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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 1: Howard Pearson had always complained that his father was keeping

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Speaker 1: him down, controlling his future too much. In October of

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, he would begin to understand what being

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Speaker 1: controlled really felt like. Six months after he murdered his parents,

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Speaker 1: Howard was admitted to the Austin State Hospital. There was

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Speaker 1: no life sentence or death penalty, but there was also

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Speaker 1: no real end in sight for Howard, no definitive release date.

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Speaker 1: It was never ending. He would be committed at the

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Speaker 1: State Hospital until he was determined to be sane by

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Speaker 1: the superintendent and his physicians. But that wouldn't happen if

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Speaker 1: he didn't make progress with therapy. And here's a twist.

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Speaker 1: If he did make progress, if the doctors changed their diagnosis,

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Speaker 1: then Howard would be in trouble. His doctors would be

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Speaker 1: obligated to call the district attorney and inform him that

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Speaker 1: Howard was now sane. There would be no more insanity defense.

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Speaker 1: The prosecutor in Austin could file murder charges against Howard,

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Speaker 1: even if it happened decades later. He never went on trial.

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Speaker 1: In April of nineteen thirty five, so there was no

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Speaker 1: double jeopardy. Howard could still receive a death sentence, which

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Speaker 1: terrified him. The Pearson family all seemed to stand by Howard.

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Speaker 1: They felt so sorry for him. He had been unstable

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Speaker 1: his entire life, yet he never received mental health treatment

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Speaker 1: or medical intervention. He had a history of delusions and

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Speaker 1: bitterness toward his father, and he was fixated on his education.

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Speaker 1: But his dreams of becoming a famous scientist had been

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Speaker 1: dashed by the judge. Howard's parents proved to be an

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Speaker 1: obstacle to academic success. He eliminated the obstacle. Will and

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Speaker 1: Lina Pearson had been admired influential residents in Austin. They

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Speaker 1: had consistently supported their children, even Howard, who was miird

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Speaker 1: in mental illness. Author Gary Laverne says that this was

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Speaker 1: the picture presented to the media.

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Speaker 2: Well, the media's reaction is that, look, if Bill and Alice,

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Speaker 2: whose parents have been murdered, believe that Howard's not right,

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Speaker 2: who are we to say that Howard should be sent

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Speaker 2: to prison, much less to be executed. I think Bill

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Speaker 2: and Alice as siblings just clearly clearly saved Howard from

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Speaker 2: God only knows.

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Speaker 1: What well we all know what they saved him from.

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Speaker 1: They saved him from prison and maybe even the electric chair.

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Speaker 1: Every chance they had. Bill and Alice argued that Howard was,

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Speaker 1: in his heart, a really good person and if he

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Speaker 1: received help, he deserved the second chance.

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Speaker 2: Whether or not that diagnosis is competent or not, it

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Speaker 2: served the purpose of getting Howard out of jail and

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Speaker 2: sending him to a hospital instead of a jail.

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Speaker 1: And that should really be the end of this story,

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Speaker 1: right Howard would receive the treatment that he needed, and

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Speaker 1: Will and Lena would be fondly remembered the victims of

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Speaker 1: a son who just needed help. But those aren't the

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Speaker 1: stories I tell. I enjoy digging into messy, complicated, difficult stories,

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Speaker 1: and as I suspected, there was more to this story

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Speaker 1: than what I had read in the newspapers, and Howard's

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Speaker 1: relatives now say that I was writing. It took me

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Speaker 1: about two months, but I finally tracked down Bill Pearson's daughter,

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Speaker 1: Anne Pearson. She was Howard's niece. Anne knows about the

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Speaker 1: family history and the story of Howard, probably more than

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Speaker 1: anyone because she knew Howard, and she says that, yes,

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Speaker 1: Will and Lena Pearson did seem to be wonderful parents

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Speaker 1: in the newspapers, but as we know, the media can

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Speaker 1: sometimes be an unreliable source. Anne's father, Bill, talked to

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Speaker 1: her a lot about his own parents when she was

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Speaker 1: growing up. He told her about Will Pearson, his career ambitions,

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Speaker 1: and his incredible anger. It turns out that when the

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Speaker 1: judge had a difficult day, it was difficult for everyone

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Speaker 1: in the Pearson home. Anne tells me about something that

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Speaker 1: her great aunt once told her.

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Speaker 3: That was my grandmother's sister, Aunt Irma, Grandma, great aunt Irma,

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Speaker 3: and she was living in California at the time, and

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Speaker 3: she when she was young, she had gone to college

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Speaker 3: in Greenville and lived with my father's family, you know,

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Speaker 3: when she was in her early twenties.

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Speaker 1: So she lived with Will and Lena and the kids,

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Speaker 1: including your father.

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Speaker 3: And so she was around when my father was a child.

