title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: In 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated Malvo's three life sentences without parole in Virginia on appeal, with re-sentencing ordered pursuant to the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of "Miller v. Alabama", 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (2012), which held that mandatory life sentences for juvenile criminals without possibility of parole violated the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, with oral arguments held on October 16, 2019. Should he be resentenced, Malvo's minimum prison sentence will be determined by a judge; the available maximum sentence would be life imprisonment. The ruling does not apply to the six life sentences Malvo received in Maryland. On February 25, 2020, after the passage of a Virginia law allowing those who are serving life sentences for offenses committed before the age of 18 to seek release after serving 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court case was dismissed at the request of lawyers on both sides.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On February 16, 2002, 21-year-old cashier Keenya Nicole Cook was shot and killed by Lee Malvo at the front door of her aunt's home in Tacoma, Washington. Cook's aunt, Isa Nichols, had been good friends with John Allen Muhammad's ex-wife Mildred and had encouraged her to seek a divorce.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On March 19, 2002, Jerry Taylor, 60, was killed by a single shot to the chest fired from long range as he practiced chip shots at a Tucson, Arizona, golf course. Muhammad's sister lived near the golf course, and he was visiting her at the time of the shooting.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On August 1, 2002, John Gaeta, 51, was changing a tire slashed by Malvo at a parking lot in Hammond, Louisiana. Malvo then shot him in the neck. The bullet exited through Gaeta's back, and he pretended to be dead while Malvo stole his wallet. Gaeta ran to a service station after Malvo left and discovered that he was bleeding; he went to a hospital and was released within an hour. On March 1, 2010, he received a letter of apology from Malvo.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On September 5, 2002, at 10:30p.m., Paul LaRuffa, a 55-year-old pizzeria owner, was shot six times at close range while locking up his Italian restaurant in Clinton, Maryland. LaRuffa survived the shooting, and his laptop computer was found in Muhammad's car when he and Malvo were arrested.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On September 14, 2002, 22-year-old Rupinder "Benny" Oberoi, an employee of the Hillandale Beer & Wine liquor store in Silver Spring, Maryland, was shot in the back outside the store. Oberoi survived the shooting. The shooting was officially linked to Muhammad and Malvo by the Montgomery County Police Department.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On September 15, 2002, Muhammad Rashid was shot while closing Three Roads Liquors in Brandywine, Maryland. Rashid later identified Malvo as the shooter in court.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On September 21, 2002, at 12:15a.m., 41-year-old Million A. Waldemariam was fatally shot in the head and back with a .22-caliber pistol in Atlanta, Georgia. Waldemariam was helping the owner of a Sammy's Package Store close up for the night when the shooting occurred.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Nineteen hours later on the same day, Claudine Parker, a 52-year-old liquor store clerk in Montgomery, Alabama, was shot in the chest and killed during a robbery. Her coworker, 24-year-old Kellie Adams, was critically wounded with a shot through the neck but survived. Evidence found at the crime scene eventually tied this killing to the Beltway attacks and allowed authorities to identify Muhammad and Malvo as suspects, although this connection was not made until October 17, almost four weeks later.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On September 23, 2002, at 6:30p.m., 45-year-old Hong Im Ballenger was shot in the head and killed with a Bushmaster rifle in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Muhammad and Malvo were later linked to the killing.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: At 5:20p.m. on Wednesday, October 2, 2002, a shot was fired through the window of a Michaels craft store in Aspen Hill, Maryland. The bullet narrowly missed Ann Chapman, a cashier at the store. Since no one was injured, the shot was assumed to be random, and no serious alarms were raised. However, approximately one hour later, at 6:30p.m., James Martin, a 55-year-old program analyst at NOAA, was shot and killed at 2201 Randolph Road, in the parking lot of a Shoppers Food Warehouse grocery store located in Wheaton.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On the morning of October 3, four people were shot dead within a span of approximately two hours in Aspen Hill and other nearby areas in Montgomery County. Another was killed that evening in the Takoma neighborhood of the District of Columbia.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: In each shooting, the victims were killed by a single bullet fired from some distance, and, in each case, the killers struck and vanished. This pattern was not detected until after the October3 shootings occurred.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Fear quickly spread throughout the region as news of the shootings spread. At a press conference meeting, Chief of Police for Montgomery County, Charles Moose, informed parents that schools were on a code blue alert, keeping children indoors. He said that the schools were safe. Many parents picked up their children early at school, not allowing them to take a school bus or walk home. Montgomery County Public Schools, District of Columbia Public Schools, and private schools went into a lockdown, with no recess or outdoor physical education classes. Other school districts in the area also took precautionary measures, keeping students indoors. During the course of the shootings, law enforcement agencies from neighboring states became embedded in the investigation through telephone tips.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Police had only a few pieces of evidence to work with. One initial report said that right after the Silver Spring attack someone had reportedly seen a white box truck hurriedly leaving the scene. After the murder in Washington, D.C., witnesses began telling police that they had seen a blue Chevrolet Caprice rather than a white box truck. The police initially believed that all of the murders were carried out with a .223 caliber rifle.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: At this point, Malvo and Muhammad started covering a wider area and taking two or three days between shootings.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: By this point, gas stations had begun to put tarps up to conceal their customers (see below). Malvo and Muhammad did not commit any more shootings for five days before striking again.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On October 19 at 8:00p.m., 37-year-old Jeffrey Hopper was shot in a parking lot near the Ponderosa Steakhouse at State Route 54 in Ashland, Virginia, about south of Washington, near Interstate 95. His wife Stephanie called out to passersby, who phoned for an ambulance, enabling Hopper to survive his injuries. Authorities discovered a four-page letter from the shooter in the woods that demanded $10 million and made a threat to children.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On October 21, Richmond-area police arrested two men, one with a white van, outside a gas station. The men turned out to be undocumented immigrants with no connection to the shooter. The pair were administered cavity searches and were remanded into federal custody (what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently deported them).


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The next day, October 22, Ride On bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, was shot at 5:56a.m. while standing on the steps at the 14100 block of Grand Pre Road in Aspen Hill, Maryland. Chief Moose released part of the content of one of the shooter's letters, in which he declares, "Your children are not safe, anywhere, at any time." Johnson died of his injuries.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: While no shootings occurred on October 23, the day is significant for two events. First, ballistics experts confirmed Johnson as the 10th fatality in the Beltway shootings. Second, in a yard in Tacoma, Washington, police searched with metal detectors for bullets, shell casings, or other evidence that might provide a link to the shooters. A tree stump believed to have been used for target practice was seized.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: With seven separate shooting victims, including six deaths, in the first 15 hours of the D.C. area spree, the North American media soon devoted extensive coverage to the shootings. By the middle of October 2002, all news television networks provided live coverage of the aftermath of each attack, with the coverage often lasting for hours at a time. The Fox show "America's Most Wanted" devoted an entire episode to the shooters in hopes of aiding in their capture. Much of the coverage of the case in "The New York Times" was written by Jayson Blair and subsequently found to be fabricated. The ensuing scandal resulted in the resignations of the newspaper's two top editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: During the weeks when the attacks occurred, public fear mounted of the apparently random shootings, especially in relation to such sites as service stations and parking lots of large stores, where many had taken place. People pumping gasoline at gas stations kept moving, hoping to present a smaller target. Lisa Notgrass of Lake Jackson, Texas, recommended to media that gas stations put up tarps around the awnings over the fuel pumps, so people would feel safer. Also, many people with access tried to fuel their vehicles at the naval base of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, as they felt it was safer inside the guarded fence. Government buildings such as the White House, U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court building and memorial tourist attractions at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., also received heightened security. For the duration of the attacks, United States Senate pages received a driven police escort to and from the United States Capitol every day and were not allowed to leave their residence hall for any reason except work. Drivers of white vans and box trucks were viewed with suspicion from other motorists as initial media reports indicated the suspect might be driving such a vehicle.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: After the specific threat against children was delivered, many school groups curtailed field trips and outdoors athletic activities based upon safety concerns. At the height of the public fear, some school districts, such as Henrico County Public Schools and Hanover County Public Schools, after the Ponderosa shooting, closed school for the day. Other schools, such as the MJBHA, canceled all outdoor activities after the shooting at the Connecticut and Aspen Hill intersection. Others changed after-school procedures for parents to pick up their kids to minimize the amount of time children spent in the open. Extra police officers were placed in schools because of this fear. Joel Schumacher's film "Phone Booth" was deemed potentially upsetting enough that its release was delayed until April 2003.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The investigation was publicly headed by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) and its chief, Charles Moose. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and police departments in other jurisdictions where shootings took place provided assistance in the investigation.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Police responded within minutes to reports of attacks during the three weeks of the sniper attacks, cordoning off nearby roads and highways and inspecting all drivers, thereby grinding traffic to a halt for hours at a time. Police canvassed the area, talking to people, and collected surveillance tapes.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: By Friday night, October 4, the five shootings on October 3 and two on October 2 were forensically linked to the same gun.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Eyewitness accounts of the attacks were mostly confused and spotty. Hotlines set up for the investigation were flooded with tips. Early tips from eyewitnesses included reports of a white box truck with dark lettering, speeding away from the Leisure World shopping center, with two men inside. Police across the area and the state of Maryland were pulling over white vans and trucks. A gray car was spotted speeding away after the October 4 shooting in Spotsylvania.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The shooter attempted to engage the police in a dialogue, compelling Moose to tell the media cryptic messages intended for the sniper. At several scenes of shootings, Tarot cards were left as calling cards, including one Death card upon which was written "Call me God" on the front and on the back, on three separate lines, the words "For you mr. Police." "Code: 'Call me God'." "Do not release to the press." This information was leaked to the press and misquoted often as "I am God" or some similar misquote of the actual words on the tarot card. At later scenes of crimes the shooter left long, handwritten notes sealed inside plastic bags, including a rambling one that demanded $10,000,000 and threatened the lives of children in the area.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: A telephone call from the shooter(s) was traced to a pay telephone at a gasoline station in Henrico County, Virginia. Police missed the suspects by a matter of a few minutes and initially detained occupants of a van at another pay telephone at the same intersection.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On the phone call, the sniper, boasting of his cleverness, mentioned a previous unsolved murder in "Montgomery". This was identified as the September 21 shooting at a liquor store in Montgomery, Alabama. On October 17 authorities said they matched Malvo's fingerprint found at the Benjamin Tasker Middle School site with one lifted from the Montgomery liquor store scene. After confirming the link between these two crime scenes, the FBI was able to link these fingerprints to Malvo due to his fingerprinting during a previous arrest in Washington state. After further research into Malvo's background, the police found he had close ties to John Allen Muhammad.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Despite an apparent lack of progress publicly, federal authorities were making significant headway in their investigation and developed leads in Washington state, Alabama, and New Jersey. They learned that Muhammad's ex-wife, who had obtained a protective order against him, lived near the Capital Beltway in Clinton, a community in suburban Prince George's County, Maryland, adjacent to Montgomery County. Information was also developed about an automobile purchased in New Jersey by Muhammad.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Police discovered that the New Jersey license plate number issued for Muhammad's 1990 Chevrolet Caprice had been checked by radio patrol cars several times near shooting locations in various jurisdictions in several states, but the car had not been stopped because law enforcement computer networks did not indicate that it was connected to any criminal activity and they were focused exclusively on the "white van".


