The questioning went on for hours. From what the detectives said, Danny began to piece together a picture. Wayne Luft had been picked up for drunken driving, and while being questioned, he had said that Milligan and Roy Bailey had robbed the drugstore.

Danny looked up at them, dazed. They wanted him to give a voluntary statement. As they asked him questions, he heard Allen’s voice in his head, telling him exactly what to answer. When the interrogation was over, Danny was asked to sign his statement. Laboriously, his tongue between his teeth, Danny pressed hard with the pencil as he signed the name “William Stanley Milligan.”

“Now can I go home?” he asked.

“If you can post ten thousand dollars’ bail.”

Danny shook his head, still very confused about all this, and they led him back to his cell.

Later that day, Marlene got a bondsman to post bail. Tommy went back to stay with Dorothy and Del, who got in touch with

George Kellner, the lawyer who had represented him on the rape case in Pickaway County two years earlier.

While awaiting trial, Arthur learned of other charges being brought against Milligan. Two victims had identified him as one of the assailants who had robbed them at a roadside-rest area. On January 27, 1975, the state highway patrol filed additional charges of aggravated robbery of motorists in the roadside-rest areas of Fairfield and Hocking counties.

Milligan was taken back to the Fairfield County Jail, two years to the day since he’d been sent to the Zanesville Youth Camp.

(3)

Allen wanted to take the stand in his own defense. Arthur wanted to try the case himself and prove that he was nowhere near Gray Drug Store the night of the robbery.

“What about the roadside-rest assaults?” Allen asked. “Ragen did it. But that was self-defense.”

“They say there were others. Just out-and-out robberies.” “Not true,” Ragen insisted. “I not rob other victims at roadside-rest areas.”

“Well, someone did,” Allen said.

“Can they prove it?” Ragen asked.

“How the hell do I know?” Allen said. “I didn’t see it.” “Vat ve do?” Ragen asked.

“It’s a bloody mess,” Arthur said. “Can we trust this attorney? He didn’t keep us from being sent to Zanesville by the Ohio Youth Commission two years ago.”

“This time he says we can plea-bargain,” Allen said. “The way I understand it, if I plead guilty to the Gray drug robbery, they’ll give me shock probation and we probably won’t have to do any time in the slammer.”

“Vat is this ‘shock’ probation?”

“That’s when they lock you up without letting you know how long you’re gonna be there, and then they shock you by letting you out unexpectedly so you’ll be grateful and stay out of trouble.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Arthur said, “let’s follow the barrister’s advice. That’s what we’re paying him for.”

“All right,” Allen said. “So that’s it. We plead guilty in exchange for getting off on probation.”

On March 27, 1975, William Stanley Milligan pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of robbery and aggravated robbery. Two months later, Allen learned the court gave him shock probation only for the roadside-rest assaults, but not for the lesser charge. He would have to serve a two- to five-year sentence for the Gray Drug Store robbery. They were all stunned.