Did Gollum deserve death?

[Finduilas]

[QUOTE=Neithan Tol Turambar]Smeagol was a good hobbit. A good friend, and fine fishermen. He was kind and generous. I imagine that on many occasions he would come into the villiage with a basket full of fish and laugh with delight as he handed them out to hungry hobbit children.
QUOTE]

I can't find where Tolkien says that. What I found is

The most inquisitive and curious-minded of that family was called Smeagol. He was interested in roots and beginnings; he dived into deep pools; he burrowed udner trees and growing plants; he tunneled into green mounds; and he ceased to look up at the hill-tops, or the trees, or the flowers opening in the air: his head and his eyes were downward.

Which I take to mean that he was on an already downwards fall.