Suicide Diary Leads to Sailor’s Identity

Investigators used a diary kept by a man as he starved himself to death at a remote mountain campsite to identify him as a sailor based in San Diego.

Dental records confirmed the identity Thursday of Michael McLoughlin, a 36-year-old New York City native who was in the Navy for 10 years, state police investigator Richard Sypek said.

Hikers found McLoughlin’s body Dec. 11 with the 53-page diary he kept. His body lay near a tent pitched by a pond outside Ticonderoga, about 75 miles north of Albany in the Adirondack Mountains. His death was ruled a suicide.

McLoughlin was a petty officer first class and an instructor at the San Diego Naval Training Center, Sypek said.

The diary likened McLoughlin’s ordeal to Jesus’ 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, Sypek said. McLoughlin described destroying his food and hiding from hunters and search planes, he said.

“He describes how he feels as he dies. The hunger leaves him,” Sypek said.

The diary led Sypek to the man’s identity.

“He talks about Mission Beach. . . . He refers to the base and so forth,” Sypek said.

The diary covered part of August through Nov. 1. Sypek wouldn’t say specifically what the diary said about why McLoughlin wanted to kill himself.

“He was feeling hopelessness and helplessness. That’s the way he perceived the problems he was having.”