Episode 25 Billy Milligan Part 1

Join Joey and Sabryna from Ghost and Gavel as we dive into the life of Billy Milligan. A person that brought nation wide eyes down on his case as it became the first in the United States to get a not guilty ruling after a plea for insanity. 

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Sources: 
Netflix documentary The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan
Wikipedia
Podcast Don’t Go In There
Esquire.com
Aetv.com
CSI.pressbooks.pub
Latimes.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Ghost and Gavel with Joey and Sabrina. And today's episode is 25. We are handing it over to Sabrina.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome, welcome everybody. Make sure that you are following us on social media. Um, if you guys don't mind whatever podcast listening platform you are listening on, if you could go give us a star rating, that helps push us out more than anything. And if you enjoy what you're listening to, of course, go and share it with your friends as well. Like Joey said, we are on episode number 25, and today we are gonna be talking about Billy Milligan. This goes in connection kind of with the Ohio State University thing, or the Ohio University thing. Um, except it is Ohio State University, we're gonna be discussing in a little bit more depth. And I want to give a little trigger warning. This does really are um give a little trigger warning because this episode will include things such as rape, and of course, as we discussed in many of our episodes, murder, but I know that the other thing can be a little more triggering, so I wanted to give a little trigger warning on that and a forewarning. So, Billy Milligan, he is known as the campus rapist. He was subject to a highly publicized court case in Ohio in the late 1970s. He had many felonies against him, including things such as armed robbery, kidnapping, and of course, rape. The kidnapping and the rape was of three women near Ohio State University. Born in my home state of Florida, Milligan moved to Ohio with his mother after his father, or I don't think it was after his father committed suicide. I think I forgot to reword that. Um in 1959. Or no, it was after his father committed suicide in 1959. It is said his mother remarried his stepfather, who had physically and sexually abused him as a child. It is also stated that his mother was also mentally and emotionally unstable and unable to protect him from the recurring trauma. Some say his biological father had schizophrenia. However, we have to remember that this is the early 1900s into mid 1900s, so schizophrenia was a common misdiagnosis, and a diagnosis was not necessarily elaborated on as much as it is today. It is said by his mother that Billy did receive mental health treatment throughout his life. His mother, Dorothy, married her first husband at the age of 18, and Dick Jonas turned out to be an alcoholic. So she did marry young and the first one starts out to be a real winner, right? A drunk. Got it. Now, don't come at me. I am well aware alcoholism is considered a disease. I am not saying it isn't. What I am saying is more often than not, this does not usually turn out to be a healthy relationship, especially in these times, let alone it's the 40s and 50s, where the police were called for domestic violence. It was often the victim blamed for why they were abused. Oh, you didn't separate his colors from his whites. And now he has a pink shirt. You didn't read his mind and know exactly what he wanted for dinner and have it made and served to him on a silver platter as soon as he walked in the door. It's your fault. I mean, I'm not saying any part of my life was a mistake, but without the factor of alcohol and abuse, I was married young, 21, and I don't think it all necessarily I don't think it's all that necessarily that young marriages don't last, but it is an increasing factor. Times are changing, women have a couple extra rights, even though cords are being tightened currently around some of these issues. We definitely have more available to us now than they did then. My marriage ended without some of those factors and other things that made could have made Dorothy's marriage even harder. I had the option as a woman to step away from the marriage for the better of my mental health and for the better of my daughter's mental health and for the better of her father's mental health.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