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On October 3, 2002, police in Washington, D.C., stopped the Caprice for a "minor traffic infraction" two hours prior to the shooting of Pascal Charlot. Witnesses later reported seeing a Caprice near the scene of his shooting.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On October 8, 2002, Baltimore Police Department investigated a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice parked near the Jones Falls Expressway at 28th Street in Baltimore with a person sleeping inside it. The officers were concerned that the driver's license was from Washington state while the vehicle was registered in New Jersey. Although the vehicle was suspicious enough for them to investigate, and it fit the description of a vehicle associated with the shooting in Washington, D.C., five days earlier, the officers did not question the occupants extensively, nor did they search the vehicle.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Authorities were quick to issue a media alert to the public to be on the lookout for a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice sedan. For the public, as well as for law enforcement agencies throughout the region, this was a major change from the mysterious "white box truck" earlier sought based upon reported sightings.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The Chevrolet Caprice was later discovered to have formerly been used as an undercover police car in Bordentown, New Jersey.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The crime spree came to a close at 3:15 a.m. on October 24, 2002, when Muhammad and Malvo were found sleeping in their car at a rest stop off Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland, and were arrested on federal weapons charges. Police were tipped off by two 911 calls from individuals at the rest stop. Four hours earlier, Montgomery County police chief Charles Moose had relayed this cryptic message to the sniper: "You have indicated that you want us to do and say certain things. You have asked us to say, 'We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.' We understand that hearing us say this is important to you". Moose asked the media "to carry the message accurately and often." This statement may refer to a Cherokee fable.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Trooper First Class D. Wayne Smith of the Maryland State Police was the first to arrive at the scene and immediately used his light blue unmarked police vehicle to block off the exit by positioning the car sideways between two parked tractor-trailers. As more troopers arrived, they effectively sealed off the rest area at both the entrance and exit ramps without the suspects being aware of the rapidly growing police presence. Later, as truck driver Ron Lantz was attempting to exit the rest area, his tractor-trailer was commandeered by troopers who used the truck, in place of the police car, to complete the roadblock at the exit. With the suspects' escape route sealed off, the SWAT officers moved in to arrest them.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: A stolen Bushmaster .223-caliber weapon and bipod were found in a bag in Muhammad's car. Ballistics tests later conclusively linked the seized rifle to 11 of the 14 shootings, including one in which no one was hurt.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The attacks were carried out with a stolen Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic .223 caliber rifle equipped with a Bushnell holographic weapon sight effective at ranges of up to , which was found in the vehicle. The trunk of the Chevrolet Caprice was modified to serve as a "rolling sniper's nest". The back seat was modified to allow a person access to the trunk. Once inside, the sniper could lie prone and take shots through a small hole created for that purpose near the license plate.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Investigators and the prosecution suggested during pre-trial motions that Muhammad intended to kill his second ex-wife Mildred, who he felt had estranged him from his children. According to this hypothesis, the other shootings were intended to cover up the motive for the crime. Muhammad believed that the police would not focus on an estranged ex-husband as a suspect if Mildred appeared to be a random victim of a serial killer. During the attacks, Muhammad frequented the neighborhood where she lived, and some of the incidents occurred nearby. Additionally, he had earlier made threats against her. Mildred herself said that she was his intended target, claiming that when the police first approached her, one officer said, "Ms. Muhammad, didn't you know you were the target?" However, Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. prevented prosecutors from presenting that theory during the trial, saying that a link had not been firmly established.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: While imprisoned, Malvo wrote a number of erratic diatribes about what he termed "jihad" against the United States. "I have been accused on my mission. Allah knows I'm gonna suffer now," he wrote. Because his rants and drawings featured not only such figures as Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, but also characters from the film series "The Matrix", these musings were dismissed as immaterial. Some investigators reportedly said they had all but eliminated terrorist ties or political ideologies as a motive. Nonetheless, in at least one of the ensuing murder trials, a Virginia court found Muhammad guilty of killing "pursuant to the direction or order" of terrorism.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: At the 2006 trial of Muhammad, Malvo testified that the aim of the killing spree was to kidnap children for the purpose of extorting money from the government and to "set up a camp to train children how to terrorize cities," with the ultimate goal being to "shut things down" across the United States.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Before the trial, Chief Moose engaged in a publicity tour for his book on the sniper investigation, including appearances on "Dateline NBC", "The Today Show", and "The Tonight Show". Assistant Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney James Willett told "The Washington Post", "Personally, I don't understand why someone who's been in law enforcement his whole life would potentially damage our case or compromise a jury pool by doing this."


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Change of venue requests by defense attorneys were granted, and the first trials were held in the independent cities of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach in southeastern Virginia, more than from the closest alleged attack (in Ashland, Virginia).


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: During their trials in the fall of 2003, involving two of the victims in Virginia, Muhammad and Malvo were each found guilty of murder and weapons charges. The jury in Muhammad's case recommended that he be sentenced to death, while Malvo's jury recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. The judges concurred in both cases. Alabama law enforcement authorities allege that the snipers engaged in a series of previously unconnected attacks prior to October 2 in Montgomery, Alabama. Other charges are also pending in Maryland and other communities in Virginia.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: After the initial convictions and sentencing, Will Jarvis, the Assistant Prince William County prosecutor, stated he would wait to decide whether to try Malvo on capital charges in his jurisdiction until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on whether juveniles may be subject to the penalty of execution. While that decision in an unrelated case was still pending before the high court, in October 2004, under a plea agreement, Malvo pleaded guilty in another case in Spotsylvania County, for another murder to avoid a possible death penalty sentence, and agreed to additional sentencing of life imprisonment without parole. Malvo had yet to face trial in Prince William County.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: In March 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in "Roper v. Simmons" that the Eighth Amendment prohibits execution for crimes committed when under the age of 18. In light of this Supreme Court decision, the prosecutors in Prince William County decided not to pursue the charges against Malvo. Prosecutors in Maryland, Louisiana, and Alabama were still interested in putting both Malvo and Muhammad on trial. As Malvo was 17 when he committed the crimes, he could no longer face the death penalty but still could be extradited to Alabama, Louisiana, and other states for prosecution. At the time of the "Roper v. Simmons" ruling, Malvo was 20 years old and was held at Virginia's maximum security Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Wise County.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: "Muhammad, with his sniper team partner, Malvo, randomly selected innocent victims," Virginia Supreme Court Justice Donald Lemons wrote in the decision. "With calculation, extensive planning, premeditation and ruthless disregard for life, Muhammad carried out his cruel scheme of terror."


