William E. O'neill

William E. O'Neill, age 99, of Wilmington, DE, passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on Saturday, May 10, 2025.

Bill was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Caroline Regan O'Neill and William E. O'Neill on August 24, 1925; raised in Iselin, Woodbridge Township, NJ; graduated from St. Peter's High School, New Brunswick, N.J.; enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1943; remained a US Air Force Reserve officer until 1958; graduated Mount St. Mary's University, B.S,1949 and received JD from Georgetown University. He entered the FBI in January 1951; served in Louisville and Lexington RA; in Los Angeles and Burbank RA; and from 1958 to 1963 at headquarters in Washington. He credited working with practiced and experienced old-timers as the basis for his introduction to a rewarding and satisfying time as an agent. In Los Angeles, assignments to write the daily Airtel to headquarters were a task he enjoyed and remembered as "an eye on organized crime, Hollywood, and a weekly bank robbery." After five years at headquarters in Domestic Intelligence, Bill was honored to be given his exit interview by Director Hoover in 1963. He was a Lifetime member of the Society of Former Agents, and he often spoke of the dedication and high quality of the men and women with whom he served in the Bureau.

Bill practiced law in the courts of the District of Columbia and Virginia at all levels until 1983. He served as representative of the City of Alexandria as member and chairman of the Northern Virginia Planning District Commission where he guided creation of a multijurisdictional criminal justice laboratory; served as president of the Alexandria, Virginia Bar Association, aided formation of its legal aid and was moderator of a PBS program featuring Northern Virginia growth issues. In 1983 he was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to the Virginia Industrial Commission, where he served as administrator and judge until his retirement in 1994.

He was predeceased by his wife, Jeanne Reynolds. Their sons, William (Glenda) and Stephen (Sally), have extended the family to five grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Bill married Marie Kearney, a high school friend, in 2000. After ten memorable years of travel and community service, Marie deceased and Bill returned to work in civic activity in Alexandria. At age 87, he met and married Alice McLaughlin Goetz, whom he had dated in college and had not seen for 60 years. They lived happily at Country House in Wilmington, Delaware. Bill will be interred in the veteran's National Cemetery at Quantico, Virginia.

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