List of Famous people who died in 2008

Meredith Hope Emerson was a 24-year-old woman who was murdered in January 2008 by drifter Gary Michael Hilton. She was last seen alive hiking with her dog on Blood Mountain in northern Georgia on New Year's Day 2008. Witnesses claimed to have seen her with an older man on the Spur Trail connecting the Appalachian Trail with the Byron Herbert Reece Parking Lot. When she did not return home on January 2, 2008, her friends began to search for her, without success. Her dog, Ella, was found on January 4, 2008, in Cumming, Georgia, approximately 60 miles (97 km) away.

Stephen Ellis Garrett, known professionally as Static Major, was an American musician, writer, and producer from Louisville, Kentucky. He was a member of the R&B trio Playa. Static Major gained posthumous hard-earned homage for writing and creating the majority of Lil Wayne's 2008 album Tha Carter III and it's lead single "Lollipop". He was a songwriter for several artists, including Aaliyah, Ginuwine, Pretty Ricky, and Destiny's Child.

Herbert Loeb Hutner was an American private investment banker, attorney and philanthropist.

Dorival Caymmi was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, actor, and painter active for more than 70 years beginning in 1933. He contributed to the birth of Brazil's bossa nova movement, and several of his samba pieces, such as "Samba da Minha Terra", "Doralice" and "Saudade da Bahia", have become staples of música popular brasileira. Equally notable are his ballads celebrating the fishermen and women of Bahia, including "Promessa de Pescador", "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?", and "Milagre". Caymmi composed about 100 songs in his lifetime, and many of his works are now considered to be Brazilian classics. Both Brazilian and non-Brazilian musicians have covered his songs.

Rafael Azcona Fernández was an awarded Spanish screenwriter and novelist who has worked with some of the best Spanish and international filmmakers. Azcona won five Goya Awards during his career, including a lifetime achievement award in 1998.

Bo Yang, sometimes also erroneously called Bai Yang, was a Chinese poet, essayist and historian based in Taiwan. He is also regarded as a social critic. According to his own memoir, the exact date of his birthday was unknown even to himself. He later adopted 7 March, the date of his 1968 imprisonment, as his birthday.

Luiz Carlos Tourinho was a Brazilian actor.

Akinobu Ogata , better known by his stage name Ken Ogata , was a Japanese actor.

Les Crane was a radio announcer and television talk show host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit with his 1971 recording of the poem Desiderata, winning a "Best Spoken Word" Grammy. He was the first network television personality to compete with Johnny Carson after Carson became a fixture of late-night television.

Randolph Frederick Pausch was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.