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Speaker 3: And I heard and she I remember hearing her say

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Speaker 3: one time that, you know, my grandfather was the town

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Speaker 3: angel and the home devil was the way she put

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Speaker 3: it that everybody in town he was highly respected, and

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Speaker 3: everybody in town thought he was wonderful, but he had

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Speaker 3: these really big temper tantrums at home.

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Speaker 1: This news was especially startling to me. None of it

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Speaker 1: was mentioned in the media, and in those letters from

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Speaker 1: the vault of the Texas Supreme Court, the judge seemed very,

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Speaker 1: very loving, especially toward his eldest son, Bill will Pearson.

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Speaker 1: Practically gushed over him, reminding him how often he thought

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Speaker 1: of him, how much he valued their relationship. And the

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Speaker 1: judge showed kindness toward Howard in his notes to his

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Speaker 1: youngest son, and seemed to be fond of his daughter Alice.

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Speaker 1: Was he really that affectionate to each of them, As

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Speaker 1: it turns out now, it was all act a way

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Speaker 1: to manipulate each of his children, to draw them closer,

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Speaker 1: only to verbally abuse them when he was displeased. So

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Speaker 1: when he was younger, Bill had often visited his parents.

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Speaker 1: He had even moved back to Texas, putting his life

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Speaker 1: on hold, just to help the judge win his seat

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Speaker 1: on the court. Bill was a dutiful son, but Anne

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Speaker 1: Pearson says that her father really disliked his own father,

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Speaker 1: and so did his sister Alice. You sure wouldn't know

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Speaker 1: it from reading all those letters between the children and

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Speaker 1: the parents, But according to Anne will Pearson seemed to

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Speaker 1: be a terrible parent.

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Speaker 3: At times, my dad thought he was very unpleasant. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 3: though my dad was well aware of that. My aunt

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Speaker 3: Alice told me that once that things got worse after

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Speaker 3: my dad graduated from high school and left home. Essentially

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Speaker 3: that their father got more and more difficult to deal

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Speaker 3: with as year went on, and she was four years younger,

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Speaker 3: so she thought it got worse for her than it

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Speaker 3: was for my father, and it was worse for Howard

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Speaker 3: than it.

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Speaker 2: Was for her.

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Speaker 1: The judge was emotionally abusive to all of his children,

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Speaker 1: especially Howard. Alice talked to Anne about the years when

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Speaker 1: Bill had already left home and she and Howard were

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Speaker 1: the only ones left. Alice would retreat to her bedroom

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Speaker 1: and quietly listen at the door every night for the

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Speaker 1: judge to return from a long day at court.

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Speaker 3: She told me once that when she was in high school,

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Speaker 3: it was after my father left home. She was telling

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Speaker 3: me how things had gotten worse after my father left home,

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Speaker 3: and she was telling me that she heard him coming

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Speaker 3: in the house, she'd go to her room and shut

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Speaker 3: the door and just not come out until dinner time.

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Speaker 3: She would avoid him as much as possible, just try

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Speaker 3: not to be around him because he was so difficult.

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Speaker 1: That must have been a tough way to grow up

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Speaker 1: to constantly be fearful of a parent. Alice felt guilty

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Speaker 1: when she moved out to go to college and left

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Speaker 1: Howard behind on his own with an emotionally abusive father.

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Speaker 1: Defense attorney David Shepherd says that Judge Pearson's juckal and

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Speaker 1: Hyde persona shouldn't really surprise anyone, And of.

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Speaker 4: Course we know that that's true, and it's so often

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Speaker 4: life people have a public persona that is one thing,

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Speaker 4: and a private persona very very different, and sometimes there

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Speaker 4: are the different You know, a person kind of has

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Speaker 4: a public persona of being a son of a bitch

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Speaker 4: and on a very close personal level are very sweet,

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Speaker 4: gentle people. But more often you have people to have

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Speaker 4: a public face, as you know, and in private are

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Speaker 4: pretty goddamn awful.

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Speaker 1: It's easy for some public figures to keep up an act,

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Speaker 1: and many times we never see through it. And that

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Speaker 1: would be the case for Will Pearson. I would have

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Speaker 1: never learned about the judge's temper and the trauma that

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Speaker 1: he had inflicted on his family had I not found

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Speaker 1: and Pearson just more family secrets. Judge dimple. Mahotra is

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Speaker 1: a county judge in Austin who works specifically in the

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Speaker 1: domestic violence court. She's spent more than twenty years trying

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Speaker 1: to help break the cycle of domestic violence, like the

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Speaker 1: verbal abuse the Pearson children experienced in the judge's home.

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Speaker 5: I think that a lot of people don't realize that

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Speaker 5: domestic violence is really an epidemic. It is a public

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Speaker 5: health crisis, and it has been labeled as such by

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Speaker 5: the Center for Disease Control. And it's true that we

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Speaker 5: do have more reporting, but the statistics surrounding domestic violence

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Speaker 5: are staggering.

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Speaker 1: Judge Mahotra says it's important to distinguish between the different

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Speaker 1: types of conflict that happen at home. Frequent arguments or

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Speaker 1: physical violence can have broad definitions, but domestic violence is

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Speaker 1: a very specific category.

