In 1977, Billy Milligan became the first person ever to use multiple personalities as the basis for being found not guilty by reason of insanity. But was he really suffering from this condition, or did he fool his doctors to avoid a life in prison?
The Insanity Defense in American Law
Although much of the myth surrounding the insanity defense has been dispelled, there is still a large misconception over exactly how common it is or on what grounds it can be applied. There are a lot of common mental disorders, so common that it is estimated 26% of adults in America at any given time are suffering from a diagnosable disorder.
However, suffering from anxiety or depression is not grounds for an insanity plea. Likewise, your diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder is not going to save you from any jail time, unless your specific compulsion happens to be that you can’t leave a room without turning the lights on and off three times then stabbing somebody seventeen times.
Because mental health diagnoses are nuanced and sometimes subjective, courts sought to put in place standardized rules to help judges and juries evaluate someone’s legal competency. The first such rule, called the M’Naghten Rule, goes all the way back to 1843. This rule was established when Englishman Daniel M’Naghten assassinated the prime minister on the basis that the prime minister was conspiring against him, and it became the standard throughout the UK and the US. It is still used in about half of US states today.
This rule was split into two parts, either of which was considered sufficient grounds for an insanity defense. As a result of a mental disease or other mental defect, the defendant would have to show that either they did not understand that what they were doing was wrong, or that they simply did not understand what they were doing at all.
The M’Naghten Rule was a high bar to clear, and it was primarily used in the case of psychopaths and schizophrenics. If a person genuinely believed that they were killing a demon or that they were performing an otherwise illegal act on orders from God himself, they clearly would not understand that what they were doing was wrong.
It was evident early on that the M’Naghten Rule was incomplete. So in 1887 the Alabama Supreme Court introduced the Irresistible Impulse Test. This test was designed to include people who knew what they were doing was wrong, but that literally couldn’t help themselves. Unlike the M’Naghten Rule, this would provide criteria by which those suffering from things like mania or paraphilias (abnormal sexual desires) could be evaluated.
The problem with the Irresistible Impulse test was that it had a higher level of subjectivity and could wind up being overly inclusive.
These tests worked well enough for a while, but in 1953 the Durham Rule emerged when a judge decided that reform was needed. He felt that the defense failed to show that the defendant, Durham, didn’t know right from wrong, but that he was still insane. The new rule was extremely simplified, stating “that an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.”
Hopefully that language throws up some immediate red flags, because it is extremely broad and subjective. The Durham Rule essentially removed both judges and juries from the equation, and the entire test was effectively left to medical professionals. If the doctor, who was not held to any specific standards for the methodology of their diagnosis, said the person wasn’t responsible, that was the end of the discussion.
This test was quickly identified as having these issues, and in 1972 it was largely disregarded in favour of the new Model Penal Code. This was essentially just a combination of the M’Naghten Rule and the Irresistible Impulse Test into a single rule, allowing either to be sufficient proof that a person wasn’t legally competent. The main difference was that instead of focusing on whether the defendant understood that their actions were morally wrong, it could instead be applied to determine whether they understood that their actions were criminal.
Successful uses of the insanity defense tend to be major news, which is why people are prone to believing it is more common than it is. It’s not an attractive defense because it is difficult to prove, and because the insanity plea involves admitting that the defendant committed the crime, just that they weren’t legally responsible. In reality, only about 1% of criminal cases attempt the insanity defense and only about 25% of those are successful, so roughly 1 in 400 cases.
Among those who successfully used the defense was Billy Milligan, a man who achieved celebrity status by being the first person to successfully use multiple personality disorder as the basis for an insanity defense.
Billy would achieve such fame that he got to personally meet with director James Cameron to discuss selling the story of his life. But was Billy, better known before his arrest as the Campus Rapist, actually insane, or was he just a run of the mill violent criminal who found a way to exploit the zeitgeist of clinical psychology in the 1970s?
Exactly What You Would Expect
This should come as no surprise to true crime audiences, but Billy had a really difficult childhood. Billy’s mother, Dorothy Sands, grew up in Ohio. She married a man named Dick Jonas, but the marriage failed due to Dick’s drinking problem. After her divorce, Dorothy moved to Miami and got a job as a singer.
While in Miami, she met and fell in love with a man named Johnny Morrison, a local comedian and musician. Johnny was already married, but that didn’t stop the couple from having three children together. William Stanley Milligan, born on Valentine’s Day 1955, was the middle child. He had an older brother, Jim, and a younger sister, Kathy Jo. However, Dorothy hadn’t learned her lesson from her first marriage.
Johnny was another heavy drinker, and the combination of medical expenses and trying to pay for three children was too much for him to handle. He turned to gambling, taking out loans to gamble more, and also drinking more. In 1958, Dorothy found him slumped over the kitchen table having downed half a bottle of scotch and a bottle of sleeping pills. Johnny was taken to the hospital and survived the ordeal, but he wouldn’t quit gambling or drinking, so he wasn’t going to quit trying to kill himself either.
A few months later, in January of 1959, Johnny committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning. The financial insecurity, pressures of being a father, and severe addiction all played a role in his suicide.
Dorothy moved back to Ohio with her kids where she remarried her ex-husband. Unsurprisingly, this marriage lasted less than a year. Roughly two years after their divorce, Dorothy met a new man, Chalmer Milligan. The following year, in 1963, the two would get married. The good news is that Dorothy had learned her lesson about dating alcoholics, as there don’t appear to be any accounts of Chalmer being a heavy drinker. The bad news is that he was going to make Johnny Morrison look like Mr. Rogers. Allegedly.
