It is unknown when Richard Joseph Bangle came to Imperial Beach or how long he stayed.
All his mother Sylvia Bangle-Johnson knows is that for the last 13 years Bangle owned a P.O. Box in Imperial Beach. The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office listed Bangle as a transient, though according to his mother he passed away at a local hotel.
For much of the first part of his life, Richard Joseph Bangle moved around the country and world.
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His was born Sept. 6, 1961 in Norfolk, VA, spent his childhood in Ohio and attended high school in San Jose, CA.
After high school he served in the U.S. Navy for four years before being honorably discharged. It was in the Navy where Bangle saw the world outside of the United States and traveled to places like the Philippines and parts of Asia.
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After his discharge, Bangle moved back to San Jose to work in the family business Bangle-tech-Design Inc. which later changed its name to Testar Inc. The company specialized in the production of automated test systems for semiconductors.
After that Bangle started his own technical support company called Amadeus.
When he moved to Imperial Beach, his family started to notice a change in him.
“We did have visits with him, but his anger usually took over,” said his mother Sylvia Bangle-Johnson.
Anger led Bangle to move back into his mother’s house but she noticed a bigger change in him and he grew even more distant.
"In 2007, he was withdrawing more and more," she said. "He heard the voices and the voices would tell him things that he didn’t want to believe. He would pull away from us.”
As a child Bangle was diagnosed as hyperactive, but school wasn't tough for him.
“The teachers loved him. They all wanted to be the one that would do or say that thing that would spark him,” Bangle-Johnson said.
As an adult it was discovered that he was bi-polar.
Bangle was a joy to be around when he was healthy, but his disease was a roller coaster ride for him and his family, his mother said.
When the disease kicked-in it was a struggle, but his mother never gave up on him, but Bangle refused to get help.
As the disease progressed, Bangle's mother believes the voices in her son’s head kept getting worse. She said they would make him angry and do or say things he did not want to.
The only thing that freed him from this disease for the moment was animals, she said. He loved watching animal television shows and helping hurt and stranded creatures.
Sylvia said her best memory of her son is one that every mother probably has.
“My most joyful memory as a mother goes back to when they take their first steps and when he was in the chess championships finals for Santa Clara County, and yes, the negative things, even when he would get through them, and he would try, those were joyful times,” Sylvia Bangle-Johnson said.
According to The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office, Bangle’s cause of death is still pending. He passed away July 7. He was 49.
He is survived by his mother Sylvia Bangle-Johnson, father, Richard Morris Bangle and two brothers Charles Aaron Bangle and Thaddeus Wade Bangle.
