William Zantzinger is dead at 69 years old. He died Jan 3, 2009, and was buried Friday.

Zantzinger Lived a life taking advantage of people who had nothing. He was made famous by Bob Dylan’s (robert zimmerman) song “Lonesome Death of Poor Hattie Carroll” after Zantzinger struck a black barmaid at a party with a toy cane when she didn’t bring him his drink fast enough (she later died).

Here is Bob Dylan’s prospective:

Zantzinger continued to be a scumbag:

Zantzinger was indicted for collecting more than $64,000 in rent on properties he had not owned for more than five years. He lost the homes, described as rural shacks in the county’s Patuxent Woods subdivision, because of failure to pay taxes.

Nevertheless, Mr. Zantzinger continued to collect rent, suing some when they did not pay and evicting others. He also raised the rent on the properties. The homes were off a dirt road and lacked indoor plumbing.

In November 1991, Mr. Zantzinger pleaded guilty to 50 misdemeanor counts of unfair and deceptive trade practices. He was sentenced to 18 months in the county jail and fined $50,000. The judge also sentenced Mr. Zantzinger to 2,400 hours of community service and directed him to help groups that advocate low-cost housing.

“I never intended to hurt anyone, ever, ever. It’s not my nature,” Mr. Zantzinger said at his sentencing. “I got into this hole, dug it. It was my mistake. It got deeper and deeper. I’ve learned my lesson, believe me.”

“He’s a regular old Southern Maryland boy,” his friend Mike Sprague, then a delegate to the Maryland legislature, told The Washington Post in 1991. “Nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.” The Rev. Arnold Taylor, Mr. Zantzinger’s pastor at the time, told the newspaper, “Socially, he’s a hale fellow well met.”

Personally, I didn’t even know Zantzinger was still alive until this year, or that Dylan’s song was even referencing someone from this century. Had I realized this, I would have posted William Zantzinger on the Mophoz hall of fame a long time ago.