Short answers, pulled from the story.
James Dallas Egbert III was a sixteen-year-old child prodigy who walked into the steam tunnels beneath Michigan State University in 1979. He struggled with intense academic pressure, drug addiction, and personal issues before entering the utility tunnels.
William Dear suggested that James Dallas Egbert III may have entered the tunnels to play a live-action version of Dungeons & Dragons. This hypothesis became the central theory driving the search efforts despite the media accepting it as fact without questioning its validity.
James Dallas Egbert III committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1980 less than a year after his initial disappearance. The true circumstances of his death remained hidden for years following this event.
William Dear kept these details secret due to a promise he made to James Dallas Egbert III himself. It was not until four years after Egbert's passing that the full truth finally emerged to the public through the publication of The Dungeon Master.
The Dungeon Master published by William Dear in 1984 offered an alternative explanation to the widely reported version of events regarding the disappearance. This work helped shape long-term perceptions of gaming culture and remains a key text for understanding how moral panics form around new hobbies.