Before discussing what kind of man and father Chalmer was, it’s important to note that at this point Billy was 8 years old, and it had only been 4 years since his father committed suicide. Even if Chalmer was the kindest and most patient parent in the world, being on their third father in four years would have had to affect Billy and his siblings at least somewhat.
Chalmer, an army veteran, already had two daughters from his previous marriage, a marriage that had ended in divorce on the grounds of “gross neglect.” Everything about Chalmer moving forward is allegedly. This comes from Billy’s personal account, his accounts to psychiatrists which date back to his teenage years before he committed any serious crimes, and the accounts from his siblings. There is a good amount of corroboration to this story, but no charges were ever filed and thus there is no conviction, so this is all allegedly.
With the legal compulsories out of the way, Chalmer was allegedly a sadistic, abusive figure. All, or at least the vast majority, of his abuse was directed at Billy, which isn’t really uncommon. By only abusing one child, that would theoretically leave him four more to vouch for what a wonderful father he was.
Singling out the weakest or most timid child could also decrease the chances that the child would ever come forward about the abuse. Billy wasn’t the youngest child, but he was the younger of the two boys, and it seems that Chalmer may have been more interested in carrying out his sadistic acts on a boy than a girl.
The first of those alleged sadistic acts was sodomy. There were plenty of beatings to be had, but a punch in the face is relatively mundane as far as child abuse goes, and Chalmer wasn’t one to half-ass his cruelty. Instead, he would hang Billy from the ceiling by his fingers and toes (not arms and legs), so that he could strike his adopted son. When all else failed and the interactive personal abuse wasn’t enough, Chalmer would simply bury Billy alive.
Again, all of the details of abuse are allegations for which he was never charged despite corroboration from Billy’s siblings.
This abuse began just months after Dorothy and Chalmer got married, and it was the first instance of Chalmer sodomizing Billy that psychiatrists would later say was the trigger for his personality to splinter.
In 1970, shortly after Billy’s fifteenth birthday, he was suspended from his junior high school. The reason given for his suspension was that he would go into trancelike states and just wander around the town. That same month, he was committed to the children’s unit of Columbus State Hospital for psychiatric treatment where he was diagnosed with hysterical neurosis. Hysterical neurosis is an outdated term, and the former diagnosis has been bifurcated into both conversion disorder and dissociative disorders.
He was released after a few months, but his parents were urged to have him continue therapy. It does not seem like this happened, but if it did it certainly didn’t help. Billy was actually thrown out of the psychiatric hospital because his behaviour was too disruptive.
Despite having been suspended from junior high and committed for the remainder of the school year, Billy began high school that fall. Things went okay but not great for a couple years with Billy attending high school and working part time jobs, none of which he was able to hold down for very long.
After two years of high school, Billy and his disruptive behaviour were expelled at the age of 17. He immediately enlisted in the Navy, but after two months he was thrown out for being unable to adapt to Navy life.
Billy’s childhood was tumultuous and full of disappointment. He went from one alcoholic father to another alcoholic father to a horrifically abusive figure (allegedly). He didn’t really finish junior high, was thrown out of high school, was thrown out of the Navy, and was even thrown out of the psychiatric ward that should have been full of doctors capable of helping him cope with his traumatic upbringing.
Up to this point, it would be easy to feel bad for Billy Milligan. Abuse tends to perpetuate a cycle of more abuse, so it’s unsurprising many criminals have tragic back stories. If you are currently feeling compassion and sympathy towards Billy, that would be justified. But it’s time to remember the criminal nickname the media gave him.
The Campus Rapist
It only took a couple months after being discharged from the Navy before Billy found himself in trouble with the law. Billy and a friend picked up some women who would go to the police a few days later to accuse them of rape. The pair was arrested on charges of rape, assault, and kidnapping, though the kidnapping charges would later be dropped.
Billy’s defense for these actions was unusual at best. According to his account, the women were sex workers. As he told it, the issue arose because he was unable to perform sexually so he and his friend didn’t pay them. The judge wasn’t having any of it, and they were found guilty.
However, Billy was still 17, so he wouldn’t be sent off to prison. Instead, he would serve six months at a juvenile detention camp. It was around this time that Dorothy would finally divorce Chalmer, but the damage from his abuse was already done.
Following his release from juvie, Billy began working as a security guard for an arms and drug dealer. That was what he claimed, anyway; as far as can be determined this hasn’t been verified. When he wasn’t busy working as a hired goon, it seems Billy spent his free time trolling the streets as a petty thug.
In late 1974, Billy was approached by two cross-dressing men at a rest stop. It’s unclear whether “approached” means they were actually intending to engage with him or just walking in his general direction, but given that it was a highway rest stop it’s probably the former. Billy assaulted the two men and stole their purses.
Early the next year, he took part in the robbery of a drugstore. He clearly wasn’t a very good criminal, because for the second time he would be arrested within days of his crimes. This time, Billy had the good sense to plead guilty. He was 20 years old now, so this time he would be serving his two year sentence in adult prison instead of a juvenile facility.
In April of 1977, Billy was released from prison. He did manage to stay under the radar for a whole six months, but it wasn’t going to last. On October 14, 1977, Billy pulled a gun on an optometry student in the Ohio State University parking lot. He took her from the parking lot to a nearby wooded area where he raped her, then made her write a check and cash it for him.
