A Strange Disappearance : ‘I was . . . bored getting raided by the FBI, bored in prison, bored writing books, bored being bored.’

In the keen, analytical mind of kid computer whiz Bill Landreth, life did not compute.

So one day in September he pushed himself away from his IBM-PC computer--its screen glowing with an uncompleted sentence--and he walked out the front door of a friend’s home in Escondido. He has not been seen or heard from since.

The authorities want him because he is Bill Landreth “the Cracker,” who was convicted in federal court in 1984 for his exploits as a computer hacker. He broke into some of the most secure computer systems in the United States, among them the GTE Telemail electronic mail network, where he peeped at National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Defense Department computer correspondence. He was placed on three years’ probation, and his probation officer wants to know where he is.

His literary agent wants him because he is Bill Landreth the author, who has cashed in with a book on computer hacking and 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.

Susan and Gulliver Fourmyle want him because he is Bill Landreth their son, the eldest of their eight children. Granted, they say, they have been on a search for their own Utopia and they haven’t seen him since May, 1985, when they moved from Poway to Alaska and then to Oahu, where they now live.

His friends want him because he is crazy Bill Landreth, IQ 163, who has pulled stunts such as this before and “disappeared” into the night air--but never for more than three weeks and surely not for 2 1/2 months. Quite frankly, they’re a little worried.

Some think Landreth, 21, committed suicide. And there is clear evidence that he at least considered it--most notably in a rambling and esoteric eight-page discourse he wrote during the summer.

The letter, typed into his computer, printed out and left in his room for someone--anyone--to discover, touched on such subjects as the evolution of mankind, the prospects for man’s immortality and the defeat of the aging process, nuclear war, communism and 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 birth day. This will have given me 22 or so years with which to convince myself that life really isn’t worth living. Why should it be? If I am going to eternal hell or heaven, let me go now. If I am to forever cease existing, let me go now. If I am to forever live as I do today, let me go now. What other options are there?

“No doubt, there will be speculation. ‘Financial trouble?’ ‘Romantic problems?’ ‘Parent-Child conflict?’ ‘Shakespeare?’ ‘Dungeons and Dragons?’ ‘Heavy Metal?’ ‘Beethoven?’ No on all counts.

“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.”

It is unclear how much time elapsed between that entry onto his computer disk and the next one. In the next paragraph, he seems to have put his suicide plan on hold. It reads: “Since writing the above, my plans have changed slightly. I have, in the past months, been kept busy dispersing the moneys in my bank account, and at this moment it is fairly low. Don’t get me wrong: I still have plenty to live on . . . and I have about an additional $1,000 in checks that I have not bothered to cash. But the point is that I am going to take this 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 22nd birthday is Dec. 26. His best friend, among others, is not counting on ever 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 who also has been convicted in federal court of wire fraud in connection with computer hacking and placed on probation.

“What I got from his letter was that he had the same instincts--to take and get what you can from life for yourself, and that people do things for personal gain. He didn’t like that in people and he didn’t like it in himself, either.

“Most people (would then) turn to a religion, which he didn’t believe in. And the only way, in his mind, to rise above that (personal greed) was by killing himself and saying, ‘I’m an imperfect person,’ ” Tom said.

“If Bill’s gonna come back,” he added, “it won’t be because he’ll read that his friends miss him. He’ll come back when he wants to. He asked me once if I could ever get up and leave and never come back and never talk again to anyone he knows. I don’t remember what I said, but he said he could.”

Tom was the last person to see Landreth. It was around Sept. 25--he doesn’t remember exactly--and Landreth, who had been sharing a home in Clairemont, had spent a week living in Tom’s home so that the two could share Landreth’s computer. Authorities had confiscated Tom’s own IBM-PC and he had work to complete for his own book.

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

“He started to write the proposal for it on the computer, and I went to take a shower,” Tom said. “When I came out, he was gone. The proposal was in mid-sentence. And I haven’t seen him since.”

Apparently the only thing Landreth took with him was his house key, a passport and the clothes on his back. It is unclear how much money he had with him. When friends went to Landreth’s bank several weeks later to see whether he had been making transactions, a bank officer told them he was unable to find any record of Landreth’s account--that apparently it had been electronically destroyed, perhaps by a hacker. Classic Landreth, his friends figured.

Tom said that, initially, he was not concerned about Landreth’s absence. After all, just the day before the two had gone shopping for the latest issues of computer magazines and had bought some new computer programs. “I thought he decided to get a cab and go get something to eat.” (Landreth does not have a driver’s license and relied on friends and cabs to get around.)

When Landreth did not return, Tom said, he still was not overly concerned. This was the same Landreth who, during the summer, left for three weeks in Mexico without telling anyone--including friends he had seen the night before his departure.

