Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland and Janice M. Horowitz

ARRESTED. CARLTON DOTSON, 21, former Baylor University basketball player and best friend of teammate Patrick James Dennehy II, who vanished June 12; for Dennehy's murder; in Chestertown, Md. According to police documents, Dotson confessed to FBI agents that he shot Dennehy and told them where to look for the body. On Saturday a badly decomposed body, found 5 miles from Baylor, was turned over to the medical examiner for identification.

DIED. JAMES E. DAVIS, 41, New York City councilman from Brooklyn; after being shot by Othniel Askew, 31, an opponent Davis had brought into the building as his guest; in New York City. Having fended off a challenge from the political novice, Davis escorted Askew into City Hall without going through metal detectors. On the balcony overlooking the council chamber, Askew pulled out a gun and shot Davis in front of onlookers, then was shot to death by a security officer.

DIED. COLIN MCMILLAN, 67, oil executive nominated in May by President Bush to be Secretary of the Navy; at his 55,000-acre ranch in Otero County, N.M. McMillan, who was awaiting confirmation and was called a "public servant and patriot" by Bush, had recently had a recurrence of cancer.

DIED. JOHN SCHLESINGER, 77, Oscar-winning British director with an acidulous touch; after weeks of deteriorating health; in Palm Springs, Calif. Schlesinger (above) helped define swinging London in all its flash and falseness in Darling, which made Julie Christie a star. His U.S. film debut, the 1969 Midnight Cowboy, was the only X-rated movie to win a Best Picture Oscar and the first of the gay director's several films dealing with homosexuality. His visual style often strained unduly to make editorial points, but he knew the fears that eat at smart people. This made him the right man to direct the angst-ridden thriller Marathon Man and Alan Bennett's An Englishman Abroad--another portrait in Schlesinger's gallery of men clever enough to know they have made a mess of their lives.

DIED. CAROL MATTHAU, 78, gossipy memoirist and widow of actor Walter Matthau, whose friendships with the elite of New York City cafe society she wittily recounted in her 1992 book, Among the Porcupines; of a brain aneurysm; in New York City. Before her 41-year marriage to Matthau, she was twice wed to playwright William Saroyan. She had a long friendship with Truman Capote, who, she claimed, modeled the character of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's after her.

DIED. WILLIAM RUSSELL, 92, pioneering geneticist and expert on the effects of radiation exposure; in Oak Ridge, Tenn. With his research on how radiation affects mice genetically, he paved the way for national standards of acceptable levels of exposure for humans.

DIED. ELLIOT NORTON, 100, courtly, influential dean of Boston theater criticism for 50 years; in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. As critic for the Boston Post, Record American and Herald American, he reviewed more than 6,000 productions and helped shape shows that were on their way to Broadway with his perceptive critiques of their early, often rough, versions.