JSON parse error on running gh-pages lifecycle

[ruaanvds]

An error reported via email:

"This is new project, I copied my docs folder from old project to start with. Running “npm run gh-pages” is throwing son parsing error below. Json (attached) looks fine though.

Could you please let me know if I am missing something?"

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/usr/local/Cellar/node/9.10.1/bin/node',
1 verbose cli   '/usr/local/bin/npm',
1 verbose cli   'run',
1 verbose cli   'gh-pages' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose stack Error: Failed to parse json
4 verbose stack Unexpected string in JSON at position 944 while parsing '{
4 verbose stack   "name": "presidium-template",
4 verbose stack   "ver'
4 verbose stack     at parseError (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/read-package-json/read-json.js:436:11)
4 verbose stack     at parseJson (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/read-package-json/read-json.js:104:26)
4 verbose stack     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/read-package-json/read-json.js:51:5
4 verbose stack     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/graceful-fs/graceful-fs.js:78:16
4 verbose stack     at FSReqWrap.readFileAfterClose [as oncomplete] (fs.js:532:3)
5 verbose cwd /Users/skhadkekar/GitHub/testdata-tools/docs
6 verbose Darwin 17.3.0
7 verbose argv "/usr/local/Cellar/node/9.10.1/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "run" "gh-pages"
8 verbose node v9.10.1
9 verbose npm  v5.6.0
10 error file /Users/skhadkekar/GitHub/testdata-tools/docs/package.json
11 error code EJSONPARSE
12 error Failed to parse json
12 error Unexpected string in JSON at position 944 while parsing '{
12 error   "name": "presidium-template",
12 error   "ver'
13 error File: /Users/skhadkekar/GitHub/testdata-tools/docs/package.json
14 error Failed to parse package.json data.
14 error package.json must be actual JSON, not just JavaScript.
14 error
14 error Tell the package author to fix their package.json file. JSON.parse
15 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

[ruaanvds]

Here is the JSON file mentioned above - from what I can see, it's valid, so the issue is likely elsewhere in the lifecycle:

{
  "name": "presidium-template",
  "version": "0.1.39",
  "description": "Base template for a Presidium site.",
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "homepage": "http://presidium.spandigital.net/",
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "SPAN Digital",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    }
  ],
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/SPANDigital/presidium-template"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "clean": "presidium clean",
    "install": "presidium install",
    "build": "presidium build",
    "start": "presidium start",
    "validate": "presidium validate",
    "gh-pages": "presidium gh-pages",
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "presidium-core": "^0.1.42",
  }
}