Anatomy of an amnesiac

>> Did police mishandle the strange case of Matthew Honeycutt?

by MATTHEW HAYS

The media did an about face early last week when James Brighton's true identity was uncovered: the mysterious amnesiac, who'd become a staple of the nightly news since last Thanksgiving, was in fact Matthew Honeycutt, a former employee of a Gospel TV station in Tennessee.

Perhaps the only person to experience the ups and downs of Honeycutt's ordeal as much as Honeycutt himself is Gregg Blachford, the Gay Line volunteer who took the alleged amnesiac into his home for seven weeks.

Those seven weeks ended abruptly when, after a sustained international media campaign which included a Web site and stops at the New York Times and The Advocate, an item on Hard Copy led to tips about Honeycutt's true identity.

What shocked Blachford--and undoubtedly Honeycutt himself--was the MUC police response to the newfound information. Apparently, the police spoke with Kevin Honeycutt, Matthew's brother, at around 9 p.m. on the evening of Tuesday, January 5. Approximately four hours later, on Kevin's word and under the gaze of a TV cameraman, eight police officers in three vans arrived at Blachford's home.

Blachford says he was awakened by a phone call from police at 1:10 a.m. He confirmed that the amnesiac was indeed in his downtown apartment. Police then entered, handcuffed Honeycutt, charged him with public mischief and trotted him off.

For Blachford, the raid on his home ended a long and emotionally draining search for the identity of the man he'd come to know--and befriend--as James. But the arrest raised a new series of questions for Blachford. Had the MUC taken its cues from the notoriously sleazy American trash TV show Hard Copy? How did a Hard Copy cameraman know that police would be arresting Honeycutt at 1 a.m.? (The footage also aired locally on Global, but a member of Global's news team confirmed the cameraman was assigned by Hard Copy.) And why did police send enough officers for a drug bust to conduct one simple arrest of a man with no violent criminal record?

MUC Detective Christine Debon, who investigated the Honeycutt case, defends police action, saying that they responded to what they consider substantial evidence that Honeycutt is a fraud--but, she says, "We can't make this information public." Debon says she has no idea how a Hard Copy cameraman knew about the timing of the police arrest.

Blachford says he was equally taken aback by media response to the arrest. Ever since he and other Gay Line staff had made Honeycutt's story public, the media had been relatively responsive and sympathetic. "But when news of the arrest broke, it went from James the good guy to Matthew the criminal," Blachford told the Mirror. "The first question they asked me after Matthew's arrest was, 'How does it feel to be duped?' I was not duped. We knew full well that the answers we were looking for might not be pretty."

While Blachford concedes Honeycutt has "a checkered job record," and did forge his brother's ID to get across the border, Blachford says he's nobody's fool. His hard-won trust came after Honeycutt phoned the Gay Line last November. At that point, Honeycutt was stuck in the psychiatric ward of the General Hospital, thinking his name was James Brighton. Though Gay Line's protocol dictates no contact with callers, Blachford says certain exceptions can occur in extreme circumstances--including dissociative amnesia. The Gay Line staff then set up a series of meetings with Honeycutt to see if his story rang true.

Blachford says that they knew Honeycutt definitely wasn't making up the gay thing. "He remembered Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and noticed a Bette Midler CD I had," Blachford recalls, adding that after living with Honeycutt--"a respectful roommate"--he believes the man isn't lying about the amnesia. "If you live with someone for that long, you'd think they'd slip up in their story. Matthew never has. The doctors arrived at that diagnosis after hypnotizing Matthew and administering truth serum. If he's faking it, he should become an actor."

Blachford suspects Montreal police may well drop their charges against Honeycutt because of a simple lack of evidence. "How can they prove he's lying?" he asks. Blachford says his main concern now is for Honeycutt's fate south of the border. Though Kevin Honeycutt, who is a Pentecostal priest, has said he will drop any potential charges against his brother, Blachford thinks adapting to a small town in Tennessee--one Honeycutt apparently has little or no memory of--may be extremely difficult for a man who claims to remember little more than living in a cosmopolitan city for the past three months. "We're trying to find a support group of gay friends for him down there, like the one he has up here.