Primal Fear

  MOLLY: Dr. Molly Arrington.

  VAIL: Where do you reside, Dr. Arrington?

  MOLLY: Winthrop, Indiana. I’m on the staff of the Justine Clinic.

  VAIL: And what is your profession?

  MOLLY: I’m a licensed clinical psychologist and psychiatrist.

  VAIL: Where did you attend college?

  MOLLY: Indiana State. I took my medical training at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

  VAIL: What is the Justine Clinic?

  MOLLY: A privately endowed mental hospital and research institute.

  VAIL: And you are on the staff there?

  MOLLY: Yes, I’m associate director of the Aberrational Studies Department.

  VAIL: What does that mean exactly?

  MOLLY: I’m a specialist in the field of mental health specializing in antisocial and eccentric or bizarre behavior as it relates to psychopathic conduct.

  VAIL: And as such, do you deal with violent behavior?

  MOLLY: Yes I do.

  VAIL: How long have you been at the Justine Clinic?

  MOLLY: Six years.

  VAIL: And before that?

  MOLLY: I was an associate in private practice for a year and before that I spent two years interning at City Hospital in Indianapolis.

  VAIL: And in this position, have you been called upon to diagnose and examine patients suffering from mental disorders?

  MOLLY: Yes, many times.

  VAIL: And did you so diagnose Aaron Stampler?

  MOLLY: Yes I did.

  VAIL: Dr. Arrington, are you familiar with the collaborative diagnosis of Aaron Stampler submitted to the court by Drs. Bascott, Ciaffo and Solomon on behalf of the state?

  MOLLY: Yes, I’ve studied the report.

  VAIL: Do you know these three doctors?

  MOLLY: I have met Dr. Bascott. I’m familiar with Solomon and Carole Ciaffo by reputation.

  VAIL: Do you respect their work?

  MOLLY: Yes I do.

  VAIL: And do you agree with their diagnosis of Aaron Stampler?

  MOLLY: No, I do not.

  VAIL: Why not?

  MOLLY: I believe it’s incomplete and inconclusive.

  VAIL: On what basis did you arrive at this conclusion?

  MOLLY: The three doctors were responsible for determining only whether Aaron is capable of understanding the charges brought against him and is capable of assisting in his own defense and is intelligent enough to comprehend the proceedings.

  VAIL: And you think they made a mistake?

  MOLLY: No. I believe their diagnosis of Aaron Stampler in these areas was accurate.

  VAIL: Then in what way do you disagree with them?

  MOLLY: I don’t believe their examinations were comprehensive enough. Their conclusion is superficial. Their job was to make an evaluation and that’s all they did.

  VAIL: Isn’t that what they were supposed to do?

  MOLLY: May I give an example of what I mean?

  VAIL: Whatever is comfortable for you, Doctor.

  MOLLY: Let’s say a man is injured in an automobile wreck. He has obvious head injuries. If the examining team confines its examination only to head injuries and the man also has a ruptured spleen, that would be classified as either a misdiagnosis or an incomplete diagnosis. I believe that’s essentially what happened in the state’s examination of Aaron Stampler. By confining their tests and examinations to simply whether Stampler is competent to stand trial, I believe they overlooked a major mental disorder—or a combination of major mental disorders. It wasn’t done to deceive the court, they just didn’t carry their examination far enough.

  VAIL: How much time did you spend with him, Doctor?

  MOLLY: At least two hours a day for a total of forty-four days.

  VAIL: About eighty-eight hours?

  MOLLY: Approximately, yes.

  VAIL: And have you formed a medical opinion as to what happened in Aaron Stampler’s case—have you categorized his disease?

  MOLLY: Yes. I think he suffers from a combination of dissociative multiple personality disorder combined with psychopathic schizophrenia.

  VAIL: And how did you determine that Aaron Stampler suffers from a form of schizophrenia?

  MOLLY: Well, schizophrenia tends to be genetic—that is, it runs in families. It is also caused by environmental and sociological factors. Usually a combination of all three. So these are the factors you look for in his background. They all exist in Aaron’s past.

  VAIL: Let’s talk about genetics, Doctor. Do you have information pertaining to the mental health of Aaron Stampler’s mother.

