(2)

A week later, at the Allen County Courthouse, where the referee would hear Goldsberry s motion to return Milligan to Athens, the writer saw Billy in handcuff's for the first time. It was the Teacher, and he smiled sheepishly.

Alone in the room with Goldsberry and the writer, the Teacher spoke of his treatment at Lima during the past week. Dr. Lindner, the clinical director, had diagnosed him as a pseudo-psychopathic schizophrenic, and he prescribed Stelazine, one of the psychotropic drugs in the same family as Thorazine, the drug that made the splitting so much worse.

They talked until the bailiff informed them the referee, was ready to begin. Goldsberry and Billy asked that the writer be allowed to sit at the table with them, across from Assistant Attorney General David Belinky and his witness for the state of Ohio, Dr. Lewis Lindner, a thin man with a pinched face, metal-rimmed glasses and a Vandyke beard. He looked across the room at Milligan with an undisguised sneer.

After several more minutes of conferences between the attorneys and the referee, the referee made the decision—on the basis of law only, with no testimony—that since Judge Jones had ruled the appropriate place for hospitalization was Lima State Hospital, and since by the end of November Milligan would have the right to present evidence at his ninety-day review, the hearing was moot. The court would decide in six weeks whether or not Milligan was still mentally ill, and whether or not to keep him at Lima.

The Teacher addressed the court: “I know I have to wait before I can resume my treatment, and my doctors have told me for the past two years, ‘You have to want help from the people who can give it to you. You have to be able to totally trust your physician, your psychiatrist, your treatment team.’ I just want the speediness of the court to help me resume my treatment properly.”

“Mr. Milligan,” the referee said. “Let me make a statement to you on that. I think you’re assuming an incorrect fact, that you can’t receive treatment at Lima State Hospital.”

“Well,” said Billy, looking directly at Dr. Lindner, “you have to be able to want treatment, want help from a person before you can receive it. You have to be trusting of that person. I don’t know these doctors. I don’t trust them by what they’ve told me already. My physicians have stated they don’t believe in my illness, and that scares me to go back and wait where I’m not going to be treated. Well, I’ll receive a treatment, but for another mental illness. My doctors have made it clear they do not believe in multiple personality.”

“That is a medical issue,” said the referee, “that we’re not ready to argue today, although your counsel may present that at a review hearing and it will be properly considered as to whether or not Lima is the appropriate place.”

Alter the hearing, the writer and Goldsberry visited Billy at Lima. They passed through metal detectors, had their briefcases searched, went through two sets of barred doors and were escorted by an attendant to the visitors’ room. A short while later, a guard brought Billy in. He was still the Teacher. During the two-hour visit he told the writer about the events at Athens leading up to the investigation of the alleged rape, and he described his transfer to Lima.