Vincent Mroz, Elroy Sites; Sprang Into Action During Attempt on Truman's Life

He testified in the murder trial of Oscar Collazo (whose partner, Griselio Torresola, had died at the scene) and then went on about his life. Collazo was sentenced to death, but Truman commuted his sentence. Collazo died in 1994.

Elroy Reynolds Sites, a native of Altoona, Pa., moved to Washington as a boy but spent enough time hunting that he became an expert marksman. He graduated from Cardozo High School in the District, where he was on the swim team and the shooting team. He also served in the Army. He was a member of the National Rifle Association.

He worked for himself most of his life as a master electrician and then went into the construction, heating and air-conditioning trades. He also worked as a deputy sheriff in Montgomery County for seven years. His wife, Mary Louise Sites, died in 1989.

Survivors include eight children, Kathleen Horan of Gaithersburg, Anne Vane of Frederick, Ronald Sites of Silver Spring, Lauren Chaffin of Annapolis, David Sites of Fulton, Christine Ryman of Kearneysville, W.Va., Carolyn Arensmeyer of Germantown and Mark Sites of Tucker, Ga.; a sister; 25 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

His family said Mr. Sites, who liked to talk about his years as a deputy sheriff, rarely talked about the Truman assassination incident until the Hunter-Bainbridge book was published.

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Mr. Mroz was more than 6 feet tall, physically imposing but a graceful dancer with large hands and a level gaze. He looked like a Secret Service agent, someone in the higher ranks noted, and he had a college degree, which was not a given for agents in those days.

He spent 26 years in the Secret Service, and he had been a Marine in World War II, so he knew how to handle guns and a crime scene. After Coffelt was loaded into an ambulance, Mr. Mroz noticed a little man curled up in a fetal position in the hedges. It was the body of Torresola, who had shot three men that afternoon and whom Truman might have seen when he rose from his nap and looked out the window.

When Mr. Mroz removed the Luger pistol from Torresola's body and searched his pockets, he found two magazines of unused ammunition.

Vincent Peter Mroz was born in Stanley, Wis., and grew up in East Chicago, Ind. He attended Michigan State University on a football scholarship but interrupted his college life to enlist in the Marine Corps during World War II. Before he went to war in the Pacific, he was sent to the University of Michigan by the corps, and he became one of the few football players to get an athletic letter from both schools. After the war ended, Mr. Mroz graduated from Michigan State and went directly into the Secret Service.

He worked in Chicago before coming to Washington in 1950. Assigned to the permanent protection detail for Presidents Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mr. Mroz later rose through the ranks. He ended his career with the Secret Service in 1974 as deputy assistant director of the uniformed division.

He was an instructor for Montgomery school bus drivers until 1986, then moved to Naples, Fla., where he became director of the Collier County Sheriff's Department's background investigative unit. He moved to Michigan in 2002, a year after retiring for a third time.

The Treasury Department gave Mr. Mroz a certificate of meritorious civilian service for his actions during the Truman assassination attempt.

Survivors include his wife of 63 years, Shirley Gamm Mroz of Adrian; two children, Barbara Mroz of Adrian and Gregory Mroz of Washington; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.