But marriages ain't lasting like our grandparents neither, where they last a fucking lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, but you also have to think during our grandparents' times, again, there weren't as many rights. Women didn't necessarily have the option to walk away, and again, people call our police called for domestic violence during our grandparents' times. Domestic violence also wasn't as well heard of, and many times domestic violence turned into victim blaming when police were called. So we don't really, we also don't really know what went on during those times that would be counteracted nowadays. I'm not saying that there weren't marriages that were good and lasted a good lifetime for good reasons, but there was a lot to consider, especially during the early 1900s and when it came to women's rights. To escape her own life, Dorothy would go out to nightclubs. I can only imagine this as like the old movies from that time when like it's explained in those movies, uh like a piano on the stage, her singing beside it, more romantic kind of setting than it would be nowadays that you would imagine in nightclubs if you were to hear those words today. And singing was something she really wanted to do. What the movies musicals? Um, in a sense, but like you know those movies you see of the early 1900s when they say nightclubs with the piano on the stage, and you see them dressed in a nice gown and singing next to the piano. Almost like, oh, what's that, Roger Rabbit type thing? But real life, that's kind of what I imagine when it she said when they talk about her going to nightclubs to sing to escape her life. She eventually moved to Miami with her sister to do bigger nightclubs. This is where she met Johnny Morrison, who was a comedian. Billy was born on Valentine's Day of 1955 and rushed back to the hospital about a month after his birth for a growth in his throat that was causing him to stop breathing. This could actually leave a possibility of brain damage due to a lack of oxygen. Like I said previously, Johnny, his father, was said to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which some say may have been a misdiagnosis as well as depression. These things led to his drinking, drug abuse, and even gambling. It was also claimed that he would get violent with Dorothy, causing her to have to force him out of the house. Girl, that's winner number two, ain't it?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I thought that was still the same person.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

No.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Um her second marriage.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Didn't say they were married as of yet. Dick Jonas was her first marriage at the age of 18. Johnny was her second relationship, and she met him as a comedian through nightclubs in Miami after she moved down there with her sister to do bigger nightclubs. So it doesn't necessarily say they were married, but she did get into a relationship with him to the extent that they ended up having a son together. After kicking him out one time, he took his own life to suicide. Actually, they had a couple children together. Um, the children were told that their father had passed from a medical condition. It wasn't until adulthood that they had found out the real cause of his passing, which brings me to second guess a parent question. Or it brings me to say, like, parents before with your kids. And before you continue, children should not necessarily hear this part. If there are any around, I would save this part for later. What is your take on being honest with kids? Not that these kids should have necessarily heard that their father committed suicide, but they definitely, I don't believe they should have been lied to about and told that it was a medical condition. Maybe told, hey, your father passed, we'll talk about this, uh, what had happened a little bit later on. But this what I am coming to say about this, I can see why parents want children to believe in things like Santa or the Tooth Fairy. It's part of childhood and a lot of times a part that we were raised with. And I know that certain things they shouldn't find out about until adulthood. Like I said, it you know, they maybe shouldn't have found out about the suicide, but I think there should have been a little bit more honesty when it came to his passing. And this may be an unfavorable opinion. I'm not saying to tell them everything. We have to let them have a childhood to some extent. But for instance, I told my daughter when she was old enough to ask why things were different about the way people are raised and who is Santa, why doesn't Santa come see her? I told her the story we learn later in life. There really was a man who would make wood carved toys for children, but not everyone lives forever, and he too had passed on. She learned about acts of kindness in realistic ways, but still learned a simple fact of life that not everyone lives forever. I feel if we want our children to be honest with us, we have to be honest with them, as honest with them as we can within reasonable limits for children. Seriously, no judgment to any parents or moms here. Like, I don't judge anybody for what they decide to teach or tell their children growing up. If that's how you feel, the lesson is best learned. That is the way you teach your children. I just wanted to see if I could build a little more of a relationship in this community within our comments. Have some relatable conversations. This is another way we are blessed as women in recent times. We have each other as a community without judgment. I'm sure we can tell, I'm sure we can all agree parenting certainly didn't come with a manual, and I definitely didn't have the best role model in my mother, so I'm just kind of winging it here as a mom myself. I am still alive to tell the story, so I guess uh we are we are both still alive to tell the story, so I guess I'm not doing too bad on this parenting thing, huh? Back on track to our little story, sorry for the little sidetrack for the minute, for a minute. As for Billy and his siblings, the point I was getting to again is do you feel it was necessary for them to know at a young age that their father had passed? Or do I feel, yes, I feel it was necessary for them to know. Do I feel it was appropriate for them to know it was suicide at that age? No. That is a lot to explain to children already that their father was gone, but to overstimulate them with a whole new concept in that moment at such a young age would be too hard on their little minds. But don't lie to them about it. I hated to find out stuff later about even small little fibs, and that may be the Aud in me, but and the fact that I was raised with a narcissist and living basically two different lives daily. One was a truth to me, and the world was only knew part of the truth of my life inside the home, and the rest of the world was blind to it for so long. I lived a lie every day of my life. After that is when Dorothy moved the kids back to Ohio and into a family farm home. After returning, she got back with Dick Jonas. So I guess that gives us a little more backstory into where she had met him originally. Girl, this is a mistake. If they're abusive once, they will have a cycle and do it again unless they truly want to want that help and want to do better. But this relationship was short-lived. Dorothy was then focused on herself and her kids. Good for you. That's definitely where the focus needs to be is yourself and your kids so that you can get on track before you have another man in your life. But this was for a while, and she ended up getting back to singing. This is where the stepfather that stuck around came into the picture. His name was Chalmer. So, like Palmer, Arnold Palmer, or but with a CH, Chalmer. That's quite an interesting name. Chalmer ended up adopting Billy and his siblings. Stories claim that this started after an incident with his mother, Dorothy. And we have to remember that this is the 50s and 60s that we are talking about, where things like race and sexuality, other than straight, were not well accepted. Not to say they are now, of course. We know there are still problems. However, we have to also we have also all sat through history class and know how things were then as well. It is reported that Billy's mother was caught talking to an African-American gentleman by Chalmer, and Chalmer proceeded to take hold of her and beat her. After this, it seemed things were never the same in the Milligan household. His sister, Kathy Joe, states that when this incident happened, Billy retreated back and placed his head into his knees. In interviews, Chalmer admits to hitting the children and not being the best. However, he claims it was nowhere as near as bad as the children were claiming that it was. He would go as far as to pulling the kids out of bed in the middle of the night just to be able to beat them.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Okay. Let me just interrupt real quick. My stance on that, if it's on the butt, it is not abuse.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

