Nava '09 had history of behavioral issues

When it emerged last month that Francisco Nava '09 had faked death threats to campus conservatives and fabricated an assault on himself, students struggled to reconcile their perceptions of a student they described as "quiet," "smart" and "jovial" with his actions.

As the campus tries to come to grips with the incident, some central questions remain unanswered: What were Nava's motivations for hurting himself? And could his actions have been foreseen?

David Nathan '90, a psychiatrist with a practice in Princeton, said that though Nava's actions might have seemed unexpected, an individual's behavior is often foreshadowed by his past actions. Nava reportedly fabricated a similar incident when he was a senior at the Groton School in Groton, Mass., writing "Die Fags!" on the wall of a room he shared with a classmate, and then notifying school officials.

Stressing that he had neither met nor examined Nava, Nathan said that "if this gentleman were out of touch with reality and had a severe disorder, then some aspects of this case could be explained." If Nava had a psychological disorder, then one of the most likely syndromes would be factitious disorder, a condition where a person fakes symptoms to adopt the role of a sick or injured person.

That explanation would match Nava's expressed reason for the fabrication at Groton. "He said he was very distraught at the time," politics professor Robert George told The Daily Princetonian in an interview last month, describing Nava's admission to him of the Groton incident. George noted that Nava's father had recently died when the event occurred. "He told me he was friendless and very homesick and wanted out of Groton."

Nathan said, however, that factitious disorder does not apply to actions undertaken to pursue "external incentives," such as promoting a political cause. Nava told fellow Anscombe Society members and George that he had, in fact, fabricated the assault to draw attention to the group's pro-chastity cause, which he felt was not making enough progress.

"If he felt like he were literally being persecuted, and the only way to relieve the persecution is by hurting himself, that would be of psychiatric origin," Nathan said. "But if he is able to consciously deliberate and make the decision to hurt himself with a specific political or personal goal in mind, that is not a psychiatric condition, in my opinion."

"The presence of secondary gain argues against the primacy of a psychiatric disorder," Nathan added. "When somebody injures him or herself or is engaged in some sort of bizarre behavior, and there appears to be an ulterior motive, you can't presume a psychiatric disorder without getting more information that one actually exists."

Acquaintances and friends of Nava interviewed for this article said that his actions came as a surprise to them and was inconsistent with his behavior during the past semester. They said they hadn't noticed any warning signs and couldn't have predicted his behavior.

"I would consider his behavior throughout the semester to be normal and aboveboard," said Mohit Agrawal '11, one of Nava's advisees in Butler College, where he was an alternate RCA. "It really came as a huge shock to me and, I believe, to everyone in my RCA group, that he was perpetrating this hoax all semester long."

"My impression was that he was quiet, but nice," said Greg Dooley '11, another of Nava's advisees. "I certainly didn't notice any behavioral changes."

Megan Munguia '09, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), as the Mormon church is also known, said that Nava had been worshipping with his fellow LDS students less frequently this fall. "Francisco hasn't been at church that often or been around that much this year," she said. "I honestly had seen him a lot less in the past few months, significantly less, and had very few conversations with him. So he didn't seem to be interacting at all with the same people [as he previously had]."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Mormon students emphasized that they did not think that Nava's actions were influenced by his religion. "Francisco's recent incident clearly does not reflect the ideas, beliefs, and values taught and promoted by our church," Mickey Hagen '09 said in an email. Hagen has been on a leave of absence from the University for the past two years.

"Obviously, what he did appears to be motivated by religious conviction," Munguia said, "so I understand how people think his Mormonism might have affected it. And people think Mormons are weird, and I get that. But if you look at the incident that happened in high school, he wasn't Mormon when that happened."

One of Nava's classmates from Groton, who was granted anonymity because he did not want to be seen as publicly insulting a fellow student, said he came to realize that Nava "had some pretty serious psychological issues" during their time at school together. Despite coming across as "a really nice, gentle guy" while at Groton, Nava, according to classmates, "definitely projected an aura and a politics of being a very conservative individual."

The classmate said Nava was not at graduation with the rest of his class, though a Groton spokesman said Nava technically completed the requirements for graduation and was granted a medical leave in the spring of his senior year, after having been admitted early to Princeton. The University did not rescind his admission after learning of the Groton incident but made him defer for a year to get therapy and counseling.

In the 2004 book "Teen Spirit: One World, Many Paths," edited by Associate Dean of Religious Life Paul Raushenbush, Nava wrote that he was "preparing to serve a two-year mission" for the Mormon church, which he indicated he joined at the age of 18. The New York Sun reported that Nava, who was originally admitted to the University's Class of 2006 and was a member of Groton's 2002 graduating class, did serve on a two-year mission trip to Russia after completing his freshman year at Princeton.

Though puzzled by Nava's actions, Agrawal said that he would remember Nava, called "Paco" by friends, as an "approachable and friendly" RCA who would surprise his advisees with midnight tea and cookies.

"Instead of anger, the emotion I feel most strongly is pity," Agrawal added. "Paco must have been facing some deep, unresolved personal problems, and he must have been facing them alone because he never [showed] anything of the sort to his zees."