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Muhammad's death penalty was affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court on April 22, 2005, when it ruled that he could be sentenced to death because the murder was part of an act of terrorism. This line of reasoning was based on the handwritten note demanding $10 million. The court rejected an argument by defense lawyers that Muhammad could not be sentenced to death because he was not the triggerman in the killings linked to him and Malvo.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On September 16, 2009, the circuit court judge Mary Grace O'Brien set an execution date by lethal injection of November10, 2009. His attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, but it was denied. They also requested clemency from Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, but this was denied as well.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Muhammad was executed by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, on November 10, 2009. The execution procedure began at 9:06 p.m. EST; Muhammad was pronounced dead five minutes later. It was reported that when asked if he had any last words, Muhammad made no reply. Twenty-seven people, including victims' family members, witnessed his execution.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: In May 2005, Virginia and Maryland announced that they had reached agreements to allow Maryland to proceed with prosecuting charges there, where the most shootings occurred. There were media reports that Malvo and his legal team were willing to negotiate his cooperation, and he waived extradition to Maryland.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Muhammad and his legal team responded by fighting extradition to Maryland. Muhammad's legal team was ultimately unsuccessful, and extradition was ordered by a Virginia judge in August 2005.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Maryland agreed to transfer Muhammad and Malvo back to the Commonwealth of Virginia after their trials. A date for Muhammad's pending execution in Virginia had been set for November 10, 2009.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Malvo pleaded guilty to six murders and confessed to others in other states while being interviewed in Maryland and testifying against Muhammad. Malvo was sentenced to six consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, but in 2017, his sentence in Virginia was overturned after an appeal.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On May 30, 2006, a Maryland jury found John Allen Muhammad guilty of six counts of murder in Maryland. In return, he was sentenced to six consecutive life terms without possibility of parole on June 1, 2006.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On May 6, 2008, it was revealed that Muhammad had asked prosecutors in a letter to help him end legal appeals of his conviction and death sentence "so that you can murder this innocent black man. An appeal filed by Muhammad's defense lawyers in April 2008 cited evidence of brain damage that might render Muhammad incompetent to make legal decisions, and that he should not have been allowed to represent himself at his Virginia trial.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: In John Allen Muhammad's May 2006 trial in Montgomery County, Maryland, Lee Boyd Malvo took the stand and confessed to the 17 murders. He also gave a more detailed version of the pair's plans. Malvo, after extensive psychological counseling, admitted that he was lying at the earlier Virginia trial where he had admitted to being the trigger man for every shooting. Malvo claimed that he had said this in order to protect Muhammad from a potential death sentence, and because it was more difficult to obtain the death penalty for a minor. Malvo said that he wanted to do what little he could for the families of the victims by letting the full story be told. In his two days of testimony, Malvo outlined detailed aspects of all the shootings.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Part of his testimony concerned Muhammad's complete multiphase plan. His plan consisted of three phases in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metro areas. Phase one consisted of meticulously planning, mapping, and practicing their locations around the D.C. area. This way, after each shooting they would be able to quickly leave the area on a predetermined path and move on to the next location. Muhammad's goal in Phase One was to kill six white people a day for 30 days. Malvo went on to describe how Phase One did not go as planned due to heavy traffic and the lack of a clear shot or getaway at locations.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Phase Two was meant to take place in Baltimore, Maryland. Malvo described how this phase was close to being implemented, but was not carried out. Phase Two was intended to begin by killing a pregnant woman by shooting her in the stomach. The next step would have been to shoot and kill a Baltimore police officer. Then, at the officer's funeral, they planned to detonate several improvised explosive devices complete with shrapnel. These explosives were intended to kill a large number of police, since many police would attend another officer's funeral.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The last phase was to take place during or shortly after Phase Two, which was to extort several million dollars from the United States government. This money would be used to finance a larger plan, to travel north to Canada. Along the way, they would stop in YMCAs and orphanages recruiting other impressionable young black boys with no parents or guidance. Muhammad thought he could act as their father figure as he did with Malvo.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: Once he recruited a large number of young black boys and made his way up to Canada, he would begin their training. Malvo described how John Muhammad intended to train boys in weapons and stealth as he had been taught. Finally, after their training was complete, John Allen Muhammad would send them out across the United States to carry out mass shootings in many other cities, just as he had done in Washington and Baltimore. These attacks would be coordinated and be intended to send the country into chaos that had already been built up after 9/11.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: According to "The Seattle Times" in a story of April 20, 2003, Muhammad had honed his marksmanship at Bull's Eye's firing range. The newspaper also reported that Malvo told investigators that he shoplifted the 35-inch-long (89 cm) carbine from the "supposedly secure store."


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: According to U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) officials, the store and its owners had a long history of firearms sales and records violations and a file 283 pages thick. In July 2003, the ATF revoked the federal firearms license of Brian Borgelt, a former staff sergeant with the U.S. Army Rangers and owner of Bull's Eye Shooter Supply. Later that month he transferred ownership of the store to a friend and continued to own the building and operate the adjacent shooting gallery.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: On January 16, 2003, the Legal Action Project of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, on behalf of the families of many of the victims of the sniper attacks both in and out of the D.C. area who were killed (including Hong Im Ballenger, "Sonny" Buchanan Jr., Linda Franklin, Conrad Johnson, Sarah Ramos, and James L. Premkumar Walekar) as well as two victims who survived the shooting (Rupinder "Benny" Oberoi and 13-year old Iran Brown) filed a civil lawsuit against Bull's Eye Shooter Supply and Bushmaster Firearms, Inc. of Windham, Maine, the gun distributor and manufacturer that made the rifle used in the crime spree, as well as Borgelt, Muhammad, and Malvo. Muhammad, who had a criminal record of domestic battery, and Malvo, a minor, were each legally prohibited from purchasing firearms.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The suit claimed that Bull's Eye Shooter Supply ran its gun store in Tacoma, Washington, "in such a grossly negligent manner that scores of its guns routinely "disappeared" from its store and it kept such shoddy records that it could not account for the Bushmaster rifle used in the sniper shootings when asked by federal agents for records of sale for the weapon." It was alleged that the dealer could not account for hundreds of guns received from manufacturers in the years immediately prior to the Beltway sniper attacks. It was also claimed that Bull's Eye continued to sell guns in the same irresponsible manner even after Muhammad and Malvo were caught and found to have acquired the weapon there. Bushmaster was included in the suit because it allegedly continued to sell guns to Bull's Eye as a dealer despite an awareness of its record-keeping violations. According to the victims' attorneys, Bushmaster "paid damages for negligence leading to the criminal use of a gun," and it was the first time a firearms manufacturer paid damages for crimes committed with its firearms.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: The case had been set for trial in April 2005; however, the parties settled before then. Bushmaster said it settled because of escalating legal fees and the dwindling amount of insurance money it had left for the case. Bull's Eye contributed $2 million and Bushmaster contributed $500,000 to an out-of-court settlement. Bushmaster also agreed to educate its dealers on safer business practices.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: After the settlement was announced, WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., reported that Sonia Wills, mother of victim Conrad Johnson, said her family took part in the lawsuit more to send a message than to collect money. "I think a message was delivered that you should be responsible and accountable for the actions of irresponsible people when you make these guns and put them in their hands," she said.


title: D.C. sniper attacks

text: A memorial to the victims of the D.C. area sniper attacks is located at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland. An additional memorial was constructed in 2014 in the government plaza of Rockville, Maryland.


title: The Platform (film)

text: The Platform (, ) is a 2019 Spanish social science fiction horror film directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. The film is set in a large, tower-style "Vertical Self-Management Center." Its residents, who are switched every month between its many floors, are fed via a platform which, initially filled with food at the top floor, gradually descends through the tower's levels, stopping for a fixed amount of time on each. The system inevitably leads to conflict, as the residents at the top levels get to eat as much as they can, with each level getting only the leftovers from the previous ones.


title: The Platform (film)

text: The film's cast includes Iván Massagué, Antonia San Juan, Zorion Eguileor, Emilio Buale Coka and Alexandra Masangkay. It premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where it won the . At TIFF, the film also secured a worldwide streaming deal with Netflix. It was released on the streaming service on 20 March 2020.


title: The Platform (film)

text: Goreng wakes in a concrete cell marked with the number 48. His cellmate, Trimagasi, explains that they are in a "Vertical Self-Management Center" aka "The Pit", a tower-style facility in which food is delivered via a platform that travels from the top-down, halting for a fixed period on each floor. People on lower levels can eat only what those above leave and are killed if they keep the food. People are randomly reassigned to a new level each month. Each resident is allowed to bring one item in, Goreng choosing a copy of "Don Quixote", and Trimagasi a self-sharpening knife. Trimagasi reveals that when assigned to level 132, he and his former cellmate cannibalized a resident who had fallen down the shaft. One day, a bloodied woman named Miharu rides down on the platform. Trimagasi explains that she descends the pit every month searching for her child.


title: The Platform (film)

text: It is revealed that Goreng volunteered to spend six months in the facility in exchange for a diploma, while Trimagasi is serving a year-long sentence for manslaughter. Over the first month, they become friends, but on the day of the room shuffle, Goreng wakes up tied to his bed. They have been reassigned to level 171, where the platform is expected to be empty of food when it arrives. Trimagasi explains that he plans to cut strips of Goreng's flesh to sustain them both. On the eighth day, Trimagasi begins to do so but is attacked by Miharu as she comes down the platform. She frees Goreng and he kills Trimagasi. Miharu nurses Goreng and feeds him Trimagasi's flesh, but leaves soon after. On the night before the shuffle, Goreng is haunted by hallucinations of Trimagasi, who explains that they are now one and the same.


title: The Platform (film)

text: In the third month, Goreng awakes on level 33 with a woman named Imoguiri, and her dog. Goreng recognizes her as the Administration official who had interviewed him before sending him down. She says that she was unaware of the horrible conditions and volunteered to enter when diagnosed with terminal cancer. Imoguiri rations her food and attempts to convince the men on level 34 to do so but is rebuffed. Two weeks pass and Goreng's threat to defecate on the food convinces them. The two argue over their methods of persuasion. One day, Miharu arrives injured, and Goreng and Imoguiri nurse her back to health. Goreng mentions Miharu's search for her child to Imoguiri, but Imoguiri says that children under 16 are not allowed into the facility. She also claims there are 200 levels in total. Goreng awakens the following month on level 202 to find that Imoguiri has hanged herself. Goreng eats her flesh to survive while plagued with hallucinations of his former cellmates.


title: The Platform (film)

text: In the fifth month, Goreng is assigned to level 6. His new cellmate, Baharat, attempts unsuccessfully to escape. Estimating that there are 250 levels, Goreng convinces Baharat to ride the platform down with him and ration the food. One of the prisoners below convinces them to send a symbolic message to the Administration by leaving a single dish untouched (a panna cotta). As they descend further, they hand out portions to the prisoners, attacking those who refuse to cooperate. On the way, they encounter Miharu being attacked and try to save her, but she is killed and they are left severely injured. Goreng and Baharat continue to descend, eventually reaching level 333 where the platform stops. Goreng notices a child - Miharu's daughter - hiding under the bed. He gets off the platform with Baharat, only to have the platform continue downward, leaving them behind. Despite Baharat's reluctance, they feed the girl the untouched panna cotta.


