Guide Note

Matthew J. Wilson, a 21-year-old computer science major at Rice University in Texas who had been missing since December 2007, was found alive at the University of California at Berkeley on August 13, 2008.¹ He was arrested by police, who had been focusing their search for him in that area since finding his 2004 silver Dodge Neon abandoned in Berkeley on June 10.¹ He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation after campus police found him with a number of stolen items, including a laptop and a checkbook.¹ Wilson was reportedly trying to assume a new identity and apparently had been living by the anarchist doctrines contained in the book, Days of War, Nights of Love.¹

Fast Facts

1. Abandoned car, which was found June 10, 2008, contained books on assuming a new identity¹
2. Found with stolen property¹
3. Initially gave police a false name¹
4. Arrested in connection with trespassing and theft charges²
5. Had cut off his curly red hair, shaved his beard and was thinner¹
6. Had applied to UC Berkeley in high school¹