by John Glatt
“There is nothing in the sexual fantasy that has any geographical significance,” wrote the doctor in his report, “and unless a person was pretty fogged up one way or another, they wouldn’t incur the involvement of federal law.”
On December 14, Dr. Kuhn wrote to Garrido’s Washoe County attorney, Ron Bath, saying he believed the defendant had known the difference between right and wrong during the kidnap and rape. And he also found that Garrido fully understood the nature of the charges he faced, and would be able to assist in preparing his defense.
Five days later, the Federal District Court–appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Lynn Gerow, examined Phillip Garrido for an hour and forty-five minutes in Washoe County Jail. Unshaved and disheveled, Garrido frequently clasped a Bible in his hand, appearing obsessed with God and religious events.
“He talked at some length about the Bible, the Lord and God,” Dr. Gerow later reported. “I felt he was preoccupied by those things.”
Unlike Dr. Kuhn, the state psychiatrist did not think Phillip Garrido particularly intelligent.
“His judgment was very poor,” Dr. Gerow observed. “His insight was minimal. His intelligence appeared to be average.”
During the examination, Garrido became emotional as he spoke of his childhood, saying that he had “considerable emotional conflict” with his parents.
“He worked on and off as a musician and began abusing drugs increasingly,” wrote the psychiatrist. “He was married in 1972 and his wife currently works as a dealer in a local casino.”
Garrido told Dr. Gerow he suffered from migraine headaches, but otherwise appeared completely rational, providing “a clear, concise statement,” from when he had seized Katie Callaway until his arrest the following morning. And finding no signs of either psychosis or neurosis, the doctor diagnosed Garrido as suffering from satyriasis, or excessive sexual compulsion.
“There was nothing in what he told me,” said the psychiatrist, “nothing in the mental status examination that one could say that he wasn’t responsible and competent.”
During the examination, the doctor asked Garrido to respond to a series of proverbs, including “Those who dance should pay the fiddler.”
“He responded that he had committed a crime,” said the doctor, “and that he should pay for that crime.”
The next day, Dr. Gerow sent off his psychiatric report on Phillip Garrido to United States district judge Bruce Thompson, now assigned to oversee the federal trial.
“Mr. Garrido was a tall, thin white male,” it began. “He appeared as an unshaved, unkempt man looking his stated age. He presented his story in a clear and logical fashion.”
Garrido had appeared dejected throughout his jailhouse evaluation, breaking down in tears on several occasions.
“He looked and acted depressed,” noted Dr. Gerow. “He would occasionally cry during the interview. He denied suicidal ideation.”
Garrido had readily admitted abusing LSD, marijuana, cocaine and alcohol for the last six years, claiming to have taken five doses of LSD daily. And he boasted of swallowing “four hits” of the powerful hallucinogenic after abducting Katie Callaway.
“He believes strongly that LSD increases his sexual power,” reported the doctor. “He was preoccupied with the idea of sex and admitted to a history of several sexual disorders. He complains of some memory and preceptual [sic] disturbances secondary to chronic LSD abuse.”
Garrido also claimed to have hallucinations, which the doctor noted was common among LSD abusers.
Throughout the examination, reported Dr. Gerow, Garrido stressed his recent discovery of God and how he now wanted to turn his life around.
“He made mention of recent increasing religiosity,” wrote the doctor. “There were several references to God and Jesus. He stated that he had become more religious in recent weeks. His verbal productions were not delusional in quality. He based his new religious interests more appropriately on the considerable guilt and fear he was experiencing since being incarcerated.”
At the end of his three-page report, Dr. Gerow diagnosed Phillip Garrido as suffering from “a mixed sexual deviation” and “chronic drug abuse,” finding the drugs may have led to his sexual abnormalities.
“In men with satyriasis,” he wrote, “we usually see an excessive constant preoccupation with the desire for coitus. It is usually associated with compulsive masturbation. This aspect is clearly present in this man and is part of his multiple sexual deviation.”
The doctor suggested Garrido should be neurologically tested, as his condition could be the result of brain damage caused by “temporal lobe disorders, cerebral syphilis, or excessive use of drugs.”
But he agreed that Garrido was fully competent to understand the charges he faced, and able to participate in his defense.