title: The Platform (film)

text: Goreng passes out and dreams of Baharat telling him that "the girl is the message." The next day, Goreng finds Baharat dead, having bled out from his injuries. Goreng takes the child with him when the platform arrives. They descend to the bottom of the pit, where he once again hallucinates Trimagasi, who tells him that "the message requires no bearer." Goreng gets off the platform and walks away with Trimagasi, both turning to watch as the girl ascends on top of the platform.


title: The Platform (film)

text: The film was produced by Basque Films alongside Mr. Miyagi Films and Plataforma la película AIE, with the participation of RTVE and ETB and support from ICAA, the Basque administration and ICO. Shooting lasted for 6 weeks.


title: The Platform (film)

text: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia says the film's key message is that "humanity will have to move towards the fair distribution of wealth", with an exploration of the importance of individual initiative in driving political change that critiques both capitalism and socialism. The film script is based on a theatre script by David Desola and Pedro Rivero, to which more action and physical elements were added to make it more suitable for a film. "Extensive" rewriting was required to convert the unproduced theater script into a film script. The director said it was a "torturous ordeal", as the writers defended their artistic vision and did not want some of the changes to be made.


title: The Platform (film)

text: The concrete prison cells were built for the production in a Red Cross facility in a port in Bilbao. The director asked for cells that looked "economical, robust, [and] impregnable", which emphasized a sense of architectural and engineering proportion. Only two tiers of concrete cells were built; the appearance of many tiers of cells extending above and below each cell (visible from the hole in the center of each cell) was added in post-production using visual effects. The director says the vertical tower of cells "represents the dehumanized coldness of the Vertical Self-Management Center".


title: The Platform (film)

text: The director states that the film's lavish "food was treated as another character in the story, one that is aesthetically antagonistic to the architecture of the prison." The luxurious displays of gourmet food were presented on "Versailles-worthy tableware" to depict "excessive, almost erotic, opulent desire" that is eventually "desecrated" once the near-empty platform reaches the abject, starving inmates on the lower levels.


title: The Platform (film)

text: The director acknowledges that the film can be difficult to watch, but he says the purpose of this approach is to generate discussion and debate by viewers about the political messages. When asked about the film's brutal violence and cannibalism, the director said the prison's "hole is a reflection of our society, [so] it couldn’t hide the violence. It had to show how we rip each other apart".


title: The Platform (film)

text: The film uses two actors who are cast against type; Iván Massagué and Antonia San Juan, who are known for their comedic roles, were chosen to lighten the film's weighty subject by adding "humour, irony, and surrealism". The film was shot chronologically, as the main actor Iván had to lose 12 kilos (26 lbs) over the six-week shoot to show his physical deterioration.


title: The Platform (film)

text: The film was released in Spain on 8 November 2019 by Festival Films. "The Platform" was released onto Netflix internationally (including Spain) on 20 March 2020. In July 2020, Netflix revealed the film had in-fact been watched by 56 million households over its first four weeks of release, among the most-ever for one of their original films.


title: The Platform (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads: "While it may feel muddled at times, "The Platform" is an inventive and captivating dystopian thriller." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Platform (film)

text: Norman Wilner of "Now" correctly predicted that the film would win the People's Choice Award, giving it a five-N rating and writing that the film "has everything: low comedy, political allegory, left-field twists, crowd-pleasing surprises, spectacular violence, sadism, altruism, and yet more spectacular violence, all wrapped up in a high-concept horror film that moves the premise of "Cube" into a merciless vertical structure. It’s grotesque and compelling, like grindhouse [Luis] Buñuel. And it never blinks."


title: The Platform (film)

text: Amy Nicholson of "Variety" wrote that "the film’s minimalist fury feels like the plays of Samuel Beckett. Massagué and Eguileor are up to being in a zesty "Waiting for Godot". And Eguileor's nasty, delightful, occasionally tender performance feels like an audition to play a Bond villain, or perhaps the Spanish resurrection of Hannibal Lecter."


title: The Platform (film)

text: The film garnered new reviews after a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sam Jones in "The Guardian" suggested it was "the perfect parable for life in the time of the coronavirus and a visceral investigation of how a crisis can expose not only the stratification of human society but also the immutable strands of selfishness coded into our DNA."


title: Neil Peart

text: Neil Ellwood Peart OC (; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian-American musician, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the "Modern Drummer" Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983 at the age of thirty, making him the youngest person ever so honoured. Known to fans by the nickname 'The Professor', his drumming was renowned for its technical proficiency and his live performances for their exacting nature and stamina.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and grew up in Port Dalhousie (now part of St. Catharines). During adolescence, he floated between regional bands in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer. After a discouraging stint in England, Peart returned home to concentrate on music where he joined Rush, a Toronto band, in mid-1974, six years after its formation. Together they released nineteen studio albums, with ten exceeding a million copies sold in the United States. "Billboard" lists the band third in "most consecutive gold or platinum albums by a rock band".


title: Neil Peart

text: Early in his career, Peart's performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and John Bonham, players who at the time were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene. As time passed, he began to emulate jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. In 1994, Peart became a friend and pupil of jazz instructor Freddie Gruber. It was during this time that Peart revamped his playing style by incorporating jazz and swing components.


title: Neil Peart

text: In addition to serving as Rush's primary lyricist, Peart published several memoirs about his travels. His lyrics for Rush addressed universal themes and diverse subjects including science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy, as well as secular, humanitarian, and libertarian themes. Peart wrote a total of seven nonfiction books focused on his travels and personal stories. He also coauthored with Kevin J. Anderson three steampunk fantasy novels based on Rush's final album, "Clockwork Angels". The two also wrote a dark fantasy novella, "Drumbeats", inspired by Peart's travels in Africa.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart announced his retirement from touring in an interview with "Drumhead Magazine" in December 2015. In January 2018, bandmate Alex Lifeson confirmed that Rush had disbanded also due to Peart's health issues. During his last years Peart lived in Santa Monica, California, with his wife, Carrie Nuttall, and daughter. After a three and a half year illness, Peart died of glioblastoma on January 7, 2020, at age 67.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart was born on September 12, 1952, to Glen and Betty Peart and lived his early years on his family's farm in Hagersville, Ontario, on the outskirts of Hamilton. The first child of four, his brother Danny and sisters Judy and Nancy were born after the family moved to St. Catharines when Peart was two years old. At this time his father became parts manager for Dalziel Equipment, an International Harvester farm machinery dealer. In 1956 the family moved to the Port Dalhousie area of the town. Peart attended Gracefield School and later Lakeport Secondary School, and described his childhood as happy; he stated he experienced a warm family life. By early adolescence he became interested in music and acquired a transistor radio, which he would use to tune into popular music stations broadcasting from Toronto, Hamilton, Welland, and Buffalo.


title: Neil Peart

text: His first exposure to musical training came in the form of piano lessons, which he later said in his instructional video "A Work in Progress" did not have much impact on him. He had a penchant for drumming on various objects around the house with a pair of chopsticks, so for his thirteenth birthday his parents bought him a pair of drum sticks, a practice drum, and some lessons, with the promise that if he stuck with it for a year they would buy him a kit.


title: Neil Peart

text: His parents bought him a drum kit for his fourteenth birthday and he began taking lessons from Don George at the Peninsula Conservatory of Music. His stage debut took place that year at the school's Christmas pageant in St. Johns Anglican Church Hall in Port Dalhousie. His next appearance was at Lakeport High School with his first group, The Eternal Triangle. This performance contained an original number titled "LSD Forever". At this show he performed his first solo.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart got a job in Lakeside Park, in Port Dalhousie on the shores of Lake Ontario, which later inspired a song of the same name on the Rush album "Caress of Steel". He worked on the Bubble Game and Ball Toss, but his tendency to take it easy when business was slack resulted in his termination. By his late teens, Peart had played in local bands such as Mumblin' Sumpthin', and the Majority. These bands practiced in basement recreation rooms and garages and played church halls, high schools, and skating rinks in towns across Southern Ontario such as Mitchell, Seaforth, and Elmira. They also played in the Northern Ontario city of Timmins. Tuesday nights were filled with jam sessions at the Niagara Theatre Centre.


title: Neil Peart

text: At eighteen years old after struggling to achieve success as a drummer in Canada, Peart travelled to London, England, hoping to further his career as a professional musician. Despite playing in several bands and picking up occasional session work, he was forced to support himself by selling jewelry at a shop called The Great Frog on Carnaby Street.


title: Neil Peart

text: While in London, he came across the writings of novelist and Objectivist Ayn Rand. Rand's writings became a significant early philosophical influence on Peart, as he found many of her writings on individualism and Objectivism inspiring. References to Rand's philosophy can be found in his early lyrics, most notably "Anthem" from 1975's "Fly by Night" and "2112" from 1976's "2112".


title: Neil Peart

text: After eighteen months Peart became disillusioned by his lack of progress in the music business; he placed his aspiration of becoming a professional musician on hold and returned to Canada. Upon returning to St. Catharines, he worked for his father selling tractor parts at Dalziel Equipment.


title: Neil Peart

text: After returning to Canada, Peart was recruited to play drums for a St. Catharines band known as J R Flood, who played on the Southern Ontario bar circuit. Soon after, a mutual acquaintance convinced Peart to audition for the Toronto-based band Rush, which needed a replacement for its original drummer John Rutsey. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson oversaw the audition. His future bandmates describe his arrival that day as somewhat humorous, as he arrived in shorts, driving a battered old Ford Pinto with his drums stored in trashcans. Peart felt the entire audition was a complete disaster. While Lee and Peart hit it off on a personal level (both sharing similar tastes in books and music), Lifeson had a less favourable impression of Peart.


