Pimp C, one-half of  hip-hop duo UGK, was found dead Tuesday morning in his room at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood. He was 33 years old.

Craig Harvey, chief investigator at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, said the rapper’s body would be examined Wednesday but a cause of death will likely be deferred pending additional tests. His officers were still at the scene early Tuesday evening.

L.A. County Fire found the rapper, whose real name was Chad Butler, dead in his bed at the Mondrian after responding to a 911 call by hotel security. The hotel released a statement that Pimp C’s family called and said the rapper was to have checked out the day before.

“Security personnel went to Mr. Butler’s room and found him in bed, apparently expired,” according to the hotel.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said the death is being investigated by its homicide division.

A statement by Pimp C’s publicist said his manager “is asking that everyone please respect his family and those close to him at this time and refrain from rumors and innuendo.”

In Port Arthur, Butler’s mother, Weslyn “Mama Wes” Monroe, said she spoke with her son by telephone last week and found him excited about his latest project, a collaboration with Oscar-winning rap group Three 6 Mafia.

“He was in L.A., doing what he loved most,” Monroe said.

Pimp C’s death follows a commercial peak for UGK. Its first studio album in five years, Underground Kingz, was released in August. The two-CD opus tallied six-figure sales and gave the group its first No. 1 album, behind the popular single and video Intl’ Players Anthem (I Choose You).

The rapper had performed Saturday in Los Angeles with labelmate Too Short.

In addition to working with his UGK partner Bun B, Pimp C collaborated with rappers including Mike Jones and Chamillionaire. Those two took a Houston rap scene that he helped build to a national audience.

“It’s a sad day in the city. A legend has passed,” said Jones, who traded verses with Pimp C on 2006 single Pourin’ Up.

UGK’s breakthrough was a long time coming. The Port Arthur duo formed almost two decades ago when Pimp C left a group called Mission Impossible to work with Bun B. A Mission Impossible song, Underground Kingz, gave the duo its name.

Some underground tapes circulated before the duo recorded Too Hard to Swallow in 1992. UGK recorded several albums for major label Jive, while also working on locally-produced recordings, some with Houston’s late, legendary DJ Screw. Though big success took years, UGK had venerable status among Southern rappers.

“Pimp C is a true legend. As far as the South goes, as far as Houston goes, he was the definition of a true pioneer,” said rapper K-Rino, who also got his start on the local scene in the ’80s.

“(Pimp C) and UGK came along at a time — with the Geto Boys — and really hit the underground and then the mainstream when groups from the South weren’t getting exposure. They knocked down a lot of doors and let a lot of people shine.”

UGK earned its first taste of A-list attention with a guest shot on Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin’.

“I know a lot of guys that call themselves pimps, but he’s a real pimp,” said Brooke Valentine, a Houston-bred singer who featured Pimp C on her single Dope Girl.

The rough and tumble lifestyle that informed some of UGK’s music was sewn closely to Pimp C’s life. The group’s rise after the Jay-Z collaboration stopped when he was imprisoned in January 2002 after falling behind on community service required after pleading no contest to aggravated assault.

His label painted a kinder portrait of the artist. “He was truly a thoughtful and kind-hearted person,” said Jive Records president and CEO Barry Weiss. “I’ve known Chad since he was 18, and we loved him dearly.”

Pimp C was paroled in December 2005 and promptly issued a solo album, Pimpalation, in 2006. It was certified gold.

He then got to work with Bun B on a UGK album. The 26-track Underground Kingz showcased a barrage of explicit lyrics, hard club beats and trademark Southern swagger. It also played up the duo’s contrasting dynamic — Bun B’s cool flow vs. Pimp C’s more aggressive, animated rap attack.

The album’s release was a point of contention between the group and its label. Underground Kingz was first slated for retail in November 2006 but was held up. It was released nine months later. Pimp C was outspoken about his irritation at the way it was handled.

“The record was going to be thrown out there to the wolves, and they … really didn’t care,” he said in an August interview.

“Make no mistake — this record business is prostitution.”

