200 Attend Services for Dan White

Dan White, who committed suicide seven years after assassinating San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, was buried Thursday on a grassy hillside facing that city. About 200 relatives and friends were present.

A private, hourlong funeral Mass for White, 39, was said at the Good Shepherd Church in Pacifica and he was buried next to his father in cold and fog-shrouded Golden Gate National Cemetery. During a brief graveside service, Father Leonard Caligari asked God to “give eternal life to our brother, Dan.”

The former supervisor killed himself Monday by carbon monoxide poisoning after running a hose from the tailpipe to the passenger compartment of his wife’s car and then shutting himself inside. His body was found by his brother.

White spent five years in prison after being convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 1978 slayings of Moscone and Milk, who was the first acknowledged homosexual elected to office in San Francisco.

Vietnam Veteran

A Vietnam veteran, White served as both a firefighter and a police officer in San Francisco before winning election as a supervisor.

But in November, 1978, White, citing money problems, turned in his resignation. White then changed his mind and sought reappointment to the board.

When Moscone refused, White shot the mayor. Then, he went to Milk’s office and shot him, too. His conviction of manslaughter, rather than murder, triggered a night of rioting at City Hall by thousands of gays and others.

White was released from prison Jan. 6, 1984, and spent a year on parole in the San Fernando Valley before returning to the Bay Area.

Details of a coroner’s autopsy will be disclosed next week at the earliest, police said.