title: Neil Peart

text: After some discussion between Lee and Lifeson, Peart officially joined the band on July 29, 1974, two weeks before the group's first US tour. Peart procured a silver Slingerland kit which he played at his first gig with the band, opening for Uriah Heep and Manfred Mann's Earth Band in front of over 11,000 people at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh on August 14, 1974.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart soon settled into his new position, also becoming the band's primary lyricist. Before joining Rush he had written a few songs, but, with the other members largely uninterested in writing lyrics, Peart's previously underutilized writing became as noticed as his musicianship. The band were working hard to establish themselves as a recording act, and Peart, along with the rest of the band, began to undertake extensive touring.


title: Neil Peart

text: His first recording with the band, 1975's "Fly by Night", was fairly successful, winning the Juno Award for most promising new act, but the follow-up, "Caress of Steel", for which the band had high hopes, was greeted with hostility by both fans and critics. In response to this negative reception, most of which was aimed at the B-side-spanning epic "The Fountain of Lamneth", Peart responded by penning "2112" on their next album of the same name in 1976. The album, despite record company indifference, became their breakthrough and gained a following in the United States. The supporting tour culminated in a three-night stand at Massey Hall in Toronto, a venue Peart had dreamed of playing in his days on the Southern Ontario bar circuit and where he was introduced as "The Professor on the drum kit" by Lee.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart returned to England for Rush's Northern European Tour and the band stayed in the United Kingdom to record the next album, 1977's "A Farewell to Kings", in Rockfield Studios in Wales. They returned to Rockfield to record the follow-up, "Hemispheres", in 1978, which they wrote entirely in the studio. The recording of five studio albums in four years, coupled with as many as 300 gigs a year, convinced the band to take a different approach thereafter. Peart has described his time in the band up to this point as "a dark tunnel".


title: Neil Peart

text: In 1991, Peart was invited by Buddy Rich's daughter, Cathy Rich, to play at the Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship Concert in New York City. Peart accepted and performed for the first time with the Buddy Rich Big Band. Peart remarked that he had little time to rehearse, and noted that he was embarrassed to find the band played a different arrangement of the song than the one he had learned. Feeling that his performance left much to be desired, Peart produced and played on two Buddy Rich tribute albums titled "" in 1994 and 1997 in order to regain his aplomb.


title: Neil Peart

text: While producing the first Buddy Rich tribute album, Peart was struck by the tremendous improvement in ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith's playing, and asked him his "secret". Smith responded he had been studying with drum teacher Freddie Gruber.


title: Neil Peart

text: In early 2007, Peart and Cathy Rich discussed another Buddy tribute concert. At the recommendation of bassist Jeff Berlin, Peart once again augmented his swing style with formal drum lessons, this time under the tutelage of another pupil of Freddie Gruber, Peter Erskine, himself an instructor of Steve Smith. On October 18, 2008, Peart once again performed at the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. The concert has since been released on DVD.


title: Neil Peart

text: On August 10, 1997, soon after Rush's Test for Echo Tour, Peart's 19-year-old daughter (and then, his only child) Selena Taylor was killed in a single-car crash on Highway 401 near the town of Brighton, Ontario. His common-law wife of 23 years, Jacqueline Taylor, subsequently died of cancer on June 20, 1998. Peart attributed her death to the result of a "broken heart" and called it "a slow suicide by apathy. She just didn't care."


title: Neil Peart

text: In his book "", Peart wrote that he told his bandmates at Selena's funeral, "consider me retired". Peart took a long sabbatical to mourn and reflect, and travelled extensively throughout North and Central America on his motorcycle, covering . After his journey, Peart returned to the band. Peart wrote the book as a chronicle of his geographical and emotional journey.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart was introduced to photographer Carrie Nuttall in Los Angeles by longtime Rush photographer Andrew MacNaughtan. They married on September 9, 2000. In early 2001, Peart announced to his bandmates that he was ready to return to recording and performing. The product of the band's return was the 2002 album "Vapor Trails". At the start of the ensuing tour in support of the album, the band members decided that Peart would not take part in the daily grind of press interviews and "meet and greet" sessions upon their arrival in a new city that typically monopolize a touring band's daily schedule. Peart always shied away from these types of in-person encounters, and it was decided that exposing him to a lengthy stream of questions about the tragic events of his life was not necessary.


title: Neil Peart

text: After the release of "Vapor Trails" and his reunion with bandmates, Peart returned to work as a full-time musician. In the June 2009 edition of Peart's website's "News, Weather, and Sports", titled "Under the Marine Layer", he announced that he and Nuttall were expecting their first child. Olivia Louise Peart was born later that year.


title: Neil Peart

text: However, Geddy Lee clarified his bandmate was quoted out of context, and suggested Peart was simply taking a break, "explaining his reasons for not wanting to tour, with the toll that it's taking on his body."


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart had been suffering from chronic tendinitis and shoulder problems. In January 2018, Alex Lifeson confirmed that Rush is "basically done". Peart remained friends with his former bandmates.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart died from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, on January 7, 2020, in Santa Monica, California. He had been diagnosed three and a half years earlier, and the illness was a closely guarded secret in Peart's inner circle until his death. His family made the announcement on January 10.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart's death was widely lamented by fans and fellow musicians alike, who considered it a substantial loss for popular music.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart's drumming skill and technique are well-regarded by fans, fellow musicians, and music journalists. His influences were eclectic, ranging from Pete Thomas, John Bonham, Michael Giles, Ginger Baker, Phil Collins, Chris Sharrock, Steve Gadd, Stewart Copeland, Michael Shrieve and Keith Moon, to fusion and jazz drummers Billy Cobham, Buddy Rich, Bill Bruford and Gene Krupa. The Who was the first group that inspired him to write songs and play the drums.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart had long played matched grip but shifted to traditional as part of his style reinvention in the mid-1990s under the tutelage of jazz coach Freddie Gruber. He played traditional grip throughout his first instructional DVD "A Work in Progress" and on Rush's "Test for Echo" studio album. Peart went back to using primarily matched, though he continued to switch to traditional at times when playing songs from "Test for Echo" and during moments when traditional grip felt more appropriate, such as during the rudimental snare drum section of his drum solo. He discussed the details of these switches in the DVD "Anatomy of a Drum Solo".


title: Neil Peart

text: "Variety" wrote: "Widely considered one of the most innovative drummers in rock history, Peart was famous for his state-of-the-art drum kits—more than 40 different drums were not out of the norm—precise playing style and on stage showmanship."


title: Neil Peart

text: "USA Today"s writers compared him favorably with other top-shelf rock drummers. He was "considered one of the best rock drummers of all time, alongside John Bonham of Led Zeppelin; Ringo Starr of The Beatles; Keith Moon of The Who; Ginger Baker of Cream and Stewart Copeland of The Police." Being "known for his technical proficiency", the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame inducted him in 1983.


title: Neil Peart

text: Music critic Amanda Petrusich in "The New Yorker" wrote: "Watching Peart play the drums gave the impression that he might possess several phantom limbs. The sound was merciless."


title: Neil Peart

text: With Rush, Peart played Slingerland, Tama, Ludwig, and Drum Workshop drums, in that order. "Fly By Night" and "Caress of Steel" were recorded with a 5×14 Rogers Dynasonic; chrome over brass with 10 lugs. From "2112" to "Counterparts", he used a 5 1/2 × 14 inch Slingerland "Artist" snare model (3-ply shell with 8 lugs). For the recording of "Presto", he used a Ludwig and Solid Percussion piccolo snare drum.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart played Zildjian A-series cymbals and Wuhan china cymbals until the early 2000s, when he switched to Paragon, a line created for him by Sabian. In concert starting in 1984 on the Grace Under Pressure Tour, Peart used an elaborate 360-degree drum kit that would rotate as he played different sections of the kit.


title: Neil Peart

text: During the late 1970s, Peart augmented his acoustic setup with diverse percussion instruments, including orchestra bells, tubular bells, wind chimes, crotales, timbales, timpani, gong, temple blocks, bell tree, triangle, and melodic cowbells. From the mid-1980s, Peart replaced several of these pieces with MIDI trigger pads. This was done in order to trigger sounds sampled from various pieces of acoustic percussion that would otherwise consume far too much stage area. Some purely electronic non-instrumental sounds were also used. One classic MIDI pad used is the MalletKAT Express, which is a two-octave electronic MIDI device that resembles a xylophone or piano. The MalletKAT Express is composed of rubber pads for the "keys" so that any stick can be used. Beginning with 1984's "Grace Under Pressure", he used Simmons electronic drums in conjunction with Akai digital samplers. Peart performed several songs primarily using the electronic portion of his drum kit. (e.g. "Red Sector A", "Closer to the Heart" on "A Show of Hands" and "Mystic Rhythms" on "".)


title: Neil Peart

text: Shortly after making the choice to include electronic drums and triggers, Peart added what became another trademark of his kit: a rotating drum riser. During live Rush shows, the riser allowed Peart to swap the prominent portions of the kit (traditional acoustic in front, electronic in back). A staple of Peart's live drum solos was the in-performance rotation-and-swap of the front and back kits as part of the solo, a special effect that provided a symbolic transition of drum styles within the solo.


title: Neil Peart

text: In the early 2000s, Peart began taking full advantage of the advances in electronic drum technology, primarily incorporating Roland V-Drums and continued use of samplers with his existing set of acoustic percussion. His digitally sampled library of both traditional and exotic sounds expanded over the years with his music.


