The same day, the writer was permitted to visit Ward 5. Milligan did not recognize him until the writer prompted him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said with a dazed expression, “you’re the guy who’s been talking to Billy.”

“Who are you?” the writer asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t think I have one.”

They spoke for a while, though Milligan had no awareness of what had happened to him. There were long silences as the writer waited for one of the personalities to come forward with information. After a while the nameless one said, “They won’t let him paint anymore. There’s two paintings, and somebody’ll destroy them if they’re here. You oughtta take them in case you need them for the book.”

Milligan left the conference room, then returned with two canvases, one an unfinished, unsigned gloomy night scene with black trees silhouetted against a dark-blue sky, a black barn and a curving path. The other was a richly colored landscape, signed “Tommy.”

“Are you Tommy?” the writer asked.

“I don’t know who I am.”

(3)

The next morning, Alan Goldsberry was notified to appear in Athens County Common Pleas Court before Judge Roger J. Jones. Assistant Attorney General David Belinky had filed a motion on behalf of the state of Ohio to transfer Milligan to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Gus Holston was being sent back to Lebanon.

Goldsberry appealed to Judge Jones to allow him time to confer with his client. “It’s my belief that Mr. Milligan has a right to know about this motion and has a right under the second paragraph of 5122.20 to at least be advised that he can request a hearing immediately. Since he hasn’t been given this notice, I want to request for him that he have a right to a hearing with him being present. I don’t think these proceedings give him that opportunity.”

The judge disagreed, and Belinky called as his only witness Russell Cremeans, chief of Security and Safety at the Athens Mental Health Center.

“Mr. Cremeans, are you aware of any physical assaults that have occurred between Mr. Milligan and any of the personnel at the hospital within the most recent events?”

“Yes. I have reports from …from an individual, M. Wilson, who is an aide at the hospital, and also the officer on duty that night, Officer Clyde Barnhart. The date of this incident was September 26, 1979…. I’m concerned about being able to contain Mr. Milligan on the locked unit where he is right now.”

“Would you, as a security officer and chief of Security, have severe reservations whether …the facility could adequately hold Mr. Milligan if he had intentions of leaving the grounds?”

“I have serious reservations whether the institution would be able to hold him if he actually wanted to leave, yes.”

“Do you have firsthand knowledge as to what happened on the night of the escape attempt?” Belinky asked.

“Yes, I do. Mr. Milligan and another patient, Mr. Gus Holston, proceeded to break the door down on our AIT, which is a receiving hospital unit where they were being housed. A chair was used to break the lock off the fire escape door, and the two proceeded down the fire escape … in an A.W.O.L. attempt…. The two, Milligan and Holston, proceeded to the parking lot, where Milligan had a vehicle which was brought back from an A.W.L., proceeded to unlock the car and enter the car …”