Dr. James Corenthal

Dr. James Corenthal is a background hero in the EverymanHYBRID ARG.

Summary
Dr. Corenthal is a character first mentioned in I'm Okay as a doctor who worked in the elementary school that Jeff attended as a child. The doctor himself did not appear on video until the time travel/flashback sequence in The Corenthal Connection (Jessie's back). He is related to Jessie, though the relationship remains unclear. She has at times referred to him as her mother's brother, her great-uncle, (a sibling to one of her grandparents,) and most recently as her mother's half-brother in the video The Corenthal Connection (Jessie's back). However, this most recent reference was after spending time with her family at her grandmother's funeral, so that relationship is most likely the correct one.

Until Jeff's visit to Mrs. Corenthal in ".-" it was believed that Dr. Corenthal was dead. Mrs. Corenthal's sudden shift from present tense to past tense when Jeff questioned her led some to believe that he is still alive. Later, a code found in Box #3 was revealed to say "The Good doctor is not so lucky as to be dead. Just dealing with some old habits." Speculation continues as to Dr. Corenthal's current whereabouts and whether or not he is alive.

Background
Corenthal was a psychiatrist specializing in childhood traumas who worked at the Fairmount Children's Home in the early 70's. During his tenure there he worked with a group of children from Centralia, PA who had come to be known as the Mining Town Four, these four children shared first names with the four main characters of EverymanHYBRID: Jeff, Evan, Vince and Steph. At the beginning Corenthal seemed to be against having all of these children in residence at the same time, however as things progressed he started to realize that the connections between the children were making their individual treatments easier and he began to avail himself of their proximity and put them into treatment together, eventually sequestering them from the rest of the children at the home.

At some point in the mid 70's Corenthal and his wife Maryann adopted the four children and began providing for their welfare directly. (This may been a result of the Fairmount Home's closing in 1975.) In numerous documents that have appeared throughout the series Corenthal details the life that he led with these children. In a letter dated 10-27-1981 he refers to the last of the children as having died, though he phrased it as "succumbed." He also reveals in that letter that he had accepted a patient named Linnie, who showed symptoms similar to The Mining Town Four, and he moved east to take care of her. His wife Maryann seems to have stayed behind, separating from her husband.

During the 90's Corenthal investigated and attempted to aid many children and families who were being plagued in ways similar to his own children, including Milo Asher of Tribe Twelve.

Paper Trail
Papers written by Dr. Corenthal were found by Jeff in the burned out shell of his old elementary school, and later more were found in the various Boxes. These papers mention a mysterious patient only known as HABIT that may be connected to the EverymanHYBRID crew. The paperwork from Box #3 and some of the other Corenthal Reports is on the stationary of Fairmount Children's Home, which was also involved in a major fire, similar to the one that burnt down Jeff's old elementary school. Other copies of his personal letters and papers have been mailed directly to fans, or discovered by other means. (Please see the entry Corenthal Papers for details.)

In The Corenthal Connection video Jessie presented the boys with a large binder of materials that once belonged to Dr. Corenthal. Among them was a map, a old class photo, and the deed and keys to a storage locker that they later explored in the same video.

One of the items retrieved from the storage locker was a metal canister labelled "HPL:COR,JAM1984/2005." Jeff released that information to the public in the 4.20.2011 Document. The canister was later determined to be a microfilm canister from the Hamilton Township Library. In the video One step forward, two steps back, Jeff and Vince went to the library and retrieved another copy of the microfilm. It consisted of a series of newspaper articles detailing Corenthal's many run-ins with the police in the Hamilton, NJ area. He was at times considered as the suspect in the murder of several parents of children whom he was caring for. In 2005 he was considered a suspect in a melee at a diner where dozens of people were killed. The police believed that he was hiding in Baldpate Mountain.

Wikipedia
Early in the game, Dr Corenthal had an entry at Wikipedia. It has since been deleted. Following is a copy of the information that was contained there:
 * Dr. James Corenthal worked in the Fairmount Children's Home (Alliance, Ohio) for some time, towards the decline of the establishment.


 * Corenthal was relatively young when he was brought into the home for troubled youths and charged with the task of supervising patient releases and rehabilitation. (He was also a Fellow in the American College of Physicians.)


 * The doctor was generally well liked and his rookie-status was overall well-received. The only noteworthy, or out of the ordinary, portion of his career was the handling of a certain patient, whose name does not appear on reports concerning the numerous incidents of 1971 at the facility. (Although the facility was well-supported financially, well supplied with the very best typesetters, hand-written notes and scribbles line the borders of the reports, bearing the word "HABIT" repeatedly.)


 * Public criticism ensued following nursing staff injuries and a single death due to patient unrest. The doctor's own mental health came into question and he is known to have left the facility on good terms, shortly before its closing in the same decade. There is speculation that he left the practice all together. Rumors also mention a possible suicide, as late as 2007.[1]
 * The property of the old hospital also experienced a condemning fire on December 9, 2002.[2]


 * [editing history shows that the creator of the page was a user named "UnbreakableHabit"]

Return
Other than the flashback (or potential time travel) in The Corenthal Connection video Dr. Corenthal had not appeared in a video until The property. During that video Vince is stumbling through a series of teleportation portals from Baldpate Mountain to various rooms in his, Jeff's, Evan's and Steph's home, being pursued bySlenderman. Corenthal appears and pulls Vince into a quiet garden that he calls a "sanctuary within the monster's sanctum." It appears that he has been living in this other dimension and fighting Slenderman, The Rake and HABIT from that vantage. He also mentions that besides him Vince's brother and sister are "holding down the fort" there. He gives Vince some advice and then returns him to Baldpate.