Obituaries

Richard J. Poppleton Sr.FBI Ballistics Expert

Richard Joseph Poppleton Sr., 84, a special agent with the FBI for 28 years who testified as a ballistics expert throughout the country, died of cardiac arrest on July 19 at his home in Reston.

Among his cases, Mr. Poppleton testified in the murder trials for slain Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. The FBI agent took the witness stand in 1964 and linked the high-powered hunting rifle used in Evers's June 12, 1963, assassination to segregationist Byron De La Beckwith. All-white, all-male juries deadlocked twice in 1964 and failed to render a verdict.

Mr. Poppleton came out of retirement to testify at the 1994 retrial of Beckwith, who was found guilty and received a life sentence in the civil rights leader's death.

Mr. Poppleton was born in Elmira, N.Y., and served in the Marine Corps. He received a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, where he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.

He worked for Standard Oil of Ohio in Cleveland before joining the FBI in 1947. After being assigned to the bureau's Charlotte and Philadelphia offices, he came to Washington in 1951 and began his career in the Firearms Identification Unit at the FBI Laboratory.

In the early 1950s, he once escorted Basil Rathbone, the actor who portrayed Sherlock Holmes in movies and on radio, on a private tour of the firearms laboratory.

While employed by FBI in the early 1970s, he received a master's degree in forensic science from George Washington University. He was a supervisor of the firearms section when he retired in 1975.

He was a member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.

Mr. Poppleton lived in Washington, Hyattsville, Cheverly and Florida before moving to Sunrise of Reston senior living community in January.

He was active in St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Cheverly, serving as a lector and helping to raise money for a new church.

His first wife, Helen Holt Poppleton, whom he married in 1947, died in 1969.

In 1978, he retired with his second wife to St. Petersburg, Fla., and later relocated to Ormond Beach, Fla., and briefly to Holly Hill, Fla.