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Speaker 5: Domestic violence is a systematic pattern of power and control

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Speaker 5: that's used by one intimate partner against another, and so

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Speaker 5: these things can make it worse, but they're not the

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Speaker 5: cause of true domestic violence. You do have those situations

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Speaker 5: where it's not domestic violence, it's two people who react

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Speaker 5: violently to stress, but there's not a power differential there

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Speaker 5: and so that's really the difference.

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Speaker 1: Domestic violence is an epidemic around the world. The National

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Speaker 1: Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that more than ten million

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Speaker 1: adults experience it annually. The survivors are overwhelmingly women, but

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Speaker 1: men can also be subjected to abuse, and in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, domestic violence was even more severely underreported than

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Speaker 1: it is today. Howard Pearson and his siblings were survivors.

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Speaker 1: Who Hi, it's Kate Dawson. Hi. Well, so let me

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Speaker 1: update you on some stuff. I ended up talking to

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Speaker 1: quite a few people.

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Speaker 4: It's so funny.

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Speaker 1: It's funny just to kind of start with you and

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Speaker 1: then branch out so much. The first family member I

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Speaker 1: initially contacted was Marjorie Peterson, who I found through ancestry

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Speaker 1: dot com. That's actually where I locate most of the

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Speaker 1: relatives in my stories. And it turns out that Will

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Speaker 1: Pearson had not been the only Pearson to be emotionally abusive.

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Speaker 1: Marjorie Peterson is married to Rod Peterson. He's one of

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Speaker 1: the Pearsons whose relatives moved to California after that fight

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Speaker 1: over the bank in the early nineteen hundreds. Marjorie tells

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Speaker 1: me a story about a different Pearson who tried to

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Speaker 1: control his family.

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Speaker 6: There were family issues, mainly because my husband's uncle, who

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Speaker 6: lived in the Imperial Valley at the same time that

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Speaker 6: we were courting, was the same kind of man. And

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Speaker 6: that's why my husband pointed it out to me that

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Speaker 6: Marshall person had that same really couple of kinds of

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Speaker 6: attitude towards his kids. And one of his children took

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Speaker 6: a shotgun and tried to shoot him too. It was

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Speaker 6: sort of like, Okay, you have some people with some

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Speaker 6: issues in his family.

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Speaker 1: What story is that I haven't heard that yet? Is

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Speaker 1: that the Marshall Pearson in Corpus Christy Is that that Marshall.

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Speaker 6: No, No, that Marshall is on one of the family

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Speaker 6: names that runs around through all of the things. But George,

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Speaker 6: the oldest boy, was, as family says, not quite right.

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Speaker 6: And there was the push, you know, the very stern

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Speaker 6: father telling him, you know, well you can do it

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Speaker 6: if you just try. You know the fact that he

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Speaker 6: may have had some learning difficulties, he would accept that,

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Speaker 6: not accept a.

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Speaker 7: Little in his son.

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Speaker 1: Marshall Pearson's constant criticisms went on for years. His son

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Speaker 1: felt degraded, frustrated, and then one day George just snapped.

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Speaker 6: So he pushed George a great deal, and he was

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Speaker 6: always on him to do better, and never satisfied with

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Speaker 6: what he did.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 6: When George got to be a teenager, he had had enough.

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Speaker 6: And one day his dad's out crop dusting, and George

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Speaker 6: took the shot yet and shot the tail of the

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Speaker 6: plane and he shot it off, so they make an

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Speaker 6: emergency landing. But when he did land, of course, he

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Speaker 6: was furious and basically beat him up. Yeah, so the

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Speaker 6: family has had this sort of stern, patriarchal kind of

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Speaker 6: image that some of the Pearson men had figured was

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Speaker 6: how they were supposed to behave then treated their children

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Speaker 6: not quite so nicely.

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Speaker 1: And just like George Pearson, it sounds like Howard began

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Speaker 1: to resent his father very early on in his life.

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Speaker 1: Remember the story of how Howard pushed away the judge

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Speaker 1: during his public inauguration. His father tried to pick up

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Speaker 1: the six year old, but Howard reacted almost violently. What

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Speaker 1: if that wasn't because Howard wasn't quite right. What if

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Speaker 1: it was because Will Pearson wasn't a kind father to him?

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Speaker 1: And remember that time in France when the judge enrolled

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Speaker 1: Howard in French school and he was harassed. Anne Pearson

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Speaker 1: says that Howard had blamed his father and no one else.

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Speaker 3: He got bullied and he really did not like that year.

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Speaker 3: That year in France was not good for him, and

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Speaker 3: I've heard that story more resentment. You know that he

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Speaker 3: took him out of school, away from his friends in

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Speaker 3: Texas and made him go to Europe, go to that

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Speaker 3: horrible school in France where those kids picked on him.