He would repeat this two more times, once on October 22 with a nurse and once on October 26 with an undergraduate student. All three women were kidnapped from OSU, raped, and then robbed.
Billy was not a very good criminal, so fortunately he was arrested the day after the third rape, only 13 days after his crime spree had begun. Billy had already been arrested for rape before when he was 17, so when one of the victims was shown a book of mugshots from known sex offenders she was easily able to pick him out of the lineup. His fingerprints were also found in the car of one of the victims.
There was more than enough evidence for a warrant, and upon searching Billy’s home they found his gun and personal items he had stolen from the victims to keep as trophies. The gun was a clear parole violation, so he was arrested and taken to Ohio State Penitentiary to await trial for three counts of kidnapping, rape, and robbery. Based on the physical evidence and the ease with which all three women identified him, it should have been a slam dunk for the prosecution. However, before it even went to trial there were some peculiarities.
One of the three victims said that Billy spoke with a German accent. Another said that he was extremely nice the whole time and that had she met him under different circumstances, the kind where she wasn’t being raped at gunpoint, she would have considered dating him. Regardless, the important part here is that, even though the victims had no trouble identifying Billy, their descriptions of his personality were very different. Many will point to this as proof that his diagnosis was real.
After all, why would someone go through the trouble of faking an elaborate mental disorder while committing their crimes? The obvious answer is that it will make it much more believable when you try to use that as defense in court.
The supervisor of the OSU police investigators drove Billy to the Columbus police headquarters following the arrest in his home. He said of the trip that he didn’t know what was going on, but that it felt like he was talking to different people at different times. Billy also claimed to have no knowledge of the crimes and didn’t know what he was being arrested for. Even if he really did lack memory of those specific crimes, he was on parole and the police just found a gun in his home; an arrest under those circumstances shouldn’t be that confusing.
Once Billy was at the Ohio State Penitentiary, he began meeting with doctors and undergoing psychiatric evaluations so that his public defenders could prepare their defense. Public defenders Gary Schweickart and Judy Stevenson managed to pull off a remarkable defense. It would probably have been a lot better for society as a whole if they hadn’t, but it’s still really impressive.
The defense that Billy’s lawyers went with was that the reason he appeared to have no memory of the crimes was because he wasn’t the one that committed them. Not just these three rapes at OSU, but the previous robberies that Billy perpetrated weren’t actually committed by him either. All of these crimes were the result of his multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder, or DID.
When he was first evaluated by doctors while in custody, Billy was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. Other doctors would later diagnose him with histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and antisocial traits. However, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur was brought in to consult on the case. In 1977, she was undoubtedly the most famous psychiatrist in the United States if not the entire world, and she was the one who led the charge for the diagnosis of DID.
Using his new diagnosis of DID, Billy’s lawyers were able to have him found not guilty by reason of insanity. Billy was the first person to ever successfully use multiple personalities as a defense. Gary and Judy were the first people to use the defense and it was almost entirely on the basis of Cornelia’s diagnosis, but Billy is always the one that gets all the credit.
But if Billy wasn’t guilty and didn’t rape those women, then who did? That would be 19-year-old lesbian Adalana. She was one of ten distinct personalities originally found to inhabit the body of Billy Milligan, though further sessions with psychiatrists would discover that there were another 14 personalities held prisoner in the darkest recesses of his mind.
The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan
Before discussing Billy’s 24 different personalities, a disclaimer is necessary. DID is the most controversial condition printed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and many psychiatrists believe it should be removed entirely. There is heavy debate over whether multiple personalities are a real thing, and many are firmly of the belief that they are not. It may be possible that they exist in very rare cases, but currently the diagnosis is anything but scientific.
Many sufferers of DID do not present symptoms of the disorder until after beginning therapy, indicating that they are either intentionally or subconsciously steered in that direction by the doctors themselves. Patients of these doctors are generally rewarded for showing signs of the disorder, and the more identities they reveal the more validation they will receive. One of the most damning things of all is that research consistently shows that it is impossible for these psychiatrists to tell the difference between a person that has been previously diagnosed with DID and someone who is faking it for the sake of the experiment.
Even if DID is real, there is little doubt that Billy was faking it to get out of his crimes. With that bias fully disclosed, here are Billy’s supposed 24 personalities, referred to as alters.
First, there is the 22-year-old Billy, the core and most likely only personality.
Next on the list is Arthur. Arthur, 23, was a sophisticated and well educated Englishman who completely ran the show. He was an expert in science and medicine, with a focus on hematology. These supposed credentials were never actually put to the test, as anytime Billy was in a situation where someone could challenge the alleged claims of one of his alters he would conveniently switch to another personality.
Arthur was in charge of “the spot,” the name he used to refer to whichever alter was in control of Billy at that time. He had total control over which personality could use the spot. Though Billy was unaware of his supposed alternate personalities and had no memories when they were in control, all of his alters were aware of one another and shared memories.
Not only was Arthur in charge of the spot, he also was one of two personalities that had the authority to classify one of the others as “undesirable.” There were 14 undesirables, the personalities that were not discovered until later in Billy’s treatment.
In addition to being the gatekeeper to the spot, Arthur was primarily used in times when intellectual thinking was required. A lot of sources report that he had a genius level IQ of 150. Better sources note that this is a total lie. All of Billy’s personalities were subjected to an IQ test, and the scores ranged from 67-129. Arthur simply refused to take the test.
