Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Being sent to prison for life or being sent to
Speaker 2: a psych if a hospital has seen us at the
Speaker 2: end of it. But people's lives carry on, and people
Speaker 2: live restricted lives, but lives just like the rest of us.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical
Speaker 1: true crime podcast Tenfold More Wicked and the co host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled
Speaker 1: around the world interviewing people for the show, and they
Speaker 1: are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true
Speaker 1: crime stories, and now we want to tell you those
Speaker 1: stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More
Speaker 1: Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choice is that
Speaker 1: writers make good and bad. It's a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the stories behind the stories. In February of nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old walked into a police station
Speaker 1: in Florida and confessed that he had shot and killed
Speaker 1: his parents. He claimed that he was possessed by the
Speaker 1: devil at the time. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia
Speaker 1: and ruled not criminally responsible for the murders on the
Speaker 1: grounds of insanity. But after the trial, where do the
Speaker 1: criminally insane end up? Nonfiction author and psychoanalyst Makita Brotman
Speaker 1: unravels the story at the center of her book, Couple
Speaker 1: Found Slain. Well, let's talk about the book. First, start
Speaker 1: with the title and how did you find this story?
Speaker 2: Well, I was working in a forensic psychiatric hospital in
Speaker 2: Maryland and I was volunteering there running a reading group,
Speaker 2: and I hadn't thought about writing about any of the patients,
Speaker 2: but I became I mean, the patients were really articulate
Speaker 2: and really interesting, and eventually I got to know some
Speaker 2: of the stories. And there was a patient called Brian Bechtel,
Speaker 2: and I found out that he'd been in the hospital
Speaker 2: for at that time, I think it was twenty seven years,
Speaker 2: and the average day is like six years, so it
Speaker 2: was much much longer than any of the other patients,
Speaker 2: which really surprised me because he was really articulate and
Speaker 2: interesting and seemed completely stable. So I talked to him
Speaker 2: gradually got to know him better and better, and finally
Speaker 2: he told me his story and I found it so
Speaker 2: fascinating that I asked him if he'd be interested in
Speaker 2: me writing about it, and he agreed. So that's how
Speaker 2: things started.
Speaker 1: Will you tell me specifically what your job was in
Speaker 1: this time period where you knew Brian, What exactly on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis did you do in this facility.
Speaker 2: I think I was on sabbatical from my academic job,
Speaker 2: so I wanted to do some voluntary work, and I
Speaker 2: started to work in a prison where I was running
Speaker 2: a reading group there too with a group of prisoners.
Speaker 2: And the psychiatric hospital was in very close to the
Speaker 2: prison too, and so I talked to the you know,
Speaker 2: the CEO and the head psychiatrist there, and so I
Speaker 2: started this group once a week. Even though I'm a psychoanalyst,
Speaker 2: this was a completely non clinical group. It was voluntary
Speaker 2: and I wasn't taking any notes or anything, although the
Speaker 2: patients often didn't seem to believe me, and it was
Speaker 2: for mostly high functioning patients and they could elect to
Speaker 2: get in the group, join the group, and so there
Speaker 2: were usually about I actually had two groups in the
Speaker 2: end of about ten patients in each group, and we
Speaker 2: would usually read short stories and I would give them
Speaker 2: the stories to read in between passes, and then we
Speaker 2: would meet and discuss the stories in the meeting, and
Speaker 2: it would usually lead to other kinds of general conversations.
Speaker 2: But I was really interested in getting the perspective on
Speaker 2: the stories and to think about, you know, how fiction
Speaker 2: relates to real life and how you can kind of
Speaker 2: empathize with fictional characters, and then just like, you know,
Speaker 2: some kind of enjoyment because there really wasn't very much
Speaker 2: to do there.
Speaker 1: Before we learn about Brian and his time in the
Speaker 1: facility that we're talking about. Let's talk about what actually
Speaker 1: happened and what he was convicted of. So where does
Speaker 1: that story make sense? Is it the environment that Brian
Speaker 1: grew up in, in what his parents were like and
Speaker 1: who they were.
Speaker 2: So couple fan Slain is about a man named Brian
Speaker 2: Bechteld who, in nineteen ninety two in Helensdale, Maryland, at
Speaker 2: the age of twenty two, murdered his parents and he
Speaker 2: was suffering at that time from paranoid schizophrenia, which is
Speaker 2: partly inherited. He had mental illness in the family and
Speaker 2: he believes both of his parents were mentally ill, particularly
Speaker 2: his father, who was not diagnosed, but as he grew older.
Speaker 2: As he hit his teenage years, he became incredibly paranoid
Speaker 2: and delusional and couldn't really function, found himself getting thrown
Speaker 2: out of college, losing his friends, spending most of the
Speaker 2: time with his dogs. He was institute a number of
Speaker 2: times as he was growing up, or drinking and smoking pot,
Speaker 2: and I mean without being aware of it. He was
Speaker 2: just becoming more and more detached from the everyday world.
Speaker 2: And that's the age at which most people who suffered
Speaker 2: from schizophrenia are going to have a psychotic break if
Speaker 2: they do. And Brian had not been on any medication
Speaker 2: or anything. He didn't perceive himself as being mentally ill.
Speaker 2: He believed that the house was under attacked from outsiders.
Speaker 2: He believed he saw things in the yard. He believed
Speaker 2: that there was a devil in the attic recording all
Speaker 2: kinds of things that he said. So he was really
Speaker 2: suffering from pretty typical paranoid delusions and this is what
Speaker 2: led him one day to commit this horrible act. His
Speaker 2: parents had been abusive, not sexually abusive, but physically and
Speaker 2: emotionally throughout his life, violent and oppressive, and then after
Speaker 2: the murders he went on the run. For a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks and then he turned himself in.
