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The man who gained national fame in the early 90s for attending classes at U.C. Berkeley wearing nothing but a G-string, Luis Andrew Martinez a.k.a. The Naked Guy, met his end in a Santa Clara County jail cell where he cinched a plastic bag around his neck and died of suffocation in May 2006. It turns out he was schizophrenic, and after proving "people define normalcy in their own terms" and ultimately getting expelled from Cal, he was in and out of jails and mental institutions where he did not always receive appropriate care. His mother, Esther Krenn, brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the county and yesterday won a $1M settlement on the grounds of "reckless disregard or deliberate indifference" to her son's condition.
Two weeks prior to his suicide, Martinez had attempted suicide and been placed briefly in the jail's psychiatric unit, only to be put back in a cell after promising to try to kill himself again.
See a CBS5 video on Martinez here, and Chip Johnson has a piece about him in the Chron today as well.
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OMG. That was a few years before my time at Cal, but I met a relative (brother?) while I was there. That's so sad. I never knew any of that.
Whatever happened to that guy who used to sing Frank Sinatra on Sproul plaza into a microphone with a chord into a can. God, what was his name?
Perhaps this proves the evolutionary advantage of having at least one off-spring that is schizophrenic to offset offspring that become, say hedge fund managers.
Although her genes may not survive into a new generation, they will have a nice condo in Hawaii to retire to.
Rick Starr. That was his name. Whatever happened to that guy?
I remember seeing the Naked Guy on Telegraph. I was like 12. It was cold that day.
I remember hearing about his suicide. Made me kinda sad, as he was a semi-story back in those days. Now, I'm thinking of Frank Chu.
Great, now I need a drink.