This whole thing is pretty easily explained. Billy had an IQ of 129, which would put him at above average intelligence but not exceptionally gifted. Despite familiarity with IQ tests, a person can only score as high on a test as they can score.
If someone tested at 168, then wanted to claim they had multiple personalities, they could claim one of those personalities was astonishingly brilliant in comparison, but they couldn’t get a score to support that claim. However, what they could easily do is deliberately tank the test in varying degrees to show that the other personalities ranged from developmentally challenged up to their actual intelligence level.
This is almost certainly what Billy did, and then he just refused to take the test as Arthur so that they wouldn’t have “proof” that Arthur wasn’t as intelligent as he claimed to be. Basically, Arthur was that random loudmouth who goes around talking about how amazing they are, but never has anything to back it up with.
Arthur could also read and write Arabic fluently. This was of course never tested, and if they tried to he would have let someone else take control of the spot instead. However, despite claiming he could read and write Arabic, when he encountered a fellow patient at the mental institution who actually could do this, he had that person write in Arabic for him.
Next was Ragen (pronounced like Ronald Reagan) Vadascovinich, nicknamed the “keeper of hate.” Ragen’s name is an allegedly clever portmanteau of the words “rage” and “again.” He was Yugoslavian and spoke with a Slavic accent. He was also fluent in Serbian, something that was equally as unsubstantiated as Arthur’s claim of being fluent in Arabic. Ragen was the only alter to have a last name, likely added to sell the idea that he was Yugoslavian.
He was also the one that was responsible for committing the robberies that had originally landed Billy in jail, and is the one that was working for the arms and drugs dealer. Ragen was purported to be an expert in weapons and of karate. Billy and many of his alters were artists, but Ragen would draw exclusively in black and white because he was colourblind. This seems to indicate that he was supposed to have completely achromatic vision which is exceedingly rare, and it is also the result of physiology.
It’s not like an alternate personality could change a person physically. People who believe Billy seem to think otherwise. Ragen was allegedly strong, somehow stronger than Billy was. This was explained by Ragen having the ability to control his flow of adrenaline to give himself seemingly superhuman strength.
He also weighed at least 10 pounds more than Billy.
Despite being a criminal, Ragen wasn’t lumped in with the other undesirables. He was kept around because he did what needed to be done to provide for “the family.” Instead, he was the other of Billy’s alters that had the ability to designate someone as undesirable.
Next comes Adalana, the perpetrator of the rapes. Adalana was a 19-year-old lesbian who would cook and clean for the others, and often wrote poetry. You might think that committing rape would have gotten Adalana lumped in with the other undesirables, but she had a special power. None of the other alters knew this, but Adalana had the ability both to “wish” control of the spot without Arthur’s permission and to prevent the others from remembering what happened while she had stolen control.
This meant that she alone was privy to the fact that the rapes had happened at all. Her motivation for committing these atrocities was because she was a shy introvert who was desperate for human touch and companionship.
Then there was Allen. Allen was a conman and skilled manipulator, and was the one that most commonly interacted with the outside world, at least allegedly. Allen was also right-handed, despite Billy and all of the other alters being left-handed, as if using your off hand isn’t something literally anyone could learn to do given proper motivation.
He was the only alter that smoked cigarettes. To some people this is a smoking gun that obviously these personalities were real, since nicotine is physically addicting. However, if Billy was only smoking one cigarette every few days, however often he decided to be Allen, it’s not likely to be enough to cause a serious addiction.
Besides, if only one alter smoked then it’s not like Billy would be carrying cigarettes around with him, he’d have to ask the doctors for them. This would make it more of a blatantly performative act than any actual trait of the personality. He also played the drums and painted portraits.
Tommy was often confused for Allen, probably because inventing 24 completely distinct personalities is really hard so there was bound to be some overlap out of convenience. Tommy was a master escape artist, and allegedly escaped from a straitjacket while in police custody. When they explained to him that the jackets were intended for people who were thought to be a danger to themselves, Tommy showed them the trick and taught them how to tie a straitjacket so that no one could escape.
Christene was a three-year-old girl who suffered from dyslexia. Arthur taught her to read and write despite her disability. Christene was referred to as the “corner girl,” because she was the personality that would take over when Billy had to stand in the corner for disrupting class as a child.
She had originally been created during Billy’s childhood as an imaginary friend, but it is believed that she became one of his alters at the time his abuse at the hands of Chalmer started. Although Christene had no useful skills beyond cheerfully drawing pictures of flowers and butterflies, the others vowed to never let her be labeled as an undesirable because she was the first alter created. Similarly, Billy himself was not allowed to be labeled as undesirable because he was the original identity; they just rarely ever left him in control.
Chris was Christene’s older brother. He was 10 years old, enjoyed generic 10-year-old stuff, and likely only existed so that Billy could get the number of personalities to a nice round number, before introducing the 14 undesirables. He was rarely given control because he served little purpose, but he enjoyed playing the harmonica and couldn’t wait to learn to drive. Despite not being able to see over the dashboard, Chris once was able to take the car out for a drive by stationing four of the other alters at the corners of the car and having them direct him.
Danny was afraid of people, especially men, but he liked to paint. He would only paint still lifes and refused to paint landscapes because they reminded him of the time Chalmer made him dig his own grave.
Finally, there was eight-year-old David. David was the “keeper of pain,” and was put into the spot to absorb the pain of all the other alters.