Speaker 1: Was the abuse independently verified? His parents were Dorothy and
Speaker 1: George Bechteld, So were there reports or did any of
Speaker 1: this come out in the trial? This history of abuse
Speaker 1: with the parents.
Speaker 2: There were lots of documents of Brian being put into
Speaker 2: sort of teenage psychiatric hospitals and then being released by
Speaker 2: his mother against the advice of the doctors. For most
Speaker 2: of the information about Brian's childhood. I talked to his
Speaker 2: sister Kathy, and she verified everything that Brian said, and
Speaker 2: his other siblings don't speak to him. Kathy's the anyone
Speaker 2: that does so as much as I could verify it,
Speaker 2: she supported everything that Brian said.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he is obviously suffering from schizophrenia. Does anybody
Speaker 1: recognize this? I know he's in and out of facilities.
Speaker 1: Is that when he is given the diagnosis is when
Speaker 1: he's in his teenagers.
Speaker 2: No, he's not diagnosed until after the crime. And of course,
Speaker 2: you know, it's an absolutely horrifying crime and no amount
Speaker 2: of abuse can justify what he did. And he certainly,
Speaker 2: you know, had ordinary difficulties with his parents, probably beyond
Speaker 2: what most teenagers have but without his delusions and schizophrenia.
Speaker 2: You know, he saw his parents parents as not who
Speaker 2: they were, as zombies, as enemies. So after the crime,
Speaker 2: he was seen by a psychiatrist and that's when he
Speaker 2: got the diagnosis.
Speaker 1: What exactly is the crime? What happens during these murders?
Speaker 1: And then how is he caught? Does he just turn
Speaker 1: himself in? What happens?
Speaker 2: Brian? He was so delusional that he had and paranoid.
Speaker 2: He had been keeping a gun, like, constantly walking around
Speaker 2: the house with a gun, which kind of makes me
Speaker 2: wonder what his parents thought was going on. Half the
Speaker 2: year his parents were in Florida without him, so I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if they quite fully understood the severity of
Speaker 2: his mental illness, but they thought that he was paranoid
Speaker 2: about outside, as attacking the house, and he was even
Speaker 2: keeping the gun, like he even took into the shower
Speaker 2: with him, And so it seems to me that the
Speaker 2: kind of the situation was ready for something terrible to happen.
Speaker 2: He hadn't been able to sleep for weeks. He managed
Speaker 2: and one morning he was just managing to fall asleep,
Speaker 2: he heard his father's shouting and that was it. He
Speaker 2: took his gun and went downstairs and shot them, And
Speaker 2: he says afterwards he didn't really understand that it had happened.
Speaker 2: He felt like it was a dream or something he'd
Speaker 2: seen on television. He wasn't quite sure that he'd actually
Speaker 2: done it. After the murders, he took the family car,
Speaker 2: took his dog. He was going to escape to Mexico,
Speaker 2: but he just ended up kind of driving at random
Speaker 2: around the US, having kind of strange experiences, picking up
Speaker 2: hitchhikers who believed that they were animals all over the
Speaker 2: road that he'd hit with the car. He had what
Speaker 2: he believed was a spiritual revelation. He listened to a
Speaker 2: preacher on the radio. He started reading a Bible. He
Speaker 2: went to a campground in a small town on the
Speaker 2: Gulf of Mexico. Believed that he heard an angel telling him
Speaker 2: to turn himself in, that he'd been possessed by the devil,
Speaker 2: and so that's what he did. He went to a
Speaker 2: local police station and turned himself in.
Speaker 1: So he had shot his parents, and who had found them?
Speaker 1: Was it with sister or one of the siblings that
Speaker 1: had discovered them.
Speaker 2: None of the other siblings were living at home, and
Speaker 2: Brian was significantly younger than all the other siblings, so
Speaker 2: they were scattered around the country. None of them even
Speaker 2: lived locally, and he had no relatives living locally. The
Speaker 2: family was kind of isolated from the community. Actually, when
Speaker 2: Brian was arrested in the Gulf of Mexico, he assumed
Speaker 2: that his parents had been found long ago, but actually
Speaker 2: the police there called the police in Maryland, asked them
Speaker 2: to do a wellness check, and the parents hadn't been found.
Speaker 2: You know, they were still in the house and they've
Speaker 2: been dead for over a week, so they weren't found
Speaker 2: until Brian confessed.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this case is, you know, I've covered
Speaker 1: other stories about people suffering from schizophrenia, one story in
Speaker 1: particular from nineteen thirty five of a young man who
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and you know, the idea was
Speaker 1: that when I spoke to several forensic psychologists, they said,
Speaker 1: you know, covering up is not the thing that people
Speaker 1: who suffer from schizophrenia and committed crime are doing. This
Speaker 1: seems contradictory to that. He seems like he's on the run,
Speaker 1: but he's also having delusions at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that he you know, he
Speaker 2: realized he'd done this terrible, terrible thing, probably felt responsible
Speaker 2: and that he was going to go to prison, perhaps
Speaker 2: was thinking of suicide, and just wanted to get out
Speaker 2: of the scene, out of the situation. So I don't
Speaker 2: think he actually saw it as covering up. I think
Speaker 2: he was very confused about what was actually going on,
Speaker 2: and later he came to see it in terms of
Speaker 2: like the forces of goodness and loss of evil battling
Speaker 2: over his soul.
