Obituaries

Mrs. Gaffney, a longtime Bethesda area resident, was a member of the Luxmanor Garden Club, the Army Distaff Foundation and the Leisure World Woman's Club. She also belonged to the Catholic Daughters of the Americas and the Greensboro, N.C., chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

She was a member of Bethesda Country Club and attended Our Lady of Grace Church in Silver Spring.

Her husband of 71 years, James Holmes Gaffney, a retired administrative law judge for the Interstate Commerce Commission, died in 2006.

Survivors include two children, James Michael Gaffney of Naples, Fla., and Joem Patricia Gaffney of Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.; two grandsons; and two great-grandchildren.

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb

William H. PetersenPolice Administrator

William H. Petersen, 75, a police administrator and criminal justice consultant who an expert on court security, died March 4 of a heart attack at his home in Centreville.

Mr. Petersen organized security for the 1992 trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee. He also consulted with the Costa Rican government in 1993, after gunmen took the country's Supreme Court justices hostage.

He was born in Pocatello, Idaho, and was a political science graduate from Idaho State University in 1954. He also did graduate work in public administration at Wayne State University.

He worked for the Citizens Research Council of Michigan in Detroit before becoming secretary of the Board of Police Commissioners in St. Louis in the early 1960s. He was responsible for all police non-uniform operations, including the police academy, the crime lab, research and administration. He then returned to Idaho as director of the State Personnel Commission, where he helped create Idaho's first merit system for public employees.

He moved to the Washington area in 1970 and became vice president of Planning Research Corp., a consulting firm in Tysons Corner. He was in charge of criminal justice consulting. He later headed the criminal justice consulting division of the accounting firm Arthur Young and was director of the National Sheriffs' Institute.

From 1996 to 2006, Mr. Petersen was head of the worship department at Washington National Cathedral, where he arranged state funerals and other special events. He also was parish administrator at Church of the Holy Comforter in Vienna.

His marriage to Carole Taylor ended in divorce.

Survivors include a daughter, Jana McQuaid of Richmond; a brother; and two grandsons.

-- Joe Holley