Billy Milligan possessed twenty-four separate and distinct personalities. He became notorious nationwide as a rapist and a thief; yet he lived a nightmare far more terrifying than anything his victims ever knew.
The Minds of Billy Milligan
William Stanley Milligan is The first person in U.S. history to be found not guilty by reason of insanity of major crimes because he possessed multiple personalities.
Unlike other multiple personalities in psychiatric and popular literature who were kept anonymous at the outset by the use of fictional names, Milligan became a controversial public figure from the moment he was arrested and indicted in 1977.
I first met the twenty-three-year-old man at the Athens Mental Health Center in Athens, Ohio, shortly after he had been sent there by the courts. When he asked me to write his story, I told him it would depend on whether or not there was more to it than had been reported extensively in the media. He assured me that the deeper secrets of his inner people had never been revealed to anyone, including his attorneys and the psychiatrists who had examined him. Now he wanted the world to understand his mental illness. I was skeptical but interested.
When I talked with him alone during visiting hours in his room at the mental hospital, I discovered that Billy, as he came to be called, was very different from the poised young man I’d first met. He now spoke hesitantly, his knees jiggling nervously. His memory was poor, with long periods blanked out by amnesia. He could generalize about those portions of his past that he vaguely recalled, his voice often quavering at painful memories, but he could not provide many details. After trying, vainly, to draw out his experiences, I was ready to give it up.
Then one day something startling happened.
Billy Milligan fused completely for the first time, revealing a new individual, an amalgam of all his personalities. The fused Milligan had a clear, almost total recall of all the personalities from their creation — all their thoughts, actions, relationships, tragic experiences, and comic adventures.
Of those who have met, worked with, or been victimized by Billy Milligan, most have come to accept the diagnosis of his having multiple personalities. Many of these people remember the thing Milligan said or did that made them finally admit, “He just can’t be faking this.” Others still feel he is a fraud, a brilliant con man using the plea-of not guilty by reason of insanity to avoid prison.
I, too, maintained an attitude of skepticism. Hardly a day went by when I wasn’t pulled one way and then the other. But during the two years I worked with Milligan, the doubt I felt when his recalled acts and experiences seemed incredible turned to belief when my investigation showed them to be accurate.
THE PEOPLE INSIDE:
William Stanley Milligan (“Billy”), twenty-six. The original, or core, personality. High-school dropout.
Arthur, twenty-two. The Englishman. Rational, emotionless, he speaks with a British accent. Self-taught in physics and chemistry, he studies medical books. Reads and writes Arabic. Though he is conservative and considers himself a capitalist, he is an avowed atheist. The first to discover the existence of all the others, he dominates in safe places, deciding who will come out and hold the consciousness, or “the spot.”
Ragen Vadascovinich, twenty-three. The keeper of hate. His name is derived from “rage again.” Yugoslavian, he speaks English with a Slavic accent and speaks Serbo-Croatian. A weapons authority as well as a karate expert, he displays extraordinary strength, stemming from the ability to control his adrenaline flow. He is a Communist and an atheist. His charge is to be the protector of the family and of women and children. He dominates the consciousness in dangerous places. Has associated with criminals and drug addicts and admits to criminal, sometimes violent, behavior.
Allen, eighteen. The con man. A manipulator, he is the one who most often deals with outsiders. He is an agnostic. He plays the drums and paints portraits. Has a close relationship with Billy’s mother.
Tommy, sixteen. The escape artist. Often mistaken for Allen, he is generally belligerent and antisocial. Plays the saxophone and is an electronics specialist and a painter of landscapes.
Danny, fourteen. The frightened one. Afraid of people, especially men. As a small child, he was forced to dig his own grave and was then buried alive. Thus he paints only still lifes.
David, eight. The keeper of pain, or the “empath.” Absorbs all the hurt and suffering of the others. slightly sensitive and perceptive but has a short attention span. Confused most of the time.
Christene, three. The corner child, so called because she was the one to stand in the corner in school. A bright English girl, she can read but has dyslexia. Draws flowers and butterflies.
Adalana, nineteen. The lesbian. Shy, lonely, and introverted, she writes poetry, cooks, and keeps house for the others. Since her eyes drift from side to side with nystagmus, she is said to have “dancing eyes.”
Philip, twenty. The thug. New Yorker, has a strong Brooklyn accent, uses vulgar language. References to “Phil” gave police and media the clue that there were more personalities than the ten known ones. Philip, a drug addict, has committed minor crimes.
Kevin, twenty. The planner. A small-time criminal. Likes to write.
The Teacher, twenty-six. The sum of all alter egos fused into one. Taught the others everything they’ve learned. Brilliant, sensitive, with a fine sense of humor. He says, “I am Billy all in one piece,” and refers to the others as “the androids I made.” The Teacher has almost total recall.
Besides these twelve, another twelve personalities inhabited the mind of Billy Milligan.
THE SPOT
“I didn’t even know I was coming on the spot. Somebody got hurt in the jail, and I came to take the pain.”
“Would you explain that?”
“Arthur says I’m the keeper of the pain. When there’s hurt, I’m the one who takes the spot and feels it.”
“That must be awful.”
“It’s not fair.”
“What’s ‘the spot,’ David?”
