Deaths in December 2012

1st
Jovan Belcher, 25, American football player (Kansas City Chiefs), suicide by gunshot.
Gerard Parker, 76, American Cherokee tribal leader, Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (1995).
Reinhold Weege, 62, American television writer and producer (Barney Miller), creator of Night Court, natural causes.

2nd
Israel Keyes, 34, American alleged serial killer, suicide by hanging and lacerations.

3rd
Eileen Moran, 60, American visual effects producer (Avatar, King Kong, District 9), cancer.

4th
Besse Cooper, 116, American supercentenarian, world's oldest person.
Hilmar Moore, 92, American politician, longest serving mayor in the United States, complications of a fall.

5th
Dave Brubeck, 91, American jazz pianist ("Take Five") and composer ("Blue Rondo à la Turk", "Unsquare Dance"), heart failure.
Eileen "Mike" Pollock, 86, American television writer and producer (Dynasty, The Colbys).

7th
William F. House, 89, American physician, developer of the cochlear implant, cancer.
Jeni Le Gon, 96, American dancer and actress (Amos 'n' Andy).
Rusty Mills, 49, American animator (Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, The Replacements), colon cancer.
Jacintha Saldanha, 46, British nurse, subject of royal hoax call, suicide.

8th
Jerry Brown, 25, American football player (Dallas Cowboys), traffic collision.
Mary Griggs Burke, 96, American art collector, largest private collector of Japanese art outside Japan.

9th
Jenni Rivera, 43, American-born Mexican banda and norteño singer, plane crash.
Mike Triay, 48, American radio personality and record producer ("Macarena"), heart attack.
Norman Joseph Woodland, 91, American inventor, co-creator of the bar code.

10th
Paul Rauch,78, American television producer (Another World, One Life to Live, Santa Barbara), complications of blood clots.

12th
Frank Pavlico III, 43, American mob informant for the William D'Elia case, suicide by hanging.

13th
Willie Ackerman, 73, American drummer (Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Louis Armstrong).
Gil Friesen, 75, American music and film executive, President of A&M Records (1965–1990), leukemia.
Jack Hanlon, 96, American child actor (Our Gang, The Shakedown, The General).
Jesse Hudson, 59, American television actor (Workaholics), complications of a heart attack.

14th
Donnie Andrews, 58, American criminal, inspiration for Omar Little on The Wire, complications of heart surgery.
Sandy Hook shooting deaths:
- Charlotte Bacon, 6
- Daniel Barden, 7
- Rachel Davino, 29
- Olivia Engel, 6
- Josephine Gay, 7
- Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6
- Dylan Hockley, 6
- Dawn Hochsprung, 6
- Madeleine F. Hsu, 6
- Catherine V. Hubbard, 6
- Chase Kowalski, 7
- Jesse Lewis, 6
- James Mattioli , 6
- Grace McDonnell, 7
- Anne Marie Murphy, 52
- Emilie Parker, 6
- Jack Pinto, 6
- Noah Pozner, 6
- Caroline Previdi, 6
- Jessica Rekos, 6
- Avielle Richman, 6
- Lauren Rousseau, 30
- Mary Sherlach, 56
- Victoria Soto, 27
- Benjamin Wheeler, 6
- Allison N. Wyatt, 6

17th
Midge Richardson, 82, American magazine editor (Seventeen), natural causes. (body discovered on this date)

19th
Inez Andrews, 83, American gospel singer (The Caravans).
Robert Bork, 85, American legal scholar, jurist, and 1987 Supreme Court nominee, heart disease.

18th
Danny Steinmann, 70, American film director (Friday the 13th: A New Beginning).

20th
Larry L. King, 83, American writer and playwright (Best Little Whorehouse in Texas), emphysema.
Jimmy McCracklin, 91, American blues musician, diabetes and hypertension.
Meredith Israel Thomas, 39, American music publicist (Kings of Leon, Dave Mathews Band), breast cancer.

21st
Lee Dorman, 70, American bass guitarist (Iron Butterfly, Captain Beyond), natural causes. (body discovered on this date)


22nd
Mariam Amash, 124 (claimed), Ottoman-born Arab-Israeli supercentenarian, claimant to title of oldest living person.
Ryan Freel, 36, American baseball player (Cincinnati Reds), suicide by gunshot.
Cliff Osmond, 75, American actor (Irma la Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Kiss Me, Stupid), pancreatic cancer.
Job W. Price, 42, American naval officer, commanding officer of SEAL Team 4, suspected suicide.
Mike Scaccia, 47, American heavy metal guitarist (Ministry, Rigor Mortis, Revolting Cocks), heart attack.

23rd
Jean Harris, 89, American convicted murderer, killer of Scarsdale Diet doctor Herman Tarnower.

24th
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, 76, English composer, musician and film scorer (Nicholas and Alexandra, Murder on the Orient Express).
Ray Collins, 73, American singer (The Mothers of Invention), cardiac arrest.
Charles Durning, 89, American actor (Evening Shade, Rescue Me, The Sting), natural causes.
Terry Glover, 57, American magazine editor (Ebony), colon cancer.
Jack Klugman, 90, American actor (Quincy, M.E., The Odd Couple, 12 Angry Men).

26th
Fontella Bass, 72, American singer ("Rescue Me"), complications from a heart attack.

27th
Harry Carey, Jr., 91, American actor (Gremlins, Tombstone, The Searchers), natural causes.
Houston McCoy, 72, American police officer, killed Charles Whitman to stop University of Texas sniper spree, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., 78, American general, Commander-in-Chief of United States Central Command (1988–1991), complications from pneumonia.

28th
Lord Avie, 34, American thoroughbred racehorse, oldest living Eclipse Award winner (1980).