Obituaries of note

FREDDIE MEEKS, 83, a former sailor whose presidential pardon four years ago recalled the largest mutiny case in American history, died June 19 in Los Angeles. He was among 258 black sailors who refused to load ammunition at a California port in World War II after an explosion killed 320 men, 202 of them black sailors. He and 49 other sailors were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund sought to have the verdicts overturned, maintaining that the sailors had been victims of prejudice. Early in 1946, Mr. Meeks and virtually all the others were released from prison and discharged "under honorable conditions."

WILLIAM R. SMITH, 90, who founded the Snapper brand of lawn mowers, died Saturday in McDonough, Ga.

DR. LUIGI DI BELLA, 90, a physiologist known for his controversial and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to find a cancer cure, died Tuesday in Modena, Italy. A national folk hero to some for his attempts to find a cancer cure, he became the subject of nearly a dozen books, including a best seller in Italy entitled Di Bella, The Man, the Cure, the Hope. He suffered a devastating setback in 1998 when Italy's National Health Institute branded his melatonin-based treatment a failure.

DIANE GEPPI-AIKENS, 40, who led the Loyola College women's lacrosse team to the NCAA semifinals with an inoperable brain tumor, died Sunday in Baltimore. She coached all but one game of the Greyhounds' 2003 season from a wheelchair after treatment for the tumor partially paralyzed her left side. Loyola entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 seed with a regular-season record of 17-2 and lost to Princeton in the final four.

PETER HERIDA, 49, who shared his obesity struggles with the nation, died in Meriden, Conn. He was found in his apartment on Thursday and an autopsy revealed that he died of natural causes. Mr. Herida once weighed more than 800 pounds and in 1998 underwent gastric bypass surgery. His dramatic loss of 500 pounds was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show earlier this year.

CHARLES O. "CHUCK" CARROLL, 96, a King County, Wash., prosecutor whose 22-year tenure ended in the taint of a corruption scandal for which he was later absolved, died June 23 in Seattle. Mr. Carroll, one of the University of Washington's biggest football stars, was absolved of wrongdoing in a "tolerance policy" scandal that ended his political career. The case centered on payments from tavern owners to police who then "tolerated" gambling, prostitution and other illegal activity. He was eventually cited by Christian, Jewish, Italian and black organizations for community service.

DR. BELDING H. SCRIBNER, 82, the inventor of a device that helped make long-term kidney dialysis possible, was found dead June 19 in Portage Bay, Wash. Police said there was no sign of foul play. His invention was a U-shaped Teflon shunt that allowed dialysis to be used for long-term treatment of kidney failure, rather than just temporarily. Last year, he shared the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, often ranked just below the Nobel Award, with Dr. Willem J. Kolff, who developed the dialysis machine at the University of Utah.

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