“That’s what Arthur calls it. He explained to us how it works when one of the people has to come out. It’s a big white spotlight. Everybody stands around it, watching or sleeping in their beds. And whoever steps on the spot is out in the world. Arthur says, ‘Whoever is on the spot holds the consciousness.’”
“Who are the other people?”
“There are a lot. I don’t know them all. I know some of them now, but not everyone. Oh, wow.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I told you Arthur’s name. Now for sure I’ll get in trouble for telling the secret.”
THE CRIMES
October 1977
Ragen jogged eleven miles across the city of Columbus and, at seven-thirty Friday morning, reached the Ohio State University East Belmont parking lot. He had no plan; his only thought was to find someone to rob. From the curb between the College of Medicine and the lot, he saw a young woman park a gold Toyota. As she got out of the car, he saw she wore a maroon pants suit under an open buckskin coat. He turned to look for someone else; he had no intention of robbing a woman…
But Adalana, who had been watching, knew why Ragen was here. She knew he was tired from the cross-city run and that the amphetamines and vodka were getting to him. She wished him off the spot …
As she approached the young woman, Adalana saw her lean over the seat to pick up some books and papers from the passenger’s side. She took Ragen’s gun out of the holster and pressed it against the woman’s arm.
The woman laughed without turning to look. “C’mon, stop kidding around.”
“Would you please get into the car,” Adalana said. “We’re going for a ride.”
Carrie Dryer turned and saw it was not one of her friends, but someone she didn’t recognize. She saw the gun in his gloved hand and realized this man wasn’t joking. He motioned for her to slide in to the passenger’s seat, and she scrambled over the stick shift. He took her car keys and slipped in behind the wheel. At first he had difficulty releasing the emergency brake, but he finally pulled out of the parking lot.
Carrie Dryer observed his appearance carefully: reddish brown hair, a mustache cut straight and neat, a mole on his right cheek. He was handsome and well built, about 180 pounds, five feet ten or so.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“For a ride somewhere,” he said softly. “I don’t know my way around Columbus very well.”
“Look,” Carrie said, “I don’t know what you want of me, but I’ve got an optometry exam today.”
He pulled into a factory parking lot and stopped the car. Carrie noticed his eyes drifting from side to side, as though he had nystagmus. That was something she would have to remember to tell the police. He went through her purse, taking out her driver’s license and other identification, and his voice turned harsh: “If you go to the cops, I’ll get to members of your family.” He pulled out handcuffs and secured her right hand to the Toyota door handle. “You said you’re gonna have a test,” he murmured. “If you want to go ahead and study for it while I drive, that’s fine.”
They drove north of the Ohio State University campus. After a while, he stopped on the tracks at a railway crossing. A train was slowly moving down the tracks. He jumped out of the car and went around to the trunk. Carrie was terrified that he was going to leave her stranded there, hand-cuffed and with a train coming. She wondered if he was crazy.
Outside the car, Kevin, who had taken the spot from Adalana when he heard the tires thudding over the tracks, went to the rear and saw that the tires were okay. If there had been a flat, he would have run off, but everything looked fine; so he got back in and drove away.
“Take your pants off,” Kevin said.
“What?”
“Take your fucking pants off!” he shouted at her.
She did as he said, frightened by the sudden change of mood. She knew he was doing this to keep her from running away. And rightly so. Even if she hadn’t been handcuffed, she’d never run without her clothes on. As they drove, she noticed he was taking King Avenue west, and then he cut onto Olentangy River Road north. He was driving her out into the country, talking at times to himself: “Just escaped this morning… beat him up with a baseball bat…”
They passed a cornfield, then a barricade in the roadway. He drove around it into a wooded area, past junked cars in a field. Carrie remembered a pair of sharp scissors she kept between the seat and the shift console, and she thought of grabbing it and stabbing him. But as she glanced at the scissors, he said, “Don’t try anything funny,” and pulled out a switch-blade. He parked the car, unlocked the handcuffs from the door but left them attached to her right wrist, and spread her buckskin coat on the muddy ground.
“Take off your underpants,” he whispered, “and lay down.”
Carrie Dryer saw his eyes drift from side to side…
Adalana lay back beside the woman, looking up at the trees. She didn’t understand why she kept losing the spot to Philip and Kevin. Twice they had taken over while she was behind the wheel. Everything was so mixed up.
“Do you know what it’s like to be lonely?” she asked the woman lying beside her. “Not to be held by anyone for a long time? Not to know the meaning of love?”
Carrie Dryer didn’t answer, and Adalana held her.
But this young woman was very small, and something else was wrong with her as well. Try as Adalana might, each time she attempted to enter, Carrie Dryer’s muscles went into spasms and forced her out-rejected her. This was strange and frightening. Confused, Adalana lost the spot…
Carrie explained to him tearfully that she had a physical problem, that she was seeing a gynecologist. Anytime she tried to sleep with someone, she got these spasms. Carrie noticed the nystagmus again, and suddenly he turned angry.
“Of all the damned girls in Columbus.” he snarled, “I had to pick one I couldn’t do anything with!”
He let her put her slacks back on and told her to get back into the car. Carrie noticed him change again. He reached over and handed her a paper towel. “Here,” he said gently, “blow your nose.”
Adalana was now nervous. She remembered Ragen’s original purpose for this trip, and she realized Ragen might get suspicious if she returned empty-handed.
