A Lost Soul

We don’t know much about him – he grew up in a village on the coast of Long Island, bowled in high school, sang karaoke, got two college degrees, moved to St. Augustine, Florida.

His mother, struggling with pulmonary disease, died – he wrote, “I am proud to say she navigated the awful challenges of this disease with strength, dignity and spirit through the very end.”

A high school friend says “he was heartbroken.”

Falling apart, ranting, cursing, he stood outside a Florida hotel dressed only in his underwear – spent three days in a psych ward. Devils whispering, on social media he wrote about doomsday cults, a haunted carnival, martyrs setting themselves on fire – left Florida for New York.

Wearing a gray tee shirt, walking into the park across the street from the courthouse where Trump was on trial he opened a backpack, lifting out a can told the woman beside him ‘Get away, get far away’ – poured gasoline on his hair, face, soaking his clothes, struck a lighter.

On fire, he staggered three steps, fell to his knees, rolled over onto his back, engulfed in flames – within minutes police officers spraying fire extinguishers put out the flames. They wheeled him into an ambulance still alive, red lights flashing rushed him to a hospital in critical condition.

That night in the hospital a lost soul died.

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Carter Wrenn

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A Lost Soul

We don’t know much about him – he grew up in a village on the coast of Long Island, bowled in high school, sang karaoke, got two college degrees, moved to St. Augustine, Florida.

His mother, struggling with pulmonary disease, died – he wrote, “I am proud to say she navigated the awful challenges of this disease with strength, dignity and spirit through the very end.”

A high school friend says “he was heartbroken.”

Falling apart, ranting, cursing, he stood outside a Florida hotel dressed only in his underwear – spent three days in a psych ward. Devils whispering, on social media he wrote about doomsday cults, a haunted carnival, martyrs setting themselves on fire – left Florida for New York.

Wearing a gray tee shirt, walking into the park across the street from the courthouse where Trump was on trial he opened a backpack, lifting out a can told the woman beside him ‘Get away, get far away’ – poured gasoline on his hair, face, soaking his clothes, struck a lighter.

On fire, he staggered three steps, fell to his knees, rolled over onto his back, engulfed in flames – within minutes police officers spraying fire extinguishers put out the flames. They wheeled him into an ambulance still alive, red lights flashing rushed him to a hospital in critical condition.

That night in the hospital a lost soul died.

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Carter Wrenn

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