Anyone here have stories of old companions or other mishies from your mission that you suddenly seen on the news or other outlets that became notorious for not so "worthy" behavior?

One guy I shared apartments with was quite accentric. After mish he graduated from Yale, became a millionaire a few times over, an art collector, climbed Everest. Very accomplished guy.
Hadn't thought of him in years. Mission '79.
Seen him in the news being convicted of fraud and arson. Burned his house down and escaped from the 2nd story by donning scuba gear and an escape ladder while the Fire Crews battled the blaze.
That's not the main reason he made national news though.
He sadly ended his life inside the courtroom by swallowing poison as the guilty verdict was read. Gruesome scene caught on court video and all over youtube now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2021 03:39AM by mankosuki.

Articles say he was 53 but a mission in 79 wouldmake him 60 or so, no?

But he died in 2012, born in 1958. He would be 62 if still alive. Died at 53.

You beat me, Bracketed Vertical Line! <shakes fist>

By one minute! Timing is everything!

We can square the circle by noting that he died back in 2012.

I thought it was recent.

Anyway, he seems like another glib narcissist. A lot of those guys do well in missions. That hospital tale is way too calm and cheerful for a guy nearly killed in a fire.

Interestingly, Google shows two other cases in the last 10 years - a Bosnian Croat war criminal and a Missouri chid molester. And then there was also Hermann Goering.

Hitler too, I believe.

But frankly, I would be tempted to do the same thing. When the end is clear and bathetic, why watch the final act?

It is strange, though, that the courts don’t prevent such things.

Sorry, I should have clarified it wasn't recent news. Still shocking when I discovered it however.

Who was he?

Google arsonist escapes home using scuba gear. He'll pop up. At least it does with my algorithms.
Or use some other keyword searches. The CNN video gives a pretty good rundown.

Not weird companion, but when I was a much younger infinitely-prolonged being, I was in a small branch in Canada with Andrew Fedorowicz.

Around 1973-1974, missionaries serving in the Southwest Indi..., I mean the England Southwest mission, guys were in companionships with Mark Hofmann. That must have been interesting!

And isn't there an RM who is on the FBI's most-wanted list and has been there for years and years? There's a substantial reward, as well.

The last I remember hearing, they think it's likely that friends and family are helping him stay free.

I had a much happier time with my special companion. I was in the Italy Mission in 1969, in Lugano, in southern Italian-speaking Switzerland. I had a good 4-month run with my trainer, and then the MP made me a trainer for my second companion, Bruce Bastian. You may know the name: He and a guy named Ashcroft got together and produced the first big word processing system, WordPerfect. They got rich off it. A short time later Bastian came out as gay, and you know Mormons. The two sold off the company, I believe because of Bastian coming out. Maybe. Not too sure about that. But I'll always remember him by the following experience:

He and I had a great time, and our highlight was finding the first whole family to be baptized in years. Bastian was also the nicest of all my mission companions; I had a couple of real dicks I had to live with for several months. And once while tracting, we went to the penthouse of an apartment building, and the name on the doorbell said "Mazzini." There are lots of them, so we didn't think anything of it. But a beautiful blond woman came to the door, and it was Bastian's turn to do the "door approach." His Italian wasn't too great, and the woman got confused. Bastian asked innocently, "Ma parla Italiano, Lei?"; "Do you speak Italian?" Taken aback, she said that, as a matter of fact, she DID speak Italian, dammit. "I AM Italian!" But Bastian's innocent door approach got us invited in. She turned out not to be just any Mazzini, but famous Italian singer Mina (Mazzini). We said the usual stuff, gave her an BoM, and she told us to come back anytime. But we never got back in there, although we tried a couple of times. We were really proud of ourselves to be invited into the house of Italy's version of Barbara Streisand, and for a very limited time indeed, we were famous within the mission for both the Mina thing and for baptizing a whole family. I don't think happily on my mission, but those couple of months were fun and memorable.

mankosuki Wrote:
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> One guy I shared apartments with was quite
> accentric. After mish he graduated from Yale,
> became a millionaire a few times over.

Seems your companion, instead of recovering from The Cult, ended with a shot of the old French Guiana-style coolaid.

Clever. Sounds like you made the whole thing up.

> Clever. Sounds like you made the whole thing up.

Yes. Either that or it's true.

If you cared, you could look it up.

There was an older missionary who was a convert, he had led a pretty wild life up to the time he converted for a girl, and went to BYU for a year, where she convinced him to go on a mission. He had a natural ability to sell anything to anybody, and he enjoyed taking on alternative personalities (he would go into stores pretending to be a Russian diplomat, and speaking the mission language in a hilarious Russian accent. At any rate I shared apartments with him three times on my mission. He became our mission's top baptizing missionary and I always enjoyed going on splits with him because we never tracted. I lost contact with him after coming home. About fifteen years ago a former companion pointed out that he had become an executive for a company in LA that is famous for making porn movies. He is retired now and has a nice house in Pacific Palisades.