Carrie watched the rapist’s concerned expression, the genuine worry on his face. She almost felt sorry for him as she wondered what was wrong.
“I’ve got to get some money,” he told her, “or someone will be very angry.”
“I don’t have any money with me,” Carrie said, starting to cry again.
“Don’t take it so hard.” He handed her another paper towel. “I’m not going to hurt you if you do what I tell you.”
“Do whatever you want to me,” she said, “but don’t bother my family. Take all the money I’ve got, but leave them alone.”
He parked the car and went through her purse again until he found her checkbook Her balance showed $460. “How much do you think you’ll need to live for the week?” he asked.
Carrie sniffled through her tears, “About fifty or sixty dollars.”
“All right,” he said, “leave yourself a balance of sixty dollars and write a check for the four hundred.”
Came was surprised and pleased, though she knew there was no way she could replace the money she needed for books and tuition.
“We’re going to rob a bank,” he said suddenly. “You’ll come with me.”
“No I won’t!” she said forcefully. “You can do what you want to me, but I won’t help you rob a bank.”
“We’ll go into a bank and cash your check,” he said, but then he seemed to think better of it. “With you crying, they’ll know something’s wrong. You’re not mentally stable enough to go inside a bank and cash a check. You’ll foul it up.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me,” Carrie said, still crying. “I think I’m holding up pretty well for someone held at gunpoint all the time.”
He just grunted.
They found an Ohio National Bank branch with a drive-in window at 770 West Broad Street. He kept the gun hidden between them but pointed at her as she pulled out her identification. When she turned the check over to endorse it, Carrie thought of writing “Help,” but as if he’d read her mind, he said, “Don’t try anything like putting something on the back.”
He passed the check, along with Carrie’s identification, to the teller, who cashed it. “You can report to the police that you were robbed, then stop payment on the check,” he said as he drove away. “Tell them you were forced to cash it. That way it’ll be the bank that gets ripped off.”
When they arrived. downtown at Broad and High streets, the car got caught in heavy traffic. “Take over and drive,” he said. “If you go to the police, don’t give them my description. If I see anything in the newspapers, I won’t come myself, but someone else will take care of your family or you.”
Then he opened the door and walked quickly away, disappearing instantly into the crowd.
Ragen looked around, expecting to find himself in the Ohio State University parking lot, but instead he was walking past Lazarus’s Department Store in the middle of the afternoon. Where had the time gone? He reached into his pocket and found a roll of money. Well, he must have done it. He must have robbed someone and not remembered it. He took an east-bound bus to Reynoldsburg. Back at Channingway, he put the money and the Master Charge card on the closet shelf and went to sleep.
Half an hour later, Arthur awoke, refreshed. Then he showered, and as he changed into clean underwear, he noticed the money on the closet shelf. Now, where had that come from? Someone had been busy. Well, as long as it was there, he might as well get some groceries and pay some bills. The car payment was most important:
Arthur pushed the eviction notice aside. The rent could wait. He had decided how to handle Messrs. Kelly and Lemmon. He would let them keep sending eviction notices. When they took him to court, Allen would tell the judge that these people had made him quit his job and move into their apartment complex as a requirement for the maintenance job and that, just as he was settling in with new furniture on credit, they fired him· and attempted to put him out on the street.
The judge, he knew, would give him ninety days to move. Even after the final eviction notice, he would still have three days to get out of the apartment. That should give Allen enough time to get a new job, save a few dollars, and find a new place to live.
That night Adalana shaved off the mustache. She’d always hated hair on her face.
Tommy had promised Billy’s sister he would spend Saturday, the last day of the Fairfield County Fair, with her in Lancaster. Dorothy and Del, Billy’s mother and her new husband, were running a restaurant concession, and they might need help closing things down. He took the money he saw on the dresser — there wasn’t much left — and told Allen to drive him to Lancaster. He spent a wonderful day with Kathy at the fair, going on the rides, playing the games, eating hot dogs, and drinking root beer. They talked over old times. Kathy told him she was glad he’d shaved off his mustache.
He stayed at the fair with Kathy until it closed; then Allen drove back to Channingway.
Arthur spent a quiet Sunday reading his medical books, and Monday morning Allen set out to look for a new job. He made phone calls and filled out job applications, but no one was hiring.
Friday evening Ragen jumped out of bed, thinking he had just gone to sleep. He went to the dresser, but all he saw was Carrie Dryer’s Master Charge card. The money — money he didn’t even remember stealing — was gone. He ran to the closet, pulled out a .25 caliber automatic and searched the apartment, kicking open doors, looking for the burglar who had broken in while he was asleep. But the apartment was empty. He tried to reach Arthur. When he got no response, he angrily broke open the piggy bank, took out twelve ·dollars, and left to buy a bottle of vodka. He came back, drank, and smoked a joint. Still worried about the bills, he realized that whatever he had done to get the money, he had to do it again.
Ragen took a few amphetamines, strapped on his gun, put on his jogging outfit and windbreaker. Again he jogged west to Columbus, reaching the Ohio State University Wiseman parking lot at about seven-thirty in the morning. Off in the distance, he recognized the horse-shoe-shaped football stadium of the Buckeyes. Behind him, he noticed the sign on the modern concrete-and-glass building opposite the lot — UPHAM HALL.
