List of Famous people who died at 49

The June 1962 Alcatraz escape was a prison break from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, a maximum-security facility located on an island in San Francisco Bay, undertaken by inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin. The three men were able to escape from their cells and leave the island in a raft.

Dionne Rose-Henley was a Jamaican athlete who specialised in the high hurdles. She competed at the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics, finishing fifth at her second Games.

Leon Russell Wilkeson was the bassist of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1972 until his death in 2001.

Alexei Valerievich Devotchenko was a Russian actor and activist.

Munetaka Higuchi was a Japanese musician and record producer. He is best known as the original drummer of the heavy metal band Loudness, but first rose to prominence as a member of Lazy in the 1970s.

Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry (1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th Dimension recording her songs. Wider recognition for her artistry was posthumous while her contemporaries such as Elton John idolized her. Her style was a hybrid of Brill Building-style New York pop, jazz, rhythm and blues, show tunes, rock, and soul. She was praised for her strong emotive vocal style and 3-octave mezzo-soprano vocal range.

Nizar Rayan was a high ranking Hamas leader who served as a liaison between the Palestinian organization's political leadership and its military wing. Also a professor of Islamic law, he became a top Islamic cleric within Hamas after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004. Rayan was a strong promoter between 1994 and 2004 of suicide bombings on Israel, and his son killed himself on one such mission. Rayan and most of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike during the Gaza War.

Paul Jennings Hill was an American minister and anti-abortion extremist who murdered physician John Britton and Britton's bodyguard, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Barrett, in 1994. Hill was sentenced to death by lethal injection and was executed on September 3, 2003.

Wolfgang Jansen (1938–1988) was a German actor.

Hideki Hosaka was a Japanese professional wrestler, who is best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and Pro Wrestling Zero-One.