These are the main ten alters that were seen. But Billy was the man of 24 faces, so we’re not even halfway done. At least these ones were all banished, so their stories are a lot shorter.
The Undesirables
Here we find Billy’s basket of deplorables. The personalities that existed, but weren’t allowed to come out and play for a variety of reasons.
Philip was a cheap, dime store hood with a thick Brooklyn accent. He was marked as undesirable on account of being a criminal.
Kevin was another small time criminal. He was considered to be less intelligent and motivated than Philip, making him even less desirable.
Walter was a big game hunter from Australia with an excellent sense of direction. Obviously he had never been to Australia nor had he hunted big game, but he was banished for borrowing the gun to shoot a crow. For the safety and protection of the family, only Ragen was allowed to handle guns.
April frankly shouldn’t have been marked as undesirable. Her singular mission in life was to murder Chalmer. She was banished anyway.
Samuel was the only practitioner of religion among all 24 alters. Like Billy’s biological father, Samuel was Jewish. There are conflicting reports as to why he was marked as undesirable. Some sources cite that it was because he sold off paintings that had belonged to the other alters.
Others say that it was because he was judgmental and self-righteous. Whichever the reason, or perhaps because of a combination of both, Arthur banished Samuel away. He was allowed to take control of the spot exactly once per year, so that he could fast on Yom Kippur. But that was it.
No Passover, no Tisha B’Av, no Rosh Hashanah, Sukkoth, or Shavuot. Samuel got exactly one day per year.
Mark was referred to by the others as “the workhorse” or “the zombie.” He would do nothing unless he was told to, and he would do monotonous tasks for hours at a time without complaint. Mark wasn’t so much an “alternate personality” as he was “literally everybody who has a job they don’t like.” He was marked as undesirable because he was too suggestible and would do anything that he was told.
Steve would be the comic relief if this was a movie. He was a megalomaniac that didn’t believe in the existence of Billy. Instead he believed that he was the core personality and all the others were his alters. He was declared undesirable because he was rude and condescending, and nearly got them all in hot water while Billy was in prison.
Lee was very similar to Steve, except instead of an egocentric personality he was a practical joker who didn’t respect authority. This sort of behaviour is also not acceptable when you’re sharing a body with 22 other people who don’t want to die in jail, so he too was banished.
Jason was known as the pressure valve. He would fly into fits of rage and throw tantrums to let off steam. This behaviour was deemed an inappropriate way to deal with anger, so Jason had to go sit on the sidelines.
Robert was a daydreamer. He was a little man with big plans, none of which he could be bothered to even attempt to see through. He wasn’t bad or dangerous, but Arthur felt that he didn’t contribute anything to the group so that was that.
Shawn was a little deaf boy that the others mostly assumed was developmentally challenged. He would make buzzing noises to feel the vibrations in his head. Shawn also wasn’t bad, Arthur just felt that there wasn’t any benefit to being deaf later in life so he didn’t bring anything useful to the table. Shawn wasn’t fully banished since he didn’t do anything wrong, he just was never allowed to take control of the spot.
Timothy was another little boy. He had also experienced sexual abuse at the hands of Chalmer. Despite being a child, he had a job at a florist shop somehow, although this was one of the jobs that Billy genuinely had as a teenager before being expelled from high school. When a gay man came into the florists and flirted with Timothy, he got scared and voluntarily banished himself.
Martin was Arthur, but louder. He pretended to be a genius to impress others, but was even more of a braggart about it. He wanted to usurp power from Arthur, so Arthur banished him before he could get the chance.
Finally, there was The Teacher who is inexplicably always lumped in with the undesirables. It’s probably just because he wasn’t one of the original ten that were revealed. The Teacher didn’t emerge until Billy had already been undergoing therapy for a while, and he was the attempt to fuse all of the personalities into one. How successful these attempts were varied based on Billy’s personal needs.
These are the actual facts of Billy’s presentation of DID that are accepted by those that believe his diagnosis was accurate. Even if DID is indeed real, this rollercoaster ride isn’t it. Billy’s story and his presentation isn’t consistent with itself, or with how DID is believed to present. His changes from one alter to another also always included some grand gesture or change of facial expression, like he knew he was just putting on a show for the doctors.
To understand how he could not only have been given this diagnosis by a trained psychiatrist but also have been found not guilty as a result of it, we have to go back to Dr. Cornelia Wilbur. Without her, Billy would have had to stick with his original diagnosis of acute schizophrenia, something that was unlikely to excuse his actions. It was Cornelia who led the charge for his diagnosis, and Cornelia who poisoned the psychiatric well for generations.
Sybil
Sybil was a book published in 1973. It sold 6 million copies and was made into a TV movie in 1976, the year before Billy’s trial. It was billed as a nonfiction book that detailed the life of a woman named Sybil, and her treatment by Cornelia Wilbur. Her name was changed to protect her identity, but readers who were local to the protagonist immediately recognized that her name was actually Shirley Mason. As best as can be determined, the story behind the book is all a matter of uncontested public record, but let’s just throw a big allegedly before all this just in case.
Shirley was experiencing anxiety, depression, and blackouts, and was often described as living in a world of fantasy. Shirley sought out therapy from Cornelia to try to deal with these issues. She knew that Cornelia had a special interest in DID, mainly because Cornelia explicitly told her this and also instructed her to read up on the disorder.