To some extent, but when you're putting a phone book over a child's behind to beat them as hard as possible without leaving marks, I mean, from from my stance, my mom would do it so that marks would not be left, but we would be left in so much pain we could not sit. Do you consider that abuse if it gets to the point that a child is not able to sit? Or is that just discipline?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Now that would be abusive.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Okay, and like I said, in this um and many of the interviews, we did not really get a straight story from Everyon. Chalmer says one thing and the children say another. We don't know either. Chalmer could have been putting the phone book on any part of the body. He was willing to claim the behind. But he could have been putting it on their backs to be able to beat them further. He could have been flipping them over and putting it on their thighs to be able to whoop them there. We don't know the full story because the interviews were very choppy, and like I said, nobody really gave the full story. I do agree there's a difference between discipline and abuse. However, I did not, and it may be more so because I realized when my daughter was younger that she was autistic, I did not take to hitting my child. I felt like there were better ways to handle a situation. They have young minds, they have to learn, yes. But children are also very intelligent. However, supposedly it was an altar that made the plan, and when he came through to himself, he had no clue what Kathy Joe was referring to when she questioned as to why he had not done it yet. So I don't know if you have heard of it, because this is where I'm getting part of the the stories from, but like the Netflix deck documentary 24 Faces of Billy Milligan.

unknown 24:30

No, I've not watched it.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Have you heard of it?

