A Rice University computer science student whose disappearance eight months ago made national news was discovered not begging in the streets or roughing it in the wilderness, but using a laptop at the University of California, Berkeley.
Matthew Wilson, 21, was arrested late Wednesday and held for psychological evaluation after campus police came across him in a classroom after hours.
Some of those involved in the search suspect Wilson got involved with a group that rejects society, instead choosing to live on the streets.
The bespectacled Wilson was dressed in black, had shaved off his bushy red beard and told police he'd been living in the streets.
Asked for his name, Wilson said he was "Colin Lynch," then gave his real name when pressed. He will face criminal charges upon his release from a hospital, said Mitch Celaya, an assistant police chief for the university.
"When he is cleared we will take custody of him and process him," Celaya said.
The specifics of Wilson's evaluation were confidential.
Among the potential charges are lying to a peace officer about his identity, possession of stolen property and trespassing, Celaya said.
The serial number was scratched off the Sony laptop Wilson was using and he also had someone else's checkbook, Celaya said.
Investigators want to know if Wilson has any connection to a campus crime wave that involved stealing laptops and other items from students' backpacks.
Living on the streets
Later, while he was being questioned at the Berkeley police station, Wilson told a detective he'd been living on the streets for a few months.
"He shared with the detective that he had decided in December to come West and disappear and he felt that going West was a good place to disappear," said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss of the Berkeley Police Department, which has been working with Rice police and the University of California, Berkeley.
"(Wilson) also told the detectives that the student community is a good source of food, so he spent most of his days moving among the university student population," Kusmiss said. "It is the kind of culture and environment where somebody can blend in and disappear."
She said Wilson was aware people were looking for him and that he hadn't made any friends since coming to Berkeley.
Wilson's mother said she knows her son is going through rough times, but is thankful he is alive. "You don't know how good I feel about this. It is better than anything in the world," Cathy Wilson said from her home in Oklahoma as she prepared to head to California.
Wilson hadn't been seen by friends or family since withdrawing $500 from his bank account and mysteriously leaving Houston in December.
He failed to turn in his final exams at Rice and didn't say goodbye. Wilson had applied to four universities, including UC Berkeley, but enrolled at Rice because he received a full scholarship there, his mother said.
His disappearance touched off widespread speculation on what could have pushed him to abandon what many saw as a life of opportunity.
Wilson's silver Dodge Neon was found in June parked on a residential street in Berkeley.
When the car was towed away for impound, he essentially lost the only home he had, police said.
He then slept on campus, nestled between the outside walls of lecture halls and shrubbery, Kusmiss said.
His family said he hadn't touched his bank account or used his credit cards.
Bridget Melson, a psychotherapist and co-founder of Trinity Search and Recovery, which had been looking for Wilson at the request of his family, said he had apparently befriended a loose-knit alliance of societal rebels that encouraged people to reject society and live off the urban landscape.
"It is like, 'congratulations' if you can live the longest without getting a paycheck," she said. "Their goal is to kind of outsmart society. He did it for a little bit."
Working with some of the notes on anarchy left in Wilson's car, as well as some information gathered online, Melson's group created a profile of what he'd be doing.
He was fascinated with intense online computer games, such as World of Warcraft, and in January had registered to meet with a computer group in Berkeley. "He is very smart, and that is the typical MO for these kiddos," Melson said of his behavior.
No pressure
Cathy Wilson said she won't pepper him with questions about why he left or what he's been doing.
"I'm not going to say, 'Woe is me, Matthew, look what you've put me through,' " she said. "I want him to be all right. If he is living a good life, fine. If he is living on the streets, I'm not going to have that."
She suspects that the stress of trying to be excellent at school finally got to him.
As recently as two weeks ago, Cathy Wilson was on the Berkeley campus and the surrounding area to put up handbills about his disappearance.
B.J. Almond, a spokesman for the Rice University Police Department, said investigators are still gathering information about how Wilson was discovered. "We're real grateful to hear he's alive, but we're still trying to get all the facts straight," he said.
Wilson's family, along with Rice, had offered up to $25,000 for information on his whereabouts.
Demian Bulwa with the San Francisco Chronicle contributed to this report.
Well, if Cathy won't say it, I will. This little son-of-a-bastard needs to be flogged, then jailed until he has written a letter of apology to every person who offered up a prayer for his miserable soul. This is my fourth post about his having gone missing, plus for six months I had a permanent link to his missing poster. A spoiled gen-Yer. Makes me ill...
