In Britain 'dumb' is seldom used to mean stupid. It was mostly only used to mean mute e.g 'deaf and dumb'. However 'dumb' in the mute sense is probably politically incorrect nowadays, a bit like calling a short person a 'dwarf'.
Luis Carlos MontalvÃ¡n at a book signing in Coral Gables, Fla., in 2011, with his service dog, Tuesday. Luis Carlos MontalvÃ¡n, an Iraq war veteran and best-selling author who toured the country with his service dog, Tuesday, as an advocate for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, died on Friday in El Paso. He was 43. He was found dead in his hotel room.
The vengeance that Ramirez promised apparently never came to fruition. Neither did the state's plan to execute him. Instead, on Friday morning, Richard Ramirez died of natural causes at Marin General Hospital north of San Francisco, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.