A short, chubby nurse stepped through the doorway. She had an olive complexion and high cheekbones and wore her black hair braided in a long ponytail down her back. As she walked toward a white Datsun, he had the odd impression that he recognized her. Someone — Allen, he thought — had seen her a long time ago in a student hangout called the Castle.
Ragen turned away, but before he could leave, Adalana wished him off the spot…
Donna West felt exhausted after her eleven-to-seven shift at the university psychiatric hospital. She had told her fiancé she would call him from the hospital to meet him for breakfast, but she’d worked late this morning after a terrible night, and all she wanted was to get out of there. As she walked toward the parking lot, a friend passed, waved, and shouted hello. Donna headed for her car, always carefully parked in the first row facing Upham Hall.
“Hey, wait a minute!” someone yelled. She looked up to see a young man. in jeans and a jogging top waving to her from the other side of the lot. Handsome, she thought, like some actor whose name she couldn’t recall. He wore brown-tinted sun-glasses. She waited as he came over and asked directions to the main parking lot.
“Listen, it’s hard to explain,” Donna said. “I’m going around that way. Why don’t you get in and I’ll drive you around?” He sat on the passenger’s side. While Donna was backing the car out, he pulled a gun from inside his jacket.
“Just drive,” he said. “You’re gonna help me out.” Seconds later he added, “If you do what I say, you’re not gonna get hurt, but believe me, I’m willing to kill.”
“This is it.” Donna thought. “I’m going to die.” She felt her face burn, her blood vessels constrict, sick deep down.
As she drove, her abductor reached behind the seat and picked up her purse. He took out her wallet and looked at her driver’s license. “Well, Donna, drive to Interstate Seventy-one north.”
He took the ten dollars out of her wallet. Then he slipped a cigarette out of her pack and pushed it toward her lips. “I bet you want a smoke,” he said and lit it with her
car lighter. She noticed his hands had some kind of stain all over them and under the fingernails, not dirt or grime or oil, but something. Ostentatiously, he wiped his fingerprints off the lighter. That terrified Donna — it meant he was probably a professional with a police record. He noticed her startled reaction.
“I’m a member of a group,” he said. “Some of us are involved in political activities.”
Her first impression was that he was alluding to· the Weathermen, though he hadn’t actually mentioned that name. She assumed, since he was making her take I-71 north, that he was headed for Cleveland to make his escape on another plane. He was, she decided, an urban guerrilla.
She was surprised when he told her to get off I-71 at the Delaware County area and made her drive on a back road. She saw him relax, as if he knew the area, and when they were out of sight of all cars, he told her to park. When Donna West saw how deserted the area was, she realized this abduction had nothing to do with anything political. She was going to be raped or shot or both.
“I want to sit here a minute and get my head together,” he said.
Donna sat with her hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead, wondering what was going to happen. The tears started down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “You afraid I’m going to rape you?”
Those words and his sarcastic tone cut through her, and she looked at him. “Yeah,” she said. “I am.”
“Well, you’re so fucking stupid,” he said. “Here you are worried about your ass when you ought to be worried about your life.”
That was a sobering, shocking thing to hear. and Donna started· crying immediately. “By God,” she said, “you’re absolutely right. I am worried about my life.”
She could barely see his. eyes through the sunglasses as his voice softened: “Take your hair out of the ponytail.”
She sat gripping the wheel.
“I said take your hair down!”
She reached up and pulled a barrette out. Then he undid the braid, caressing her hair, saying how pretty it was.
Then he changed again, becoming loud and mouthy. “You are so fucking stupid,” he said. “Jeeze, look how ya got yourself in a situation like this.”
“How did I get myself into this situation?”
“Look at your dress. Look at your hair. You oughta know you would attract attention from someone like me. What were you doin’ in the parking lot at seven-thirty in the morning? You’re so fucking stupid.”
Donna thought he was right in a way. It was her fault for offering him a ride: She had herself to blame for what was going to. happen. Then she caught herself and realized he was taking her on a guilt trip. She’d heard of rapists doing this before, and she knew better than to fall for it.
“By the way,” he said shocking her out of her thoughts, “my name is Phil.”
She looked straight ahead, not turning to see his face.
He shouted at her: “I said my name is Phil!”
She shook her head. “I don’t really care what your name is. I don’t think I want to know it.”
He told her to get out of the car. Then, as he searched her pockets, he said, “As a nurse, I bet you could get a lotta speed.”
She didn’t answer.
“Get into the back of the car,” he ordered.
Donna began to talk quickly as she got into the rear, hoping she could distract him by conversation. “Do you like art?” she asked. “I really like art. I’m a part-time potter. I work with clay.” She talked on and on hysterically, but he seemed not to hear what she was saying.
He made her pull down her white panty hose, and she was almost grateful he didn’t make it even more humiliating by forcing her to disrobe completely.
“I don’t have any diseases,” he said as he unzipped his fly.
It stunned Donna that he would say such a thing. She felt like screaming at him: “I have diseases. I have all kinds of diseases.” But by now she felt he was mentally ill, and she was afraid of agitating him further. Well, diseases were the last thing on her mind right now. She just wanted this over and done with.