Speaker 1: Really, fight or flight is what it sounds like that
Speaker 1: he was doing. It's not that he was willing to
Speaker 1: sit there because he didn't understand the consequences. It was
Speaker 1: just like his instinct was to go because something traumatic happened.
Speaker 2: Right, And I think he didn't want to, you know,
Speaker 2: to stay in that scene, in that scene and see
Speaker 2: what had happened.
Speaker 1: So tell me what happens when his parents are discovered?
Speaker 1: How does the rest of this unfold until we get
Speaker 1: to the trial, or if there is a trial.
Speaker 2: Well, at first the police didn't believe him, so when
Speaker 2: it turned out that his parents were actually dead, he
Speaker 2: was arrested and returned home, and then he was hospitalized
Speaker 2: in Maryland. Two of his sisters came to support him,
Speaker 2: and he was given an attorney, well they had an't
Speaker 2: attorney actually, and the att the interviewed him and said
Speaker 2: it was very very clear that he was not in
Speaker 2: her right mind. So they decided to be not criminally responsible,
Speaker 2: which is like the Maryland equivalent of the what used
Speaker 2: to be called the insanity defense, which is actually very
Speaker 2: very rarely used successfully. And so in Brian's case, he
Speaker 2: waived trial. He wasn't considered fit to stand trial, and
Speaker 2: he was taken to various facilities and finally he ended
Speaker 2: up in Clifton Perkins, which is a forensic psychiatric facility
Speaker 2: where most of the patients are either so they've all
Speaker 2: committed a crime. They're either considered incompetent to stand trial,
Speaker 2: so they're waiting for their sanity to be restored to
Speaker 2: the extent that they can stand trial, or they're like Brian,
Speaker 2: who's been found not criminal responsible, so they're kind of
Speaker 2: there for the long haul until the psychiatrists decide that
Speaker 2: he's competent to be released.
Speaker 1: When we talk about him not competent to stand trial,
Speaker 1: does the parents' past abuse come into play at all
Speaker 1: or is it strictly based on his diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Speaker 2: It's completely based on his diagnosis. I mean, he has
Speaker 2: plenty of interviews with the psychiatrists, but they're really about
Speaker 2: his current state of mind, his ability to understand what's
Speaker 2: going on, his thought content, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: He told me that he believes that his parents were
Speaker 2: mentally ill and had been for a long time, and
Speaker 2: I assumed that he discussed this with the psychiatrist too,
Speaker 2: But it really was mostly about not about the past
Speaker 2: and how that might have contributed, except genetically. So there's
Speaker 2: no question of, like, you know, what his parents are blame,
Speaker 2: or did he have a right to do this or
Speaker 2: anything like that. I mean, that was not considered.
Speaker 1: So he is considered not competent to stand trial. Do
Speaker 1: we have a reaction at all from I know that
Speaker 1: you said he is estranged from several of his siblings
Speaker 1: except for one sister. Is there a point where members
Speaker 1: of his family, or his parents' friends, or anybody in
Speaker 1: the community is saying, this is not right. This guy
Speaker 1: should go to jail for gunning down his parents, because
Speaker 1: I know that is the reaction of family members in
Speaker 1: similar situations.
Speaker 2: Sure, he has four siblings, one of whom is now deceased,
Speaker 2: and two of them, his brother and one of his sisters,
Speaker 2: were completely in favor of from going to prison. They
Speaker 2: felt that he, regardless of his mental state, what he'd
Speaker 2: done was serious enough that there was no question of
Speaker 2: anything but him taking responsibility, and they pushed for that.
Speaker 2: You know, they didn't want to help Pap his lawyer,
Speaker 2: they didn't want to do anything to help him. On
Speaker 2: his side, he had his two other sisters and an uncle,
Speaker 2: but no other none of the other extended family members
Speaker 2: got involved.
Speaker 1: I mean, this becomes so complicated because you have two
Speaker 1: people who are dead who, yes, were abusive, but we
Speaker 1: set that aside if we're just talking about legal things.
Speaker 1: Two people who are dead, somebody who has confessed, somebody
Speaker 1: who is obviously suffering from a very severe mental illness.
Speaker 1: But now, are we looking at any possibility that Ryan
Speaker 1: could be rehabilitated and released or where do we stand
Speaker 1: with him at this point before we start talking about
Speaker 1: the actual facility and what happens.
Speaker 2: Yes, the average stay in that particular facility is six years,
Speaker 2: and you know, rehabilitation is the goal, and that often
Speaker 2: takes place with the aid of a lot of medication.
Speaker 2: And many of these patients who are released will be rehabilitated,
Speaker 2: perhaps into an assisted living facility, and they'll be on
Speaker 2: medication for the rest of their lives. You know, Brian's
Speaker 2: been in there for a really long time, much longer
Speaker 2: than many of the other patients. So yes, theoretically he
Speaker 2: could have been rehabilitated and released as many other patients are.
Speaker 2: And the short average length time spent in the hospital
Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why there's so much controversy
Speaker 2: about the in sinisty defense and why so many people
Speaker 2: are against it because people are released in what appears
Speaker 2: to be a very short amount of time and certainly
Speaker 2: much shorter than if they had been put in prison
Speaker 2: for the same crime.
Speaker 1: What do studies show about the instances of REPEATD five
Speaker 1: after people have been released who have committed violent crimes
Speaker 1: and have been rehabilitated. I'm assuming their studies that conclude
Speaker 1: whether or not this works or not, or is it
Speaker 1: really individual basis.