title: Neil Peart

text: In April 2006, Peart took delivery of his third drum workshop set, configured similarly to the R30 set, in a Tobacco Sunburst finish over curly maple exterior ply, with chrome hardware. He referred to this set, which he used primarily in Los Angeles, as the "West Coast kit". Besides using it on recordings with Vertical Horizon, he played it while composing parts for Rush's album "Snakes & Arrows". It featured a custom 23-inch bass drum; all other sizes remained the same as the R30 kit.


title: Neil Peart

text: On March 20, 2007, Peart revealed that Drum Workshop prepared a new set of red-painted drum workshop maple shells with black hardware and gold "Snakes & Arrows" logos for him to play on the Snakes & Arrows Tour.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart also designed his own signature series drumstick with Pro-Mark, the Promark PW747W, Neil Peart Signature drumsticks, made of Japanese white oak.


title: Neil Peart

text: During the 2010–11 Time Machine Tour Peart used a new Drum Workshop kit which was outfitted with copper-plated hardware and time machine designs to match the tour's steampunk themes. Matching Paragon cymbals with clock imagery were also used.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart was noted for his distinctive in-concert drum solos, characterized by exotic percussion instruments and long, intricate passages in odd time signatures. His complex arrangements sometimes result in complete separation of upper- and lower-limb patterns; an ostinato dubbed "The Waltz" is a typical example. His solos were featured on every live album released by the band. On the early live albums ("All the World's a Stage" and "Exit... Stage Left"), the drum solo was included as part of a song. On all subsequent live albums through "", the drum solo has been included as a separate track. The "Clockwork Angels Tour" album includes three short solos instead of a single long one: two interludes played during other songs and one standalone. Similarly, the "R40 Live" album includes two short solos performed as interludes.


title: Neil Peart

text: A studio recording of Peart's solo "Pieces of Eight" was released as a flexi disc exclusive in the May 1987 issue of "Modern Drummer" magazine. Peart's instructional DVD "Anatomy of a Drum Solo" (2005) is an in-depth examination of how he constructs a solo that is musical rather than indulgent, using his solo from the 2004 R30 30th anniversary tour as an example.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart was the main lyricist for Rush. Literature heavily influenced his writings. In his early days with Rush, much of his lyrical output was influenced by fantasy, science fiction, mythology, and philosophy.


title: Neil Peart

text: The 1980 album "Permanent Waves" saw Peart cease to use fantasy and mythological themes. 1981's "Moving Pictures" showed that Peart was still interested in heroic, mythological figures, but now placed firmly in a modern, realistic context. The song "Limelight" from the same album is an autobiographical account of Peart's reservations regarding his own popularity and the pressures associated with fame. From "Permanent Waves" onward, most of Peart's lyrics revolved around social, emotional, and humanitarian issues, usually from an objective standpoint and employing the use of metaphors and symbolic representation.


title: Neil Peart

text: 1984's "Grace Under Pressure" strung together such despondent topics as the Holocaust ("Red Sector A") and the death of close friends ("Afterimage"). Starting with 1987's "Hold Your Fire" and including 1989's "Presto", 1991's "Roll the Bones", and 1993's "Counterparts", Peart continued to explore diverse lyrical motifs, even addressing the topic of love and relationships ("Open Secrets", "Ghost of a Chance", "Speed of Love", "Cold Fire", "Alien Shore"), a subject which he purposefully avoided in the past, out of fear of using clichés. 2002's "Vapor Trails" was heavily devoted to Peart's personal issues, along with other humanitarian topics such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks ("Peaceable Kingdom"). The album "Snakes & Arrows" dealt primarily and vociferously with Peart's opinions regarding faith and religion.


title: Neil Peart

text: The song "2112" focuses on the struggle of an individual against the collectivist forces of a totalitarian state. This became the band's breakthrough release, but also brought unexpected criticism, mainly because of the credit of inspiration Peart gave to Ayn Rand in the liner notes. "There was a remarkable backlash, especially from the English press, this being the late seventies, when collectivism was still in style, especially among journalists", Peart said. "They were calling us 'Junior fascists' and 'Hitler lovers'. It was a total shock to me".


title: Neil Peart

text: Regarding his seeming ideological fealty to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, Peart said, "For a start, the extent of my influence by the writings of Ayn Rand should not be overstated. I am no one's disciple." The lyrics of "Faithless" exhibit a life stance which has been closely identified with secular humanism. Peart explicitly discussed his religious views in "The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa", in which he wrote: "I'm a linear thinking agnostic, but not an atheist, folks."


title: Neil Peart

text: In 2007, Peart was ranked No. 2 (after Sting) on the now defunct magazine "Blender"'s list of "worst lyricists in rock". In contrast, Allmusic called him "one of rock's most accomplished lyricists".


title: Neil Peart

text: For most of his career, Peart had never publicly identified with any political party or organization in Canada or the United States. Even so, his political and philosophical views have often been analyzed through his work with Rush and through other sources. In October 1993, shortly before that year's Canadian federal election, Peart appeared with then-Liberal Party leader Jean Chrétien in an interview broadcast in Canada on MuchMusic, but stated in that interview that he was an undecided voter.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart has often been categorized as an Objectivist and an admirer of Ayn Rand. This is largely based on his work with Rush in the 1970s, particularly the song "Anthem" and the album "2112"; the latter specifically credited Rand's work. However, in his 1994 "Rush Backstage Club Newsletter", while contending the "individual is paramount in matters of justice and liberty," Peart specifically distanced himself from a strictly Objectivist line. In a June 2012 "Rolling Stone" interview, when asked if Rand's words still speak to him, Peart replied, "Oh, no. That was forty years ago. But it was important to me at the time in a transition of finding myself and having faith that what I believed was worthwhile."


title: Neil Peart

text: Although Peart was sometimes assumed to be a "Conservative" or "Republican" rock star, he criticized the US Republican Party by stating that the philosophy of the party is "absolutely opposed to Christ's teachings." In 2005, he described himself as a "left-leaning libertarian", and is often cited as a libertarian celebrity.


title: Neil Peart

text: In a 2015 interview with "Rolling Stone", Peart stated that he saw the US Democratic Party as the lesser evil: "For a person of my sensibility, you're only left with the Democratic party."


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart was a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism and worked with them on a radio public service announcement.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart's first book, titled "", was written in 1996 about a month-long bicycling tour through Cameroon in November 1988. The book details Peart's travels through towns and villages with four fellow riders. The original had a limited print run, but after the critical and commercial success of Peart's second book, "Masked Rider" was re-issued by ECW Press and remains in print.


title: Neil Peart

text: After losing his wife and (at the time) only daughter, Peart embarked on a lengthy motorcycle road trip spanning North America. His experiences were penned in "". Peart and the rest of the band were always able to keep his private life at a distance from his public image in Rush. However, "Ghost Rider" is a first-person narrative of Peart on the road on a BMW R1100GS motorcycle, in an effort to put his life back together as he embarked on an extensive journey.


title: Neil Peart

text: Years later, after his marriage to Nuttall, Peart took another road trip, this time by car. In his third book, "", he reflects on his life, his career, his family, and music. As with his previous two books, it is a first-person narrative.


title: Neil Peart

text: Three decades after Peart joined Rush, the band found itself on its . Released in September 2006, "Roadshow: Landscape with Drums – A Concert Tour by Motorcycle" details the tour both from behind Neil's drum kit and on his BMW R1150GS and R1200GS motorcycles.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart's next book, "Far and Away: A Prize Every Time", was published by ECW Press in May 2011. This book, which he worked on for two years, is formed around his traveling in North and South America. It tells how he found in a Brazilian town a unique combination of West African and Brazilian music. In 2014, a follow-up book, "Far and Near: On Days like These", was published by ECW. It covers travels in North America and Europe. Another book, "Far and Wide: Bring That Horizon to Me!", was published in 2016 and is based on his travels between stops on the R40 Live Tour of 2015.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart worked with science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson to develop a novelization of Rush's 2012 album "Clockwork Angels"; the book was published by ECW Press and debuted at #18 on the "New York Times" hardcover fiction best seller. The two collaborated again on a loose sequel, "Clockwork Lives", published in 2015, which won the 2016 Colorado Book Award in the science fiction category. Snippets of the band's lyrics can be found throughout both stories. Graphic novels of the first two "Clockwork" were created in 2015 and 2019, respectively. During the years before his death, Peart worked with Anderson on "Clockwork Destiny", which will be published in April 2022 through ECW Press.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart had a brief cameo in the 2007 film "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters", in which samples of his drumming were played.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart also had a brief cameo in the 2008 film "Adventures of Power" and in the DVD extra does a drum-off competition.


title: Neil Peart

text: Peart appeared in concert with Rush in the 2009 film "I Love You, Man", as well as a "Funny or Die" web short in which the film's main characters sneak into the band's dressing room.


title: Neil Peart

text: Apart from Rush's video releases as a band, Peart has released the following DVDs (the first originally in VHS tape format) as an individual:


title: Hominidae

text: The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: "Pongo" (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); "Gorilla" (the eastern and western gorilla); "Pan" (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and "Homo", of which only modern humans remain.


title: Hominidae

text: Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term ""hominid"" to vary over time. The original meaning of "hominid" referred only to humans ("Homo") and their closest extinct relatives. However, by the 1990s humans, apes, and their ancestors were considered to be "hominids". The earlier restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term ""hominin"", which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees ("Pan"). The current meaning of "hominid" includes all the great apes including humans. Usage still varies, however, and some scientists and laypersons still use "hominid" in the original restrictive sense; the scholarly literature generally shows the traditional usage until the turn of the 21st century.


