THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

18 June 1952

(page 4)

Rocket Expert Dies in Explosion.

PASADENA, June 18—Army ordnance experts searched the rubbled interior of a chemist's garage today for the cause of an explosion that took his life, resulting also in the suicide of his mother, officers said.

Dead were John W. Parsons [Jack Parsons], 31, who was blown to pieces by a terrific explosion which apparently occurred accidentally while he was packing chemicals in a box, and his mother, Mrs. Ruth Virginia Parsons, 58, who apparently took her life with an overdose of sleeping tablets after she was informed of her son's death.

The rocket expert died about an hour after the blast which demolished his laboratory. Parsons was preparing to leave for Mexico on a job assignment when the explosion occurred, officers said.