Speaker 2: You know, each state is different because each state facility
Speaker 2: has different kind of norms and levels about what's how
Speaker 2: long people stay and when they're allowed at I think
Speaker 2: their rate of recidivism is it's a little higher than prisoners,
Speaker 2: but not very much. But when there are cases of
Speaker 2: repeated offenses, they usually get enormous amounts of publicity because,
Speaker 2: you know, this is someone who's previously already committed a
Speaker 2: crime and now has been released into the community. So
Speaker 2: a lot of people think it seems as though people
Speaker 2: with mental illness who've done terrible things are being released
Speaker 2: when they're not ready, but in fact, it's just that
Speaker 2: their crimes get so much more publicity than those of say,
Speaker 2: prisoners who are acidivist.
Speaker 1: You know, most books about true crime end with the
Speaker 1: end of the crime and the person the offender goes
Speaker 1: off and he's been convicted or sent to a fac
Speaker 1: and that's sort of the end of it, and we're
Speaker 1: focusing on the victims primarily, And in this case, you
Speaker 1: really are focusing on Brian because of what happens after
Speaker 1: he is in the facility. So what are his first
Speaker 1: years like there?
Speaker 2: Brian's first year. During his first years, he was trying
Speaker 2: really hard. He was jumping through all the hoops, he
Speaker 2: was going to all the therapy sessions, he was taking
Speaker 2: the medication. He believed that he could be out in
Speaker 2: you know, five or six years. He still had visits,
Speaker 2: so his life was you know, he's not completely isolated
Speaker 2: in the hospital. He made friends with some of the
Speaker 2: other patients. As I said, you know, he followed all
Speaker 2: the rules and did everything possible to facilitate his release.
Speaker 1: What was the facility, like, I mean, would you consider
Speaker 1: this high quality facility.
Speaker 2: I don't really have anything to compare it to, but
Speaker 2: it seems to me that there's very little to do
Speaker 2: for the patients. And part of this is because of
Speaker 2: government funding restrictions and all kinds of things. But it
Speaker 2: seems that most of the patients and I mean there's chapel,
Speaker 2: there's a gym, but mostly it's just sitting and watching television,
Speaker 2: And most patients are very severely medicated, and the level
Speaker 2: of mental illness goes from like completely catatonic to apparently
Speaker 2: perfectly functional like Brian. They can have jobs like working
Speaker 2: as a janitor or working in the kitchen, and then
Speaker 2: there are people like me who are volunteers who came
Speaker 2: in to offer groups and activities. I think people seem
Speaker 2: to assume that most of the psychiatrists who work in
Speaker 2: a state facility are the least prestigious. In my experience,
Speaker 2: a lot of the psychiatrists there are not the best,
Speaker 2: and I think working in a facility like that, psychiatrists
Speaker 2: are usually very Their term there is usually very short lived,
Speaker 2: so the patients seem to get handed onto one psychiatrist
Speaker 2: after another. Of course, the restrictions on what they're allowed
Speaker 2: to have and what they're allowed to do are very
Speaker 2: intense and extreme. And then the thing that Brian found
Speaker 2: worst of all was the medication. The medication that he
Speaker 2: was given, he eventually resisted taking it. It made him
Speaker 2: incontinent and impotent, and eventually he felt that there was
Speaker 2: an acceptable.
Speaker 1: So is this the maximum security facility that he was in?
Speaker 1: Is this where he has spent his whole time since
Speaker 1: the murders?
Speaker 2: This interview comes at a really interesting time actually, because
Speaker 2: on the fifteenth of May he was due to go
Speaker 2: back to He's been there thirty one years. I think
Speaker 2: he was due to have another trial in an attempt
Speaker 2: to get released, which patients have the opportunity to do
Speaker 2: every couple of years. He was going to have a
Speaker 2: public defender. He'd lined up a psychiatrist to testify in
Speaker 2: his favor. I was going to speak, his sister was
Speaker 2: going to speak, And on the Friday before Perkins Facility
Speaker 2: said they were not going to have the trial and
Speaker 2: they were not going to contest it, and they were
Speaker 2: going to allow him to be released. It's also not
Speaker 2: like he can walk out for the doors. You know,
Speaker 2: he'll be there another six months at least, and then
Speaker 2: he'll be moved to a regional hospital which is a
Speaker 2: little less secure, and then to a sort of you know,
Speaker 2: transitional facility. So even though he'll be getting out of Perkins,
Speaker 2: it's not like he's going to, you know, immediately like
Speaker 2: be able to get a job and live an ordinary life.
Speaker 2: And just from being there for so long, you know,
Speaker 2: it's going to be very difficult for him to adjust
Speaker 2: to the community. He hasn't like he's never been online,
Speaker 2: for example, he's never you know, used an iPhone. I mean,
Speaker 2: things have really changed a lot since since the time
Speaker 2: when he went to prison. So it's just partly getting
Speaker 2: used to the life outside and learning how to live
Speaker 2: as an ordinary citizen.
Speaker 1: Do you not have any concern about him being released
Speaker 1: or were saying we trust the evaluators here and as
Speaker 1: much as you can say, I feel like he's ready
Speaker 1: unstable that he is.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen him on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2: But I've known him for ten years, and I have
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time interviewing him for this book,
Speaker 2: and I've visited him a lot in the facility, and
Speaker 2: I've spoken to his family members. You know, the conversations
Speaker 2: I have with him are no different from the conversations
Speaker 2: I'd have with anyone else. I mean, he's pissed off
Speaker 2: by the way he's treated, but that's inevitable. I think
Speaker 2: anyone would be. I think he's completely irrational about that.