  MOLLY: Yes, I do.

  VAIL: Would you describe these conditions?

  MOLLY: Based on the symptoms and the socioeconomic conditions, I would say that Mrs. Stampler probably suffered from forms of schizophrenia.

  GOODMAN: Your Honor, we strenuously object to the introduction of this testimony. Dr. Arrington may be the greatest thing since Freud but I think it’s preposterous to ask the court to accept an analysis made over the phone with a country doctor who uses terms like “lonely-crazed.”

  VAIL: Please the court, Dr. Arrington based her assumption on the symptoms described by the family doctor and half a dozen people in Mrs. Stampler’s hometown, all of whom have said that she exhibited many of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

  GOODMAN: She could be senile, she could have Alzheimer’s… the point is, there is absolutely no proof that the mother had schizophrenia. We move that it be stricken.

  THE JUDGE: Sustained.

  VAIL: Come on! This woman hid in her house, talked to imaginary objects, yelled at people passing by. Most of the time she didn’t know where she was, didn’t know the time of day. She would have starved to death if her neighbors hadn’t fed her. She was dissociative—

  THE JUDGE: The objection is sustained, Marty. Maybe she was just “lonely-crazed.”

  VAIL: Very funny.

  THE JUDGE: (Laughing) Marty, knowing Shoat, you’ll be lucky to get this far with that assumption. Get on with it.

  VAIL: Okay. Now what do you mean by “psychopathic schizophrenia”?

  MOLLY: Psychotics—psychopaths—suffer breakdowns in behavior, thought, and emotion so profound they can’t function in everyday life.

  VAIL: Can you give us an example?

  MOLLY: Well, let’s say a man is afraid he’s going to be fired, so he lies in bed rather than go to work and face his fear. He is dysfunctional. He feigns a cold or the flu when actually he is sick—but the illness is mental. On the other end of the scale, perhaps he becomes so dysfunctional that he goes to the office and shoots his boss. In both cases, the subject is totally unaware that these perceptions and fears are abnormal, so he doesn’t accept the fact that he’s mentally ill.

  VAIL: What are the symptoms of psychotics?

  MOLLY: A personal history of chronic and continuous antisocial behavior. It manifests in persistent criminality, sexual promiscuity, aggressive sexual behavior …

  VAIL: What are these subjects like?

  MOLLY: Impulsive, irresponsible, callous. They feel no guilt over their antisocial acts because they are basically amoral, they don’t recognize law or moral restraint … they fail to learn from their mistakes.

  VAIL: Now you also mentioned the term “dissociative.” Can you explain that to the jury?

  MOLLY: Psychopathic schizophrenia is a dissociative disorder. It’s an unconscious mental attempt to protect or excuse the individual who acts out repressed impulses or emotions. This is done by disassociating that individual from the superego.

  VAIL: In other words, a defense mechanism caused by some kind of stress or emotional conflict?

  MOLLY: Yes. Dissociative disorders involve a sudden alteration in behavior. It can affect a person’s consciousness, his motor skills, even his sense of identity.

  VAIL: You mean he could assume a different personality?

  MOLLY: Yes. A whole new identity.

  VAIL: What else?

 
MOLLY: It can be accompanied by amnesia, a loss of memory of an important personal event or activity.

  VAIL: So in effect the mind blots this out?

  MOLLY: Yes. What we call hysterical amnesia. A sudden loss of memory associated with a traumatic event. It can also be selective.

  VAIL: In what way?

  MOLLY: The subject might recall part of an incident and not recall another part.

  VAIL: What triggers it?

  MOLLY: Usually severe stress. But even a simple event, like a phone ringing, can precipitate a sudden terrifying recollection and an exaggerated response.

  VAIL: And is this also known as psychogenic fugue?

  MOLLY: Yes. Patients call it losing time, because they do just that, they lose the time they are in the fugue state.

  VAIL: But they are aware of it?

  MOLLY: Only in the sense that they realize time has passed. They don’t know what happened during that period.

  VAIL: And what is a multiple personality disorder?

  MOLLY: It is an extreme form of dissociative behavior. When an individual is faced with divergent signals from the id and the superego the result can be extremely traumatic. In multiple personality disorder the individual’s personality fragments into two or more independent personalities.