When their therapy began, Shirley didn’t have any symptoms pertaining to multiple personalities. She talked about her history of childhood abuse, and the symptoms mentioned earlier. However, one day she came into Cornelia’s office and claimed to be a 9-year-old girl named Peggy. Shortly thereafter, she came in claiming to be a 13-year-old named Vicky.
It’s important to note that Shirley was considered to be highly suggestible and anxious to please Cornelia. Also, Cornelia started injecting her with barbiturates during their sessions. The year was 1954 so this wasn’t considered out of line, but it wasn’t exactly normal either. While under the influence of the drugs, Shirley began revealing more and more alters, up to a total of 16.
Four years into their therapy sessions, Shirley wrote a letter to Cornelia confessing that everything was a lie. She hadn’t been abused by her schizophrenic mother, her mother wasn’t actually schizophrenic, and none of the alters were real. Cornelia read the letter, dismissed it, and continued on with the therapy.
There are a couple reasons that Cornelia would have disregarded this letter. The more mundane reason is that she was a Freudian, and as such could have seen Shirley’s confession as an attempt to resist her treatment. That wouldn’t have been the only time the ghost of Freud interfered in the treatment, as Cornelia also was allegedly accessing repressed memories of Shirley’s, another thing that doesn’t actually exist.
The much more cynical reason that Cornelia would have ignored the letter is that she was actively giving lectures and presentations on the case, and she had already secured a book deal. The Three Faces of Eve was a bestselling book the year before, but Eve only ever had three personalities at a time. With 16 different personalities, Shirley was Cornelia’s cash cow. But that obviously wouldn’t work if it was all a lie, so the letter was buried.
Shirley was led to believe, probably accurately, that if she did not have DID, she would not get to continue seeing Cornelia. It would be one thing if that only meant she was losing the therapist she had been lying to anyway, but there was much more to it than that. The entire relationship between the two was extraordinarily inappropriate.
Cornelia was already Shirley’s drug dealer, but that could be chalked up to medical treatment. However, she was also paying Shirley’s rent and buying her clothes. They would spend 14-18 hours together every week in therapy sessions, and Cornelia would even spend time at Shirley’s house outside of therapy. Even by 1950s standards none of this was okay. Cornelia had essentially created the threat of mutually assured destruction, so Shirley never brought up the confession again.
There was just one problem with trying to write the book, other than Shirley’s confession. Cornelia wasn’t actually a good writer. She may have been able to write a scholarly paper, not that she could get one published about this case because DID was almost universally considered to be fictional back then so no scientific journal would allow it, but she lacked the ability to convey the story through compelling prose.
To that end, author Flora Schreiber was brought in to write the story. Unfortunately for Cornelia, Flora was a good writer who wanted to do her due diligence. She found many parts of the story to be highly dubious, but neither Cornelia nor Shirley changed their story so Flora pressed onward. She would even go on to find Shirley’s written confession, but Cornelia told her that it was absolutely inconsequential and not to dare mention it in the book.
Flora continued writing, and the other two continued with their therapy sessions. By this point, it was 1965 and the pair had been spending a suspicious amount of time in therapy together. However, the book needed to have a happy ending. If Shirley couldn’t be cured, the book wasn’t going to have the impact they needed it to in order to make money.
So after 11 years of intensive therapy and boundary crossing, Cornelia told Shirley she needed to fuse all of those personalities together. After only a few weeks, all of the alters were gone leaving only Shirley. The perfect ending to the perfect book.
To recap, Shirley had no history of expressing multiple personalities before seeking unrelated treatment from Cornelia, a doctor who was extremely interested in DID. During their therapy, a highly suggestible and drugged patient revealed 16 alters, attempted to confess that it was all a lie, and was told to cram it. After 11 years of therapy with no progress, Cornelia demanded Shirley give her book a happy ending, and that was instantly the end of Shirley’s alters.
That is the psychiatrist who consulted on Billy Milligan’s case, leading to his verdict. The book and movie were both extremely popular, and the movie had come out the year before Billy’s trial. While none of these details surrounding Sybil are contested, there were never any charges of fraud or malpractice. There were accusations, but no official charges so we’ll throw another allegedly in there just in case.
The profound effect that the book and subsequent movie had on both public perception of DID and psychiatric practice cannot be overstated. Before Sybil was released, there were only 79 documented cases of multiple personalities in research literature throughout the entire world. Within ten years that number had increased to 6,000. By the year 2000, it had increased all the way to 40,000 cases.
Your immediate reaction might be that Sybil simply raised awareness of the condition. That’s absolutely a thing that can and does happen, but what sort of measurable impact can simply raising awareness have? Double the number of people coming forward that present symptoms? Triple? No matter how generous we’re being, raising awareness alone cannot account for the number of cases growing by a factor of 500.
If DID were actually that common, before Sybil was released it wouldn’t have been a condition that was thought to be either extremely rare or potentially nonexistent. It seems impossible to argue that the influence Sybil had on society as a whole, the fame it brought to Cornelia, and the fact that Cornelia herself consulted on Billy’s diagnosis did not play a massive role in his not guilty verdict.
After the Trial
Now that we fully understand Billy’s supposed condition and how exactly he was able to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, it’s time to see how the rest of his life played out. Standard practice would have been to transfer him to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. This was considered to be a brutal hellhole, so his lawyers instead were able to get him sent to Athens Mental Health Center. Both Lima and Athens are cities in Ohio; Billy hadn’t left the state.