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Speaker 1: So I'll come back to my initial question, why did

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Speaker 1: Howard Pearson kill his parents? Was it the money? Was

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Speaker 1: he the victim of abuse, or could he blame his

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Speaker 1: mental illness? The answer might be yes to all of it.

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Speaker 1: That last reason, Howard's mental illness is a tough one

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Speaker 1: for me to sort out. The crime was clearly premeditated.

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Speaker 1: He purchased the pistol five months in advance. He told

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Speaker 1: his friend about the different methods he might use to

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Speaker 1: commit murder, like faking a car wreck, and Howard even

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Speaker 1: orchestrated a fairly elaborate cover up. Was he striking back

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Speaker 1: because of real circumstances, like severe emotional abuse from an

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Speaker 1: overbearing father? Was he really capable of doing all of

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Speaker 1: that while struggling with some pretty extensive delusions. Did Howard

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Speaker 1: know what he was doing was wrong? I know I'm

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Speaker 1: asking a lot of questions, but this case really does

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Speaker 1: warrant a lot of thought. This story is about mental illness, violence, insanity,

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Speaker 1: family secrets, and how they all intersect in a courtroom.

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Speaker 1: Many prosecutors believe that a diagnosed schizophrenic wouldn't be capable

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Speaker 1: of that type of planning so far in advance. Someone

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Speaker 1: who commits a premeditated crime has to be sane. So

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Speaker 1: all of that proves that Howard couldn't blame his mental

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Speaker 1: illness for the murders. Right defense attorney Christa Chacona has

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Speaker 1: represented many clients who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and she

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Speaker 1: says that das often make the wrong assumption about mental illness.

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Speaker 8: So you can be very ill, you can have a

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Speaker 8: very you know, a very specific and severe delusion and

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Speaker 8: still be able to plan. You know, just because you're

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Speaker 8: mentally ill doesn't mean that you can't you can't formulate

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Speaker 8: a plan. So let's say this guy did for six

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Speaker 8: months he you know, he planned to uh to kill

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Speaker 8: his parents. Well, why was he planning to kill his parents.

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Speaker 8: Was there some delusion that you know that his parents

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Speaker 8: were demons and were here to destroy the world and

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Speaker 8: he was the only one that knew, or it was

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Speaker 8: his sacred mission from God to do that.

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Speaker 1: And Howard definitely had delusions. Remember he said his parents

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Speaker 1: weren't really his parents, and by taking Howard out of school,

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Speaker 1: they were preventing him from becoming a famous scientist that

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Speaker 1: was going to make people live forever.

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Speaker 8: So he was able to formulate a plan. Just the

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Speaker 8: fact that he could plan, or the fact that he

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Speaker 8: thought about it in advance, doesn't mean that he wasn't

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Speaker 8: mentally ill, doesn't mean that it wasn't this insane delusion

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Speaker 8: that drove him to do that and even cleaning up afterward.

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Speaker 1: But what if it wasn't a delusion, If the judge

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Speaker 1: had a history of verbal abuse, we don't know what

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Speaker 1: Howard had been told growing up. If he weren't really schizophrenic,

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Speaker 1: then did he belong in a mental hospital for the

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Speaker 1: criminally insane. Jacoto believes that everyone deserves a good defense,

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Speaker 1: no matter what they've done, and she says that people

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Speaker 1: with mental illness need even more help navigating the legal system.

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Speaker 8: There are lots of reasons why people get involved in

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Speaker 8: the criminal justice system. They all have people who love them.

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Speaker 8: Not all of them are bad people, but I feel

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Speaker 8: like there's just like an extra layer on top of

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Speaker 8: these folks that have, you know, the mental health issues too,

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Speaker 8: that just makes everything that much harder. And that they

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Speaker 8: are I always say, it kind of balances me out

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Speaker 8: karmically from just you know, representing the straight up alleged

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Speaker 8: criminal to you know, to help these folks because I

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Speaker 8: just yeah, I mean, I feel like, God, they need

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Speaker 8: a break, and so somebody needs to, you know, be

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Speaker 8: fighting for them.

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Speaker 1: Insanity cases have always been controversial and they're quite rare

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Speaker 1: because they're difficult to prove. The defense has a high

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Speaker 1: bard to meet. As I mentioned before, a reminder, the

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Speaker 1: insanity defense is used in only about one percent of

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Speaker 1: the cases in the US, and it's successful less than

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent of the time. Much of that depends

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Speaker 1: on where the case is adjudicated. Rural areas with more

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Speaker 1: conservative judges might not be willing to consider an insanity plea.

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Speaker 1: It's met with skepticism from many prosecutors even in big cities,

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Speaker 1: and when they're successful, the families of the victims are

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Speaker 1: often angry and frustrated. They feel like the victims have

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Speaker 1: been forgotten, or they believe that the mental illness isn't

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Speaker 1: even real, it's an excuse. And there's the fear that

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Speaker 1: someday the person who killed their loved one might be released.