She was surprised and relieved at how quickly he finished with her.
“You’re fantastic,” he said. “You turn me on.” He got out of the car, looked around, and told her to get back behind the wheel. “This is the first time I’ve ever raped anybody. I’m more than a guerrilla now. I’m a rapist.”
After a short while, Donna said, “May I get out of the car? I have to urinate.”
He nodded.
“I can’t do it with someone watching me,” she said. “Could you walk away out of sight?”
He did as she asked, and when he returned, she noticed his behavior had changed. He was relaxed, joking. But then he suddenly changed again, assuming the same commanding tone and attitude he’d had before the rape, frightening her with violent talk, using foul language.
“Get into the car,” he snapped. “Get back on the freeway and go north. I want you to cash checks and get me some money.”
Thinking as quickly as she could, wanting desperately to get back to familiar territory, she said, “Look, if it’s money you want, let’s go back to Columbus. You’re not going to get any out-of-town checks cashed on a Saturday.”
She waited for his reaction, telling herself that if he insisted on heading north on I-71, it would mean they were headed for Cleveland. She decided then and there that she would crash the car and kill both of them. She hated what he had done to her, and she was going to make sure he would have no use for her money.
“All right,” he said. “Take I-71 south.”
She hoped he wouldn’t see how relieved she was, and she decided to press her luck. “Why don’t we take Route Twenty-three? There are lots of banks on twenty-three and we could get to one before they close at noon.”
Again he accepted her suggestion, and though she still felt her life was in danger, she hoped that if she could keep talking and keep him off balance, she might get through it alive.
“Are you married?” he asked her suddenly.
She nodded, realizing it was important for him to think someone was waiting for her, that someone would know she was missing. “My husband’s a doctor.”
“How is he?”
“He’s an intern.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s he like?”
She was about to describe Sidney when she suddenly realized that he wanted to know how adequate her husband was sexually.
“You’re much better than he is,” she said, realizing that if she complimented him, he might be nicer to her. “You know, my husband must have a problem. It takes him forever. It’s great that you were so fast.”
She could see he really got a big kick out of that, and she was more certain than ever that this young man was a schizophrenic, out of touch with reality. If she kept humoring him, perhaps she might get out of this.
He went through her purse again, taking her Master Charge card, her university clinic ID, and her checkbook. “I have to have two hundred dollars,” he said. “Someone needs the money. Write a check for cash and go to your bank in Westerville. We’ll go in together, but if you make one funny move, you try to do anything, I’ll be standing right behind you with the gun. I’ll shoot.”
As they went into the bank, Donna was shaking all over. She found it hard to believe that the tellers didn’t catch on — she could barely talk and was rolling her eyes frantically, trying to attract attention. But no one noticed a thing. Donna used her Master Charge card to make two withdrawals of fifty dollars each, until the machine receipt indicated she’d reached her limit.
As they drove off, he tore up the bank receipts carefully, then tossed the pieces out the car window. Donna looked through the rear view mirror and nearly choked — a Westerville police cruiser was right behind them! “Oh, my God,” she thought, clenching a fist to her temple, “we’re going to be picked up for littering!”
Reacting to her agitation, he turned and saw the police. “Oh, hot damn! Let the fucking pigs come up here and I’ll blow ‘em away. Too bad you have to see this, but that’s the way it goes. I’ll waste ‘em, and if you try anything you’ll be next.”
Mentally, she crossed her fingers, hoping the police hadn’t seen the papers thrown out of the car. She felt certain he would shoot it out with them. The police cruiser ignored them, and she slumped back, trembling.
“Let’s find another bank,” he said.
They tried several banks, then Krogers and Big Bear stores, all unsuccessfully. She noticed that he would become agitated and aggressive before they entered each one, but once inside he would be playful, as if it were all a game. At the Kroger store in Raintree Center, he put his arm around her and pretended he was her husband. “We really need the money,” he told the clerk. “We’re going out of town.” Donna was finally able to cash fifty dollars by using a check-cashing machine.
“I wonder,” he said, “if all the computers are connected.”
When she told him that he seemed to know a lot about the way banks and bank machines worked, he said, “I need to know all these things because it’s useful information for my group to have. We share information. Everyone adds to the group.”
Again she assumed he was talking about the Weathermen or some other radical organization, ·and she decided to divert him with talk about politics and current issues. When he thumbed through a copy of Time that had been lying on the floor of the car, she asked his opinion on the voting for the Panama Canal treaty. He looked confused and flustered, and she realized after a few seconds that he knew nothing at all about something that had been in the headlines and on the TV news. He was not the political activist he had led her to believe. She decided he knew very little about what was going on in the world.
“You know,” he said softly, “I really like you, Donna. It’s too bad we had to meet under these circumstances.”
Donna decided that he was not going to kill her, and she began to think about helping the police catch him.
“It would be wonderful,” she said, “if we could meet again. Phone me… write me a letter … send me a postcard. If you don’t want to sign your own name, you could sign it G for ‘Guerrilla.’ ”
“What about your husband?”
She had him, she thought. She had manipulated him, and now she had him hooked. “Don’t. worry about my husband,” she said. “I’ll take care of him. Write me. Phone me. l’d love to hear from you again.”
He pointed out that she was almost out of gas and suggested they pull into a station to fill up.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll have enough.” She was hoping she would run out of gas so that he would have to leave the car.
