The Story of Billy Milligan
By Brian J. Smith
THE year of 1977 was a year to remember.
President Jimmy Carter signed legislation to form The United States Department Of Energy. Movie goers waited in line at The Avco Center Theater in Los Angeles to see the spectacle that was Star Wars. The first Apple 2 Series computers went on sale and opened a new dimension of technology never seen before.
For every good thing that comes along, something bad always surfaces. It’s evil and dark; waiting amongst the shadows for the right opportunity to place its sinister footsteps in the annals of history. This shadow had a name; in fact it had many.
If you don’t know anything about Billy Milligan, you will now.
On the day of February 14, 1955, Dorothy Sands and Johnny Morrison welcomed their son William Stanley Morrison into the world. Dorothy had given birth to her first son Jim in Nineteen Fifty-Three who’d been born before William and a daughter named Kathy Jo who’d been born in Nineteen Fifty-Six the year after.
Needless to say, Morrison couldn’t handle the responsibilities of fatherhood because the medical expenses consumed him over time and drove him into a whirlwind of alcohol and depression. After one suicide attempt in 1958, Johnny committed suicide from carbon dioxide poisoning.
Dorothy married a man named Chalmer Milligan. She accepted Chalmer’s previous two children as her own. It was at this time when Billy was forced to endure physical and sexual abuse by his stepfather; it was this kind of abuse that led people to believe that Billy’s multiple personalities first surfaced. Milligan claimed that Billy’s personalities had appeared long before the abuse; although his siblings collaborated with Billy’s story. Chalmer Milligan was never convicted for the alleged abuse of Billy.
In 1975, Milligan had been imprisoned at a correctional institution in Lebanon, Ohio for rape and armed robbery. It wasn’t until his release in early 1977 when Billy Milligan would set foot on the campus of The Ohio State University and set into motion a path of fear that would rock one of the country’s most prestigious universities. He’d go on to rape three women by holding them at gunpoint, raping them and then forcing them to either write him a check for cash or hand over their credit cards and money.
When one victim identified him from an existing mug shot and a fingerprint was lifted from another victim’s car; the police arrested him. He would go on to be indicted for three counts of kidnapping and aggravated robbery and four counts of rape. Upon a search of his residence, the authorities would find stolen credit cards, a gun, handcuffs and running clothes that’d been worn during the attacks.
Billy claimed that he was innocent and that he had no knowledge of the crimes. He was evaluated and a psychologist diagnosed him with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder.
The medical term is dissociative personality disorder which is the same as multiple personality disorder. Although there are differences between them, they are the same condition. It is a condition that is a way for people to cope with a lot of trauma that had occurred in their past life which can bring on different behaviors, ages and voices.
In fact, Billy had claimed that two of his personalities were responsible for the crimes. His twenty-three year old personality from Yugoslavia named Regan was responsible for the robbery and that his nineteen year old lesbian personality named Adalana was responsible for the rapes because she wanted to feel close to somebody. When the arresting officer had interrogated him, he’d found himself talking to several people all at once until a personality named David said that Billy had been asleep.
In his book “The Minds Of Billy Milligan”, Daniel Keyes had claimed that Billy’s alters were fighting over the control of what is known as “The Spot” which is a term for his consciousness. Psychologists deemed that Billy had been asleep for years leading up to his arrest and discovered that he’d split into 24 multiple personalities. Billy had still claimed that he hadn’t been aware of either one of them because of his nonstop state of slumber.
His personalities had ranged from Regan and Adalana to a prim British man named Arthur who’d been an expert in medicine and other sciences, Allen who’d been a manipulator and Tommy who’d been an escape artist. A victim told The Columbus Monthly that Billy had been talkative and told them a lot of crazy stories about his background, his criminal past and his travel plans as if he were a rich businessman who drove a Maserati and vacationed in Algiers after the attack and bragged about the three people he’d killed; he’d told her to tell the papers that she’d really been attacked by Carlos The Jackal.
The judge believed his story and accepted the defense’s insanity plea; it made him the first criminal to be found guilty by reason of insanity based on his dissociative personality disorder. Billy was remanded to a series of state psychiatric hospitals with no help in sight.
In 1986, he engineered an escape and went by the alias of Christopher Carr; he was suspected of abducting and killing his roommate.
On August 1, 1991, he was released from the state mental health system and its courts. He’d went to California and owned a production company which he’d planned to use to release a short film that’d never been released; he’d stayed out of sight and lost contact with his former acquaintances. He’d been living with his sister on her property in Ohio when he’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2012.
On December 12, 2014, he died of cancer during his stay at a nursing home in Columbus Ohio at the age of 59.
For the victims of Billy Milligan, closure had finally come but would it heal the wounds he’d left behind.
Further Reading and Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Milligan
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a37693537/billy-milligan-true-story-netflix-24-faces/
https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/billy-milligan-personalities-case-death-victims-prison
https://allthatsinteresting.com/billy-milligan
https://apnews.com/general-news-984eedb06dbe4e84b2e3de8fc05e2b08
Purchase book through the affiliate button below
Bio: Brian J. Smith is the author of Dark Avenues (novella and the short story collection
with the same name), 1342 Lindley Road, The Tuckers, Consuming Darkness, Abbie’s
Wrath, Bad Allergies and Dead River. He resides in southeastern Ohio where he
drinks too much coffee, listens to horror fiction podcasts, has too many books and
buys more and thinks that Valentine’s Day should be replaced by Second
Halloween.
He can be found on Threads under horrorauthor9, on BlueSky under
beardeauthor.bsky.social, on Instagram under horrorauthor9 and on Amazon
A couple of his books can be purchased through our affiliate buttons below.
Read more True Crime on The Yard: Crime Blog
Follow us on:
Read more True Crime on your new Amazon Fire Tablet. Check out details, pricing and to shop around with the affiliate button below.
Secure your home with a Blink Camera System. They are easy to install and operate. Here’s a review. Click the affiliate button below for pricing, details and to shop around.
Protect yourself and your loved ones with a Personal Alarm System. This alarm will go off, scaring away an attacker and drawing attention to your plight. It can be used in conjunction with any other self defense tools you desire. When you’re being attacked you want people to see and know what’s going on. You can’t scream if you are being choked. But you can set this thing off. Check out details, pricing and more shopping through affiliate button below.
Read More On The Yard
Four Walls
Crime Fiction by John Patrick Nelson They’d been at the restaurant for almost forty-five minutes, when Sonny saw the lady sitting at the bar. “Geez, lookit that. She is fucking incredible.” Carl popped a breadstick. “So? Go talk to her.” “Nahh, my ex is watchin’ me like a hawk. Got a P.I. on me and…
Harry’s Game
Crime Fiction by David Mulry “It’s a peach,” Harry said to himself, “an absolute peach!” He muttered the words to no one in particular and reached for the cup. The little café was quiet. Sometimes Polish workers came in between shifts, babbling incomprehensibly. Every now and then a tourist would blunder in, lost. But right…
Directions To A New Life
Flash Fiction By K.G. Gardner Turn left onto Richmond Road eastbound. In 2.4 miles, use the right two lanes to stay on Richmond Road. Pass the elementary school where you met him in fifth grade. You watched him play kickball. He smiled at you. Slight right to stay on Richmond Road eastbound. Pass the Thai…