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Speaker 1: Howard Pearson's case isn't unique. On May one, twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 1: something horrible happened at the University of Texas, just a

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Speaker 1: ten minute walk from my office.

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Speaker 4: One student was killed and three were injured on UT

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Speaker 4: campus yesterday after another student attacked them with a hunting knife.

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Speaker 1: KT's most Bouchelle reports.

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Speaker 9: As the crowd rushed away, Austin Police Chief David Carter

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Speaker 9: says a campus police officer confronted the suspect, who was

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Speaker 9: carrying a large hunting knife. Here's Carter at a press

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Speaker 9: conference later in the day.

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Speaker 4: Alicer confronted him and drew his weapon, ordered the suspect

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Speaker 4: to get.

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Speaker 10: On the ground, which he did comply. So we took

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Speaker 10: an individual into custody.

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Speaker 9: That individual was twenty one year old Kendricks White, also

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Speaker 9: a UT student. Chief Carter gave little information as to

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Speaker 9: motive or whether the victims were chosen at random.

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Speaker 1: Kendricks White killed a nineteen year old freshman named Harrison Brown.

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Speaker 1: Brown was a musician, a singer, and a successful student.

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Speaker 1: White also seriously injured three other students that day. One

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Speaker 1: of the survivors is twenty three year old Stuart Bayless.

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Speaker 1: He was talking with two friends when they noticed people running,

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Speaker 1: but he says that there were no warnings, no screams,

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Speaker 1: and as Baylists tried to figure out what was happening,

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Speaker 1: he felt something in his back.

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Speaker 11: Kendricks came up behind me, put his hand on my

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Speaker 11: left shoulder and just stabbed me right in the lower

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Speaker 11: right lumbar area. Managed to miss my kidneying spinal cord barely,

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Speaker 11: like literally millimeters. At that point, I reached around because

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Speaker 11: getting stabbed is strangely.

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Speaker 12: Not what you expect.

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Speaker 11: And I don't know if it's the fact that I

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Speaker 11: just didn't see it coming, so it's really just more

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Speaker 11: of a shock, but it does not it doesn't hurt

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Speaker 11: that bad. So like in the movies, really all scream

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Speaker 11: bloody murder. I mean, it really wasn't like that.

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Speaker 1: Baylis was really confused, and all of this happened in

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Speaker 1: just seconds. He reached around and grabbed the blade as

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Speaker 1: White pulled out the knife. The blade was large, like

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Speaker 1: a machete. It sliced seven tendons in his hand. Baylis

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Speaker 1: says he still didn't realize what happened, that he had

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Speaker 1: been stabbed, but he couldn't feel his right hand, so

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Speaker 1: he turned around and faced Kendrick's White.

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Speaker 11: And I didn't really like know that I had been stabbed.

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Speaker 11: I just realized I couldn't move my hand, and I

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Speaker 11: saw blood and I was like, can you get him?

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Speaker 11: And he was just calm as can be. Really strange.

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Speaker 11: He was wearing his beat headphones and just it was

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Speaker 11: it was really strange.

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Speaker 1: What was the look on his face?

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Speaker 11: We stared at each other, like boy Blake stared at

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Speaker 11: each other, and it's literally his face was expressionless. It's strange.

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Speaker 11: It's kind of like just walking down the street and

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Speaker 11: you actually make contact eye contact with somebody on the street.

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Speaker 11: Y'all stare at each other for a second and you

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Speaker 11: just immediately look away like nothing happened. It was kind

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Speaker 11: of like that, but it's more of an eerie feeling

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Speaker 11: when you look back at it and remember it.

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Speaker 1: Police arrested Kendrick's White at the scene, and he was

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Speaker 1: indicted on a first degree murder charge in three counts

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Speaker 1: of aggravated assault for the stabbing spree. Two forensic psychiatrists

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Speaker 1: assessed White's mental state at the time of the killing.

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Speaker 1: White's attorney says he had experienced a mental breakdown a

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Speaker 1: month before and was hospitalized. White had been suffering from hallucinations,

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Speaker 1: both auditory and visual. He said he had voices telling

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Speaker 1: him to take his own life. At times, he believed

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Speaker 1: that he was Jesus Christ, and he felt like he

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Speaker 1: was being buried alive. Ultimately, White was diagnosed with schizo

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Speaker 1: effective disorder along with bipolar disorder. These two sometimes go together.

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Speaker 1: The doctors determined that that day on campus, as he

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Speaker 1: attacked strangers with a knife, White was in the throes

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Speaker 1: of severe mental illness. They concluded that he wasn't able

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Speaker 1: to distinguish between right and wrong when he killed Harrison Brown.

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Speaker 1: A state judge ruled that White was not guilty by

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Speaker 1: reason of insanity. He wouldn't spend any time in prison.

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Speaker 1: He would be committed to a maximum security mental health facility.

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Speaker 1: The judge's decision infuriated some of the families directly impacted

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Speaker 1: by the attacks. Christa Chacona was on White's defense team.

