Dan White

Dan White was a former paratrooper in Vietnam who joined the San Francisco Police Department in 1969. In 1973, he left the force and joined the fire department, winning many awards for bravery. In 1977 he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The following year, he resigned from the Board, frustrated by the low salary - $9,600 a year. A few days later he asked Mayor George Moscone to reappoint him. Moscone refused, and on November 27, 1978, White entered City Hall through a window in the parking area and shot and killed Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. San Francisco, which was still reeling from the Jonestown massacre just nine days earlier, was indescribably shocked at the assassination of its mayor and popular supervisor Milk. Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was sworn in as the new mayor. White was charged with first-degree murder and faced the death penalty, but was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 7 years. The jury accepted a diminished capacity defense based on testimony that White was suffering from untreated depression--a misnomer that became known in the media as the "Twinkie defense." Outraged San Franciscans responded to the sentence by rioting at City Hall. White was paroled in 1984 after serving just five years, and returned to San Francisco despite a request by Feinstein to stay away. Unable to make a new life for himself, White attached a hose to the exhaust pipe of the family car and took his life on the morning of October 21, 1985. White left suicide notes to members of his family and died clutching family photos. An Irish ballad, "The Town I Loved So Well", reportedly sounded from the car's cassette player.