Llewela, a notoriously aggressive Welsh alcoholic, but refused to leave her for fear of offending his cousin, George Patrick Dwyer, who was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds.

When she sued the executive producers of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange for 10 per cent of the film’s profits, this money allowed the family to establish a semi-permanent home on the rue Grimaldi in Monaco. Living in a tax haven accorded with her strong belief that the earnings of writers should not be taxed under any circumstances.

Bless you, Mrs. Burgess!

I love this story because there’s so much wrong with it! I’m waiting for the Lifetime Movie: “My Dead Husband’s Canoe Amnesia”? “Canoe to the Panama Canal”? And his name? Darwin!

Family of missing canoeist go into hiding

The family of the “back-from-the-dead” canoeist John Darwin were in hiding as the mystery into his disappearance deepened. The 57-year-old former prison officer walked into a police station in London on Saturday, five years after he was presumed dead at sea in a canoeing accident in Hartlepool, and claimed he knew nothing of what had happened to him.

Mr Darwin’s wife, Anne, who sold the family home and emigrated to Panama in September, is being traced by authorities but removed her details from websites. She is known to have an active internet connection in Panama City. Their two sons, Mark, 31, and Anthony, 29, are believed to be with their father at a house in Basingstoke.

They have declined offers from police to stage a press conference or release a statement.

Meanwhile Mr Darwin’s brother and father said they have still not heard from him - more than 48 hours since he went to police and told them: “I think I am a missing person”.

Speculation grew in the neighbourhood of Mr and Mrs Darwin’s last home, in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.

Councillor David Young said: “It’s very strange.”

Cleveland Police have been drawing up a list of key questions they want to put to Mr Darwin to piece together the past five years before they question him.

It is not known if Mr Darwin’s life had been insured or if any money was claimed.

Police will check any life insurance policies and examine financial, phone and email records as part of their investigation.

Details of Mrs Darwin’s known address in Panama have also been passed to police and it is understood that Foreign Office officials are trying to contact her.

She sold two properties this year, the first for £160,000 and the second ? the family home ? for £295,000.

Mr Darwin’s aunt Margaret Burns, 80, revealed how he boasted he owned 17 houses and “would be a millionaire by the time he was 50″.

Mr Darwin, a science teacher (!) for 18 years who went on to work for a bank and as a prison officer, had gone canoeing in high winds when he was reported missing. His disappearance sparked a huge search.

7 years for “losing it”?

NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) — A former Ivy League professor pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter for killing his wife as she wrapped Christmas presents last year.

Rafael Robb says he “lost it” during an argument with his wife.

Rafael Robb, once a tenured economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faces a prison sentence of no more than seven years for bludgeoning his wife, Ellen, on December 22. Robb, 57, said Monday that he got into an argument with his wife about a trip she was taking with their daughter and whether they would be returning in time for the daughter to return to school.

“We started a discussion about that. The discussion was tense,” Robb said. “We were both anxious about it. We both got angry. At one point, Ellen pushed me. … I just lost it.”

Ellen Robb, 49, described as a stay-at-home mother who doted on their only child, died in the kitchen of their home in Upper Merion Township, outside Philadelphia.

Detectives believed the scene had been staged to look like a burglary. The murder weapon, which Robb described as an exercise bar, was not found. The couple married in 1990 but had long been estranged, keeping separate bedrooms.

Rafael Robb apologized to his daughter and family in court Monday.

“I know she liked her mother. … And now she doesn’t have a mother,” he said, stifling tears.

To put it mildly. And with a father like you …

He’s now apparently going by the name, “Anne Tyrrell” and employed as a spokesperson for Blackwater International. We can tell it’s Bob by the dissonance between his statements and objective reality.

The New York Times cited unidentified civilian and military officials in reporting for Wednesday’s editions that the killings of at least 14 of the 17 Iraqi civilians shot by Blackwater personnel guarding a U.S. Embassy convoy were found to have been unjustified and violated standards in place governing the use of deadly force.

Responding to the Times report, Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company “supports the stringent accountability of the industry. . . .”

In an industry where mercs are exempt from the USCMJ and Iraqi law, have been granted immunity by the State Department, and there is no accountability.

Although the report disclosed that:

No evidence supports assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. . . .

Bob/Anne was unfazed:

“Without a doubt, the teams were faced with deadly force that day,” the Blackwater spokeswoman said.

“Without a doubt, the teams were faced with deadly force that day”