Midtown fall victim a 'spiritual' traveler

"He was a wandering gypsy," she said. "And over the years he just grew into this amazing spiritual being. I've never met anyone like him."

Thornton's body was found early Monday on a third floor deck of an 18-story apartment building at 710 Peachtreet Street, near the Fox Theatre. Police say he fell from the top floor apartment where he was attending a party that started Sunday and ran well past midnight.

A sixth-floor resident reported hearing "a loud noise, almost like a boom" at about 3 a.m. Monday, but didn't notice anything suspicious when he looked out the window. When he looked out again at around 7 a.m., he saw Thornton's body and notified security.

It is unclear why Thornton plunged to his death.

Atlanta police remain uncertain whether to call the death an accident, a suicide or a homicide, department spokesman Sgt. Curtis Davenport said Monday. Police are also undecided about other possible charges. He said police are awaiting the results of a toxicology exam, which could take more than a month.

The occupant of the 18th floor apartment, Jimmy Velez, told investigators that he had a party that night "where they drank and did cocaine," according to a police report obtained Wednesday.

Davenport said it was unclear whether investigators would seek drug-related charges.

"We're looking into it," he said. "The investigation is still open."

Velez, 26, answered his cellphone just after 1 p.m. on  the Wednesday after Thornton's death sounding groggy and saying he'd just awoken.

He said what he told police was that he "wasn't 100 percent sure if there was cocaine use" that night, adding "I think some people might have been tipsy or whatever."

Velez said he'd met Thornton maybe eight months previously and that they'd bonded over a mutual interest in music and gemstones. Velez described his friend as a sunny traveler with a magnetic personality and "tons of light and movement inside of him," a man who "passed the light to people who had problems."

"He understood how things work," Velez said. He possessed "the type of knowledge that changes people's perspectives, stops wars, stops poverty."

Thornton drifted in and out of Velez's life during travels to and from Atlanta. He visited Sunday night for a party that drew maybe two dozen people, Velez said. There was drinking that night, but it was not a raucous affair, Velez said, adding that Thornton might have been a little tipsy.

It was Mother's Day, he noted, and "everyone was on this vibration of people talking about their mothers."

Despite Thornton's upbeat demeanor, Velez said he believed the man took his own life though he couldn't really explain why. "I felt like he did it for all of us," he said.

Velez said he was planning to drive to Florida with some friends to visit Thornton's mother and to console her. "I have a feeling he wanted us to do this," he said, "to see his family, meet them, help them. Do whatever we can."

Desilet, Thornton's friend from Florida, said she doubted Thornton would take his own life.

"I don't believe that he would ever commit suicide," she said. "He loved life." She said Thornton drank a little and wanted to quit, but that he hated it when people did cocaine because he thought it was a "dirty" drug. She added, somewhat cryptically, that she'd spoken to people who knew people at the party, and that she could "see that maybe he [Thornton] was in a mind frame where he wasn't making clear decisions."

Desilet, who is a pediatric nurse, said Thornton had become a close family friend. He often stayed with her on his visits to Tampa, and always insisted on visiting her mother. She said he liked to paint and draw, play music and sing, and would stay in one place for only a few weeks. She said he grew up in a small north Florida town called Sycamore and as a young man lived in a shack in the woods.

When he stayed with her in Tampa, he would work on construction sites, do yard work and take other odd jobs until he'd saved enough for bus fare. She said she could tell when it was time for him to move on, because he would grow "antsy" and start taking frequent walks. And then he'd be off -- to California, New York or wherever.

He traveled lightly, carrying a few changes of clothes and a beloved red accordion on which he played a variety of music, including reggae, Desilet said. Recently, he called her from New Mexico to tell her he'd gotten married and changed his name to Jah Tree, she said, adding that he had an abiding interest in Native American history and culture.

Desilet said Thornton brought his bride for a visit to Tampa and called her his "soulmate" but that she didn't believe the marriage was a formal one. "It was more of a spiritual union I came to find out," she said.

Thornton was also something of a daredevil, she said. He loved the outdoors, and swimming on the Suwanee River. Whenever he found a good tree, he'd climb it and plunge into the water. Heights did not scare him, she said.

"He didn't live the most secure life, and he was a very intense person and he liked to push everything to the limit," she said. "I think he knew his life was going to be short, but he didn't think it was going to be this short."