Once-missing Haworth man under psychological evaluation in California

By Johnny Johnson

Published: August 16, 2008

HAWORTH — For the family of missing Rice University student Matt Wilson, news that he was alive and well at Berkeley, Calif., was the happy ending they had hoped for.

But Bridget Melson, a psychotherapist who has been working on Wilson's case, is concerned that the southeast Oklahoman is not doing well at all — that this isn't the end of the story.

"He wanted to be away and he wanted to be missing,” the co-founder of Trinity Search and Recovery said. "And now that he has been found he is extremely depressed, and that's why he is on suicide watch.”

When Wilson's car was found in Berkeley in June, Melson said searchers knew he was living in it.

All the clues were present, Melson said. There was food and clothing, as well as notes and writings that indicated that the former Haworth resident wanted to simply disappear.

"We told his mother a week ago, that looking at the notes, it appears he wants to be gone.” Melson said.

When Wilson was found on Wednesday, he had been sleeping behind shrubbery planted outside the brick lecture hall walls of the university — only about 50 feet from where Trinity Search and Recovery ended its search.

When Matthew Wilson was caught by campus security at Berkeley with what they said appeared to be stolen items, he gave them a false name — Colin Lynch.

Neither family members nor Melson are sure where the fake name came from, but what's clear is that for some time there may have been two Matthew Wilsons.

There was the Matthew Wilson who put on a happy face at the family Thanksgiving dinner. And there was Matthew Wilson the anarchist, who dropped off the grid for eight months and immersed himself in literature and propaganda calling for revolt against capitalism and mass-consumerism.

There was Matthew Wilson the 21-year-old scholar, who told his family school just became too much for him. And there was the loner that did his homework well enough to know how well homeless are treated at Berkeley.

There was Matthew Wilson the computer science major who told his mother he never saw the online reports pleading for him to pick up the phone. And there was the industrious Matthew Wilson, who was using a university projector after a laptop computer screen quit working.

When Matt Wilson took $500 out of a Houston ATM and bought some camping supplies before vanishing, Melson said, he was not preparing to embark on a Christopher McCandless-type journey into the wild, but rather an adventure free from democracy and capitalism.

While McCandless destroyed identification documents and gave away his college money to live away from society and people, Wilson actually depended on society, Melson said.

"If you are going to try to survive eight months on the streets, Berkeley is the place to go,” said Melson, whose organization is based in nearby Pleasanton, Calif.

Much of the notes Melson found from Wilson's belongings were notes on a book called "Days of War, Nights of Love,” by CrimethInc.com, an anarchist group that advocates personal freedom, alternate choices and lifestyles.

While there is at least one anarchist group at Berkeley, Melson said, she does not believe Wilson was part of that group, but rather a loner trying to live by a new set of rules.

Cathy Wilson, Matt Wilson's mother, plans to be in California by Sunday, and she said she has no doubts everything is going to be fine now.

"It's like waking up from a nightmare,” she said.

After speaking with her son over the phone, she said she doesn't have all the answers, but it appears that he was just overwhelmed with school and felt alone in the world.

Matt's grandmother, Mary Wilson, said when someone has standards of perfection like her grandson, taking 19 hours at a university like Rice was just too much.

Cathy Wilson said she never had any doubts about her son's resourcefulness and she knew that he always chose to live a meager existence. But because he didn't talk much, no one noticed that he was having emotional or psychological problems.

Cathy Wilson said she is somewhat worried about what living on the streets has done to her son.

"He didn't do anything wrong except leave his mama without telling her,” Cathy Wilson said. "But I'm not mad. It's made me stronger.”

His mother said he will definitely continue his education, but he probably won't go back to Rice.

Matthew Wilson should be getting out of a 72-hour psychological evaluation either late today or early Sunday, said Melson, who is trying to make plans to talk to the student so she can evaluate him.

"Honestly, I'm not sure what will happen,” Melson said.

"This is not over, yet. And we have to be really careful now, because I don't want to be reporting a suicide.”