Scores Visit Site of Fiery Suicide

Oblivious to a steady downpour of freezing rain, scores of visitors flocked Tuesday to the site where Gregory D. Levey, 30, fatally burned himself in an apparent protest of U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf.

Many of the protesters carried candles or brought flowers to the spot on the town green where Levey, a 1984 University of Massachusetts graduate, doused himself Monday with two gallons of paint thinner, then turned himself into a human fireball. He carried a sign reading simply “Peace.” He had attached his driver’s license to the sign’s back.

His identity was disclosed Tuesday after an autopsy. Lt. Edward Harrington of the state police said the case is being treated as “an unfortunate suicide.”

Levey, the Boston Globe said, was the son of the newspaper’s food critic, Robert Levey, and the stepson of Globe syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman. A spokesman for the Globe said the newspaper would have no other statement on the death, saying it is a “private matter.”

Sister Claire Carter, 40, a Buddhist nun from nearby Leverett, chanted softly Tuesday near the ring of rocks marking where Levey died, a site where she said she felt it was “very important to pray.” She arrived Monday, soon after the 1:53 p.m. incident, and stayed through the night as hundreds of people stopped to pray or to gaze at the charred ground.

In South Hadley, an administrator at the Hampshire Educational Collaborative, where Levey had worked as a substitute teaching aide, called him a “gentle and quiet” man. The administrator, who gave her name only as Linda, said Levey “did not seem to be disturbed in any way.” She said his death was a shock for the school for special-needs children. “We sat here stunned ourselves,” she said.

Levey, who police said was single, seemed purposeful in his death, onlookers said. When a first match failed to ignite, he quickly lit a second. His body was engulfed in flames too quickly for spectators to stop him. “I don’t think he refused their help,” state police trooper Jay Bowman said. “But the amount of fluid he poured on himself made their efforts futile.”

Shortly after the incident, Pamela Jeffreys, of Amherst, was arrested for trespassing when she tried to lay a wreath where Levey’s body lay and shouted, “This is a symbol of love and life!”

Jay Carter, 19, an employee at Bonducci’s Cafe, directly across from the town common, condemned the “spectator sport” atmosphere that accompanied Levey’s death, saying, “Even the hot dog man rushed down and wheeled his cart over there so he could watch it or make money, I’m not sure which.”

Levey was not known to have participated in other anti-war activity. University officials said he graduated with a degree in English and a C average.