one answer

[legalois]

Gary W. Swearingen wrote:

>legalois <legalois at acm.org> writes:
>
>  
>
>>But that does not explain when, how or why?
>>    
>>
>
>It was earlier than 20'jun'93, the oldest master.passwd in CVS
>which says that it was imported from "386BSD 0.1".
>
>
>It's easier to guess an explanation for this orignal entry:
>
>     daemon:*:1:31::0:0:The devil himself:/root:
>
>That lasted only 8 months in FreeBSD, and the exorcism was not
>mentioned in the CVS commit message.
>
>
>  
>

That helps and provides a lead. Based on that provenance, I guess 
Marshall Kirk McCusick would know. (He probably would know, in any case.)
Thanks.