Scrolling through the 1979 Harvard Law School yearbook online is an exercise not unlike watching a segment of “Before They Were Famous.” There’s moppy-haired John Roberts. There’s grinning Ray Anderson, who went on to become the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. There’s 24-year-old Thomas Motley, active in the Black Law Student Association, in a suit and tie. And there’s Alfred Postell.
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Then he had a bad breakup with a woman he loved. Shortly afterward, Postell had his psychotic break.
“I was afraid,” his mother says. “. . . He ran downstairs, and I said, ‘What is wrong? What is wrong?’ And I tried to slap him a little bit to bring him back. And he started crying. . . . And from there, it went down, down, down, down.
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It’s a strange thing, how quickly 30 years can go by. The only mark Postell made on the public record in that time was in the form of criminal charges. He picked up a theft charge in 1989 in Ocean City District Court. He also got hit with some misdemeanor charges in the District in the 1990s. But beyond that, he’s been a ghost.”