As Billy settled into his small room at the facility in Athens, the Campus Rapist looked out the window and enjoyed his beautiful view of the neighbouring Ohio University. The trial and verdict had been a huge media spectacle, and Billy was now the center of attention. He was given preferential treatment, and an astonishing amount of leeway, something for which his attending physician, Dr. David Caul, would receive significant criticism.
While staying at the mental health center, Billy was frequently visited by OU creative writing professor David Keyes, the award winning author of Flowers for Algernon. He had won the right to write about Billy’s life story in what would become his next award winning book, The Minds of Billy Milligan.
It was at Athens during his treatment with David that Billy first manifested the existence of The Teacher. Once David became aware of this fused personality, Billy basically had his run of the place. He was allowed virtually unrestricted access within the hospital, on the grounds outside, and even given permission to wander around town unsupervised. David even coached him in how to handle residents that might not be happy to see their friendly neighbourhood rapist walking around freely.
Billy was allowed to sell his artwork, and another doctor noted that while normal patients weren’t allowed to carry more than $20 on their person at any time, Billy would frequently walk around with wads of cash. He also got to throw some sort of raucous party at the hospital, and it was reported that he tried to escape as well. Why he needed to escape from free room and board, celebrity status, and the ability to pretty much live his life freely is unclear. But all good things come to an end, and he wound up having to go to the Lima State Hospital after being accused of crimes against female patients at the hospital.
The hospital in Lima eventually closed, and Billy was bounced around from hospital to hospital for several years before finally winding up back in Athens in 1982. However, none of the doctors at the other facilities believed in Billy’s diagnosis, and so he wasn’t given any special treatment.
He did marry the sister of another patient while at one of the other hospitals, but the hospital didn’t allow for conjugal visits so Billy missed out on what may have been his first ever chance at consensual sex. Though she had been excited to have the opportunity to marry a celebrity, his wife received an annulment after only 51 days of marriage because Billy was just awful.
After returning to Athens, Billy was again the recipient of special and inappropriate treatment. While driving a truck through town, something he was apparently allowed to do, his passenger fired a gun at a random barn. Billy was charged with vandalism, perjury, and witness intimidation related to the incident, but the charges were eventually dropped.
He was also involved in a shooting at the home of one of the hospital staff members, a place he absolutely should not have been allowed to be. Somehow, no charges were brought against him, but he was transferred to Central Ohio Psychiatric Hospital. It was now 1986, and Billy had been bouncing from hospital to hospital for the last seven years. Enough was enough, and it was time to break out.
This time, he succeeded in his escape attempt. Thanks to the help of loyal Billy sympathizers, most of whom were family members, he was able to travel from Ohio all the way to Washington State. Once in Washington, he did what any wanted fugitive would do: changed his name to Christopher Carr and started a hot tub company with two other men. To be clear, these other two men had their own bodies.
Billy was living with a roommate by the name of Michael Madden, a war veteran. One day, their landlord saw the two men having a fight. It was the last time anyone would see Michael, alive or otherwise. While living together, Billy and Michael had shared a post office box. Coincidentally, just after Michael disappeared Billy cashed his disability checks, cashed in the $7,500 GI Bill payment for Michael’s tuition at Western Washington University, and sold off Michael’s car.
When later questioned about it, Billy claimed the money was repayment of a loan that he had given Michael. There was no body and no evidence other than the highly suspicious theft of all of Michael’s belongings immediately after he disappeared, so no charges were ever filed. That is now two people that Billy is believed to have murdered.
But Billy wasn’t questioned about Michael’s disappearance until much later. After acquiring the repayment of his generous loan to Michael, Billy fled to Miami, Florida. He was captured shortly thereafter, and returned to the psychiatric hospital in Ohio.
By this point, he must have been sick of living in hospitals, hence the previous escape. It was time for Billy to merge his alters into a single personality so that he could be declared cured. Little more than a year after his apprehension in Florida, the doctors declared his personalities fused. Definite rapist and potential murderer Billy Milligan was a free man.
He wanted to make the most of his freedom, so he traveled to California where he was again treated like a celebrity. While there, he met with director James Cameron to discuss making a movie about his life. Cameron began work on the movie in 1991, but it never materialized. That movie never may have been made, but there are plans to produce a movie called The Crowded Room that will feature Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy. A television show of the same name is currently filming that stars Tom Holland, though the show is only going to be loosely based on Billy’s life.
But back to the real Billy, he mostly fell off the radar after his brief stint in California. In 1991 he was released from all state oversight, having now maintained his status of being cured. However, it turns out that the free room and board he received wasn’t so free after all. He was expected to pay back all the money that his stays at all the psychiatric facilities cost, which totaled $450,000. That was money he absolutely did not have, so he declared bankruptcy in 1996.
In 2000 he was able to pull himself out of bankruptcy, but he never amounted to much. His sister, Kathy Jo, purchased a mobile home for him. She had been vocal about how she felt the newspapers mistreated her brother, as well as being vocal about the horrific childhood Chalmer had put them and especially Billy through. Billy would live in that mobile home, keeping to himself and painting, until he died of cancer in 2014 at the age of 59.
At least mostly. There were some other light misdemeanors, here and there, but he never committed a serious crime after being released from the psychiatric facilities in Ohio.
Conclusion
So what do you think? Was Billy a rapist and murderer who, with the help of his clever lawyers, was able to capitalize on DID being at the forefront of the public consciousness and escape any semblance of justice? Or did you look past the dismissive editorializing about his condition and decide that he really was suffering from a severe break from reality, resulting in him genuinely being unaware of the crimes that he committed?
