The journey that ended with a man setting himself on fire Friday outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald J. Trump is on trial appears to have begun in Florida, with a series of increasingly bizarre outbursts.
Standing in the afternoon cold, 37-year-old Max Azzarello, of St. Augustine, Fla., threw flyers into the air before using an accelerant and burning his body. Police rushed to extinguish the fire and he was taken to the emergency burn hospital, suffering serious injuries. He passed away on Friday night.
The fire just a block or two from the courthouse seemed calculated to attract widespread attention, horrifying bystanders and temporarily overshadowing the important trial of a former president.
But a closer look at the path the man took to this point of self-destruction reveals a recent spiral of upheaval, marked by a worldview that has become increasingly confusing and fragmented. – and does not appear to be affiliated with any political party. His social media posts and arrest records suggest the burnings instead stemmed from a place of conspiracy theories and paranoia.
Until last summer, Mr. Azzarello appeared to have led a relatively quiet life. After graduating from high school, where he was a member of a bowling team, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009, with degrees in anthropology and public policy.
As a student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, where he received a master’s degree in city and regional planning in 2012, he was famous for leaving Post-it notes in support of classmates in the hallways as well as karaoke performances of Frank Sinatra and Disney Tunes, said former classmate Katie Brennan.
“He was incredibly curious about social justice and how things ‘could’ be,” Ms. Brennan said. “He is very creative and adventurous.”
He began his career, according to his LinkedIn profile, moving between jobs in marketing, sales, and technology. In 2013, he worked on the campaign of Representative Tom Suozzi of Long Island, who was then running for Nassau County executive.
An old high school friend, Steven Waldman, called Mr. Azzarello one of the smartest people he knew.
“He was a friend and a good person and cared about the world,” he said.
But there is also reason to worry.
Last year, it appeared he had settled in St. Augustine, where he lived in a modest apartment near the Matanzas River in that historic city. He is a pleasant but sometimes strange neighbor.
“An extremely nice guy,” said Larry Altman, the property manager at his apartment building. He has political views that I don’t consider mainstream. He called our government and the world government a Ponzi scheme.”
But there was no indication he had any desire to harm himself, Mr. Altman said.
“If you met Max, he would shake your hand and you would have a nice conversation,” he said. “He will treat you with respect.”
However, it is clear that he was deeply affected by the loss of his mother. Elizabeth Azzarello passed away on April 6, 2022, near Sea Cliff, NY, on Long Island, where she had been battling lung disease, Mr. Azzarello wrote on Instagram in April 2022.
“I am extremely proud to say that she overcame the terrible challenges of this disease with strength, dignity and spirit until the very end,” he wrote.
After this loss, his old friends saw a change. “It was around this time that he became more outspoken,” Mr. Waldman said. “They are very close and have a good relationship. He was heartbroken.
By the following year, the clarity with which Mr. Azzarello expressed his grief in writing was gone, and a troubling picture emerged.
In March 2023, he listed his occupation on LinkedIn as “Research Investigator,” self-employed. In June of that year, he tagged Ms. Brennan and several others to make sure they saw what he wrote. She described it as a “manifesto” and called him immediately and tried to intervene. Finally, she wrote to a member of his family to make sure they knew he was in crisis, she said.
About five months later, in early August 2023, he posted on Facebook about visiting a mental health facility: “Three days in the psych ward, and all I got were socks My new favorite”.
A few days later, at St. Augustine was so picturesque, he went to dinner at the Casa Monica hotel on Cordova Street. Police said Azzarello then walked into the lobby, walked up to the signature of former President Bill Clinton, who had signed the wall several years earlier, and threw a glass of wine into it. Police said he admitted what he did to officers. The episode could very well be considered a man’s bad night.
Two days later, police said, he returned, standing outside the hotel wearing only his underwear, cursing and cursing. And just three days later, he vandalized a sign outside a nearby United Way office before climbing into the back of a stranger’s truck and rummaging through its contents, police said.
All these events took place within walking distance of the apartment where even his most distant views had only recently been politely given.
In the following months, Mr. Azzarello promoted his sporadic concerns in a document posted on Facebook. These sites attacked fascism and general public complacency. They espouse general anti-government sentiment but do not appear to target an obvious political party.
The article stated: “Like frogs in boiling water, the public does not recognize the rotten truth behind the illusion of freedom.” The man had written lovingly about his mother just a year earlier – “charming and warm, goofy and funny, compassionate and supportive” – and their time together seemed to have disappear.
His biggest worry appears to be cryptocurrencies, which he sees as a threat to humanity.
It’s unclear when he arrived in New York, checking into the Soho 54 Hotel on Watts Street in Lower Manhattan and making his way to a sideshow outside the city’s downtown criminal courthouse.
The area he chose, Collect Pond Park, has been an on and off phase for Trump supporters and opponents for months. Mr. Azzarello was there on Thursday, holding a sign and speaking in ways that would have been strange in other places, consistent with the park’s different accents.
On Friday, the crowds in the park thinned out. Around 1:35 p.m., people started screaming. A blurry image followed: a man on fire, bright flames licking at his clothes and hair; officers scrambled over obstacles; an ambulance departs.
His oldest friends struggled to understand this action.
“He was a kind person and a gentle soul,” said Carol Waldman, the mother of his childhood friend. “A truly wonderful, wonderful young man. He has his whole life ahead of him.”
If you are having suicidal thoughts, you can call or text 988 to contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or visit TalkingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources .
Nate Schweber, January ransom, Stefanos Chen, Nichole Manna, Nicholas Fandos, Chelsea Rose Marcius And Claire Fahy Report contributions. Susan C. Beachy contributing research.
