Sister: Leslie's life is all his own

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Albert Cochran grew up in a large Catholic family in Dade County, Florida - the oldest boy in a family of six children, born an identical twin whose brother died at birth.

Half a century and a life-changing motorcycle accident later, he's known as Austin's inconic "Leslie," a cross-dressing, eccentric - and by all accounts highly intelligent - street person, by choice.

A thong-wearing mayoral candidate who once appeared on Jay Leno. A famous eccentric who calls his mom on a regular basis and stays in contact with his family.

"He’s highly intelligent, and sometimes highly intelligent people are strange," said Alice Cochran Masterson, Leslie's sister, who still lives in Florida. "My father had an extremely high IQ, and he kind of inherited that high IQ. And he has a good heart."

He even called his mother, who's in her 90s, and told her that he'd lit candles for her at a local Catholic church.

For the past week, Austin has rallied around Leslie as he recovers from brain surgery after a fall on a local street on Oct. 3. Hospital officials on Tuesday upgraded his condition to "fair," after a long several days in which rumors of his impending death led to street vigils and supportive chatter across the Internet.

Leslie, 58, was often seen around the streets of Austin wearing lacy bras, glittering thongs, carrying signs advocating homeless rights and bicycling around town wearing almost nothing. For his appearance on Jay Leno, in which he was interviewed as one of Austin's many characters, he was wearing a thong - on national television. 

"He has a good heart," Masterson said. "He's just strange."

Growing up in Dade County, Albert - as his family still calls him - was a brilliant boy and young man, but always spoke with a strong stutter, something he dealt with throughout childhood and early adulthood, Masterson said.

"He never could speak clearly," she said. "He grew up stuttering."

After high school, he attended the University of Florida-Tallahassee for two years, and joined the U.S. Navy for a couple more.

"And then he went off on his own as an adult. He just kind of did his own thing, as most men do," Masterson said. "And he moved to Washington, and he worked in Washington ... in a good job, a manager in a warehouse."

"And then he had that head injury, and he became a street person after that."

The head injury, Masterson estimates, happened in his early 30s. Albert was riding his motorcycle in Steamboat Springs, Co., when he hit a deer head-on. 

"The deer’s head was split in half, he hit that deer so hard. He was unconscious for at least a month, maybe a little more, before he came out the coma," she said. "When he came out of the coma, he could speak – his stuttering was gone. After that accident, he never stuttered again.

"But it was that accident that triggered him living on the street."

Albert never went back to his job at the warehouse. His life changed forever. He began to bounce around, showing up in Florida, showing in and around Atlanta, where Masterson had settled.

At some point during this time, he became Leslie.

"That’s when he went into the odd dressing and all of that. It was a shock to my mother," Masterson said, chuckling. "But before, he wasn't living like that. They didn't expect him to live like that at all."

Leslie began living on the kindness of strangers, collecting food and money. He was able to occasionally rent a car and pay for a cell phone to stay in touch with family. And when he had more than he needed, he'd pass it on to those who could use it. Or who knew people who could.

Masterson used to come home to her house in Atlanta and find bags of groceries on her doorstep, left there by her homeless, panhandling brother.

"I would take it to St. Elizabeth's in Marietta (a church group). People would come out of the grocery store and bring him food and nonperishable foods, so he could eat. And soups and cans of food, and he’d have tons. He would drive over and drop the food off if I wasn’t home. He had a good heart. He didn’t try to throw it away - he gave it to me, and I'd pass it on."

Masterson isn't sure how he wound up in Austin, but said he seemed to have "found his niche there."

And certainly, Austin - well, most people here - have embraced him as the harmless, eccentric, highly unique preson that his sister describes him to be.

Even if the occasional outfit - if one could call it that - left too little to the imagination, and occasionally bordered on pornographic. Off-putting as those outfits could be to some, Leslie is hands-down Austin's most recognizable character.

And his straighter-laced siblings - who are scattered across Florida, Tennessee and Utah with their own familes - say that while they don't exactly agree with his chocies, they've learned to accept him and support him.

Masterson said they've never been alerted to any mental illnesses - that his eccentricity was probably a factor of high intelligence, fierce independence, and that life-changing accident in Steamboat Springs.

"A lot of street people, kind of because they want to .... they just live on the street," she said. "And it’s a free country."

And they're praying that Leslie will recover, though they know he'll never again be able to live on his own - much as he'd like to.

"Wherever he was, he wants to go back there," Masterson said.

A candlelight vigil for Leslie was scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in front of UMC Brackenridge.

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