If the former is correct, then he was a manipulative figure who got away with everything without ever having to learn his lesson or properly pay for his crimes. If the latter, then the staff at the Athens Mental Health Center did him a huge disservice by treating him like royalty instead of properly treating his condition. In the latter scenario they may have eventually succeeded in integrating all of his personalities, but only after he had allegedly murdered two people, murders that could have been prevented if his treatment was handled more responsibly.
And honestly, does it really matter one way or the other for his victims? Whether it was Billy or Adalana who raped them at gunpoint, their pain and suffering would have been the same. Even worse, because of the media sensation that his defense sparked, they would have had to see his face plastered on every television and newspaper for months, forcing them to relive their pain.
Key Takeaways
- Billy Milligan became the first person in 1977 to successfully use dissociative identity disorder as an insanity defense for multiple kidnappings, rapes, and robberies.
- Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, famous for the controversial Sybil case, led the diagnosis of Milligan’s 24 personalities despite DID being widely disputed in the psychiatric community.
- The Sybil book and movie dramatically increased public awareness of DID, with documented cases growing from 79 worldwide to 40,000 by 2000.
- Milligan received preferential treatment at mental health facilities, including unsupervised town access and cash privileges, before escaping to Washington State in 1986.
- After being declared cured in 1988, Milligan lived freely despite strong suspicion he murdered his roommate Michael Madden, dying of cancer in 2014 without facing further serious charges.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
What made Billy Milligan’s insanity defense historically significant?
Billy Milligan became the first person ever to use multiple personalities as the basis for being found not guilty by reason of insanity.
What was Billy Milligan’s criminal nickname in the media?
Billy Milligan was known as the ‘Campus Rapist’ in the media.
What crimes was Billy Milligan arrested for in October 1977?
In October 1977, Billy Milligan kidnapped, raped, and robbed three women from Ohio State University. He pulled a gun on an optometry student on October 14, a nurse on October 22, and an undergraduate student on October 26.
Who was Dr. Cornelia Wilbur and what role did she play in Billy Milligan’s case?
Dr. Cornelia Wilbur was the most famous psychiatrist in the United States in 1977, who led the charge for Billy Milligan’s diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID). She was the one who consulted on his case and whose diagnosis formed the basis for his successful insanity defense.
What was the book ‘Sybil’ and how did it relate to Billy Milligan’s case?
‘Sybil’ was a 1973 book (made into a TV movie in 1976) by Dr. Cornelia Wilbur about a patient named Shirley Mason who allegedly had 16 personalities. The book and movie had a profound effect on public perception of DID and psychiatric practice, and the movie came out the year before Billy’s trial. Cornelia Wilbur, who consulted on Billy’s case, had allegedly ignored Shirley Mason’s written confession that her multiple personalities were fabricated.
How many personalities did Billy Milligan allegedly have, and what were some of the main ones?
Billy Milligan allegedly had 24 personalities. The main ten originally discovered included: Billy (the core personality), Arthur (a sophisticated Englishman who controlled ‘the spot’), Ragen (a Yugoslavian ‘keeper of hate’), Adalana (a 19-year-old lesbian who allegedly committed the rapes), Allen (a conman and manipulator), Tommy (an escape artist), Christene (a 3-year-old dyslexic girl), Chris (Christene’s 10-year-old brother), Danny (afraid of people, painted still lifes), and David (the ‘keeper of pain’). There were also 14 ‘undesirable’ personalities discovered later.
What happened to Billy Milligan after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity?
After being found not guilty by reason of insanity, Billy Milligan was sent to Athens Mental Health Center instead of Lima State Hospital. He received preferential treatment, was allowed unsupervised access to the hospital grounds and town, sold artwork, and was visited by author Daniel Keyes. He later escaped to Washington State, lived under the name Christopher Carr, and was suspected in the disappearance of his roommate Michael Madden. He was eventually captured in Florida, declared ‘cured’ after his personalities were ‘fused,’ and released in 1991.
He died of cancer in 2014 at age 59.
What was the M’Naghten Rule and when was it established?
The M’Naghten Rule was the first standardized rule for evaluating legal competency, established in 1843 when Englishman Daniel M’Naghten assassinated the prime minister. It required defendants to show that due to a mental disease or defect, they either did not understand that what they were doing was wrong, or did not understand what they were doing at all. It is still used in about half of US states today.
What was the impact of the book and movie ‘Sybil’ on documented cases of multiple personalities?
Before ‘Sybil’ was released, there were only 79 documented cases of multiple personalities in research literature throughout the entire world. Within ten years that number increased to 6,000, and by the year 2000 it had increased to 40,000 cases.
What was Billy Milligan’s childhood like, particularly regarding his stepfather Chalmer Milligan?
Billy Milligan had a traumatic childhood. His biological father Johnny Morrison committed suicide in 1959. His mother then remarried her ex-husband briefly before marrying Chalmer Milligan in 1963. According to allegations from Billy and his siblings (though never proven in court), Chalmer was a sadistic abuser who allegedly sodomized Billy, hung him from the ceiling by his fingers and toes to beat him, and buried him alive.
This abuse allegedly began months after the marriage and was said by psychiatrists to be the trigger for his personality to splinter.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Billy Milligan: Man of 24 Faces or Violent Conman
- Hero image source by Canmenwalker / openverse, by.