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Speaker 1: Do you think Kendricks is grateful about how this turned out?

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Speaker 8: You know, I don't think he feels fortunate. I don't

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Speaker 8: think he feels like he got away with anything. I mean,

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Speaker 8: I can't imagine what it's like to wake up one

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Speaker 8: day in jail and not know why you're there, and

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Speaker 8: have somebody tell you that you, you know, stab several people

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Speaker 8: and killed one. I mean, how do you process that

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Speaker 8: when you especially when you can't remember, right, Like, I think,

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Speaker 8: it's got to feel not true.

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Speaker 3: On some level.

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Speaker 8: It doesn't matter. You can see the video, you can

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Speaker 8: see the reports, but on some level, it's got to

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Speaker 8: feel like.

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Speaker 3: This isn't me.

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Speaker 8: I wouldn't do that.

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Speaker 1: I didn't do that, But for most of us that

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Speaker 1: could be hard to believe. How could someone do something

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Speaker 1: so horrible and not even remember it. Michelle Haley is

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Speaker 1: the prosecutor we've heard from who works on cases involving

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Speaker 1: mental illness. She represented the state in Kendricks White's case

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. She interviewed White and afterward she agreed

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Speaker 1: with the judge's decision. She says that White is exactly

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Speaker 1: where he should be. In a place where he receives help.

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Speaker 7: You know, if you don't have any life life experience

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Speaker 7: with that, know someone personally, it's really hard to understand.

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Speaker 7: And especially as the victim of a crime like the

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Speaker 7: Kendricks White case for example. You know, my victims in

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Speaker 7: that case felt like he was getting away with it

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Speaker 7: because he was found insane at the time. It's hard

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Speaker 7: for people like that, when they're grieving and in such

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Speaker 7: you know, have gone through such trauma, to explain it

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Speaker 7: to them because all they have is their pain.

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Speaker 1: Stuart Baylis agrees it was difficult at first to accept

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Speaker 1: that White wouldn't be going to prison, but Bayliss has

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Speaker 1: forgiven White and he actually has hope for him.

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Speaker 11: So I kind of accepted, all right, he's going to

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Speaker 11: go to a mental facility, and I told myself, I

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Speaker 11: have to be a good person in a sense, like

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Speaker 11: I want Kendricks to heal. I still do. I still

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Speaker 11: pray that he is healed. And again, it's not an

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Speaker 11: easy thing to constantly think of that because human nature

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Speaker 11: comes out where you're just like you just want them

439
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 11: to feel the pain that you felt, to feel the

440
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 11: pain that everybody felt. It gets it's like a constant

441
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 11: battle of like still hoping he is he does heal,

442
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 11: because it is it. I picture it more in the

443
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 11: sense of like if that was my son, you know,

444
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 11: I could only pray that they heal.

445
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,719
Speaker 1: And the reality is Kendrick's White will probably be released

446
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: some day if his doctors believe he's ready. Chacona is

447
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,360
Speaker 1: concerned for White, but not because she thinks he's dangerous.

448
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 8: I'm sure when when the time eventually comes that they

449
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 8: feel that he's ready to go back out in the community.

450
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,400
Speaker 8: I think he's going to feel tremendous anxiety about that,

451
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 8: Like what if this happens again. I don't know how

452
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 8: this happened the first time. You know, am I ready?

453
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 8: Should Should I be allowed at I think knowing him,

454
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 8: I think he's going to experience all those emotions because

455
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 8: he's a good kid. He's a responsible kid.

456
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: And that will be a tough day for the victim's

457
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: family and the survivors. Michelle Healey says that those phone

458
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: calls will be difficult ones to make. How do you

459
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: even have that conversation.

460
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 7: As the attorney in the room, I always just have

461
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 7: to come back to the law. It's like I empathize

462
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 7: with them, you know, I have to understand their pain

463
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 7: and what they want out of it. But this is

464
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 7: the law, and the law says, because he was insane

465
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 7: at the time of the offense, he is not guilty

466
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,159
Speaker 7: because he cannot be held accountable for his inability to

467
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 7: know right from wrong. So I just always bring it

468
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 7: back to the law. It doesn't make them happy, but

469
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 7: at least they understand I'm not just doing something mean

470
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 7: to them.

471
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 6: You know, we still.

472
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 11: Don't like it. It comes from a fear of like

473
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 11: something happening again, Like you're wanting to watch out for

474
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 11: the community, and that's ingrained in the fact that, like,

475
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 11: I'm never going to forget that this happened. All the

476
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 11: other victims are never going to forget that this happened,

477
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 11: And so it's this underlying fear of you don't want

478
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 11: it to happen again. I think it's a totally reasonable fear.

479
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:04,360
Speaker 11: If somebody didn't fear that out, that'd be there's something

480
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 11: wrong there.

481
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: Michelle Haley says that mental illness still has such a

482
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: stigma in America and that bias seeps into criminal justice,

483
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: causing some improper rulings.