  VAIL: And how do these fragmented personalities differ?

  MOLLY: The way individuals differ. Each one has a distinct way of perceiving events, relating to them, and regarding himself or herself and the environment. One might have a very low self-image while another is very comfortable with his ego.

  VAIL: How many different personalities are we talking about?

  MOLLY: There’s no pattern. Sometimes the individual creates a second personality or a third… sometimes a dozen other personalities … to deal with the pain of these dilemmas. Sometimes one personality will receive the pain, another will deal with trying to decipher the mixed signals, another may be a sexual performer.

  VAIL: And this is a subconscious … an uncontrolled response to the disorder?

  MOLLY: Yes. These new personalities free the host to perform normally in society.

  VAIL: This is not unique, then?

  MOLLY: Well, every case is unique, but the disease is not uncommon. Since 1974 at least eleven investigation teams throughout the world have reported clinical or research experience with ten or more multiple personality disordered patients each. That’s a hundred and ten documented cases that we know about in the past six years.

  VAIL: Do these other personalities differ only in attitude? By that I mean, are they all just like the host?

  MOLLY: On the contrary. Sometimes an alternate personality can be a different sex, even a child or an old man. I have seen cases in which the alternate speaks a different language than the host, has a talent—painting, for instance—which cannot be attributed to the host. In fact, the multiple personalities are usually very unalike.

  VAIL: Are there any specific causes of these disorders?

  MOLLY: About sixty percent of all mental disorders are caused by either sexual or religious disorientation.

  VAIL: By “disorientation” you mean …?

  MOLLY: Mixed signals, mixed information, usually from parents or mentors.

  VAIL: Are Aaron Stampler’s problems sexually or religiously oriented?

  MOLLY: Both. The libido—the sex drive—is as relentless as the drive for food or water. But you die without food and water, and without sex all you do is become dysfunctional. Sex has become the moral battleground for Christian ethics and at the same time it has become a major cause of mental disorders.

  VAIL: So it is accepted psychiatric theory that sex and religion are frequently responsible for mental disorders?

  MOLLY: Yes. The libido responds naturally to sexual stimuli but religious or moral restrictions suppress them and the mind becomes confused. So you have a conflict between the superego and the id.

  VAIL: And it’s your contention that Aaron Stampler was troubled by both?

  MOLLY: Yes.

  VAIL: Now Doctor, I would like to go back to the examination by doctors Bascott, Ciaffo and Solomon for a moment or two. You say you’ve read their report, which included background information on the defendant when he was a child in Kentucky.

  MOLLY: Yes.

  VAIL: Is that report compatible with your findings?

  MOLLY: No it is not.

  VAIL: In what way do they differ?

  MOLLY: There are several facts which are not included in the biographical notes on Aaron. For one thing, they state that Aaron had his first sexual experience when he was sixteen with a girl named Mary Lafferty. We know for a fact that his sexual activity began two years earlier. When he was fourteen he was seduced by an adult—

  GOODMAN: Objection, Your Honor. Hearsay.

  VAIL: Your Honor, obviously we cannot put her on the stand. Her testimony would be self-incriminating.

  GOODMAN: Does Counselor suggest that we take his word for it?

  VAIL: I am suggesting that we are looking for the truth and this thing, this event in Stampler’s life could, and probably did, have a significant effect on his mental health.

  JUDGE: Objection sustained, Mr. Vail. Produce the witness or a sworn and signed affidavit or drop it.

  VAIL: Exception, goddammit!

  JUDGE: Exception noted. You don’t have a chance on that one, Marty, not without at least a sworn affidavit. Or if Molly testifies that Aaron described the events, in which case I would allow it.

  VAIL: Okay. Where was I?

  NAOMI: Uh … when he was fourteen he was seduced by an adult.

  VAIL: Doctor, we are talking about sexual disorientation. Was there anything in his early years that might contribute to such a condition?

  MOLLY: Yes. He had a preacher named Shackles when he was in his preteens who told him that even thinking about sex would damn him to hell and there was no redemption. So for several years, Aaron not only repressed his libido, he avoided thinking about it. Later, when he became sexually active, he had to repress all the guilt he felt. At the same time, he began to question the religious information he got from Shackles. The conflict between sex and religion began then. And the boundary—the wall—between his id and his ego began to erode at that point. Then later he got the opposite message from Bishop Rushman, who not only promised him redemption, but a place in heaven when he dies.