Rick Martin, UGK’s manager, said Butler was looking forward to a new solo deal on Jive Records, a satellite radio show and a national cologne endorsement.

Pimp C is the second area rapper to die in the past few months. Kenneth “Big Moe” Moore died two months ago of a heart attack. Hip-hop artist John “Big Hawk” Hawkins was shot and killed outside his home in 2006.

“The situation is we have to step our game up,” K-Rino says. “The people who die, their job is done. They’re examples for the people who are still here. We have to see what a person’s death can teach us. What adjustments we can make on our life to make sure we get the best quality of life while we’re still around.

“My prayers go out to his family. We lost a true legend, but more than that, he had friends and a family, he had children.”

In an odd twist on the latest beauty pageant scandal a 24-year-old beauty queen named Christina Silva was crowned Miss California USA just over a week ago. Hopefully she enjoyed it and made the most of her reign as she has been dumped. Move over Ingrid Marie Rivera, there is another scandal at the ready.

Pageant officials announced yesterday that there was an accounting mix-up and the wrong girl was crowned. Wait - what? Yes, in a very odd story the second runner-up, Raquel Beezely, was the rightful winner. Christina was forced to give up the crown to Raquel. Officials called it a “human error.” The story reads like a sitcom and is a bit off to say the least.

Many will now question just how seriously can these things be taken after the SNAFU. The Associated Press reports that the pageant’s state director, Keith Lewis, said several judges questioned the results of the Nov. 25 competition at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. Lewis said the error was discovered the next day after the ballots were opened and recounted.

Silva has hired an attorney and is weighing her legal options, according to her manager, Tony Brewster. In a news release, Silva said she felt pressured to step down. “They never could explain their accounting error, but told me that if I didn’t give up my crown to Miss Barstow, my personal integrity could be questioned, and my career could potentially suffer,” she said.

Heather Kuzmich has the neurological disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome. She is socially awkward, has trouble making eye contact and is sometimes the target of her roommates’ jokes.

But what makes the 21-year-old Ms. Kuzmich different from others with Asperger’s is that for the past 11 weeks, her struggle to cope with her disability has played out on national television.

She is one of 13 young women selected by the supermodel Tyra Banks to compete on the popular reality television show “America’s Next Top Model.” The addition of Heather Kuzmich to an otherwise superficial show has given millions of viewers an unusual and compelling glimpse into the little-understood world of Asperger’s.

The disorder, considered a form of autism, is characterized by unusual social interaction and communication skills. Aspies, as people with the condition like to call themselves, often have normal or above-average intelligence, but they have trouble making friends and lack the intuitive ability to gauge social situations. They fail to make eye contact and often exhibit a single-minded fixation that can be both bizarre and brilliant.

By definition, people with Asperger’s are outside the mainstream. Even so, in recent months the syndrome has been cast into the limelight. “Look Me in the Eye,” a memoir about living with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison, who once created special effects for the rock band Kiss, has been a best-seller. In August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page wrote a poignant article for The New Yorker about life with undiagnosed Asperger’s.

Mr. Robison says the popular appeal of these stories may be due, in part, to the tendency of people with Asperger’s to be painfully direct — they lack the social filter that prevents other people from speaking their minds.

“It’s important because the world needs to know that there are tremendous differences in human behavior,” said Mr. Robison, whose brother is the writer Augusten Burroughs. “People are all too willing to throw away someone because they don’t respond the way they want. I think books like mine tell the world that there is more to us than that.”

But while Mr. Robison and Mr. Page tell the story of coping with Asperger’s from the perspective of men in their 50s, Heather Kuzmich is just beginning her life as an adult with the disorder. And it is often painful to watch her transition from socially awkward adolescent to socially awkward adult.

A gifted art student from Valparaiso, Ind., she has a lean and angular look well suited to the fashion industry. But her beauty doesn’t mask the challenges of Asperger’s. The show requires her to live in a house with 12 other would-be models, and cattiness and backbiting ensue. Early in the show, she appears socially isolated, the girls whisper about her within earshot, and viewers see her crying on the phone to her mother.

