No criminal charges likely for Haworth man

By John David Sutter

Published: August 20, 2008

A runaway college student from southeast Oklahoma who was found last week in California was released from suicide watch Tuesday, officials said.

A deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif., said Matthew Wilson, 21, of Haworth will not be charged with a crime after being found last week on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Police found Wilson in a classroom, after school hours, with a laptop they said was stolen. Wilson was arrested and placed on suicide watch in a Bay Area mental health hospital.

The only evidence that could have been used to charge Wilson were a pair of scissors he had with him that apparently were university property, said Norbert Chu, senior deputy district attorney in the county. Officials were unable to determine that the laptop was stolen, he said.

"Him being here as a runaway ... is not a crime,” Chu said, adding that Wilson's actions were "more a cry for help than an act of criminal behavior.”

"It's better that his family come and take him home than for him to languish for a couple of days over something that was very minor,” he said.

Wilson's mother could not be reached by cell phone Tuesday, but Bridget Melson, a psychotherapist who has been working on the case, said Cathy Wilson had traveled to California to meet her son.

"Cathy is just dying to see her son,” she said. "She is just beside herself with excitement.”

Melson said the big question now is whether Matthew Wilson will choose to go home to southeast Oklahoma with her — or to stay in California.

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