LOST FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY

Amy Jade Winehouse was an English singer and songwriter known for her unique voice and eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse’s 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Her 2006 follow-up album, Back to Black, led to six Grammy Award nominations and five wins, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made Winehouse the first British female to win five Grammys. Winehouse began binge drinking in 2008 after kicking a drug habit. By summer 2011, she had fallen into a pattern of abstaining for a few weeks, and then relapsing. One such relapse led to her death by alcohol intoxication in the morning hours of July 23, 2011. Her album Back to Black posthumously became the UK’s best-selling album of the 21st century, at that point. In 2012, Winehouse was listed at number 26 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women in Music.

Nicole Brown met O. J. Simpson in 1977 while working as a waitress at a Beverly Hills nightclub, Trey’s. Although he was still married to his first wife Marguerite, Simpson and Brown began dating. Simpson and Marguerite divorced in March 1980. Brown and Simpson were married on February 2, 1985, five years after his retirement from professional football. The couple had two children, Sydney Brooke Simpson (born October 17, 1985) and Justin Ryan Simpson (born August 6, 1988). The marriage lasted seven years, during which Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989. Brown filed for divorce on February 25, 1992 citing “irreconcilable differences”. In 1994, Brown was murdered at her home in Los Angeles, California, along with her friend, restaurant waiter Ronald Goldman. O. J. was arrested, but was found not guilty in a controversial criminal trial. He was later found liable for the deaths in a civil suit brought by the two victims’ families. Nicole was 35 years old.

Eadweard Muybridge met the 21-year-old Flora Shallcross Stone (née Downs), who was half his age, while she was working as a retoucher. After a brief affair she divorced her husband and they were married on May 20, 1871. While Muybridge was away photographing the West she began an affair with the ersatz drama critic Major Harry Larkyns. Flora had a son, Floredo Helios Muybridge, on April 15, 1874 and later that same year Eadweard found out about the affair through her letters - the most damning of which was one with a photo of Floredo captioned “little Harry” in Flora’s handwriting. Enraged, Eadweard tracked down Larkyns at the Yellow Jacket Mine and reportedly said “I have brought a message from my wife, take it!” He shot Larkyns through the heart. Larkyns stumbled out of the house and died minutes later under an oak tree. Muybridge offered no resistance and was immediately arrested and jailed. Flora sued for divorce on the grounds of “extreme cruelty.” At the sensational murder trial of February 2–5,  1875 Eadweard’s lawyers pleaded insanity based on his stagecoach injuries. The jury (12 married men), against the judge’s instructions, rejected even that defense and found him not guilty, citing “justifiable homicide.” Flora mysteriously died of Typhus on July 18, 1875 and Eadward, still convinced that Floredo not his son, sent him to an orphanage. Flora was 24 years old.

23-year-old Kathy Whitman, died due to multiple stab wounds by her husband, Charles Whitman, hours before his shooting rampage at the University of Texas in 1966. During the summer of 1966, she was a telephone operator for Southwestern Bell; the previous year, she was a biology instructor at Lanier High School in Austin. Kathy Whitman graduated from the University of Texas in 1964. A friend of the family, Donald Ferguson, said, “She [Kathy] was as sweet a person as I have ever known, I mean it, 100%.” To this day she is still deeply missed by her family.