It was another difficult year in 2022, and the sadness extended to many beloved and groundbreaking people in the show business and media worlds who died during the past 12 months.
15.12.2022 - 03:13 / dailyrecord.co.uk
An evil sexual predator who murdered law graduate Zara Aleena just days after he was released from prison has been jailed for 38 years. Jordan McSweeney brutally attacked and sexually assaulted Zara as he left her for dead after dragging her onto a driveway in a sickening nine minute assault.
The vile killer claimed he didn't want to "relive" the murder at the Old Bailey on Wednesday and refused to enter the dock. Zara, 35, was walking home from meeting friends when McSweeney launched his vicious attack. She was discovered fatally injured in the early hours of Sunday, June 26.
Before Zara's murder, McSweeney targeted at least four other women. The court heard he drunkenly harassed a member of staff at a Wetherspoons pub in Ilford before he was kicked out and left "determined to find, to attack and to kill a woman".
Zara desperately fought for her life but was attacked with "a savagery that is almost impossible to believe" as predator McSweeney, 29, ambushed her and pulled her into the darkness, a prosecutor said.
The sick serious thug of Dagenham, Essex, had not been arrested despite being recalled to prison two days before the attack, the Mirror reports. He pleaded guilty to murder and sexual assault last month.
He made "persistent advances" to a female bar worker after drinking with a friend so staff at the pub refused to serve him and he then prowled the streets looking for women on their own. CCTV footage captured McSweeney following or lying in wait for four women before Zara was attacked.
Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow KC said: "On the night of June 25, 2022, he had left a pub in Ilford and had roamed the streets looking for a woman to attack and to sexually assault.
"He followed a number of different women and given what
It was another difficult year in 2022, and the sadness extended to many beloved and groundbreaking people in the show business and media worlds who died during the past 12 months.
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Ain’t No Mo’, the Broadway debut of author and star Jordan E. Cooper, opened at the Belasco Theatre on Dec. 1 to the sort of reviews producers and playwrights dream about. Even the few critics who weren’t completely won over couldn’t help but point out a singular brilliance at work here, not to mention a stars-in-the-making cast and more laugh-out-loud moments than most of the rest of Broadway combined. A celebrity-packed opening night, with producer Lee Daniels greeting a crowd that included Gabrielle Union, Dwayne Wade and C. J. Uzomah – who happen to be among the starry cohort of co-producers – as well as Matthew Broderick, Tamron Hall, Deborah Cox, Stephanie Mills, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Susan Kelechi Watson, Camryn Manheim, Tony Kushner, Tituss Burgess, Gayle King, Pat Williams, Christopher Sieber, Jennifer Simard, Colton Ryan, Ari’el Stachel and Timothy Olyphant suggested nothing less than the buzzy arrival of Broadway’s next big thing, out-of-the-box division.
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For the second time in a week, Broadway is losing a worthy production that attempted to find an audience that encompassed but reached beyond the usual white, middle-aged demographic: Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’, the often visionary, relentlessly brilliant and forever fearless take by its Black creators and performers on the stubborn subject of race in America will close next week.
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