Obituaries

Sidney D. Butterfield Jr.Government Investigator

Sidney Dealey Butterfield Jr., 84, a World War II Army veteran, former FBI special agent and government investigator, died Dec. 7 at his home in South Bethany Beach, Del. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mr. Butterfield, a native of Jamestown, N.Y., attended American University before joining the Army during World War II. He survived the sinking of an ammunition ship as he took part in the initial landing at Anzio, Italy. He later told his family that he was one of the first Americans to greet Pope Pius XII as the Allied forces arrived in Rome.

After the war, Mr. Butterfield became an FBI agent and worked in the field offices in Salt Lake City, Indianapolis and Newark. He was later transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington and helped in major crime investigations, including the great Brinks robbery in Boston.

In 1957, he left the FBI and started a real estate company in Bethesda, followed by a residential construction business he opened with his father and brother.

In 1968, he took a position with the State Department as a foreign assistance inspector. He then worked as an investigator for what was the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, from which he retired in 1975.

In retirement, Mr. Butterfield worked a few years as executive director of the Federal Law Enforcement Association, which provided training for federal officers.

He also organized several army reunion trips to Italy in the 1980s and 1990s. On his last trip to Italy, Mr. Butterfield presented the mayor of Anzio with a bronze plaque commemorating the U.S. landing at Anzio.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Butterfield moved from Bethesda to South Bethany, where he served on the town council.

His wife of 59 years, Virginia Garland Butterfield, died in 2004.

Survivors include six children, Christine Long of Rockville, Elizabeth Bridgman of Dunwoody, Ga., Melissa Bourne of Rockville, John Butterfield of Fairfax, Michael Butterfield of Stevensville, Md., and Margaret Saylor of North Potomac; a brother, James R. Butterfield of Rockville; and 12 grandchildren.

James Robert McNesbyScientist

James Robert McNesby, 84, a scientist and academic who retired in 1982 after six years as chairman of the University of Maryland chemistry department, died Dec. 12 at his home in Arlington. He had Alzheimer's disease.

Before joining the University of Maryland faculty, Dr. McNesby had worked nearly 20 years at what is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology.