Missing Rice student found in Berkeley, hospitalized

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 14, 2008 | by Kristin Bender

BERKELEY -- Matthew J. Wilson, the missing Rice University student who was thought to be in Berkeley, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for an evaluation after campus police found him Wednesday night in a UC Berkeley classroom, authorities said.

Wilson, 21, was found with a stolen laptop and computer hard drive, a stolen checkbook and keys that could belong to the university, according to authorities.

The student is believed to have been following an underground anarchist movement that calls on followers to steal what they need to survive and debunk capitalism, democracy and social norms, according to a source familiar with the case.

He may have been using the stolen items to take on a new identity or steal someone else's, police said. When Wilson's abandoned car was found in Berkeley in mid-June, police found books and notes on how to get a new identity, a book on how to live cheaply in San Francisco, and cans of beans and soup.

Wilson told investigators that he wanted to come West and disappear, officials said.

"He said he thought the West Coast was a good place to disappear. It took him a week to get to Berkeley from his off-campus apartment in Houston and he's been here ever since," said Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.

Wilson told police he had met no one in Berkeley, where he'd been living for the past eight months, and made no friends, she said. He spent his days reading and sitting on the UC campus and seemed unconcerned and unfazed by the news stories about his disappearance from Houston eight months ago, Kusmiss said.

UC Berkeley Assistant Police Chief Mitch Celaya said Wilson admitted to stealing the laptop.

"He had a number of pieces of property that we don't believe to be his," Celaya said. Serial numbers had been removed from the computer equipment, Celaya said.

Wilson disappeared from Rice University in Houston in December and his abandoned 2004 silver Dodge Neon was found on Allston Way in Berkeley on June 10. Since then, the search for Wilson has focused on Berkeley, especially around Telegraph Avenue and the UC Berkeley campus, where there had been a number of reported sightings of the lanky redhead.

UC police picked up Wilson in Dwinell Hall shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday when UC police officer Sean Aranas was making his rounds and looking for a suspect in a case involving backpack thefts.

There, in a classroom, he found Wilson, dressed all in black and wearing his trademark wire-framed glasses. Wilson had the laptop hooked up to an audio visual projector. When police questioned him about it, he gave a false name, but later gave the officer his real name, Celaya said.

Wilson had lopped off his curly red hair, shaved his long, reddish beard and was thin. Police said he appeared to be healthy and did not need medical attention.

He told police he'd been living out of his car, on the streets, and in some bushes on campus since coming to Berkeley late last year.

It appears Wilson has also been living by the doctrines of a book called "Days of War, Nights of Love," a "collection of political, social and philosophical essays written and published by the anarchist collective CrimethInc," according to description on the group's Web site.

Most essays "advocate the fight for personal freedom, alternate choices and lifestyles. Some of the book is devoted to the criticism of Capitalism, statism, and mass-consumerism, arguing that these things dehumanize the individual and decrease the general quality of life," the Web site says.

The book was found in his abandoned car, along with pages of his personal notes and journals, said Bridget Melson, who runs Trinity Search and Recovery, a Pleasanton-based organization that had helped with two ground searches for Wilson in Berkeley.

"It is about being anti-capitalistic, anti-society, anti- democratic," she said. "(Those who follow the creed) are determined that society is against you and is trying to harm its people. "... They are determined to outsmart society. That is where they get their high."

CrimethInc calls itself an "ex-workers collective and social phenomenon" on its Web site. "CrimethInc is the black market where we trade in this precious contraband. Here, the secret worlds of shoplifters, rioters, dropouts, deserters, adulterers, vandals, daydreamers -- that is to say, of all of us, in those moments when, wanting more, we indulge in little revolts -- converge to form gateways to new worlds where theft, cheating, warfare, boredom, and so on are simply obsolete."

Police have not said if the laptop, computer hard drive or checkbook were used to steal other people's identities, but it is not uncommon for people who follow the anarchist movement to do such things, Melson said.

"They believe society is unfair so (it tells them) to do what they need to do to make it fair," she said. "I think he was trying to find a way to make money without buying into society."

Authorities released few details on other items in Wilson's possession, including keys that may have granted him access to university buildings.