Speaker 2: And he would have to be on medications, but probably
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life, but hopefully not such
Speaker 2: strong antipsychotics. And he'll be in contact with a psychiatrist,
Speaker 2: and he'll have a social worker and a therapist, and
Speaker 2: he won't be completely isolated.
Speaker 1: Is anyone in his family opposed to this happening?
Speaker 2: The siblings that were opposed to him going to Perkins
Speaker 2: will be opposed to it. I'm sure they haven't learned
Speaker 2: that yet. They're not in touch with him, but I'm
Speaker 2: sure they will be.
Speaker 1: Let's go back and talk about his time at Perkins,
Speaker 1: because that's what a lot of the book is about.
Speaker 1: What were the positives aside from his journey with medication,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like maybe they've sort of sorted it
Speaker 1: out and getting it right. Have there been other positives
Speaker 1: to being there besides of course not being in prison.
Speaker 2: The positives about being in Perkins rather than prison are
Speaker 2: one that for most people at least they have a
Speaker 2: determinus time w released at some point, which many people
Speaker 2: in prison won't be. You're also allowed to receive visitors
Speaker 2: are more regularly than you're in prison, and you're actually
Speaker 2: allowed to have kissed them, you know, to touch. You're
Speaker 2: guarded all the time, but there's no barrier between you.
Speaker 2: There's no restrictions on how many people can come. Once
Speaker 2: a year, there's a Christmas party, and there's also summer
Speaker 2: picnic which I have attended, where families and patients are
Speaker 2: all together and the staff members and you can bring
Speaker 2: gifts and there are picnics. And part of being in
Speaker 2: the hospital rather than prison is just kind of getting
Speaker 2: to know other people in the same situation who have
Speaker 2: also been through the system. And Brian found, especially on
Speaker 2: certain wards, of kind of esprit de corps and a
Speaker 2: real kind of camaraderie and he's made some really great
Speaker 2: friends there who've been released and he's still in touch
Speaker 2: with And then because people are from so many different
Speaker 2: walks of life, there isn't the gang activity that there
Speaker 2: is in prisons. It's a lot safer than it is
Speaker 2: in prisons. This is a hospital as well. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not seen as a place for punishment. These are patients,
Speaker 2: you know, they're not given a number, they're addressed by
Speaker 2: their names, and theoretically at least they're being treated and helped.
Speaker 2: It's not supposed to be a kind of punitive place.
Speaker 2: It's a place where staff members are supposed to be
Speaker 2: helping you.
Speaker 1: Well, you say supposed to be and Brian did not have.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like to me the type of experience
Speaker 1: that we would hope somebody who needs help with the
Speaker 1: mental illness would have. What was this experience like sort
Speaker 1: of from the beginning for him? I know we said boredom,
Speaker 1: but then things seem to devolve for him.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I wanted to do with
Speaker 2: this book was to show that once a perpetrator of
Speaker 2: a crime disappears from the scene of traditional true crime,
Speaker 2: their lives are still very events. And when I used
Speaker 2: to think about the death penalty, I used to think, well, really,
Speaker 2: the death penalty is not so bad because the alternative
Speaker 2: is like life in solitary confinement or life in prison.
Speaker 2: But now I've realized that people can get used to anything,
Speaker 2: and people can develop the life for themselves, you know,
Speaker 2: people who are we also about. Of course, they get
Speaker 2: used to it. People get used to all kinds of
Speaker 2: terrible circumstances that we can't imagine being in. And eventually,
Speaker 2: when you've been there, say more than ten years, I
Speaker 2: think you start to forget what ordinary life was like
Speaker 2: when you're on the outside, and that becomes your life
Speaker 2: in the prison or in the hospital, becomes your everyday life,
Speaker 2: your routine, and you're not always thinking about the outside
Speaker 2: and when you're going to be released, or seeing your
Speaker 2: friends and family and so on. So since this is
Speaker 2: what made me so interested in writing about Brian's story,
Speaker 2: is that since he's been in the hospital, he's had
Speaker 2: cancer and recovered from it. He's tried to escape, he's
Speaker 2: been shot by the police, he's had a psychiatrist who
Speaker 2: turned out to be criminally insane, witnessed all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: he's been drugged beyond recognition, and his life has been
Speaker 2: really eventful. Like I said, I've listed some of the
Speaker 2: positive things, but mostly it's been horrible for him, and
Speaker 2: Brian himself sees it as punishment. He believes that the
Speaker 2: hospital punishing him because he did try to escape for
Speaker 2: a day and disagrees with his psychiatrists and has not
Speaker 2: accepted the routine. He believes that he's been punished for
Speaker 2: fighting back against the hospital.
Speaker 1: Tell me how this story unfolds, How do things go
Speaker 1: he arrives, do his issues really start with the medication
Speaker 1: that he's put on, medication he doesn't like, and then
Speaker 1: how do things proceed?
