July 18, 2012 – The father of the Marina City resident who fell from the west tower on June 24 says his son was tormented by “auditory hallucinations” in which passing thoughts “are amplified into a cacophony of sneering, self-destructive voices.”

Writing for the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, W. J. Thomas Mitchell, a professor of English and art history at the University of Chicago, described his 38-year-old son as “handsome, smart, honest, kind, and gentle,” but for more than 20 years, suffering from mental illness.

Gabriel Thomas Mitchell (left), according to his father, was committed to a psychiatric ward in 1993 for two weeks with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. “He went through alternating periods of rage and depression, delusion and visionary insight, destructive violence and the creation of poems and wild hieroglyphic drawings.”

After hospitalization, he moved into a facility operated by Thresholds, a social services agency, according to its website, “serving persons with severe and persistent mental illness.”

“Slowly he found his way out of this,” writes Mitchell, “partly through therapy, partly through work and friendships with what are called ‘prosumers’ in the world of mental illness – people who have crossed the threshold into some form of health: work, service to others, a measure of calm and optimism.”

Gabriel’s website at www.philmworx.com describes his experience in film, theater, writing, and teaching. According to his LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, he has written film screenplays and a novel and made numerous student films at Columbia College, University of Chicago, and New York University.

In 2004, Gabriel moved into a studio apartment at Marina City and worked at a nearby Jewel-Osco as a produce clerk. By the fall of 2011 he had returned to Columbia College to study documentary filmmaking. The next year, he moved into a one-bedroom unit his father had purchased in March.

“But even as he moved on, he continued to look back. His film scripts combined autobiographical reflections on the dark passages of his life with larger narratives of the history of philosophy.”

One film, Crazy Talk, was composed of interviews with psychiatrists, the mentally ill, homeless and ordinary people. “It is also an attempt to recreate the experience of mental illness from the inside with all the tools of cinematic sounds and sights – the worlds of visual and auditory hallucination that are so characteristic of schizophrenia, and so suited to the specific medium of film.”

Despite some progress, Mitchell says his son was still “accompanied by the dark forces of his illness, which often burst out in episodes of anger and frustration.”

Does not believe suicide was planned

On June 24, Mitchell says he received a text message from his wife, Janice. “Problem with Gabe. Come home.” A few minutes later, he learned his son had jumped from the balcony of his Marina City apartment on the 59th floor of the west tower, landing on North Dearborn Street. It had happened at 10:31 a.m. on a Sunday morning, according to Chicago police. His body remained under a white sheet until 12:50 p.m.

Mitchell describes entering the apartment, expecting chaos but finding everything in order. “The bed made, his projects neatly assembled on his drafting table, his laptop laden with recently sent emails to fellow filmmakers who wanted to work with him. It seemed obvious to us that he did not plan his suicide. An obsessive communicator, he did not leave a note.”

Gabriel is described in his obituary as a “filmmaker, artist, and poet.” He had one sister, Carmen, who lives in Los Angeles.