Astroworld Victims Suffocated While Being Crushed to Death

All 10 people who died because of the deadly crowd surge at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival last month, which occurred while Scott was on stage, suffocated.

The Harris County Medical Examiner's Office announced its conclusion on Thursday that the victims died of "compression asphyxia." One of the deceased, Danish Baig, had cocaine, methamphetamine and ethanol in his system, but the drugs were contributory and not the main cause of death.

The conclusion by the medical examiner that the victims were essentially crushed to death came one day after crews finally started disassembling the Astroworld Festival stage, which stood as a grim reminder of the deadly concert 40 days later, and on the day Scott announced that he would be working with the United States Conference of Mayors to ensure a similar tragedy does not happen in the future.

“This mass tragedy reinforced the serious issue of festival safety and security,” read an agreement obtained by Variety about the partnership with the organization. “As festivals with large crowd sizes continue to enjoy popularity, organizers, city officials and other stakeholders must have a clear understanding about best practices, current vulnerabilities, and access to the most innovative technology to ensure every festival is as safe as possible.”

For the Astroworld victims who died and the 300 or so other people that were injured in the crowd of 50,000 that attended the event, the announcement from Scott did not do much to ease their grief or assuage their anger.

Following the announcement that the victim's deaths were ruled to be accidental, the family of Bharti Shahani issued this scathing statement through their attorney:

"The medical examiner's findings confirm Bharti's family's worst fears," James Lassiter said. "Their beloved daughter's last living moments were surely marked with suffering, panic, and terror. It's a horrific, inescapable image that no parent should have to endure. But that is the sad reality for the Shahanis and the nine other families that received this terrible news."

Along with 27-year-old Baig and Bharti (22), the other victims were Rodolfo Pena (23), Madison Dubiski (23), Axel Avila (21), Franco Patino (21), Jacob Jurinek (20), Brianna Rodriguez (16), John Hilgert (14) and Ezra Blount (9).

Joe Simon, Chart-Topping R&B Crooner, Dead at 85

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Monday, Joe Simon, the soulful crooner known as “The Mouth of the South,” died in his longtime hometown near Chicago. Simon, who won a best R&B vocal performance, male Grammy in 1969 for “The Chokin’ Kind,” was 85.

Born in 1936 in Simmesport, La., Simon began his career singing at his father's church but did not really pursue a career in music until he headed to California in the 1950s.

"As a youngster I moved to Oakland – probably in the late 50s – because I was tired of Simmesport, Louisiana. It didn’t have anything to offer me,” wrote Simon of his key reason — along with cotton-picking, which he hated, being a key source of income in the area — for heading to the Golden State."

After arriving in Richmond (near Oakland, California) Simon joined the Golden West Gospel Singers, which went on to eventually turn into a secular doo-wop group and record "Little Island Girl" and “You Left Me Here to Cry Alone” as the Golden Tones in 1959.

It wasn’t until the 60s, however, when Simon — who was influenced by and often compared to Sam Cooke — went solo that his meteoric rise in music began.

BREAKING NEWS: Sad news. The great soul singer Joe Simon passed away last night. Many of y'all have heard me jamming his music, especially the hit song, "The Chokin' Kind." His daughter, Denice, sent me an IG DM personally notifying me of his passing because she 1/2 pic.twitter.com/FFg96rnY3K

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) December 14, 2021

The singer, who often recalled spending his early years in California homeless and sometimes living in a chicken coop, the singer got future funk greats Sly Stone and Larry Graham to play on his 1964 song “My Adorable One” which became his breakthrough hit.

He followed that success up with "Let's Do It Over" in 1956. The song reached No. 13 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart and was the catalyst for an era that saw Simon go on to notch three No. 1s and 14 top 10s on it — including his highest-charting single. 1975’s “Get Down, Get Down (Get on the Floor),” a No. 1 R&B hit that crossed over to reach the top ten of the Hot 100.

Simon left secular music behind in 1983 to focus on the gospel. The preacher’s son became a traveling minister. He did not turn his back on music entirely. In the late 90s, Simon released the gospel album “This Story Must Be Told.”

Simon, whose music has been widely sampled, including in the Outkast hit “So Fresh, So Clean,” and Lil Kim’s chart-climbing opus “Magic Stick,” seemed pleased with his career on reflection.

In his 2016 documentary, “Looking Back with Joe Simon” he said, “I went from the cotton field to the chicken coop to a superstar of rhythm and blues — you can’t tell me I ain’t gonna be nothin’.”

Unidentified Remains at the Heart of 40-Year Old Mystery, Revealed to Belong to Former O'Jays Member

Photo Credits:[left/ clay model] Samantha Molnar, Ohio BCI;[right/
 photograph of Frank Little] Cleveland Metropolitan School District

Forty years after unidentified remains were found in a garbage bag behind a Twinsburg, Ohio, business —
the genealogical research of the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that helps identify John and Jane Does with genetic genealogy, has solved the mystery of who the dead man was, but larger questions loom.

The Twinsburg Police Department announced on Tuesday that the body belonged to Frank "Frankie" Little Jr., a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group the O'Jays in the mid-1960s. While he was not a founding member or enshrined with the others at the hall, he joined the group as a guitarist and songwriter and wrote several songs including "Do the Jerk" and "Oh, How You Hurt Me." He is also credited for his vocals on "Down at the Corner."

"Frankie was a guitarist and songwriter in the very early O'Jays," the band said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone, acknowledging his contribution to the group. "He came with us when we first ventured out of Cleveland and traveled to Los Angeles, but he also was in love with a woman in Cleveland that he missed so much that he soon returned back to Cleveland after a short amount of time. That was in the mid-1960s and we had not heard from him after then. Although this sounds like a tragic ending, we wish his family and friends closure to what appears to be a very sad story."

That tale ended back in Ohio for the Cleveland native, in what authorities have determined was a homicide.

The skull of Little, who would have been 78 this year, was discovered by employees of a machine shop in the woods behind it on Feb. 18, 1982, while they were dumping shavings. Authorities uncovered more of his remains in a garbage bag during a subsequent search of the property. At the time, forensic anthropologists speculated that the remains had been there for two to four years before being discovered, but without being able to confirm an identity the case went cold.

In 2009 the case was reopened, but attempts to find a match for him in various DNA databases, as well as create a model of his face based on his skull, failed to provide any leads.

In October, the ice finally thawed, when the DNA Doe Project provided the names of potential living relatives, who were able to provide Frank's name. A close relative provided a DNA sample, which was analyzed by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Crime Lab. His identity was then confirmed by Dr. Lisa Kohler of the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office.

"I'm very excited we were able to put a name to these remains and to get him back to his family and give his family that piece of closure," Kohler told the Akron Beacon Journal.

Little's cousin Margaret O'Sullivan added. "It's amazing. We're glad that we have closure now. We know he's deceased."

With one mystery solved the police are hoping to now put to bed another — Who killed Little? The vet, who served for two years in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, had a daughter who passed away in 2012, and a son who has not yet been located or identified.

Detective Eric Hendershott, who helped break the case, is hoping to trace down the son to see if he might need extra details about what may have occurred to his father.