Dan White's Motive More About Betrayal Than Homophobia

Comments (0) By John Geluardi Wednesday, Jan 30 2008

Sloan's life changed dramatically immediately after the killings. Mo Bernstein called and told him to leave town for good. Because of the public outrage against White, Sloan went into hiding for a time, and then moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for the John Anderson presidential campaign in 1980. But two high-ranking staffers flew to Washington to notify Anderson's campaign management that Sloan was a potential liability because of his association with White.

"That's when I understood how badly my career had been damaged," Sloan says. "It was always going to follow me."

Dennis Desilva

White gets a haircut at a Visitacion Valley barbershop.

Dennis Desilva

Campaign manager Ray Sloan, unidentified priest, Mary Ann White, and Dan White at White's campaign headquarters.

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DeSilva says Sloan was deeply affected by the killings and drank heavily for about a year afterward. Sloan scoffs at that, saying he was drinking pretty heavily before. He continues to work as a political consultant, though he has never fulfilled the promise he showed in 1977. Still, he says he has done well for himself. Some of his current clients, however, say he lives a nomadic life and can disappear for weeks at a time without explanation.

Sloan says he will withhold judgment on Milk, though he remains skeptical of how Dan White will be depicted.

"I don't go to many movies," he says. "I don't have the patience. But I'll see this one."

Dennis DeSilva was Dan White's official photographer during his 1977 campaign and his 11 months as a supervisor. Shortly after White murdered Moscone and Milk, DeSilva put hundreds of undeveloped negatives he had taken of White in a portable home safe. Over the years, DeSilva forgot the combination and the negatives were locked away until the SF Weekly paid to have the safe opened. Many of the photos that accompany this story have never been seen before.