484
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 7: I think in a vacuum or objectively, most people would

485
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 7: agree that, yes, mental illness is in fact an illness,

486
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 7: and people shouldn't be held accountable for something that they

487
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 7: didn't have control over. Unless you're the victim of that crime,

488
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 7: then obviously you feel very differently.

489
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: Are there parallels between the cases of Kendricks White and

490
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: Howard Pearson? They both experienced delusions and hallucinations, they both

491
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: had significant stressors like moving away from home, and they

492
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: were both in their early twenties. Certain types of mental

493
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: illness tend to appear in a person's late teens or

494
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: early twenties, many times when they first move out of

495
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: their parents' house. One forensic psychiatrist believed that the pressures

496
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: from college had triggered White's illness. Back in nineteen thirty five,

497
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: doctors believed that one of Howard's acute stressors was his

498
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: removal from ut and I think that his subsequent job

499
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: loss was another trigger. The endless strain of verbal abuse

500
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: from his father and the complacency from his mother may

501
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: have led to a deadly emotional mix. But there are

502
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: absolutely differences between these two killers, really big differences. They

503
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: targeted different types of people.

504
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 5: The way to distinguish that is when you have someone

505
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 5: who's mentally ill who is being violent. Typically they are

506
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 5: violent to anyone and everyone around them. They're not able

507
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 5: to really discern that. They can only exhibit those behaviors

508
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 5: to the person that they're in an intimate relationship with.

509
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: So Kendrick's White was violent until police. He didn't fight

510
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: them once he was caught. He didn't try to lie

511
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 1: or create a cover up, and he didn't try to

512
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: run afterward. That attack didn't seem to be pre planned,

513
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: with the exception of White carrying a weapon. White's victims

514
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: were completely random. He didn't know any of them. This

515
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: certainly was not the case with Howard Pearson. He planned

516
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: the murders extensively, his victims were specific, not random, and

517
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: he constructed a cover up. It seems clear that Howard

518
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: Pearson knew right from wrong, Yet a jury in nineteen

519
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: thirty five decided that he was insane. Something seems wrong.

520
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 2: He understood what he did was wrong, and he knew

521
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 2: the difference between right and wrong, and he tried to

522
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 2: cover up his crime. By that definition, yeah, he got

523
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 2: away with murder. But again, insanity is not a medical definition,

524
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 2: it is a political definition. So he got away with

525
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 2: murder in Texas, but did he get away with murder

526
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 2: in Sweden?

527
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty five, Howard Pearson was confined to the

528
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: Austin State Hospital, the oldest psychiatric facility in Texas. A

529
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: schizophrenic patient like Howard would have benefitted from psychiatric drugs,

530
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: but there were none in nineteen thirty five. Clare Promazine

531
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: wasn't available until the nineteen fifties, So how were psychiatric

532
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: patients treated. Psychiatrists used strategies to try to sedate people

533
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: more than anything else. There were some pretty appalling methods,

534
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 1: like spinning people around on these weird chairs that were

535
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: specifically designed to supposedly calm people, but it probably just

536
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: made them nauseous. There were water treatments that really sounded

537
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: more like waterboarding, which is a torture device. Doctors would

538
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: drop patients unexpectedly into water, or they would cover them

539
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: with wet sheets to shock their systems. There were insolent

540
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: therapies that induced seizures. Partitioners were dabbling in radical cures,

541
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: just attempting to eliminate mental illness altogether, but some of

542
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: them actually ended up killing quite a few people. We

543
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: don't know what type of therapy Howard was subjected to

544
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: at the Austin State Hospital. How cruel it might have

545
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: been or Howard affected his ability to control his anger,

546
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: what we do know is that he didn't want to

547
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,479
Speaker 1: be there anymore. But the hospital was designed to keep

548
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: its residence locked away because some of them were really dangerous.

549
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: You couldn't just walk out the door, or could you.

550
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: After almost three years of confinement, twenty six year old

551
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: Howard Pearson came up with a very clever plan, a

552
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: plan as calculating as the one he used to murder

553
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: his parents. But first Howard needed a way to get

554
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: past him his locked door.

555
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 2: Apparently he had stolen a spoon from the kitchen and

556
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 2: very patiently, over a long period of time, fashioned a

557
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 2: key from the spoon.

558
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: And actually this was the third key he made. The

559
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: first two wouldn't work on the outer door of the hospital,

560
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: But Howard was very, very patient, and he had nothing

561
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: but time. On April twenty sixth, nineteen thirty eight, Howard

562
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: believed he was ready to escape. He glanced at the

563
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: clock seven thirty pm. The guard at the front door

564
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: of the Austin State Hospital, switched off the lights and

565
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: left for the night, Howard sat up and readied himself.