“How close are we to where I picked you up this morning?”
“Not far.”
“Why don’t you take me back there?” She nodded, thinking how appropriate it was to be going back to where it had started. When they were near the College of Dentistry, he told her to pull over. He insisted on leaving her five dollars for gas. She didn’t touch it; so he slipped it under the visor. Then he looked at her tenderly. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances,” he whispered again. “I really love you.”
He hugged her tightly and ran out of the car.
It was one o’clock Saturday afternoon when Ragen got back to the Channingway Apartments, once again remembering nothing of the robbery. He put the money beneath his pillow and the gun on the table beside him. “This money stays vit me,” he said and went to sleep.
Allen woke later. that evening, found $200 under his pillow, and wondered where in the world it had come from. When he saw Ragen’s gun, he figured it out.
“Well,” he said, “might as well go have a good time.”
He showered, shaved his face, dressed, and went out for dinner. Ragen woke Tuesday evening, thinking he had slept for just a few hours. He put his hand under the pillow, only to find the money gone again. Gone. And he still hadn’t paid the bills or bought anything for himself. Once again he asked questions inside, and this time he reached Allen and Tommy.
“Yeah,” Allen said. “I saw some money laying there. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to spend it.”
“I bought some art supplies,” Tommy said. “We need stuff.”
“Fools!” Ragen shouted. “I stole it to pay bills. To buy food. For car payment.”
“Well, where’s Arthur?” Allen asked. “He should have told us.”
“I cannot find Arthur. He is off somevere vit scientific studies instead of controlling spot. I am one who has to get money to pay bills.”
“What are you gonna do now?” Tommy asked.
“I do it once more. Is last time. No one must touch money.”
“God,” Allen said, “I hate these mix-up times.”
In the early hours of Wednesday, October 26, Ragen put on his leather jacket and made his way, for the third time, across the city of Columbus, toward Ohio State University. He had to get money. He had to rob someone. Anyone. At about seven-thirty he paused at an intersection where a police cruiser had also stopped. Ragen suddenly gripped his gun. The officers might have some money. As he started toward them, the light abruptly changed and they drove away.
Walking along East. Woodruff Avenue, he saw an attractive blond woman pulling a blue Corvette up the driveway of a brick apartment building. The sign on the wall said GEMINI. He followed her up the driveway around to the back parking area, certain she hadn’t seen him. He had never considered robbing a woman, but now he was desperate.
“Get into car.”
The woman turned, startled. “What?” “I have gun. I need you to take me someplace.”
Frightened, she carefully followed all of his instructions. Ragen got into the car and pulled out two guns. Then Adalana wished him off the spot for the third time…
Adalana was becoming worried that Arthur might discover she had been stealing Ragen’s time. She decided that if Ragen was ever caught, he might as well be blamed for the whole thing. Since he had come out with guns and certainly had intended to commit robbery, everyone would believe he had been out the whole time. If he couldn’t remember what had happened, it would be blamed on the vodka and the drugs.
She admired Ragen, his aggressiveness as well as his tenderness with Christene. There were qualities about Ragen she wished she possessed herself. As the young woman drove her Corvette, Adalana talked as if she were Ragen.
“I want you to stop at that office building over there,” she said. “There should be a limousine parked in the back lot.”
When they saw the limousine, Adalana picked up one of the guns and aimed it at the car. “I’m going to kill the man who owns that car. If he were here now, he’d be dead. That man deals in cocaine, and I happen to know he killed a little girl by giving her cocaine. He does it to children all the time. That’s why I’m going to kill him.”
Adalana felt something in her jacket pocket. She found Tommy’s handcuffs and laid them on the floor of the car.
“What’s your name?” Adalana asked. “Polly Newton.”
“Well, Polly, I see you’re low on gas.
Pull into that service station.”
Adalana paid for five gallons of gas, then told Polly to take I-71 north. They drove until they reached Worthington, Ohio, where Adalana insisted they stop at the Friendly ice cream store for a couple of Cokes.
As they drove on, Adalana noticed a river along the right side of the road and some old one-lane bridges crossing it. She knew Polly Newton was studying her face carefully, probably so she could identify her to the police. Adalana talked, pretending to be Ragen, making up stories. It would confuse Arthur and the others and cover her trail. No one would know she had been on the spot.
“I killed three people, but I killed a lot more than that during the war. I’m a member of the Weathermen’s terrorist group, and I was dropped off in Columbus last night to complete a mission. I had to make a man disappear who was going to testify in court against the Weathermen. I should tell you I completed my mission.”
Polly Newton listened quietly, nodding.
“I have another identity,” Adalana boasted, “where I dress up, and I’m a businessman, and I drive a Maserati.”
When they came to a deserted country road, Adalana had Polly drive across a deep ditch and through the high weeds of an overgrown field near a small pond. Adalana got out with her, looked at the water and at the surrounding area, came back, and sat on the hood of the car. “I want to wait for about twenty minutes before I have you drop me off.”
Polly looked relieved.
Then Adalana added, “And I want to have sex with you.”
Polly began to cry.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not the kind who beats women and throws them around. I don’t even like to hear about that being done to women.”
Polly cried louder.
