Richard Cabral Jr. and his friends at work were the "mill boys."

He and co-workers in the raw materials department Leach & Garner in North Attleboro, Mass., came together for lighthearted rituals like banging out a beat on the building's pipes.

Co-workers recalled Cabral as a jokester who sometimes wore a crown at work, fashioned from the twist-ties used to close bread bags.

Cabral, 37, of Attleboro, Mass., liked hard-rock music and was known for his J.R. Tolkien character tattoos.

His wife, Catherine, told The Providence Journal that Tolkien's world of hobbits and wizards battling great evil had captured her husband's interest for years.

He enjoyed the recent movie adaptations and had tattoos on his back of all the major characters from the trilogy.

Mostly, though, his wife remembered a family man. The couple would have celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary in June.