Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, Jeninne Lee-St. John

APPOINTED. ROBERT IGER, 54, longtime ABC executive and president of Walt Disney Co.; as CEO, to replace his boss, Michael Eisner, who will step down in September, a year earlier than expected, after coming under fire for his autocratic management style and Disney's recent lackluster growth; by the board of directors; in Burbank, Calif.

CONFESSED. JOHN COUEY, 46, convicted sex offender; to the abduction and murder of third-grader Jessica Lunsford, whose body was afterward found 150 yards from the home in Homosassa, Fla., where she lived with her father and grandparents, ending a highly publicized search; in Augusta, Ga. Arrested on a parole violation earlier in the week, Couey admitted the crime after taking a lie-detector test.

ACQUITTED. ROBERT BLAKE, 71, former tough-guy actor; of the 2001 murder of his wife Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, who was shot in the head as she sat in Blake's car near a restaurant where the pair had just eaten; after a three-month trial in which Blake did not testify; in Van Nuys, Calif. Jury foreman Thomas Nicholson called the circumstantial evidence "flimsy" and said prosecutors, who relied heavily on testimony from two Hollywood stuntmen with histories of drug abuse, "couldn't put the gun in his hand."

DIED. DICK RADATZ, 67, fearsome relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and other American League teams; of head injuries suffered in a fall down a flight of stairs in his home; in Easton, Mass. Dubbed the Monster, the 6-ft. 6-in. hurler struck out Mickey Mantle 44 times in 63 tries and still holds the record for strikeouts in a single season by a relief pitcher: 181 in 1964.

DIED. GEORGE SCOTT, 75, booming baritone and founding member of the gospel group Blind Boys of Alabama, who met at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1936 and recorded gospel versions of songs by Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder; a month after winning a fourth consecutive Grammy Award; in Durham, N.C.

DIED. SOL LINOWITZ, 91, lawyer, businessman and diplomat who advised Presidents Johnson, Carter and Clinton; at his home in Washington. As an attorney, he acquired the rights to technology that built Xerox into one of the nation's largest companies. He went on to a life of diplomacy, helping negotiate the historic transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama and later representing Carter in the Middle East negotiations that followed the 1978 Camp David accords.

DIED. SY WEXLER, 88, award-winning producer whose 16-mm, 10- to 30-minute-long educational films--with such sizzle-free titles as Teeth Are for Life, Why Physical Education and Venereal Disease: Why Do We Still Have It?--were a staple of baby boomers' classrooms in the 1950s and '60s; in Studio City, Calif.

DIED. MARY ELIZABETH CRONKITE, 89, wife of former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, known as Betsy; of complications from cancer; in New York City. As employees of radio station KCMO in Kansas City, Mo., the pair met on Betsy's third day at work when they stood near each other to read advertising copy on the air. The couple would have celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary this month.