Andreas Grassl (born 25 October 1984) is a German man found in England in April 2005, who remained unidentified for a long time due to his refusal to speak, communicating instead through drawing and playing the piano.
According to the newspaper's source, the man said that he had been planning to commit suicide when he was discovered on the beach in Sheerness, that he did not talk to the police due to his distressed state, and that he then continued to act mute.
[3] In a follow-up to the story on 24 August, the Daily Mirror named the man as Andreas Grassl and published an interview with his parents, farmers in Prosdorf, a village belonging to Waldmünchen in the Cham district of the Upper Palatinate in eastern Bavaria.
Grassl's father expressed anger with some allegations made in the original Mirror article, in particular the suggestions that his son's behaviour during treatment was not genuine.
[5] Friends of Grassl told The Times that he had spent hours in internet chat rooms, where he was known as "Scatman", and that he was a columnist for a local newspaper, writing about pop music.