“Look, you mustn’t scream and kick when you’re being raped, because that makes a rapist freak out and get violent. The best thing to do is lay back, say, ‘Go ahead,’ and the rapist won’t hurt you. I have a soft spot for tears,” Adalana said, “but you don’t have a choice. I’m going to do it anyway.”
She took two bath towels from the car and laid them on the ground along with her jacket. “Lie down on them, put your hands on the ground, look up at the sky, and try to relax.”
Polly did as she was told. Then Adalana lay down beside her, unfastened her blouse and her bra, and kissed her. “You don’t have to worry about getting pregnant or anything like that,” she said. “I’ve got Huntington’s chorea, and I’ve had a vasectomy. Look.”
Adalana pulled down her jogging pants to her knees and showed Polly a scar on the lower abdomen, right above the penis. It wasn’t a vasectomy scar at all. It was a diagonal line on the abdomen itself, an appendectomy scar.
As Adalana lay on top of her, Polly cried, “Please don’t rape me!” The girl’s cry of “rape” struck deep into Adalana’s mind. She remembered the things that had happened to David and Danny and Billy, how they had been the victims of child abuse. My God, what a horrible thing rape was.
Adalana stopped, rolled off onto her back, and looked at the sky with tears in her eyes. “Bill,” she said, “what’s wrong with you? Get yourself together.”
She got up and put the towels back into the car. Then she took the larger gun from the front seat and threw an old beer bottle into the pond, but at first the gun wouldn’t go off. She tried again, firing at the beer bottle twice and missing both times. Well, she wasn’t a marksman like Ragen.
“We’d better get going,” Adalana said. As they drove off, Adalana reached over and searched the young woman’s handbag. “I need to get some money for someone,” she said. “About two hundred dollars.” She held up the check-cashing card. “We’ll go into Kroger’s and cash a check.”
At the Kroger office Polly was able to cash a check for two hundred and fifty dollars. Then they went to the State Savings Bank on North High Street, which refused to cash her checks. Finally, after a few other futile attempts at drive-in bank windows, Adalana suggested they use her father’s Union Company card and try to cash a check with the card as a backup. The Union store at Graceland Shopping Center permitted her to cash a fifty-dollar check. “We could cash another check,” Adalana suggested, “and you could keep the money yourself.”
In a change of mood, Adalana tore a check out of the checkbook to write Polly a poem, but when she was done, she said, “I can’t give it to you because the police might be able to match my handwriting.” She destroyed the check and then ripped a page out of Polly’s address book.
“I’m going to keep this page,” Adalana said. “If you notify the police about me, I’ll send the page to the Weathermen group and they’ll kill your family.”
Just then Adalana saw a police car on her left. Startled, she slipped away…
Philip found himself looking out the window of a moving car. He turned and saw a strange young blond woman at the wheel.
“What da fuck am I doin’ here?” he said aloud. “Where y’at, Phil?”
“Is that your name — ‘Bill’?”
“Nah. Phil.” He looked around. “What da fuck is goin’ on? Jesus Christ, just a few minutes ago I wuz … ”
Then Tommy was there, looking at her, wondering why he was here. Maybe someone was out on a date. He looked at his watch. It was almost noon.
“You hungry?” Tommy asked.
She nodded.
“There’s a Wendy’s over there. Let’s go get hamburgers and some fries.”
She placed the order, and Tommy paid for the food. She talked about herself as they ate, but he didn’t really listen. She wasn’t his date. He’d just have to wait until whoever was out with her came back and took her wherever they were going.
“Is there anyplace in particular you want me to drop you off?” she asked.
He looked at her. “The campus area’s okay.”
Whoever’s date it was had just jilted him. When they got back to the car, he closed his eyes …
Allen looked up quickly. at the young woman who was driving and felt the gun in his pocket and the roll of money. Oh, Jesus Christ, no …
“Look,” he said. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I? Don’t give the police my description, will you?”
She stared at him. He realized he had to confuse the issue in case she went to the police.
“Tell the police I’m Carlos the Jackal from Venezuela.”
“Who’s Carlos the Jackal?”
“Carlos the Jackal is dead, but the police don’t know it yet. You tell them I’m Carlos and they’ll probably believe you.” He jumped out of the car and walked quickly away …
Back home, Ragen counted the money and made an announcement: “No one is to touch money. I have robbed this for to pay bills.”
Arthur said, “Wait a minute. I paid those bills with the money I found on the dresser.”
“Vat? Vy don’t you tell me? Vy I am going around robbing people?”
“I thought you’d know when you saw the money gone.”
“So? And vat about money from second robbery? It vas gone, but not from paying bills.”
“The boys explained that to you.”
Ragen felt he’d been made a fool of, and he stormed around the apartment in a rage. He demanded to know who had been stealing his time.
Arthur reached Tommy, Kevin, and Philip, but all three denied stealing time from Ragen. Philip described the blond girl he had seen in the car: “She looked like a cheerleader type.”
“You were not supposed to take the spot,” Arthur said.
“Well, shit, I didn’t want to. I just found myself sitting with this broad in the goddamned car without knowing why. And I took off as soon as I realized what was goin’ down.”
Tommy said he’d bought the same girl a hamburger at Wendy’s, figuring she was someone’s date, “but that was just for about twenty minutes. The money was in my pocket already.”