  VAIL: Were there other disturbing facts in his early years?

  MOLLY: He was beaten regularly by his father. According to Aaron, at least once a month. He was also ridiculed by his parents because he placed so much emphasis on learning. His father wanted him to be a miner, which terrified Aaron. He called it going in the hole, and that fear itself became a mild form of mental disorder; this went on for many years. Any kind of psychic trauma like this may lead to the ego’s becoming a battleground in the war between the id and the superego. It was during this period that his subconscious splintered and created Roy. Roy took the pain of the beatings and the humiliation. Roy also had to deal with fear of the mines, had to actually instigate sexual encounters for him because of Aaron’s guilt.

  VAIL: Roy is the alternate personality?

  MOLLY: Yes.

  VAIL: And, in effect, Roy assumed all the punishment and guilt associated with these events?

  MOLLY: Yes. It’s a classic case.

  VAIL: Would it be fair to say that Aaron suffers from dissociative multiple personality syndrome and Roy is the psychotic schizophrenic?

  MOLLY: Yes, that is my analysis. Roy has all of the classic symptoms of the psychopath. He feels no guilt or remorse, recognizes no laws.

  VAIL: So Roy could kill?

  MOLLY: Yes, he’s quite capable of murder. He is sexually aggressive, homicidal, and is completely dissociative.

  VAIL: Is Aaron capable of murder?

  MOLLY: No. He would repress any such urges. The problem is, when he represses them, Roy carries them out.

  VAIL: Now we talked briefly about a
fugue or fugue state, which you described as a temporary amnesia. Is that what happens when Aaron changes?

  MOLLY: Yes, he goes into a fugue state—it’s amnesia. Aaron loses time while Roy is out.

  VAIL: Is it possible that Roy actually killed Bishop Rushman and Aaron was in a fugue state and did not know it?

  MOLLY: Yes. Aaron was not aware of it until I told him.

  VAIL: So now he is aware of Roy’s existence?

  MOLLY: Yes.

  GOODMAN: Your Honor, we seriously object to this entire procedure. We have been more than generous in letting Mr. Vail ramble on about mental disease, but now we have a diagnosis that is totally in disagreement with three prominent psychiatrists. We have references to this homicidal playmate of Stampler’s. Allegations that an adult seduced him when he was fourteen that cannot be substantiated. Some vague diagnosis of Stampler’s mother that cannot be substantiated. If this Roy exists, let’s see him. Let’s talk to him. Otherwise, we move that this entire line of questioning be stricken.

  VAIL: Your Honor, we can’t produce Roy on order. He comes and goes. However, we do have several tapes of interviews—

  GOODMAN: Objection, objection! We requested copies of the tapes and were advised by counsel for defense that they would not be used in the trial and were therefore exempt from discovery. Now we ask for the witness. Let him produce the witness so we can cross-examine or this whole conjecture of split personality is inadmissable.

  VAIL: Your Honor, we cannot produce this witness at will. Even if you subpoenaed him, we could not produce him at will. The tape, therefore is the best evidence.

  THE JUDGE: All right, all right. I overrule the prosecution’s objection to the introduction of the psychological data. It is important for the court and the jury to understand the nature of the disorder, if in fact there is a disorder. The key question here is, Are the tapes admissible? And I agree with the prosecutor in this instance. The witness is the best evidence. If you can’t produce him, that’s your problem.

  VAIL: Bullshit!

  THE JUDGE: That’s contempt. A thousand dollars and ten days in jail. (Laughs)

  VAIL: Thanks a lot.

  He punched the stop button on the tape recorder and threw down the remote unit.

  The Judge leaned back and perused him for several seconds.

  “Tommy’s right on this,” he said. “If you excused the tapes from discovery, you cannot introduce them without giving the opposition a chance to let their experts study them. And if you can’t put Roy on the witness stand, it’s Molly’s word against the state’s three experts—the weight favors the state. Anyway, a videotape is not a substitute for the real thing.”