She saw the despair in his eyes when he said, “You think I did it. Don’t you?’

“Its not what I think that counts, Billy. Its all this evidence weve got to deal with. We’ve got to review your explanation for having all this stuff in your possession.”

She saw the glazed stare. He seemed to be retreating from her, drawing back into himself.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Nothing matters anymore.” The next day she got a letter written on lined yellow legal paper:

Dear Miss Judy,

I am writing this letter because sometimes I can’t say what I feel and I want you more than anything to understand.

First of all I want to thank you for everything you have done for me. You are a kind, sweet person and you did your best. That’s all anyone can ask.

Now you will be able to forget about me with a clear conscience. Tell your office that I don’t want any lawyers. I won’t need one.

Now that you believe I am guilty, I must be. All I ever wanted to know, is for sure. All my life all I ever have done is cause pain and hurt the ones I love. The bad part is, I can’t stop it because I can’t help it. Locking me away in a prison will make me worse, like it did the last time. The shrinks don’t know what to do because they can’t figure out what is wrong.

I will now have to stop myself. I am giving up. I just don’t care anymore. Would you do one last thing for me? Call Mom or Kathy and tell them not to come up here anymore. I don’t want to see anyone again, so don’t waste their gas. But I do love them and I am sorry. Your the best lawyer I know and I’ll always remember you for being kind to me. Goodbye.

Billy

That evening the desk sergeant called Schweickart at home. “Your client tried to kill himself again.”

“Oh my God! What’d he do?”

“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but we’ve got to press charges against him for destroying county property. He shattered the toilet bowl in his cell and slashed his wrists with a sharp piece of porcelain.”

“Holy shit!”

“I’ll tell you something else, counselor. There’s definitely something strange about your client. He smashed the bowl with his fist.”

(5)

Schweickart and Stevenson ignored Milligans letter firing them and visited him in prison daily. The public defenders office released funds to pay for a psychological evaluation, and on January 8 and 13, 1978, Dr. Willis C. Driscoll, a clinical psychologist, administered a battery of tests.

The intelligence tests showed Milligans IQ to be 68, but Driscoll stated that Milligan’s depression had lowered his score. His report diagnosed acute schizophrenia.

He is suffering from a major loss of identity such that his ego boundaries are very poorly defined. He is experiencing schizophrenic loss of distance and has a very restricted capacity to differentiate between self and his environment. … He hears voices that tell him to do things and yell and scream at him when he does not comply. Milligan expresses his belief that these voices are from people who have come from hell to torment him. He also speaks of good people who periodically invade his body in order to combat the bad people. … In my opinion, Mr. Milligan is not capable at present, of counseling in his own behalf. He is not capable of establishing adequate contact with reality to understand events that are transpiring. I strongly urge this man to be hospitalized for further examination and possible treatment.