Decades Adrift in a Broken System, Then Charged in a Death on the Tracks

Martial Simon, mentally ill and homeless, spent years in and out of hospitals before being accused of shoving Michelle Go in front of a subway train.

To the homeless men lined up outside Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Manhattan, Martial Simon was a familiar figure: often incoherent, usually angry about something.

But over the course of Mr. Simon’s endless circuit of hospitals and jails, outpatient psychiatric programs and the streets, Larry Williamson grew friendly with him.

The frequent targets of Mr. Simon’s ire, Mr. Williamson said, were doctors and the medical establishment. He was upset that hospitals were discharging him before he believed he was well enough to live on his own.