reported to have been hospitalized following a suicide attempt. Release Starting in April 2010, a sustained human rights letter-writing campaign sprang up to insist upon Gomes' release. In August, a U.S. consular delegation visited Pyongyang to request permission to bring Gomes home, but were unsuccessful. Shortly afterward, former president Jimmy Carter flew out to North Korea to personally negotiate Gomes' release. The Obama administration stressed that this was a private humanitarian effort, and that Carter was acting solely in his capacity as a private citizen, and not on behalf of the United States government. Carter arrived in Pyongyang on August 25, and on August 26, Gomes was released. The Korean Central News Agency reported that "Jimmy Carter made an apology to Kim Yong Nam for American Gomes' illegal entry into North Korea and gave him the assurance that such case will never happen again". On his repatriation to the U.S., family members reported that Gomes was a little thin but was otherwise in good physical health. Asked in an interview whether he had suffered torture in North Korea, Gomes responded that "there were moments of violence and of humanity." His remark became the title of his self-published 2015 autobiography, Violence and Humanity. Death Gomes died on November 17, 2017 in the Mission Bay Park part of San Diego. Gomes was 38 years old at the time, had recently moved from Boston to San Diego, and was believed to be homeless at the time of his death. He was spotted on fire in a dirt field, running, and then collapsing. His death was ruled a suicide by the San Diego County Medical Examiner, whose report found that Gomes had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder following his release from North Korea. See also 2009 imprisonment of American journalists by North Korea Human Rights in North Korea List of Americans detained by North Korea References External links 1979 births 2017 deaths Schoolteachers from Massachusetts American Christian missionaries American people imprisoned in North Korea