Bill Landreth, author of "Out of the Inner Circle", gets up from a computer he is using at a friend's house in Escondido, CA, walks out the door, is not heard of again until he is found in Seattle, WA in July of 1987.

The Cracker Cracks Up?                                        December 21, 1986
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         "Computer 'Cracker' Is Missing -- Is He Dead Or Is He Alive"

ESCONDIDO, Calif. -- Early one morning in late September, computer hacker Bill
Landreth pushed himself away from his IBM-PC computer -- its screen glowing
with an uncompleted sentence -- and walked out the front door of a friend's
home here.

He has not been seen or heard from since.

The authorities want him because he is the "Cracker", convicted in 1984 of
breaking into some of the most secure computer systems in the United States,
including GTE Telemail's electronic mail network, where he peeped at NASA
Department of Defense computer correspondence.

His literary agent wants him because he is Bill Landreth the author, who
already has cashed in on the successful publication of one book on computer
hacking and who is overdue with the manuscript of a second computer book.

The Institute of Internal Auditors wants him because he is Bill Landreth the
public speaker who was going to tell the group in a few months how to make
their computer systems safer from people like him.

The letter, typed into his computer, then printed out and left in his room for
someone to discover, touched on the evolution of mankind, prospects for man's
immortality and the defeat of the aging process, nuclear war, communism versus
capitalism, society's greed, the purpose of life, computers becoming more
creative than man and finally -- suicide.

The last page reads:

"As I am writing this as of the moment, I am obviously not dead.  I do,
however, plan on being dead before any other humans read this.  The idea is
that I will commit suicide sometime around my 22nd birthday..."

The note explained:

"I was bored in school, bored traveling around the country, bored getting
raided by the FBI, bored in prison, bored writing books, bored being bored.  I
will probably be bored dead, but this is my risk to take."

But then the note said:

"Since writing the above, my plans have changed slightly.... But the point is,
that I am going to take the money I have left in the bank (my liquid assets)
and make a final attempt at making life worthy.  It will be a short attempt,
and I do suspect that if it works out that none of my current friends will know
me then.  If it doesn't work out, the news of my death will probably get
around.  (I won't try to hide it.)"

Landreth's birthday is December 26 and his best friend is not counting on
seeing him again.

"We used to joke about what you could learn about life, especially since if you
don't believe in a God, then there's not much point to life," said Tom
Anderson, 16, a senior at San Pasqual High School in Escondido, about 30 miles
north of San Diego.  Anderson also has been convicted of computer hacking and
placed on probation.

Anderson was the last person to see Landreth.  It was around September 25 -- he
does not remember exactly.  Landreth had spent a week living in Anderson's home
so the two could share Landreth's computer.  Anderson's IBM-PC had been
confiscated by authorities, and he wanted to complete his own book.

Anderson said he and Landreth were also working on a proposal for a movie about
their exploits.

Apparently Landreth took only his house key, a passport, and the clothes on his
back.

But concern grew by October 1, when Landreth failed to keep a speaking
engagement with a group of auditors in Ohio, for which he would have received
$1,000 plus expenses.  Landreth may have kept a messy room and poor financial
records, but he was reliable enough to keep a speaking engagement, said his
friends and literary agent, Bill Gladstone, noting that Landreth's second
manuscript was due in August and had not yet been delivered.

But, the manuscript never came and Landreth has not reappeared.

Steve Burnap, another close friend, said that during the summer Landreth had
grown lackadaisical toward life.  "He just didn't seem to care much about
anything anymore."
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Landreth eventually turned up in Seattle, Washington around the third week of
July 1987.  Because of his breaking probation, he is back in jail finishing his
sentence.

Source

Sacramento Bee, December, 1986