Speaker 2: In the book, I refer to this documentary that was
Speaker 2: made in the hospital called Untying the Straight Jacket. It
Speaker 2: was made in nineteen ninety seven, and it's one of
Speaker 2: those A and E investigates with Bill Curtis and they're
Speaker 2: investigating the inside of these psychiatric hospels and they film
Speaker 2: at Clifton Perkins and Brian is one of the main
Speaker 2: patients in the documentary. You can actually find it if
Speaker 2: you google Untying the Straight Jackets. He gets a lot
Speaker 2: of camera time, and he's contrasted with some of the
Speaker 2: other patients who are seen as extremely mentally ill. Brian
Speaker 2: is seen as a very high functioning patient who may
Speaker 2: get out soon. He keeps fit, he does exercises, he
Speaker 2: plays games, he socializes with the other patients. He's seen
Speaker 2: as a very progressive case. And ironically, everyone else in
Speaker 2: that documentary has been released and Brian's still there. I mean,
Speaker 2: after taking medication that has completely rendered him uncapable, he
Speaker 2: has stopped taking it, he'd resisted taking it, He's refused
Speaker 2: to join in activities that he doesn't feel are appropriate. He,
Speaker 2: according to the psychiatrist, keeps secrets from them, and he
Speaker 2: has tried every opportunity to fight against the hospital, which
Speaker 2: I feel is not evidence of any kind of pathological
Speaker 2: symptoms or insanity. And of course, you know, he's been
Speaker 2: through a different level, and he's had day passes where
Speaker 2: he's allowed to go out in the company of his sister,
Speaker 2: and he's been on more restrictive circumstances where he's actually
Speaker 2: been in restraints, and so he's been sort of up
Speaker 2: and down between different levels. And that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that's most distressing to him because he often feels
Speaker 2: that like, instead of it being sort of progress, sort
Speaker 2: of going up a ladder towards release. It's going up
Speaker 2: and down, up and down all the time, which again
Speaker 2: is one of the things I wanted to emphasize in
Speaker 2: the book that most true crime books have this kind
Speaker 2: of trajectory of progress towards, you know, the investigation and
Speaker 2: the neumont and the capturing of the criminal and the
Speaker 2: unfolding of the case with some kind of coherent ending
Speaker 2: or closure. And in fact, you know, when I wrote
Speaker 2: this book, there isn't really an ending. It's just kind
Speaker 2: of the same sort of bureaucratic confusion and no end
Speaker 2: in sight for Brian, and the same sort of instability
Speaker 2: in the hospital and the lack of clarity. And there
Speaker 2: might have been a happier ending if I'd sort of
Speaker 2: stopped the story earlier. But I think whether or not
Speaker 2: there's clothes depends on where you end the story.
Speaker 1: What are the ways that he can fight against the
Speaker 1: hospital while he's there, I know you said refusing to
Speaker 1: do activities and things like that. Does he have that
Speaker 1: sort of agency in a facility like that, or does
Speaker 1: he actually have to physically stop himself from doing anything.
Speaker 2: At first, he was like finding ways not to take
Speaker 2: the medication, like hiding it in his mouth and Eventually,
Speaker 2: if a patient refuses to take medication, he can be
Speaker 2: sent to a panel of psychiatrists who can decide that
Speaker 2: they can force him to take medication. And even then
Speaker 2: he can be taken to court and made to take medication,
Speaker 2: which in the most extreme case would be being held
Speaker 2: down and given an injection. And so he has resisted
Speaker 2: to a certain degree, but there's only a certain ways
Speaker 2: that you can resist. The way Brian sees it is
Speaker 2: like a question of kind of learning the hospital's language
Speaker 2: and the hospital's jargon, and knowing what to say to
Speaker 2: psychiatrists and what to conceal from them. And what's frustrating
Speaker 2: is that it doesn't really work. I mean, for example,
Speaker 2: Brian has told me that he's very religious, and religion
Speaker 2: has been a great help to him throughout his time
Speaker 2: at the hospital. It's a religious belief he doesn't really
Speaker 2: talk about. He didn't really talk about it to me either,
Speaker 2: because it's a very kind of extreme sort of evangelism.
Speaker 2: And when he would talk about that to the doctors,
Speaker 2: they would see it as, you know, religiosity is a
Speaker 2: symptom of schizophrenia, so they would see it as sort
Speaker 2: of this kind of apocalyptic belief that was another symptom
Speaker 2: of his mental illness, so he stopped talking about it,
Speaker 2: and then it was seen as like withholding information. So
Speaker 2: whether you go along with the regime or whether you resist,
Speaker 2: it's often seen as symptomatic. And that's that's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why some of the patients told me that
Speaker 2: they would rather be in prison. In fact, some of
Speaker 2: them actually do things to get sent to PRISM is
Speaker 2: because in prison you do have that sense of agency.
Speaker 2: You know, you can, like not go to breakfast, and
Speaker 2: that's your choice. It's not like written down as a
Speaker 2: symptom that you know, didn't go to breakfast, or you
Speaker 2: can you know, you can choose to go in the yard,
Speaker 2: you cannot go in the yard. It's not anything that
Speaker 2: you have to go along with this. People aren't taking
Speaker 2: notes and observing your behavior all the time, in fact,
Speaker 2: quite the opposite. I mean, you're kind of ignored most
Speaker 2: of the time unless you do something dangerous. And also,
Speaker 2: I mean for patients like Brian, one of the things
Speaker 2: he thought was a real curse was but the idea
Speaker 2: of hope that he has hope that he's going to
Speaker 2: be released, and that hope loses and hope became a
Speaker 2: horrible thing for him. In the end, he wished he
Speaker 2: could get rid of it. And in prison, if you're
Speaker 2: you know, if you have life without parole, even if
Speaker 2: you have a deaths, you know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: There isn't that constant possibility of release. If you know
Speaker 2: you have a twenty year sentence or a thirty year sentence,
Speaker 2: you know when you're coming to the end. And that's
Speaker 2: not the same with the patients in Perkins, Like Brian.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the things that he has
Speaker 1: seen that he was not involved with. It sounds like
Speaker 1: Perkins had some violence there that he witnessed, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure was traumatizing for him. Also, what was he seeing
Speaker 1: that was so disturbing to him?
