As Adelena, a 19-year-old lesbian who is “greatly in need of affection,” he was forced to rape women. As Ragen, the “keeper of Rage” who possesses incredible strength, he was ill-tempered and cruel. These and many more personalities make up Billy Milligan, the first man acquitted for a major crime in the United States by reason of insanity.
On Oct. 27, 1977, 22-year-old Milligan was arrested for the rapes of three Ohio State students. According to Milligan, he did not commit the rapes. Adelena is one of Milligan’s 24 different personalities.
Milligan abducted his first two victims early in the morning in OSU Medical Center parking garages. He forced the women to drive him to Delaware County, where he raped them and forced them to use credit cards or cash checks to give him money.
His third victim was abducted early in the morning on Lane Avenue and taken to northwest Franklin County, where he raped and robbed her. In each instance, the women drove him back to the campus area, and he left.
John Kleberg, deputy police chief of the university at the time, said in each case Milligan used a semi-automatic gun to abduct the women. “He never harmed the girls physically. He just used the weapon to threaten,” Kleberg said.
The rapes all occurred within a matter of weeks. By the second rape, newspapers had classified Milligan as “The Ohio State Rapist.” The police talked with all the victims and asked the victims to identify the perpetrator by photograph. The first and third victims identified Milligan as the rapist. The police used this information to take fingerprints from the third victim’s window and match them to Milligan’s print, which was on file from a past robbery.
“We didn’t want to arrest him until we were certain we had him,” Kleberg said. “Once the case became an issue of mental health, the police were out of the picture.”
Milligan pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to three charges of rape and three counts each of kidnapping and robbery, according to an Oct. 6, 1978 Associated Press article.
Milligan was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Athens, Ohio for evaluation. There, Dr. George T. Harding found Milligan to have 10 different personalities. In Athens, the existence of the personalities became public.
“Dr. Caul (Milligan’s psychologist) ‘discovered’ more personalities from the 10,” said Columbus Dispatch reporter Bob Ruth, who covered the case.
From Athens, Milligan went to Lima, then to Moritz Prison for the Criminally Insane in Columbus. At each new hospital, Milligan developed new personalities. In Moritz, Milligan was believed to have gained an Arabic personality which was later proven to be false. He had also invented personalities that doctors were able to prove were fake. “This brings people to wonder – was he faking it all?” Ruth asked.
Daniel Keyes studied Milligan extensively and wrote a biography of his life beginning with the arrest. “The Minds of Billy Milligan” tells of his 24 personalities and how each interacted with the world.
Many doctors have studied Milligan, and he has been cooperative throughout most of the interviews. “Once I had so many bad stories on him, he stopped talking to us,” Ruth said.
Milligan was released in 1988 after spending a decade in mental hospitals. Psychiatrists said Milligan’s 24 personalities had merged into one and that he no longer posed a threat to himself or the community. According to a letter posted on the Catholic Information network Web site, he now owns a small production company, Stormy Life Productions, that makes films in Los Angeles.