title: Hominidae

text: Within the taxon Hominidae, a number of extant and known extinct, that is, fossil, genera are grouped with the humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas in the subfamily Homininae; others with orangutans in the subfamily Ponginae (see classification graphic below). The most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae (the gibbons), perhaps 15 to 20 million years ago.


title: Hominidae

text: Due to the close genetic relationship between humans and the other great apes, certain animal rights organizations, such as the Great Ape Project, argue that nonhuman great apes are persons and should be given basic human rights. Twenty-nine countries have instituted research bans to protect great apes from any kind of scientific testing.


title: Hominidae

text: In the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa; the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to "Victoriapithecus", the earliest Old World monkey. Among the genera thought to be in the ape lineage leading up to 13 million years ago are "Proconsul", "Rangwapithecus", "Dendropithecus", "Limnopithecus", "Nacholapithecus", "Equatorius", "Nyanzapithecus", "Afropithecus", "Heliopithecus", and "Kenyapithecus", all from East Africa.


title: Hominidae

text: At sites far distant from East Africa, the presence of other generalized non-cercopithecids, that is, non-monkey primates, of middle Miocene age—"Otavipithecus" from cave deposits in Namibia, and "Pierolapithecus" and "Dryopithecus" from France, Spain and Austria—is further evidence of a wide diversity of ancestral ape forms across Africa and the Mediterranean basin during the relatively warm and equable climatic regimes of the early and middle Miocene. The most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes (hominoids) is "Oreopithecus", from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago.


title: Hominidae

text: Molecular evidence indicates that the lineage of gibbons (family Hylobatidae), the "lesser apes", diverged from that of the great apes some 18–12 million years ago, and that of orangutans (subfamily Ponginae) diverged from the other great apes at about 12 million years. There are no fossils that clearly document the ancestry of gibbons, which may have originated in a still-unknown South East Asian hominoid population; but fossil proto-orangutans, dated to around 10 million years ago, may be represented by "Sivapithecus" from India and "Griphopithecus" from Turkey. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by "Nakalipithecus" fossils found in Kenya and "Ouranopithecus" found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas (genus "Gorilla"), and then the chimpanzees (genus "Pan") split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98.4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms (see human evolutionary genetics). The fossil record, however, of gorillas and chimpanzees is limited; both poor preservation—rain forest soils tend to be acidic and dissolve bone—and sampling bias probably contribute most to this problem.


title: Hominidae

text: Other hominins probably adapted to the drier environments outside the African equatorial belt; and there they encountered antelope, hyenas, elephants and other forms becoming adapted to surviving in the East African savannas, particularly the regions of the Sahel and the Serengeti. The wet equatorial belt contracted after about 8 million years ago, and there is very little fossil evidence for the divergence of the hominin lineage from that of gorillas and chimpanzees—which split was thought to have occurred around that time. The earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are "Sahelanthropus tchadensis" (7 Ma) and "Orrorin tugenensis" (6 Ma), followed by "Ardipithecus" (5.5–4.4 Ma), with species "Ar. kadabba" and "Ar. ramidus".


title: Hominidae

text: The classification of the great apes has been revised several times in the last few decades; these revisions have led to a varied use of the word "hominid" over time. The original meaning of the term referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term "hominin". The meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a modern usage of "hominid" that includes all the great apes including humans.


title: Hominidae

text: Hominidae was originally the name given to the family of humans and their (extinct) close relatives, with the other great apes (that is, the orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees) all being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. However, that definition eventually made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least one great ape species (the chimpanzees) proved to be more closely related to humans than to other great apes. Most taxonomists today encourage monophyletic groups—this would require, in this case, the use of Pongidae to be restricted to just one closely related grouping. Thus, many biologists now assign "Pongo" (as the "sub"family Ponginae) to the family Hominidae. The taxonomy shown here follows the monophyletic groupings according to the modern understanding of human and great ape relationships.


title: Hominidae

text: Humans and close relatives including the tribes Hominini and Gorillini form the subfamily Homininae (see classification graphic below). (A few researchers go so far as to refer the chimpanzees and the gorillas to the genus "Homo" along with humans.) But, it is those fossil relatives more closely related to humans than the chimpanzees that represent the especially close members of the human family, and without necessarily assigning subfamily or tribal categories.


title: Hominidae

text: Many extinct hominids have been studied to help understand the relationship between modern humans and the other extant hominids. Some of the extinct members of this family include "Gigantopithecus", "Orrorin", "Ardipithecus", "Kenyanthropus", and the australopithecines "Australopithecus" and "Paranthropus".


title: Hominidae

text: The exact criteria for membership in the tribe Hominini under the current understanding of human origins are not clear, but the taxon generally includes those species that share more than 97% of their DNA with the modern human genome, and exhibit a capacity for language or for simple cultures beyond their 'local family' or band. The theory of mind concept—including such faculties as empathy, attribution of mental state, and even empathetic deception—is a controversial criterion; it distinguishes the adult human alone among the hominids. Humans acquire this capacity after about four years of age, whereas it has not been proven (nor has it been disproven) that gorillas or chimpanzees ever develop a theory of mind. This is also the case for some New World monkeys outside the family of great apes, as, for example, the capuchin monkeys.


title: Hominidae

text: However, even without the ability to test whether early members of the Hominini (such as "Homo erectus", "Homo neanderthalensis", or even the australopithecines) had a theory of mind, it is difficult to ignore similarities seen in their living cousins. Orangutans have shown the development of culture comparable to that of chimpanzees, and some say the orangutan may also satisfy those criteria for the theory of mind concept. These scientific debates take on political significance for advocates of great ape personhood.


title: Hominidae

text: Below is a cladogram with extinct species. It is indicated approximately how many million years ago (Mya) the clades diverged into newer clades.


title: Hominidae

text: There are eight living species of great ape which are classified in four genera. The following classification is commonly accepted:


title: Hominidae

text: In addition to the extant species and subspecies, archaeologists, paleontologists, and anthropologists have discovered and classified numerous extinct great ape species as below, based on the taxonomy shown.


title: Hominidae

text: The great apes are tailless primates, with the smallest living species being the bonobo at 30–40 kilograms in weight, and the largest being the eastern gorillas, with males weighing 140–180 kilograms. In all great apes, the males are, on average, larger and stronger than the females, although the degree of sexual dimorphism varies greatly among species. Although most living species are predominantly quadrupedal, they are all able to use their hands for gathering food or nesting materials, and, in some cases, for tool use.


title: Hominidae

text: All species are omnivorous, but chimpanzees and orangutans primarily eat fruit. When gorillas run short of fruit at certain times of the year or in certain regions, they resort to eating shoots and leaves, often of bamboo, a type of grass. Gorillas have extreme adaptations for chewing and digesting such low-quality forage, but they still prefer fruit when it is available, often going miles out of their way to find especially preferred fruits. Humans, since the Neolithic revolution, consume mostly cereals and other starchy foods, including increasingly highly processed foods, as well as many other domesticated plants (including fruits) and meat. Hominid teeth are similar to those of the Old World monkeys and gibbons, although they are especially large in gorillas. The dental formula is . Human teeth and jaws are markedly smaller for their size than those of other apes, which may be an adaptation to not only having supplanted with extensive tool use the role of jaws in hunting and fighting, but also eating cooked food since the end of the Pleistocene.


title: Hominidae

text: Gestation in great apes lasts 8–9 months, and results in the birth of a single offspring, or, rarely, twins. The young are born helpless, and require care for long periods of time. Compared with most other mammals, great apes have a remarkably long adolescence, not being weaned for several years, and not becoming fully mature for eight to thirteen years in most species (longer in orangutans and humans). As a result, females typically give birth only once every few years. There is no distinct breeding season.


title: Hominidae

text: Gorillas and chimpanzees live in family groups of around five to ten individuals, although much larger groups are sometimes noted. Chimpanzees live in larger groups that break up into smaller groups when fruit becomes less available. When small groups of female chimpanzees go off in separate directions to forage for fruit, the dominant males can no longer control them and the females often mate with other subordinate males. In contrast, groups of gorillas stay together regardless of the availability of fruit. When fruit is hard to find, they resort to eating leaves and shoots. Because gorilla groups stay together, the male is able to monopolize the females in his group. This fact is related to gorillas' greater sexual dimorphism relative to that of chimpanzees; that is, the difference in size between male and female gorillas is much greater than that between male and female chimpanzees. This enables gorilla males to physically dominate female gorillas more easily. In both chimpanzees and gorillas, the groups include at least one dominant male, and young males leave the group at maturity.


title: Hominidae

text: Due to the close genetic relationship between humans and the other great apes, certain animal rights organizations, such as the Great Ape Project, argue that nonhuman great apes are persons and, per the Declaration on Great Apes, should be given basic human rights. In 1999, New Zealand was the first country to ban any great ape experimentation, and now 29 countries have currently instituted a research ban to protect great apes from any kind of scientific testing.


title: Hominidae

text: On 25 June 2008, the Spanish parliament supported a new law that would make "keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming" illegal. On 8 September 2010, the European Union banned the testing of great apes.


title: Emilia Fox

text: Emilia Rose Elizabeth Fox (born 31 July 1974) is an English actress and presenter whose film debut was in Roman Polanski's film "The Pianist". Her other films include the Italian–French–British romance-drama film "The Soul Keeper" (2002), for which she won the Flaiano Film Award for Best Actress; the drama film "The Republic of Love" (2003); the comedy-drama film "Things to Do Before You're 30" (2005); the black comedy "Keeping Mum" (2005); the romantic comedy-drama film "Cashback" (2006); the drama "Flashbacks of a Fool" (2008); the drama film "Ways to Live Forever" (2010); the drama-thriller "A Thousand Kisses Deep" (2011); and the fantasy-horror drama film "Dorian Gray" (2009).


