Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, Jeninne Lee-St. John, Michele Orecklin, Logan Orlando

CHARGED. JENNIFER WILBANKS, 32, "runaway bride" from Duluth, Ga., who fled town during a jog in late April, days before 600 guests were due to attend her wedding; with lying to authorities about having been kidnapped and sexually assaulted; by a grand jury in Gwinnett County, Ga.

CHARGES DISMISSED. In the case of ILARIO PANTANO, 33, the Marine lieutenant accused of shooting two unarmed Iraqis to death near a suspected terrorist hideout and hanging a warning sign--the Marine slogan NO BETTER FRIEND, NO WORSE ENEMY--near their bodies as a message to insurgents; by the Marine Corps; after an autopsy failed to confirm that the men had been shot in the back while on their knees, as reported; in Camp Lejeune, N.C. The ex-Wall Street trader didn't deny the shooting but claimed he was acting in self-defense.

RULED ILLEGAL. The bookkeeping of BILL CEVERHA, 68, treasurer of Texans for a Republican Majority, a political-action committee formed by U.S. House majority leader Tom DeLay; in a civil suit brought by five losing Democratic candidates in 2002 Texas legislative races; in Austin. District Judge Joseph Hart ruled that in failing to report more than $500,000 in corporate political contributions--money used to boost DeLay's G.O.P. majority--Ceverha violated Texas election code. It's the first major ruling implicating someone linked to DeLay, who is embroiled in a series of ethical controversies.

DIED. ISMAIL MERCHANT, 68, producer half of the filmmaking team that revitalized and repopularized the literary, elaborately costumed period film; after surgery for stomach ulcers; in London. With director James Ivory (also his life partner) and usually with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the Indian-born Merchant oversaw more than 40 films over five decades, turning classic novels by authors like E.M. Forster (Howards End), Henry James (The Europeans) and Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day) into box-office successes. Famous for his relentless, sometimes outlandish efforts to keep costs low (he was known to steal props and grab journalists as extras), he said, "I remember my college [dean] saying I could sell snowballs to Eskimos."

DIED. HOWARD MORRIS, 85, comedic actor who was the bantamweight, uninhibited fourth member of the most famous comic ensemble of TV's Golden Age, along with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner on Your Show of Shows; in Los Angeles. His goofiness enhanced such roles as Ernest T. Bass, a would-be country Casanova on The Andy Griffith Show,and he went on to direct such TV shows as Hogan's Heroes, Bewitched and the Mel Brooks-Buck Henry spy spoof Get Smart.

DIED. THURL RAVENSCROFT, 91, versatile voice-over specialist whose booming "Gr-r-eat!" made Tony the Tiger, mascot of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, one of TV's most recognized commercial pitchmen; of prostate cancer; in Fullerton, Calif. "I've made a career out of one word," he said.

DIED. PAUL RICOEUR, 92, French philosopher who, while not as well known as his contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre, explored many of the same complex questions of human existence in more than 20 books, including last year's Memory, History, Forgetting; in Chatenay-Malabry, France.

DIED. EDDIE ALBERT, 99, affably comedic actor of stage and screen, best known for playing an urban sophisticate transplanted with his wife (Eva Gabor) to the country, in the 1960s sitcom Green Acres; in Los Angeles. After lead roles on Broadway (Room Service, The Boys from Syracuse), he won an Oscar nomination as the jaunty photographer and pal to reporter Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. But he could seethe too, winning acclaim as a psychopathic infantry officer in the 1956 World War II drama Attack and another Oscar nomination as the forbidding father of Cybill Shepherd's Wasp princess in The Heartbreak Kid.

By Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Jeninne Lee-St. John, Michele Orecklin and Logan Orlando