---
title: "Billy Milligan: Man of 24 Faces or Violent Conman"
description: "In 1977, Billy Milligan became the first person to use multiple personalities as an insanity defense. But was he truly suffering from dissociative identity disorder, or did he exploit the zeitgeist of 1970s clinical psychology to escape justice?"
url: https://casualcriminalist.pub/article/billy-milligan-man-of-24-faces-or-violent-conman.md
canonical: https://casualcriminalist.pub/article/billy-milligan-man-of-24-faces-or-violent-conman
datePublished: 2026-06-26
dateModified: 2026-06-26
author:
  - name: Dana Ortiz
    url: https://casualcriminalist.pub/author/dana-ortiz
publisher: Casual Criminalist
image: "https://media.casualcriminalist.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/K6FdT4NfHmU/hero.jpg"
type: Article
contentHash: 6951a0a8c99d572d0a501b21ba91a66c4fced3c47a79d13a1f0f30c011c2c1de
tokens: 62
summaryUrl: https://casualcriminalist.pub/article/billy-milligan-man-of-24-faces-or-violent-conman.md.summary.md
---

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In 1977, Billy Milligan became the first person to use multiple personalities as an insanity defense. But was he truly suffering from dissociative identity disorder, or did he exploit the zeitgeist of 1970s clinical psychology to escape justice?
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