title: Emilia Fox

text: Fox's television roles include the BBC drama "Pride and Prejudice" (1995), the PBS British/German television serial "Rebecca" (1997), ITV Granada's "Henry VIII" (2003), BBC's "Gunpowder, Treason & Plot" (2004), the 2005 BBC miniseries "The Virgin Queen" (2005) and the ITV crime drama series "Fallen Angel" (2007). She also appeared as Morgause in the BBC's "Merlin", beginning in the programme's second series. Fox also starred in "Delicious" (2016). She stars as Dr. Nikki Alexander on BBC crime drama "Silent Witness", having joined the cast in 2004 following the departure of Amanda Burton. Fox is the longest serving cast member since the departures of Tom Ward in 2012 and William Gaminara in 2013.


title: Emilia Fox

text: Emilia Fox was born in Hammersmith, London. She comes from a thespian family — her mother is actress Joanna David (née Joanna Elizabeth Hacking) and her father is actor Edward Fox. Her uncle is James Fox and her cousins Jack, Laurence and Lydia are also actors. She has a brother, Freddie (also an actor), and a half-sister, Lucy. She was educated at the independent Bryanston School near Blandford Forum, Dorset, where she played the cello, and at St Catherine's College, Oxford, where she read English. Her great-great-grandfather was Samson Fox, a self-made millionaire, and her great-grandmother was the actress Hilda Hanbury, sister of Lily Hanbury. Her grandfather was Robin Fox, a theatrical agent. Through Hanbury, she is related to the Terry family of actors.


title: Emilia Fox

text: Fox first appeared as Georgiana, the sister of Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy, in the 1995 television adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice", followed by her role as the second Mrs. de Winter in the 1997 television adaptation of "Rebecca", opposite Charles Dance. In 1998 she starred with Ben Miles in the adaptation of Catherine Cookson's "The Round Tower" as the young Vanessa Radcliffe, a wealthy girl from an affluent family who is forced to leave her home after becoming pregnant. Fox played Jeannie Hurst in the 2000 remake of "Randall and Hopkirk".


title: Emilia Fox

text: In 2002 she starred in "The Pianist" as Dorota, a beautiful, blond, non-Jewish cellist who adores the playing of the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman (played by Adrien Brody). The film was directed by Roman Polanski. In 2003, she played Jane Seymour in a two-part television biographical film about King Henry VIII. She also played the title role in "Katherine Howard", directed by Robin Lefevre at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1998.


title: Emilia Fox

text: In 2004, she joined the cast of the crime drama, "Silent Witness". As of 2021, she is still in the show and has now played the role of Nikki Alexander for seventeen years. 2004 also saw her play Lady Margaret in Part 2 of "Gunpowder, Treason and Plot", the mini-series about James I (James VI in Scotland) and the Gunpowder Plot. In 2005, Fox appeared in the BBC miniseries The Virgin Queen, a four-part miniseries based upon the life of Queen Elizabeth I, Fox played Amy Dudley, the first wife of Robert Dudley, played by Tom Hardy, despite appearing in only one episode, her character remains a key character in the series. In 2008 she played Sister Jean in Baillie Walsh's "Flashbacks of a Fool", which also featured Daniel Craig. She also starred in "Things To Do Before You're 30" with Billie Piper, who would later marry her first cousin Laurence Fox, although in 2016 they divorced.


title: Emilia Fox

text: She was cast as Lynne Frederick in the 2004 film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers", which starred Geoffrey Rush in the lead role. A whole section of the film focusing on the Frederick/Sellers relationship was removed in the final edit, although she can be seen briefly in a background shot towards the end of the film. The deleted scenes with Fox can be found among the special features on the DVD release of the film.


title: Emilia Fox

text: in 2007, Fox was reunited with her "Rebecca" co-star Charles Dance when they starred together in the ITV1 mini-series "Fallen Angel", Fox played a serial killer Rosie Byfield, with Dance appearing as her father. The rewind format in which the show was shot traced the development of the killer streak of Fox's character. Fox and Dance had previously both appeared in ITV1's "Henry VIII", but Dance's role as the Duke of Buckingham was limited, as his character was arrested for treason less than fifteen minutes into the first half, while Fox's scenes as the doomed third Queen Jane Seymour dominated the first half of the second episode. In the 2008 English language DVD re-release of the cult 2006 Norwegian animated film "Free Jimmy", Fox voiced the character of "Bettina". The dialogue was written by Simon Pegg; other actors included Pegg himself and Woody Harrelson. Emilia Fox narrates the popular children's book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" (by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury) with Kevin Whately in a special edition book and DVD set. She appeared as Morgause in the second series of BBC's "Merlin" in 2009. She returned for the third and fourth series. The same year, she portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in the Channel 4 documentary "The Queen".


title: Emilia Fox

text: She narrated the Doctor Who character Lady Winters in the , "The Gunpowder Plot", (2011). She had previously played Berenice in the Eighth Doctor audio drama "Nevermore".


title: Emilia Fox

text: In 2015, she appeared as Julia Swetlove in the BBC's dramatisation of J. K. Rowling's book "The Casual Vacancy". The following year, she appeared in series 2 of "The Tunnel" as Vanessa Hamilton.


title: Emilia Fox

text: In 2016–18 she starred as Sam Vincent in "Delicious", a Sky television drama. "Silent Witness", in which Fox stars, resumed on BBC1 in January 2018.


title: Emilia Fox

text: In July 2005, she married the British actor Jared Harris, the son of the Irish actor Richard Harris. The couple announced their separation in 2008, and Harris filed for divorce in January 2009. The divorce followed the breakdown of their long-distance relationship and her 2007 miscarriage.


title: Emilia Fox

text: Following her separation from Harris, Fox began a relationship with actor Jeremy Gilley, and in May 2010 it was reported that Fox was pregnant with their child. In November 2010, Fox gave birth to a daughter named Rose. They split up in 2011.


title: Emilia Fox

text: Fox is a patron of the environmental and human rights charity the Environmental Justice Foundation. She is also a patron of the drug, alcohol and gambling addiction charity DrugFam.


title: Brad Dourif

text: Bradford Claude Dourif (; born March 18, 1950) is an American actor. He was nominated for an Oscar, and won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for his film debut role as Billy Bibbit in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). He is also known for portraying Gríma Wormtongue in "The Lord of the Rings" series (2002–2003) and voicing Chucky in the "Child's Play" franchise (1988–present).


title: Brad Dourif

text: Dourif's other film roles include "Wise Blood" (1979), "Ragtime" (1981), "Dune" (1984), "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Mississippi Burning" (1988), "The Exorcist III" (1990), "Alien Resurrection" (1997), the 2007 remake of "Halloween" and its sequel. He also appeared in many television series, notably "Deadwood" (2004–2006, ), for which he received Primetime Emmy and Satellite Award nominations for his portrayal of Amos "Doc" Cochran.


title: Brad Dourif

text: Dourif was born in Huntington, West Virginia, on March 18, 1950, to Joan Mavis Felton (née Bradford), an actress, and Jean Henri Dourif, an art collector who owned and operated a dye factory.


title: Brad Dourif

text: His paternal grandparents emigrated from France, and his paternal grandfather co-founded the Standard Ultramarine and Color Company in Huntington. After Dourif's father died in 1953, his mother remarried champion golfer William C. Campbell, who helped raise Dourif and his five siblings (four sisters and one brother). From 1963 to 1965, Dourif attended the private Aiken Preparatory School in Aiken, South Carolina. There, he pursued his interests in art and acting. Although he briefly considered becoming a flower arranger, he was eventually inspired to become an actor by his mother's participation as an actress in a community theater called Give Me Shelter.


title: Brad Dourif

text: After Aiken, he attended Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, graduating in 1968. Dourif appeared as an amateur at the Fountain Valley Film Festival in 1969, taking second place in the 8 mm film category with his 10-minute entry "Blind Date." Dourif attended Marshall University for a time, before quitting college and moving to New York City to study acting on the advice of actress Conchata Ferrell.


title: Brad Dourif

text: Starting in school productions, Dourif progressed to community theater, joining up with the Huntington Community Players while attending Marshall University. In New York City, he studied with Sanford Meisner, and worked with Marshall Mason and Lanford Wilson at the Circle Repertory Company. During the early 1970s, Dourif appeared in a number of plays, off-Broadway and at Woodstock, New York, including "The Ghost Sonata", "The Doctor in Spite of Himself", and "When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?", in which he was spotted by director Miloš Forman who cast him in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975).


title: Brad Dourif

text: In 2013, after a three-decade absence from the stage, Dourif chose to star alongside Amanda Plummer in the Off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' "The Two-Character Play" that played to critical acclaim at the New World Stages. He explained, in a filmed interview released by the producers, why he broke his 29-year hiatus from acting in live theater: "I hated the stage, did not want to do it. And then somebody said, 'Will you do a play? It's with Amanda Plummer', and I said, 'Oh shit! No. Oh God, I'm gonna have to do this...'". It opened on June 10, 2013, and closed on September 29, 2013. The play was subject to a number of performance cancellations, one relating to Dourif's absence due to a death in the family. Plummer refused to perform without Dourif, notwithstanding the presence of an understudy.


title: Brad Dourif

text: Although "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is frequently cited as Dourif's film debut, his first acting for screen was in a low-budget film called "Split", which was never released. He followed this with a role in the film "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings" (1975), but his bit part was omitted from the final cut of the film. His portrayal of the vulnerable Billy Bibbit in "Cuckoo's Nest" ended up being his big break, earning him a Golden Globe Award (Best Actor Debut) and a British Academy Award (Supporting Actor) as well as a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.