unknown 24:35

I have heard of it, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Okay, so this goes back to the case of basically the first man who was able to claim insanity in court and actually won his case due to multiple personality disorders. However, there's questions into that as well, but we'll get into that a little bit later. Chomner's last day with the family, he and Billy had gotten into a heated fight, and Chalner reached across the table and tried to pull Billy back to him and began to choke him. Billy's brother Jim jumped up and stuck a knife into his throat and forced him out or stuck a knife to his throat, not into his throat, stuck a knife to his throat and forced him out of the house. This is when the kids were in their teens. Reports do say that early disassociation was reported by teachers and caregivers of Billy. Notes stated there were early signs of detachment issues, emotional withdrawal, and identity confusion. He is said to have referred to himself in third person frequently and also used to speak in unfamiliar accents. It is said now that those were likely misunderstood behaviors of the recent time and likely indicators of disassociative coping mechanisms. It is claimed that his mother knew of the personalities, but may not have known exactly what the what was going on or what it was. It is said she noticed he would use different accents and noticed that he would be in kind of like a trance prior to school and be Billy again when going to school. We will see a little later how this is important and where it actually relates. Milligan started committing minor crimes in his teens, including petty theft and assault, and it just escalated over time. Many said it seemed as if he was unaware or confused about some of the acts he was accused of. These early arrests are what led him to psychiatric evaluations, which suggested early encounters with the mental health system. He had agreed to pay all of his costs from his stays in Ohio psychiatric hospitals with room and board plus interest. It brought the total to four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. As of last reported, from what I could find, it was stated he the state had received a total of $170,000 from Billy. And that just tells you how much health care costs here in America. So being diagnosed, officially diagnosed, characteristics of disassociative identity disorder are known as the presence of two or more distinct personality states or identities that recurrently take control of an individual's behavior accompanied by memory gaps that cannot be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. So we're gonna go into some medical terms and stuff like that, but I will try to explain things the best I can. In Billy's case, it was found that he had 24 distinct personalities, although ten of them were predominantly active at the time of his arrest. Some of these personalities include Arthur, who was an intelligent English or intellectual Englishman, calm and rational, served as a spokesperson for the quote unquote system. Reagan, the strong and aggressive personalities with a thick accent, took on a took on protective roles and committed violent crimes. I'm not sure how to pronounce this one, and I'm sure I'll be corrected. Adelana, a shy lesbian teenage girl who later confessed to committing the rapes, sought intimacy and connection, which is actually interesting to me because obviously this is not a new concept to me, but one thing I didn't know about this disorder is they could actually take on the personality of an opposite sex. So that was something that interested me. Alan was a manipulative con artist who was the only altar who could smoke. Tommy, an escape artist and technician, often surfaced during moments of danger, but it is also said that sometimes just to prove that he could, there are stories from hospitals saying he would escape from the hospital and just wait to be caught to show that he could do it. You have to thank a psychiatric hospital, though. They are on under tighter lock and key than per se the regular part of the hospital, like an ER or anything like that. Usually in a psych the psychiatric part of the hospital, they have all doors that lead to any part of the hospital locked down. And most of the time, even doors to that have access to um like recreation or anything like that, they'll usually have things like that locked down until particular times to be used. Danny was a terrified fourteen-year-old who feared men. David, an eight-year-old who served as an empath for others. Christine was a three-year-old girl. Christopher was a thirteen-year-old brother to Christine. And Walter, an Australian big game hunter. Each personality seemed to have its own memories, skills, preferences, and even psychological differences. A dominant hand, vision, IQ, even blood pressure. Or that's not psychological, it's physiological difference. Sorry. My bad. And when speaking on that term, like my health issues are all over the place. So I could only imagine having whole other alter personalities causing something to go off any more than it already is. Like I would be fucked up. Dr. Cornelina Welber led a team of psychologists and psychiatrists to conduct intensive evaluations with Billy when his consciousness was present. He had no memory of the crimes. They stated it was only under clinical hypnosis where they were able to get further information about these crimes. Which there's some controversy to some of these doctors as well, because it was said after his arrest that a lot of these doctors got involved for money purposes. You know, so they were able to write reports and books and things of that sort. So, and there's some controversy as well as to some of the personalities that were listed because they said as time went on, there were more and more personalities that kind of came through to be able to give Billy his name and his fame for the situation. Although many suggest Milligan was the one for who had committed the crimes, all victims reported encountering drastically different behaviors and even accents from their attacker. One moment he would be aggressive and foreign, and the next, he was gentle and apologetic. Like I said, this condition is actually really intriguing to me. Like if you watch someone go through this, it is kind of like Dorothy describes, almost like a trance. Some with this disorder go through a transition phase, and you can see this on Billy's interviews. His eyes would roll back and start a sporadic motion before changing personalities. Some aren't so dramatic when I've seen them in other people, but from what I hear, it is fairly common for people struggling with this condition. Another thing I found interesting with Billy specifically is before he got caught for this, he knew of the personalities, but didn't fully comprehend what was going on. He states he is not aware of what the other personalities are doing, but from the sound of the way they explain things, the other personalities knew when he was going when he was doing things and could stop him. For example, they explained a time when Milligan was young and he attempted suicide, and the other personalities quote, put him to sleep, unquote, so that he wouldn't do it. So the other personalities were aware of what he was doing, but he was not aware of what the other personalities did when they were in control. There was also a personality that was mentioned that claims to be an eight-year-old boy, mentioned that Danny, which interested me because supposedly this is about when he began to be abused by trauma. So going back to, you know, trauma triggering the condition, they explained times where he would recognize he had done something wrong and revert to this altar because he was afraid he would be caught by trauma. And that would be like his biggest concern. He wasn't worried about the fact that he could be going to prison. He wasn't worried about the fact that he was in a mental institution, he was worried he was going to be caught by traumar. Podcast hosts don't go in there, do an amazing job. So I do suggest them, if you guys like listening to like true crime and stuff, they did an amazing job at going over this case in great detail about information regarding the law and how things work, as well as seeing things in a new way. As they were going over the fact that some of the authors had accents, and there is even some reports of Billy speaking other languages when he was younger, they make mention of the personality of foreign accent or the possibility of foreign accent syndrome. So FAS. FAS occurs after brain injury or trauma, like a stroke, a tumor. Obviously, he had trauma when you know he had the abuse. He also had trauma when he was a lot younger and they found a lump in his throat, which deprived him of oxygen and could have caused some brain damage. He was diagnosed with DID, which also has to do with trauma. So my question was kind of like do FAS and DID go hand in hand if they both have to do with trauma? That was my curiosity on the subject. I don't know if you've heard stories, I've heard quite a few of them, but like people that go through traumatic accidents with brain injury, or like I said, stroke or tumor, and then they wake up speaking other languages. I just found that very interesting. And like I said, it brought into question whether or not for me at least, whether or not they kind of go hand in hand. But it was not like he was exposed to the show like a lot of kids are nowadays when it comes to exposure to technology and TV and things of that sort. There were times when an altar would take over and he would go into a trance and come through in a new place and not know what he did or how he got there. When the family took him to a doctor, they just chalked it up to a fit of amnesia or sleepwalking. I mean, the best way I can imagine this is getting shit face drunk, passed out in one place, and waking up in a whole new place, not knowing where or how the hell I got there, or what you did in the process of getting there, and then being accused of significant crime when you're sobering up. The altars knew what he was doing when he wasn't reverted to them, but he had absolutely no clue what they were doing when he did have an altar in his place. Like that honestly, that would be scary to be accused of crimes, especially crimes that Billy is being accused of and have no clue that you did any of that. So Billy was not able to explain himself when or so that's like not being able to explain yourself when you are you and don't know what you're really saying when you aren't. Again, like the best way I could imagine that is being shit-faced drunk and being able to explain everything, but when you sober up, not being able to explain anything or know what to do, or know what you did. There was even claims of one time him going into a trance and waking up on like a fire escape, I believe it was. I mean, like I sleptwalk before, and I when I was younger, I used to sleepwalk, and I used to sleepwalk in some pretty dangerous places. Like I would go sleepwalking in the middle of the road. But I couldn't imagine waking up on like a high-up fire escape and not knowing how I got there.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

