The way I understand it, he got mixed up with some girl who turned him on to meth and then convinced him that her ex bf had been harassing her to the point where they needed to myrtle him and put him in the river.
Yeah it sucks. He was a cool dude- into electronics and RC stuff. Now he's so disconnected from everything that he might as well not even exist in this realm. Also the other dude was probably not that bad. I spoke to one of his family members years ago, but only once.