One girl is frustrated when Heather, concentrating on packing a bag, doesn’t hear a request to move out of the way. At one point, the others laugh when they stake out their beds and Heather has no place to sleep.

“I wish I could get the joke,” Heather laments.

“You. You’re the joke,” retorts another model, Bianca, an 18-year-old college student who is from Queens.

But while Heather’s odd mannerisms separate her from her roommates, those same traits translate as on-the-edge high fashion in her modeling sessions. In interviews on camera, she often glances to the side, unable to hold eye contact. But Ms. Banks, the ’60s-era model Twiggy and the fashion photographer Nigel Barker, who all appear on the show, marvel at Heather’s ability to connect with the camera. The pop star Enrique Iglesias is so taken by her haunting looks that he chooses her for a featured role in a music video.

In an interview last week, Ms. Kuzmich played down the conflict with the other contestants, saying many more “civilized” exchanges weren’t broadcast. “They didn’t make fun of me that much,” she said.

She tried out for the show, she explained, partly to test her own limits. “It was a point in my life where I was thinking either Asperger’s was going to define me or I was going to be able to work around it,” she said.

To her surprise, she was voted the viewer favorite eight weeks in a row, making her one of the most popular contestants in the show’s four-and-a-half-year history. “I’m used to people kind of ignoring me,” she said in the interview. “At first I was really worried people would laugh at me because I was so very awkward. I got the exact opposite.”

Heather made it to the top five, but flubbed her lines while filming a commercial. Later, she got hopelessly lost in Beijing, managing to meet with only one out of five fashion designers. She was eliminated last week, but has since made appearances on “Good Morning America” and “Access Hollywood.” She says she hopes to continue modeling and eventually become a national spokeswoman for Asperger’s.

“I had no idea it would be this big,” she said. “My mom is beside herself. She watched me when I was a kid not have any friends, and she saw me struggle. She’s glad people are starting to understand this.”

The wife of a British man who disappeared more than five years ago but then turned up alive at the weekend has herself gone missing, media reports said Tuesday.

John Darwin, 57, who was thought to have died in a canoeing accident in the North Sea, walked in to a London police station and declared he was a missing person, but had no memory of where he had been.

As police try to piece together the mystery, newspapers said his wife, Anne, has now disappeared, with family and friends unaware of her whereabouts.

She emigrated about six weeks ago, possibly to Panama in central America, after selling the family home in Seaton Carew, northeast England, and not leaving a forwarding address.

Puzzled neighbours and the house’s new owners told reporters she left furniture in the house and Spanish language books.

Six months after her husband’s disappearance that she thought she was a widow. An inquest was also held into his death.

A number of newspapers said the wife had an active bank account in Panama. But other neighbours were convinced she was in Australia or the Caribbean.

Police questioned John Darwin, a former teacher and prison officer who was declared dead after the remains of his canoe were washed up on the beach at Seaton Carew in March 2002.

At the weekend he walked into a police station saying “I think I am a missing person” according to the Guardian.

“The guy can’t remember anything about what’s happened or why he’s come forward. He has no memory at all. He has obviously been somewhere for the last five years and a lot of questions need answering,” it cited a source as saying.

His father, Ronald, 91, was quoted as saying that a childhood accident in which his son was knocked over by a car and suffered a head injury could account for his amnesia.

The case has revived memories of others in which people have disappeared or apparently committed suicide, only to emerge years later very much alive.

Notable examples include that of Richard Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, who vanished in 1974 when his children’s nanny was found murdered at his estranged wife’s house in London and the former government minister John Stonehouse.

Over the years there have been a number of claimed sightings of Lucan, who was a notorious gambler with huge debts.

In 1974 Stonehouse left his clothes on a beach in Miami and fled to Australia with his secretary to start a new life, leaving his wife, another mistress, a daughter and mounting debts.

He was tracked down, coincidentally by police hunting Lord Lucan, and jailed in 1976 for theft and false pretences. After leaving jail he worked for charities and died in 1988.