A man found dead in the James River on New Year's Eve had been missing for more than a month and was feared by family members to be suffering from a mental condition.
Samuel P. Hoyt, 46, according to his stepfather, is believed by investigators to have jumped from the Lee Bridge in Richmond on Nov. 22 after being seen at the Virginia War Memorial by a guard there.
Most of his personal belongings, including a recently issued prescription for high blood pressure, were found at the memorial on South Belvidere Street, where witnesses described him as "disconsolate and troubled," said stepfather Bruce Littman.
An autopsy showed that Hoyt drowned and suffered internal injuries consistent with a fall, Littman said. Hoyt's body was spotted by a tugboat crew below the Osborne Boat Landing in Henrico County on Dec. 31 and was recovered by county water rescue units.
Hoyt's mother, Catherine, and Littman said a cousin in Ashland visited by Hoyt was concerned about his well-being after the self-employed, unmarried carpenter expressed paranoid thoughts and was having difficulty separating reality from bursts of delusional thinking.
An aunt and uncle in Richmond also feared for Hoyt's safety when they saw him take a knife from their kitchen. They took him to an area hospital, where he was assessed by a psychiatric social worker, Littman said.
Littman said a psychiatrist was not consulted, nor were other family members contacted who had more knowledge of Hoyt's past. Hoyt, though, had seemed rational for much of his life and worked as a carpenter and Web designer, needing help with finances only in recent years.
"He kept his secret (of delusional thoughts) well," Littman said. Hoyt was a graduate of Douglas Freeman High School and Virginia Commonwealth University and had attended graduate school at Rutgers University on scholarship, Littman and his wife, Catherine, said.
The morning after being released from the hospital with no finding of mental issues that warranted detention, Hoyt threw furniture in the uncle's home through a window and left.
Littman said that when he was found in the river weeks later, Hoyt was identified from the hospital bracelet on his wrist, from documents left at the war memorial, and a DNA sample from his mother.
"We are very sad about what had happened and are concerned that this is happening at a time when Virginia is considering important changes to its laws dealing with the rights of mentally ill people," Littman said last night.
Littman stressed that procedures need to be tightened that mandate more thorough assessments of a person's mental condition, especially people without insurance such as Hoyt.
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