Somehow, I doubt that many will mourn this guy's passing.
The notorious Russian spammer Alexey Tolstokozhev was found shot to death in his apartment just outside of Moscow earlier this week. Apparently, someone took rather violent offense at all of the advertisements for Viagra that he was hammering out and shot him a number of times, including one head shot. Supposedly, Russian police forces think that this is the trademark of a hitman employed by Russian organized crime, who don't take kindly to people muscling in on their territory (or declining "polite requests" to become part of their territory). It is thought that Tolstokozhev was personally responsible for roughly 30% of all prescription drug spam on the Net today.
Again, it's anyone's guess if whomever did him in took over control of the botnet he was using to carpet-bomb the Net with spam.