A 32-year-old Princeton, New Jersey, man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and determined not guilty by reason of insanity was found dead in his jail cell after being charged with tragically beating his younger brother to death and eating his eyeball during a psychotic episode.

Matthew Hertgen was found dead in the Mercer County jail on May 8, the county prosecutor’s office revealed on Friday, according to the New York Post.

In a bench trial, a New Jersey judge found Hertgen not guilty by reason of insanity in mid-March. He was in jail awaiting formal sentencing and placement in a mental hospital, where under New Jersey law he could remain for the rest of his life depending on his condition.

An official cause of death has not been released, but authorities believe it appears to be a suicide. Hertgen attempted to hang himself in jail a week after his February 2025 arrest.

The former Wesleyan University soccer player’s shocking story reveals how badly the largely baffling, and difficult-to-treat mental illness called schizophrenia can in time sabotage a seemingly normal individual’s life and the lives of the afflicted person’s loved ones.

Despite his condition, the Post has consistently dubbed Hertgen the “Preppy Princeton Killer.”

Hertgen’s mental health issues reportedly appeared when he was living in New York City in 2021, after he had graduated from Wesleyan and had a successful career as a vice president in a telecom company.

Four years later, he was charged with beating his 26-year-old brother Joseph with a golf club and stabbing him with a knife in the family’s Princeton apartment, setting the family cat on fire, and ripping out his brother’s eyeball and eating it.

Police found Joseph’s body in a pool of blood beside “a bloody knife, fork and plate … which led cops to believe Hertgen consumed the missing organ,” according to the Post.

Forensic psychologist Giani Perelli, who testified in Hertgen’s March 2025 trial, said the accused suffered from “prophetic and divine visions” and represented “one of the most severe mental illnesses I’ve ever seen.”

Pirelli told the Court that Hertgen had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and his delusions included the belief at various times that he was God, Jesus Christ, and the anti-Christ, as well as thinking he had “multiple souls.”

“Anytime he closes his eyes, he’s seeing tremendous visions,” Pirelli said, adding that Hertgen “wants to get help” but “believes that the spirit that overtook him in 2021 is basically too powerful for any medications or mental health treatment.”

Hertgen was convinced the world was headed for an apocalypse, and only a “sacrificial murder could save it,” the doctor also testified. That delusion was amplified after he read a chapter in Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s Red Book titled “The Sacrificial Murder.”

“It kind of clicks for him and he puts two and two together,” Pirelli said.

Well before his mental illness, Hertgen reportedly had an idyllic childhood and grew up with his brothers in an upscale home in Toms River before his family relocated to the luxury apartments in Princeton.

In his obituary, Hertgen’s family chose to remember him as a “caring and loving person.”

The family wrote:

Growing up, Matthew is remembered as a caring and loving person. He was blessed with a large and extended family who he enjoyed spending time with. Matthew attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut where he played soccer and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in microbiology and biochemistry. He went on to work as VP in a senior finance capacity for a telecom company for many years.

During his later years, Matthew struggled with severe and profound mental health issues; yet he expressed sorrow, remorse, and repentance in many ways. He departed with the love, friendship and forgiveness of his family and the eternal hope of salvation. May he rest in peace.

In the obituary, the family asked that donations be made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Mercer County, New Jersey.

Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Masquerade: A True Story of Seduction, Compulsion and Murder, the story of the sordid double life of an elite Detroit psychologist that is revealed only after his murder and dismemberment, as well as nine other crime books. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.