David Van Sinderen

Age: 48

Summary: environmentalist and eldest son of former South New England Telephone Co. chairman and chief executive officer Alfred White Van Sinderen who was the third generation of his family to attend the Gunnery, a Connecticut board school, where an uncle was president of the Board of Trustees, who later worked outdoors in forest and park conservation jobs after finishing college at Oregon State University in Corvalis, Oregon and joined the U.F.O. cult group Heaven's Gate with his then-girlfriend Susan Strom in the 1970's, who also was an officer of two Dallas-based companies tied to the cult during the mid-1980's and purchased property on a 40-acre former youth camp near Mountaineer, New Mexico in June 1995, where members of the cult apparently lived there until about eight months ago.

Cause of Death: Suicide by massive drug and alcohol overdose

Born: November 10, 1948

Died: March 25, 1997

Location: Rancho Santa Fe, California