NOTEWORTHY DEATHS

Great Train Robbery criminal Biggs

LONDON - Ronnie Biggs, the criminal who helped stage Britain’s Great Train Robbery and eluded justice for 36 years after his escape from prison, has died. He was 84.

Biggs, who was being looked after in a care home in north London, died early Wednesday, the BBC reported, citing an unnamed spokesman. He had been unable to speak and had difficulty in walking after a series of strokes, according to the broadcaster.

Biggs lived without fear of extradition in Brazil until 2001, when he returned to Britain voluntarily, saying he wanted to give himself up and perhaps even have a pint of British beer with the Scotland Yard detective who for years had pursued him. Biggs was jailed to complete the 30-year sentence imposed after the 1963 train heist. In 2009, he was released on compassionate grounds due to ill health.

The country’s most notorious train robber escaped from prison in 1965. He fled to France and then Spain, recuperating from plastic surgery before slipping out to Australia and eventually Brazil.

By the time detective Jack Slipper traced Biggs to Rio de Janeiro in 1974, Biggs’ girlfriend Raimunda de Castro was pregnant. He evaded deportation to Britain because Brazilian law protects the father of a local-born child from extradition.

The Great Train Robbery occurred on Aug. 8, 1963, when 16 robbers stole 2.6 million pounds in cash, Britain’s then biggest holdup and worth about 46 million pounds ($75 million) today, from the Glasgow-to-London mail train. The cash was never recovered.

Cancer genetics researcher Rowley

CHICAGO - Dr. Janet Rowley, a pioneer in cancer genetics research, has died at age 88.

Rowley spent most of her career at the University of Chicago, where she also obtained her medical degree. She died Tuesday of ovarian-cancer complications at her home nearby, the university said in a statement.

Rowley conducted landmark research with leukemia in the 1970s, linking cancer with genetic abnormalities - work that led to targeted drug treatment for leukemia. She identified a genetic process called translocation, now widely accepted. By 1990, more than 70 translocations had been identified in various cancers, according to her biography on the National Library of Medicine’s website.

She was a recipient of the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific honor, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

“Janet Rowley’s work established that cancer is a genetic disease,” Mary-Claire King, president of the American Society of Human Genetics, said recently. “We are still working from her paradigm.”