Speaker 2: He told me that it's not so bad now. I mean,
Speaker 2: the violence has decreased. They've made changes in staff and
Speaker 2: added more guards and so on. But he has seen
Speaker 2: patient on patient violence. But he said that the most
Speaker 2: more disturbing than that is violence from the gods because
Speaker 2: they're so bored, they have nothing to do. They're not
Speaker 2: supposed to be reading or looking at the cell phones.
Speaker 2: They supposed to kind of sit looking at patients, and
Speaker 2: according to Brian, it's a very lowly job, and there's
Speaker 2: really not very much of a distinction between the patients
Speaker 2: and the gods, and so to reinforce the hierarchy and
Speaker 2: their difference from the patients, the gods, you know, will
Speaker 2: tease the patients or make fun of them, just basically
Speaker 2: a kind of general belittling. But in terms of actual violence,
Speaker 2: while Brian's been there, there's been free patient on patient murders,
Speaker 2: and then there was also the psychiatrists who was turned
Speaker 2: out to be clinically in stain and was stalking the
Speaker 2: state's attorney. Brian didn't witness any of the murders they
Speaker 2: took place in both rooms, but he certainly witnessed the aftermath.
Speaker 2: And I think the murders are important because they sort
Speaker 2: of highlight what's going on in the facility and the
Speaker 2: kinds of things that go on in secret. There's often
Speaker 2: very little kind of government oversight of these facilities. That's
Speaker 2: the reason why patients like Brian could be kept there
Speaker 2: for so long. You know, there's no kind of border
Speaker 2: review that looks how long someone's been sent there if
Speaker 2: they don't have family and support systems, so I think
Speaker 2: the murders are important for kind of highlighting this, And
Speaker 2: of course there was lots of kind of outrage in
Speaker 2: the newspapers, and staff were protesting that their jobs were
Speaker 2: too dangerous and that there was not enough government support.
Speaker 2: So what Brian said about the murders, you know, they
Speaker 2: weren't really as as traumatizing as just like the kind
Speaker 2: of day to day like grinding down of your sense
Speaker 2: of self and sense of hope. And some people talk
Speaker 2: about low violence in the sense that, you know, this
Speaker 2: is not a sudden act of violence, but violence that's
Speaker 2: associated with a bureaucracy or with the assists that can
Speaker 2: perpetuate a kind of violence by just completely grinding someone down.
Speaker 2: He thinks the hospital has got better over the last
Speaker 2: like ten years since the murders. You know, I don't
Speaker 2: know if he's the most reliable drug, but he's seen
Speaker 2: it as not even the same level of dysfunction, but
Speaker 2: sort of ups and downs, but dysfunctional all along.
Speaker 1: Tell me about his escape, Tell me the story of that,
Speaker 1: what happens that day.
Speaker 2: He said he wanted to get sent to prison for
Speaker 2: the reasons that I've said. He didn't want to be
Speaker 2: drugged anymore. So. He'd been secreting his medication and not
Speaker 2: taking it. He was looking for an opportunity to escape.
Speaker 2: He managed to at one point take a strutch from
Speaker 2: an ironing board. He concealed it in the ceiling of
Speaker 2: his cell. He planned it out for a long time.
Speaker 2: When the opportunity came, he used the strut to take
Speaker 2: a guard hostage. The guard lead him out of the hospital,
Speaker 2: got out of the front doors. He didn't get very far.
Speaker 2: I mean, he got maybe a mile or so down
Speaker 2: the road and he was shot by the police. He
Speaker 2: says that he wanted to be killed or sent to prison.
Speaker 2: The idea of being sent back to Perkins. He didn't
Speaker 2: believe it was possible, but that's what happened. But he
Speaker 2: was you know, he was in hospital for a while.
Speaker 2: He was quite severely injured in his stomach. So it
Speaker 2: wasn't like a really exciting when people talk about escaping
Speaker 2: from a mental hospital. It wasn't like climbing down a
Speaker 2: window or anything like that, although I guess taking a
Speaker 2: hostage is pretty serious.
Speaker 1: What has changed did he say to you since after
Speaker 1: he escaped.
Speaker 2: Well, not for a long time. Years later, he did
Speaker 2: something very similar. He attacked a social worker and was
Speaker 2: put in isolation and was medicated.
Speaker 1: I think what's difficult for people perhaps to understand will
Speaker 1: be you know, you hear about these two incidences, right,
Speaker 1: So there's taking the guard hostage, he's not taking his
Speaker 1: medicine because he hates it, and then later on attacking
Speaker 1: a social worker. Then that makes me think, well, how
Speaker 1: do we know if he is released in the next
Speaker 1: six months to a year, how do we know he's
Speaker 1: not going to feel like that again about his medicine
Speaker 1: or something is not going to happen to trigger something.
Speaker 1: Because we've had two violent things happen while at the facility.
Speaker 2: Right, but the last one, you know, it hasn't been
Speaker 2: for at least fifteen years. And obviously this is a simplification,
Speaker 2: but we've all misbehaved, perhaps not committed acts of violence,
Speaker 2: but done things in the past that we regret and
Speaker 2: wouldn't do again, even in similar circumstances. And I also
Speaker 2: think that he was rebelling against what he saw as
Speaker 2: forced medication. He still believes that he's over medicated, but
Speaker 2: the medication hasn't been as bad as it was. I
Speaker 2: think one of the big differences is he'll get psychiatrists
Speaker 2: that he likes, who actually treat him as an equal,
Speaker 2: but as an individual that he'll have a bond with.