566
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: He hopped out and gathered some hospital clothes, and then

567
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: he did something that a teenager in a bad movie

568
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: would do to cover up his escape. Bed checks were

569
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: routine at night, and if the guards noticed he wasn't

570
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 1: in bed, they would immediately call the police. So Howard

571
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: wadded up his clothes beneath his bed sheets to make

572
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 1: it look as if he were asleep underneath, and as

573
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: silly as that sounds, it actually worked. He crept past

574
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 1: the other patients. Howard knew if he made it out,

575
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: his hospital issued clothes would give him away, so he

576
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: snuck into his storage room and searched for some normal clothes.

577
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: He found a brown suit from another inmate. He slowly

578
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: walked down the hall and watched the night guard from

579
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: around the corner. When the officer turned his back, Howard

580
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: tiptoed over to the outer door. He put his makeshift

581
00:34:53,600 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: key into the lock, and it turned. Howard Pearson was

582
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: out and on the run. The hospital guards didn't notice

583
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,240
Speaker 1: he was missing until their routine check the next morning.

584
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 2: It's not a particularly unusual story in the annals of

585
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 2: people who escape. You've been there a long time, the

586
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 2: guards get comfortable with you, you behave yourself. You're in prison,

587
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 2: but you behave yourself. After a while, people get too comfortable,

588
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 2: They trust you too much, and he escaped.

589
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: The search for the infamous killer who gunned down his

590
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: parents made national news. His photo was printed in papers

591
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: across the country. Americans were warns not to approach the

592
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: escaped murderer. He could be anywhere and he might kill again.

593
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: Howard had planned this event extensively, so this is the

594
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: second crime he had committed and plotted very far in advance.

595
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,879
Speaker 1: And that makes Gary Laverne wonder just how insane he really.

596
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 2: Was, how out of it? How delusional can you be

597
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 2: if you can orchestrate something like that and end up

598
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 2: in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

599
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 6: Soon.

600
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: Howard was living on the Lamb, and none of the

601
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 1: Pearsons had heard from him, so no one knew what

602
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 1: he had planned. Howard was resourceful, but it's not clear

603
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,760
Speaker 1: if he was dangerous. After all, who would he actually

604
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: target he had deliberately killed his parents. Were there other

605
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: people that he believed were holding him back?

606
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 2: I think if I had been there, and if I

607
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 2: had known him, it would have surprised me because the

608
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 2: focus of his delusion was his father and how his

609
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 2: father had kept him down in order for him to

610
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 2: logically speaking, in order for him to kill again, And

611
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 2: I think he would have had to have developed a

612
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 2: new delusion on someone else. I just don't know what

613
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,760
Speaker 2: that would have been. For example, you know, he killed

614
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 2: his father because his father was keeping him down. Well,

615
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:15,479
Speaker 2: his brother wasn't keeping him down.

616
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: But Laverne hasn't heard the whole story because I only

617
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: found out more details after I started digging further. In

618
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: about a month after I interviewed Gary Laverne, I found

619
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: some letters buried deep inside an archive at Stephen F.

620
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: Austin State University. They were between family attorneys and Howard's

621
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: family members while he was in the mental hospital. And

622
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: it's clear from these letters that Howard Pearson felt like

623
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: someone was holding him down, just like his father did,

624
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 1: and it was someone very close to him, someone who

625
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: was supposed to be his advocate. I drove to Temple,

626
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: Texas to talk with Alliver Perkins about it and to

627
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: tell him about Howard's surprising reaction. He says that his

628
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 1: brother Bill had an ulterior motive for wanting to keep

629
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 1: him at the hospital and he did not want him

630
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:14,320
Speaker 1: to be released.

631
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 6: Hmm.

632
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 12: Interesting. So Howard is attempting to write letters, but he's

633
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 12: claiming that Bill instructed the hospital to intercept the letters.

634
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 12: But I wonder if it's true.

635
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:34,919
Speaker 1: It's quite a conspiracy. So Howard was on the run

636
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: and he might have been violent, maybe even calculating his

637
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: next crime. On the next episode of tenfold More Wicked.

638
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 3: When he was institutionalized, he had inherited a certain amount

639
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 3: of money from my grandparents, and because he was institutionalized,

640
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 3: he's yoused, spent very little of it, and so most

641
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 3: money where you don't spend it accumulates, you know.

642
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:17,759
Speaker 10: Alice and William Junior had taken a third of it,

643
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 10: and they said, no, we're going to protect Howard's part

644
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 10: of it, and so his brother Bill had been very

645
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 10: careful to take care of it.

646
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 12: It sounds like he definitely did not get fully recovered

647
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 12: from his mental health issues.

648
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: If you love true crime, please check out my books,

649
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: American Sherlock and Death in the Air. They're available anywhere

650
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: you buy books. This has been an exactly right and

651
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: tenfold more. Media production producers Jason Whaling and Laura Sobole,

652
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: sound designer Eric Friend, composer Curtis Heath, artwork Nick Toga.

653
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: Executive producers Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff, and Danielle Kramer. The

654
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: letters mentioned in this episode were kindly supplied by the

655
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: East Texas Research Center at Stephen F. Austin University. Follow

656
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,600
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