Our cousin Ricky had autism, was a savant, and died at age 18 under bizarre circumstances. We look at his life, his contacts, and his death, which is both a tragedy and a persistent mystery.

He died of suffocation, in a barn. But the setting and the manner of his death are puzzling. The setting is pretty weird, and the manner — the one given on the death certificate — was never known by even his siblings until late 2024. Ricky’s parents took that secret with them to the grave.

It’s been more than 50 years since Ricky’s death. And the family still has questions about how he came to die. He left his house to milk the goats. He walked about 120 feet down to the barn, and he never came back.