Arthur said, “Everybody stay home for a few days. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on. Nobody’s to leave until we find out who’s been stealing time from Ragen.”
“Well,” Tommy said, “tomorrow’s Dorothy and Del’s fourth wedding anniversary. Kathy called and reminded me. I promised I’d meet her in Lancaster and she’d help me pick out a present.”
Arthur nodded. “All right, call her and tell her you’ll meet her, but don’t take too much money with you. Just what you’ll need. Get back as soon as possible.”
The next day Tommy went shopping with Kathy in Lancaster, where they bought a beautiful chenille bedspread for a present. After dinner with Dorothy and Del and a quiet, pleasant visit with Kathy, Tommy sat in the car and waited until Allen came to drive him back to Channingway.
As soon as Allen got back to the apartment, he flopped into bed…
And David woke up. He didn’t know why he was feeling so bad. Something was wrong around here, but he didn’t know what. He wandered around the apartment and tried to reach Arthur or Allen or Ragen, but nobody would come. Everybody was mad at everybody else. Then he saw the bullets from Ragen’s gun in the plastic bag under the couch and the gun under the red chair, and he knew that was very bad, because Ragen always kept his guns locked away.
He remembered what Arthur had always told him: “If there’s ever any trouble or somebody’s doing something bad and you can’t reach anyone for help, call the bobbies.” He knew “bobbies” was Arthur’s way of saying police, because Arthur had written the police number on the paper beside the telephone. He picked the receiver up and dialed the number. When a man answered, David said, “Somebody is doing bad things around here. Everything’s wrong.”
“Where you at?”
“Old Livingston Avenue, the Channingway Apartments. There’s something awfully wrong. But don’t tell nobody I called you.” Then he hung up. He looked out the window and saw how foggy it was.
After a while he left the spot. Danny came out and started to paint, even though it was getting late. Then he sat down in the living room to watch TV. When he heard the knock on the door, he was surprised. Through the peephole he saw a man with a Domino’s pizza box in his hand. He opened the door and said, “I didn’t order pizza.”
While Danny was trying to help the man who was looking for Billy, the man slammed him against the wall and put a gun to his head. The police came in through the door with guns, and a pretty lady told him he had the right to remain silent; so he did. Then two men put him into a car and drove very slowly through the thick fog to the police station.
Danny had no idea why he was arrested, but he sat in the jail cell until David came to watch cockroaches running in circles. Arthur or Ragen or Allen would come soon and get him out of there. David knew he hadn’t been a bad boy. He hadn’t done anything bad at all.
THE TRIALS
On December 4, 1978, Judge Jay C. Flowers of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus, Ohio, found William Stanley Milligan “not guilty by reason of insanity” and committed him to the Athens Mental Health Center, in Athens, Ohio, under the care of Dr. David Caul, a multiple-personality specialist.
Following newspaper attacks and political pressures, on October 4, 1979, under order of Judge Roger Jones of the Athens County Common Pleas Court, Billy Milligan was handcuffed and belt-shackled and transferred from Athens to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Milligan’s attorneys appealed the questionable transfer, but on December 10, 1979, Judge David R. Kinworthy of the Allen County Common Pleas Court ordered that he be kept at Lima and ordered the hospital psychiatrists to treat his multiple-personality disorder.
Locked in the strong ward of Lima, Billy did not receive the treatment ordered by the judge, and his attorneys filed a contempt-of-court motion against the Lima authorities and the Ohio State Department of Mental Health. They pressed the mental-health authorities to transfer Billy to a less restrictive hospital, where he would receive proper psychiatric care.
In October 1980 the state of Ohio began the process of transforming Lima from a hospital for the criminally insane to a prison. A month later Billy was moved to the Dayton Forensic Center, a maximum-security facility surrounded by double fences, topped by concertina barbed wire, and run with a security system more stringent than that of most prisons.
On April 21, 1981, Ohio’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the first transfer to Lima was “a fatal violation” of his rights but decided not to overturn the judge’s actions.
Billy did not seem bitter when I read him the news article reporting the decision. I had the impression he was weary of it all.
I visit Billy from time to time. Sometimes it’s Tommy or Allen or Kevin. At other times he’s the one with no name.
On one of my visits, when I asked who he was, he said, “I don’t know who I am. I feel hollow.”
I asked him to tell me about it.
“When I’m not asleep and not on the spot,” he said, “it’s like I’m lying face down on a sheet of glass that stretches out forever, and I can look down through it. Beyond that, in the farthest ground, it seems like stars of outer space, but then there’s a circle, a beam of light. It’s almost as if it’s coming out of my eyes because it’s always in front of me. Around it, some of my people are lying in coffins. The lids aren’t on them because they’re not dead yet. They’re asleep, waiting for something. There are some empty coffins because not everyone has come there. David and the other young ones want a chance at life. The older ones have given up hope.”
“What is this place?” I asked him.
“David named it,” he said, “because he made it. David calls it ‘the Dying Place.’”
From the book “The Minds of Billy Milligan” by Daniel Keyes. Copyright © 1981 by Darnel Keyes and William S. Milligan. Reprinted by permission of Random House. Inc. … And should you wish to absorb a little Weird History with a happier note attached, we suggest some “Good Habits” at this juncture.
