October 16. On this date in 1982, the body of Daniel Jordan was discovered. He was an American Bahá'í who served on the NSA of the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, including as Chairman. He was murdered during a trip to New York. His body, stabbed in the neck with his spinal column severed, was discovered on October 16in Stamford, Connecticut. His murder has never been solved.

 

October 16. On this date in 1982, the body of Daniel Jordan was discovered. He was an American Bahá'í who served on the NSA of the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, including as Chairman. He was murdered during a trip to New York. His body, stabbed in the neck with his spinal column severed, was discovered on October 16in Stamford, Connecticut. His murder has never been solved.

Daniel Jordan was born on June 2, 1932 in Alliance, Nebraska. He was a child musical prodigy and began studying the organ at the University of Nebraska when he was thirteen, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts at the age of seventeen and being awarded the first Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University awarded to an American to study music. He completed a Bachelor and Master of Arts degree in composition, theory and history of music at Oxford, and performed doctoral studies in musicology, which were interrupted by service in the U.S. Army from 1956 to 1958. He returned to the US in 1959 after turning down an position with the Oslo Symphony and studied at the University of Chicago, completing a Masters in human development in 1960 and a PhD in the field specializing in anthropology and psychology in 1964.

In 1963 Daniel was first elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States. In June 1965 he appeared on a radio panel program on the Bahá'í Faith on ABC Network with Firuz Kazemzadeh, William Sears, and Florence Mayberry. In 1966 he was elected as Chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly, succeeding Firuz Kazemzadeh who retired from the body in order to conduct research abroad. When World Order, a Bahá'í magazine, resumed publication in 1966 Daniel was a contributing writer. In 1967 he taught at the Southeastern Winter School in Covington, Georgia, drawing parallels between musical theory and the Faith. In 1968 Firuz Kazemzadeh was re-elected as Chair of the National Assembly and Daniel was elected as Vice-Chairman. In 1968 he chaired a National Conference on Human Rights sponsored by the North American Bahá'í Office for Human Rights. In 1977 he was guest speaker at the National Haziratu'l-Quds in Hawaii. He created the ANISA program for the education of Bahá'í children as well as authoring a number of other books.

In addition to his service to the Faith he was successful in his academic career. In 1965 he was appointed Director of the Institute for Research in Human Behaviour at Indiana State University and served in the position until 1968 when he moved to the University of Massachusetts, where he served as Director of the Center for the Study of Human Potential from 1971 to 1975. He became a licensed Psychologist in 1975. In 1978 he became Chair of the Department of Education at California American University in Escondido, but moved to National University in San Diego in 1979 where he founded a School of Education and became Dean.

He missed a speaking engagement to the Association for the World's Universities at the New York University Club during a professional trip to New York in October 1982 and his body, stabbed in the neck with his spinal column severed, was discovered on October 16 in Stamford, Connecticut. The reason for the murder is unknown, although fellow National Spiritual Assembly member Firuz Kazemzadeh noted that his trip to New York was unrelated to the Faith. The coroner reportedly expressed that the murder bore resemblance to a professional assassination. Firuz Kazemzadeh expressed at the time that speculation of a link to Iran and the murder without proof would be harmful to the Bahá'í community in Iran.

He was survived by his wife, Nancy, and three daughters who came to live in the United Kingdom after his passing.