No one at John's lab or McCracken's lab has commented, and the university has said little. But Marianne Benoit- Marand, a French neuroscientist who worked with John in 2007 and has friends at that lab, said John was doing excellent work.
"They were in shock," Benoit- Marand said of lab staff. "One of my friends told me they couldn't understand what was going on. It was so big, so unexpected."
McCracken's adviser for four years at Pittsburgh said he saw no sign that he was using drugs.
"Not at all," said Anthony A. Grace, a professor of neuroscience. "He spent his weekends in Baltimore. The rest of the time he was here. He was a very focused, hard-working individual."
Grace added: "It seems counterintuitive with what someone with a good knowledge would do. And he knew these things extremely well. But that's what happens: Drugs hijack the brain. It's not that someone's a good person or bad person, but it's a disease that needs to be treated."
Only McCracken knows what happened, and his lawyer hinted that he might talk publicly someday.
"He's trying to figure out how to live the rest of his life," Irwin said. "Part of that is going to be sharing with people, at the appropriate time, his mistakes."
Baltimore Sun reporter Laura Vozzella contributed to this article.