Speaker 2: And when he's working with a psychiatrist that he likes
Speaker 2: and that he finds helpful, he'll be stable, you know,
Speaker 2: for all that time. It's when he changed of psychiatrists,
Speaker 2: or when he gets a psychiatrist who he feels doesn't
Speaker 2: know him. This is one of the things that really
Speaker 2: angers him is that a new psychiatrist will simply copy
Speaker 2: over the diagnosis from the previous psychiatrists. They won't attempt
Speaker 2: to reevaluate him or find a new diagnosis. They'll just,
Speaker 2: you know, take for granted everything that's in the biolence
Speaker 2: is correct and continue on that diagnosis when he feels
Speaker 2: that he's not been schizophrenic for a long time and
Speaker 2: he might qualify for other diagnoses. But the idea that
Speaker 2: the psychiatrists are incredibly overworked. They have an enormous number
Speaker 2: of patients. They don't have time to follow each one
Speaker 2: individual and see their day to day changes. So that's
Speaker 2: one of the things that has been really difficult for him.
Speaker 2: But then he has had psychiatrists who he's really got
Speaker 2: along with that he likes, he likes their attitude, he
Speaker 2: likes their relationship with the patients. I mean, that's the
Speaker 2: thing that really makes the difference is seeing authority not
Speaker 2: as this kind of hostile bureaucracy, but as composed of
Speaker 2: individuals like him, who have ups and downs, who have
Speaker 2: difficulties with the system like he does, who have good
Speaker 2: days and bad days, who are not faceless bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: What are the safeguards, if any, that are put into
Speaker 1: place when he is released. I know you said he's
Speaker 1: assigned a psychiatrist. How can they check to see if
Speaker 1: he's taken his medication? I mean, how do we know
Speaker 1: he's staying on the right track Once he's out.
Speaker 2: There is a psychiatrist I mentioned him in the book
Speaker 2: who has evaluated him five times and found him ready
Speaker 2: to be released each time. And there will be all
Speaker 2: these safeguards in place, like he'll be in a facility,
Speaker 2: you know, like a kind of halfway house, where there'll
Speaker 2: be staff living in the facility. And first of all,
Speaker 2: he'll be accompanied whenever he tries to do anything, and
Speaker 2: he'll be helped in getting employment, and he will be
Speaker 2: regularly given medication, and a lot of medication today can
Speaker 2: be given in like a shot, like a depot shot
Speaker 2: that kind of releases the medication gradually over a month,
Speaker 2: so it's not always a question of like taking your
Speaker 2: medication every day. You can go to the doctor and
Speaker 2: the doctor gives you the shot. Then it's out of
Speaker 2: your hands. You know, it's released over your body. But
Speaker 2: I think what's most important to me and makes me
Speaker 2: most optimistic is the fact that he really wants to
Speaker 2: do well. You know, he really wants to get a job,
Speaker 2: he wants to be in a relationship. He wants to
Speaker 2: show society that he's an ordinary individual who can live
Speaker 2: amongst others. He does not want to be seen as
Speaker 2: a mental patient. He doesn't want people to know about
Speaker 2: his crime. And I think that that desire goes a
Speaker 2: long way. I mean, there are people who are at
Speaker 2: leased to who don't want that, who want to kind
Speaker 2: of show their importance or regain their standing in the community,
Speaker 2: and I think Brian's sort of humility and understanding that
Speaker 2: he'll be just an ordinary person is really important to him.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's been on trips and the outside. In fact,
Speaker 2: his sister will come down and take him and he
Speaker 2: can sometimes stay over night, and most of the time
Speaker 2: he'll just want to go to Walmart or want to
Speaker 2: go to a fast food place. You know, he won't
Speaker 2: want to go to a movie or anything really exciting.
Speaker 2: He just wants to see ordinary life, to live like
Speaker 2: an ordinary person. He doesn't have grand ambitions or anything.
Speaker 1: What is the message do you think of your book?
Speaker 1: What are you hoping to get across by writing this book?
Speaker 2: I don't think I don't really have a message about
Speaker 2: Brian or about the mental health system. What I wanted
Speaker 2: to do is to tell his story, partly because since
Speaker 2: hippo regulations that aren't really opportunities. There's no group therapy
Speaker 2: where people can talk about their past, so much of
Speaker 2: that is confidential, so he wanted an opportunity to tell
Speaker 2: his story and also to show I wanted to show
Speaker 2: the traditional conventions of true crime, like the binaries of
Speaker 2: the good people and the evil people, or the cops
Speaker 2: and the wrongdoers, or even the traditional kind of trajectory,
Speaker 2: or the idea of perpetration and victim. These are very complicated,
Speaker 2: so I wanted to write a different kind of true
Speaker 2: crime story that starts when most others end. And I
Speaker 2: didn't want to downplay the crime, but I also wanted
Speaker 2: to show that the crime is not the ending, it
Speaker 2: can be the beginning, and to show that, you know,
Speaker 2: most of the actual events of the story are not dramatic.
Speaker 2: They're not really exciting. They're kind of the ordinary daily
Speaker 2: life of someone who's in really difficult circumstances. You know,
Speaker 2: whether this is prison or a psychiatric hospital, or the
Speaker 2: way that the victim's life goes on. Things don't kind
Speaker 2: of come to a dramatic climax, and stories are long
Speaker 2: and complicated.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly
Speaker 1: right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed by
Speaker 1: John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer, artwork by Nick Toga.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Georgia Hartstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more
Speaker 1: Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold More and if you
Speaker 1: you know of a historical crime that could use some
Speaker 1: attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked. Email us
Speaker 1: at info at tenfoldmore wicked dot com. We'll also take
Speaker 1: your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words