But concern grew by Oct. 1, when Landreth failed to keep a speaking engagement with a group of auditors in Ohio for which he was to receive $1,000 plus expenses. Landreth may have kept a messy room and poor financial records, but he was reliable enough not to miss a speaking engagement, said his friends and his literary agent, Bill Gladstone.

“We thought that maybe he went to some mountain retreat to get his book done, as authors sometimes do,” Gladstone said, noting that Landreth’s second manuscript was due in August and has not been delivered. But the manuscript never came and Landreth never appeared.

Friends filed a missing-persons report with the San Diego Police Department in mid-October.

Among those dumbfounded by Landreth’s disappearance is Holly Edwards, who advertised last spring for someone to share a three-bedroom house with her and another friend in Clairemont. Landreth answered the ad and moved in, paying a third of the $950 monthly rent.

She described Landreth as a quiet, unassuming fellow--never moody--whose bedroom was a real mess but who was fastidious in the rest of the house. He would stay up late at night working quietly on his computer, she said, although he religiously took time out to watch “Late Night With David Letterman” on television. In the morning, just as religiously, the two would watch Phil Donahue together.

If he did not eat his meals out, which he was apt to do, he would throw a frozen dinner in the toaster oven or order a pizza. He didn’t drink except for an occasional beer, didn’t smoke and didn’t take drugs except for the occasional “experiment” to see the effect a drug would have on him, Edwards and Tom said.

Edwards said that she and Landreth developed a warm platonic relationship nurtured by his generosity and gentlemanly nature. She said she was concerned that others were trying to take advantage of him because he was so loose with his money, buying meals and gifts for friends, including her.

“And he was very polite--so polite, it freaked me out sometimes,” said Edwards, who is a topless dancer at a San Diego nightclub. “One time I came home and said, ‘Oh, my feet are killing me’--I’d been in high heels for eight hours--and he’d come over and rub my feet. I’d say, ‘Wow, you don’t have to do that.’ And he wasn’t making a pass at me. I trusted him totally.”

In fact, Landreth is anything but the stereotypical computer nerd, everyone agrees. Thin, with medium-length straight brown hair, Landreth never seemed lacking for a girlfriend--or two.

“He’s quite a social person, which is kind of funny because most of the people who are good with computers get removed from other people,” Tom said. “I really admired him quite a bit because he had all-around intelligence and interests.”

What attracted people to Landreth may have been the sense of mystery that surrounded him--a sense that he seemed to enjoy cultivating, almost as a tease.

Tom, for instance, cited the time Landreth left for Mexico with no notice to friends. He returned as if nothing unusual had occurred and offered no apologies for the concern his sudden absence had created.

Stephanie Wong, a UC San Diego student who struck up a friendship with Landreth, said: “He enjoyed being mysterious with people--taking off for three days and not telling anyone where he went. In a sense, he just didn’t think he had to explain to anyone his whereabouts.”

Wong and others say that attitude may have taken hold during his early teen years, when his parents admittedly gave him a loose rein.

(Landreth’s parents changed their name to Fourmyle in 1981, taking on the name of a character in the science-fiction novel “The Star’s My Destination” by Alfred Bester, said his mother, Susan Fourmyle. “It’s a marvelous book. You must read it,” she said.)

“He liked to keep things to himself and be mysterious. He didn’t like people knowing much about his life,” said Monica Tims, 20, a UCSD student who dated Landreth over the summer. “But one night we stayed up all night talking and he said he had been disappearing since he was 14 or 15--he’d go off for days--and his parents wouldn’t care. . . .

“I think he just got fed up with his life style--it was boring--and he used that note just to distract people. He was teasing.”

Steve Burnap, a buddy from Poway High School days, said that during the summer Landreth had grown apathetic about life. “He just didn’t seem to care much about anything any more.” What about the risk of running afoul of his probation terms, including staying in touch with authorities? “It was his nature not to worry about things like that,” Burnap said.

His mother said that she would like to write off the experience as “an irresponsible adventure,” assuming he is safe and sound. She last talked to her son in August. “He would never write and I’d call him once in a while,” she said. “Even then, he wouldn’t say very much. He was a very private person.”

The Police Department began investigating Landreth’s disappearance after the missing-persons report was filed. But field representative Camille Sherrill said that shortly afterward, she turned the case over to the FBI when it was learned he was in violation of his probation.

An FBI spokesman said Tuesday that he was unable to give any more details on the investigation. Probation officials said they could not discuss the case at all because of confidentiality laws.

Tom Anderson said that he is not counting the days until he sees his best friend again.

“I’m not real sure if he’s dead, but I’m not waiting for him to come back, either. That would only screw me up, because what if he didn’t?” he said.

“I’ve written it off as a given that he won’t come back.”