But my stance on uh with the other person, yeah, personalities knowing about Billy when to commit suicide is uh they stopped him because they wanted to live.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

But that's an interesting thing to do. That's an interesting take on things too. Like I honestly didn't think of that doing all the research and stuff. I didn't think of maybe just because they had their own, like I said, IQ and their own mentalities, their own memories, their own even blood pressure and dominant hand. Like they were, I mean, they basically describe these altars or these personalities as a whole nother person. So yeah, I didn't think of that. That maybe they wanted to live, but Billy wanted out of a situation. Alright, guys. I think this uh this is coming up on about 50 minutes, and unfortunately, our recording um the oh, what is it?

unknown 44:53

An app.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

The recording app that we use does have a limitation on how long we are able to record, and unfortunately, it is not as long as I would like it to be sometimes. But that means this is going to be my first two-parter, and I think this is the first, or I think this is a good place to kind of wrap it up for the first part because next we're going to get into like the crimes and the arrest, and I don't want to get too far into that, and then it cut us off in between on a whole the middle of a whole new subject, and it'd be confusing when we start back. So I think this will be a good place to leave off for this one, and then we will get into a lot more detail. The second part will be a bit shorter because there's not a whole lot left. But again, I don't want to be cut off and then be left with like a 10-minute episode later on. Um, but I hope you guys have a wonderful Monday, a wonderful week coming up, and don't forget, stay spooky. Bye.