I was sitting around, minding my own business, thinking about the closest brushes with death I had back in the days of The San Francisco Suicide Club (1977-1982).
When suddenly into the Inbox hops Scott Connors, exclaiming: “Found another one!”
You may recall that Scott tumbled to a breaking news release about the suicide of Robert E. Howard — in the Brownsville Herald.
Scott notes, “Actually same as the one in the Brownsville Herald, but in the Corpus Christi Times, same day.”
Looks as if the news may have spread via A.P. And while the text block is the same, the headline writers for the two papers worked their personal magic.
“REH’s shuffling off this mortal coil,” Scott says, “got a lot more publicity than we thought.”
Plus Brian Leno, who kicked off this quest for same day breaking news, agrees:
“Pretty cool that Scott found it in another paper. I’ve done a ton of research lately and have seen a few suicide notices on the front pages of various tribs, but I’ll willing to bet, unless the guy or gal was special, that those suicide ads pretty much stuck to the home area.
“Howard was known, despite what de Camp says.”
