In Passing

Valentia Island, Ireland

Michael Reardon, rock climber

Michael Reardon, a world-renowned Southern California free solo rock climber who scaled towering cliff faces without a rope, was presumed dead after a rogue wave swept him into the sea July 13 on an island off the southwest coast of Ireland.

The 42-year-old Oak Park, Calif.-based Reardon, known as a free soloist for scaling cliffs equipped only with sticky rubber-soled shoes and a chalk bag to keep his hands dry, had just finished two successful cliff climbs on the small island of Valentia when he disappeared into the sea.

Even as divers continued to search for Reardon’s body four days later, the Irish Independent reported that on Tuesday as many as 150 people – including Reardon’s wife, Marci, and 13-year-old daughter, Nicki – gathered on the Valentia Island cliff top to pay their respects to the climber.

As one of the world’s top free soloists, Reardon was known for numerous climbing accomplishments, including 16,000 vertical feet of climbing in a day at Tahquitz, Calif., and completing the nine-mile-long “Palisade Traverse” in the eastern Sierra Nevada in 22 hours.

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Jerry Hadley, opera singer

Jerry Hadley, an operatic tenor who combined a sweet, warm voice with keen dramatic intelligence and a dynamic stage presence, died Wednesday at a hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., eight days after shooting himself in the head with an air rifle. He was 55.

Hadley had been taken off life support on Monday after it was determined that he had sustained irreparable brain damage when he shot himself July 10. In recent years, he had suffered from financial difficulties and depression.

Hadley sang with most of the world’s leading opera companies – including the New York City Opera (where he made his professional debut in 1979), the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in London, the San Francisco Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Peoria, Ill.

Wayne Downing, terrorism expert

Wayne Downing, an Army four-star general and special operations commander who became a prominent terrorism adviser to the U.S. government, died of bacterial meningitis Wednesday at Proctor Hospital in Peoria, Ill. He was 67.

Downing was briefly among President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Since 2003, he had been chairman of the Combating Terrorism Center, an education and public policy institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Downing was a 34-year Army combat veteran, and his last active-duty assignment, in 1996, had been as commander in chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa. After his military retirement, he emerged as a more public figure when he became deeply involved in terrorism task forces and committees.

Bruce Hoffman, a leading authority on terrorism studies now at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said Downing “recognized the transition of terrorism from a tactical threat to a strategic challenge, a sustained campaign in the shadows.”