An absolute bloodbath sees off October, with a further nine hits to report alongside Patrick Stewart and Walter Koenig. We also have only the second day in the DDP’s history where six confirmed hits come on the same day, and the first where all six died independently of one another.
Centenarian
We start with the oldest of the week, Melanie Berger-Volle. She was a Austrian Jew whose Franco-German name managed to keep her family out of the initial waves of arrests by the Gestapo in the run up to WW 2. She ended up in Vichy France where she joined the resistance movement and worked to distribute anti-fascist material among the Axis troops stationed there. She first got involved in politics on a nudist beach of all places, though it’s unclear if she could still be found having such debates there in her 100’s! It’s eight points for One Century is Enough, Madam! and the second of two antiquated ladies to help them secure the Team of the Month for October.
Film
The first of our trio of hits from cinema was Peter Medak, the director of The Ruling Class, The Changeling and 1990’s The Krays. He never made it that big in Hollywood and went into television directing later in his career, helming the truly excellent Breaking Bad episode “Peekaboo”. Yes, it’s the one where Spooge got his head introduced to a lethal combination of gravity and an ATM. My Dallek Master Plan “cash in” for ten points, tee hee hee.
On the other side of the camera we lost both Barbara Barrie and Elke Sommer. Barrie was best known for Breaking Away and Private Benjamin though she had an extensive career in theatre and television as well. After years of health problems and a terminal cancer diagnosis, she opted for assisted dying instead and is the most popular hit, scoring five for five. Sommer was mostly active in the 60’s and 70’s, appearing in both the Pink Panther and Carry On franchises. She also had a long running feud with DDP heavyweight Zsa Zsa Gabor, winning a multi-million defamation court case against her in 1993. But it was her appearance in The Muppet Show that brought her on to the theme team It’s time to meet the music, her death from heart failure scoring ten points.
Politics
Yasuo Fukuda served as the Prime Minister of Japan from 2007 to 2008, taking over after his predecessor Shinzo Abe resigned on health grounds. His year in post saw little more than a plummeting of the governments approval ratings and a complete inability to pass any legislation, leading to his resignation after just one year. Little more than a footnote in history as a result, he was also reported as holding some rather unsavoury opinions on rape victims at one time, though he was adamant he’d been misrepresented whenever caught on the record. Hmmmm. He scores nine points as the first of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD’s Asia-Pacific politicians to depart the world.
The next three hits formed a full half of the massacre of October 28th, starting with Dolores Huerta. She was a civil rights activist and trade union bigwig who co-founded the National Farm Workers Union, one of the two precursors to the modern days United Farm Workers. She was a prominent feminist activist as well and only this year broke her silence on her one-time fellow civil rights warrior Cesar Chavez actually being a serial rapist. You’ve probably not seen the biopic on him, it was already pretty bad even when he was supposed to be one of the good guys! Nine points go to Wanted Dead, Not Alive.
Another from the political world was Glynn Simmons, whose 48 years spent in prison despite being innocent is the longest verified spell in the USA’s history. He was convicted for murder in 1975, solely on the extremely shaky testimony of only one eyewitness and despite having a cast-iron alibi from six people that he was in another state entirely on the day of the crime. He only escaped the mandatory death penalty two years later when automatic sentences were deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. When even the trial prosecutor writes a letter all but stating the court got it wrong, you know something’s fucked up indeed. After being released, Simmons was declared innocent, compensated to the tune of $7 million and got to live happily ever after for a whole two years before dying this week of colon cancer. Yay. The Sunday Supplement’s Premature Review of 2026 and the activist themed LW’s Protesticles score seven points.
Finally we have Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a prominent leftist Mexican politician who served as both a Senator and Governor of Michoacán, as well as the first elected Mayor of Mexico City. He was the son of President Lázaro Cárdenas and ran for the job himself three times but never succeeded in following his dad into the top spot. He was renowned for strengthening the democratic process in Mexico, being a key figure in the weakening of the one-party rule of the PRI. But it’s being named after the last Emperor of the Aztecs that’s the reason you’re reading about him here, making the list of the “Interesting Names” team Rolls Off The Tongue for nine points.
Television and Radio
Finally we have small screen star Susan Saint James to round us off. She was most well known for The Name of the Game (won an Emmy), McMillan and Wife (won a Golden Globe), and Kate & Allie (won nothing but made her rather wealthy). Her movie career went absolutely nowhere and after Kate & Allie ended she all but retired from acting to focus on business and voluntary work instead. Pan can takes her down at the age of 80 and she scores the joint highest score of the week at ten points for Tumbling Dice.
Scores
| Name | Age | Date of Death | Teams and Scores |
| Melanie Berger-Volle | 105 | October 22 | One Century is Enough, Madam! 💀💀💀💀+👻= 8 Points |
| Yasuo Fukuda | 90 | October 22 | POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD 💀💀💀💀💀+👻 = 9 Points |
| Susan Saint James | 80 | October 26 | Tumbling Dice 💀💀💀💀💀💀+👻= 10 Points |
| Peter Medak | 88 | October 27 | My Dallek Master Plan 💀💀💀💀💀💀+👻= 10 Points |
| Dolores Huerta | 96 | October 28 | Wanted Dead, Not Alive 💀💀💀💀💀+👻 = 9 Points |
| Glynn Simmons | 72 | October 28 | 2 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 = 7 Points |
| Cuauhtemoc Cardenas | 92 | October 28 | Rolls Off The Tongue 💀💀💀💀💀+👻= 9 Points |
| Barbara Barrie | 95 | October 28 | 5 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀 = 5 Points |
| Elke Sommer | 85 | October 28 | It’s time to meet the music 💀💀💀💀💀💀+👻= 10 Points |