“It is also my opinion,” reported Dr. Gerow, “that at the time of the crimes charged, the defendant as a result of mental disease or defect, did not lack substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.”
Two days before Christmas, Phillip Garrido was led into district court, where Judge Thompson declared him competent to stand trial. And after his attorney Willard Van Hazel waived the formal reading of the indictment, Garrido pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Then Van Hazel filed a motion to have his client undergo a neurological examination, as Dr. Gerow had suggested. Judge Thompson agreed, setting a trial date for February 7 and remanding the defendant in custody.
On January 6, 1977, Reno-based neurologist Dr. Albert Peterman examined Phillip Garrido for possible brain damage. He conducted an electroencephalography test (EEG), placing multiple electrodes around the scalp to measure the electrical activity in Garrido’s brain.
But the thirty-minute test produced no abnormal results, showing Garrido’s brain activity was normal.
“I cannot find any hard evidence of organic brain damage per se,” Dr. Peterman later reported. “He can do serial 7’s and retain 5 digits in forward and reverse order with considerable concentration.”
During the examination, the defendant appeared distraught and contrite about what he had done, tearing up on one occasion.
“He states that he is looking forward to going to court,” Dr. Peterman wrote, “has found religion and feels his life will change for the better. He shows appropriate concern for whatever crime he is charged with.”
Surprisingly, when asked if he had ever suffered any serious head injuries, Garrido failed to mention the one he’d sustained as a teenager, leading to an operation and lengthy hospital stay.
“This man has a perfectly bland neurologic history,” noted the doctor. “There is no history of significant head injuries, skull fracture or concussion.”
But the defendant was far more forthcoming about his chronic drug abuse.
“LSD made him quite sexually aggressive which he realizes,” wrote the doctor. “He had used LSD prior to his alleged offense, but remembers the details of the abduction and sexual activity quite well.”
Garrido also told Dr. Peterman that he had started getting migraine headaches since his incarceration, which was his only neurological complaint.
“I see no evidence,” concluded the doctor, “either by history, examination or EEG of brain damage per se, although there is considerable evidence of anxiety and depression and personality disorder.”
Four days later, Phillip Garrido appeared in Washoe County Court, pleading not guilty to three charges of rape, an infamous crime against nature and possession of a controlled substance.
In late January, Garrido’s defense suddenly changed strategy, when federal public defender Willard Van Hazel requested that Dr. Charles Kuhn reexamine his client to see if there was anything different since his first examination.
Dr. Kuhn carried out a second examination but found Garrido’s condition remained unchanged.
Then on February 1, the same day Dr. Kuhn’s second report w
as filed with the district court, Phillip Garrido withdrew his not guilty plea. But Judge Thompson refused to accept it.
Three days later, at 4:45 P.M. on the Friday before trial, Willard Van Hazel suddenly announced his client would now be pursuing a psychiatric defense.
11
KATIE CALLAWAY TAKES THE STAND
At 1:30 P.M. on Wednesday, February 9, 1977, Phillip Garrido was led into U.S. district court in downtown Reno in handcuffs, wearing a faded gray suit with a striped shirt and brown tie, his long hair tied back in a ponytail.
After the jury was sworn in, the clerk of the court read out the indictment, stating that the defendant was pleading not guilty.
Assistant United States Attorney Leland Lutfy made his opening statement on behalf of the prosecution, but Van Hazel reserved the privilege not to make one on behalf of his client.
Then Lutfy called Katie Callaway to the stand as his first witness. Once again the young woman bravely relived her terrible ordeal for the jury, as Phillip Garrido sat impassively staring at her from the dock.
The prosecutor asked her if the young man who kidnapped her was present in the courtroom.
“Yes, he is,” replied Callaway. “He has his hair pulled back in a ponytail.”
And for the next several hours, Katie Callaway calmly told the jury about her nightmare at the hands of the tall, handsome defendant. Gently led by Lutfy’s questions, the articulate witness bravely gave yet another detailed account of her six hours with Garrido, and how she had survived it.
“Can you remember any of the conversation that you had during this time?” asked the prosecutor.
“Yes,” she replied, as the jury hung on her every word. “I asked him, ‘Why me?’ And he said, ‘Well, it wasn’t you intentionally; could have been anyone. It just happened that you happened to be attractive, and that is a fault in your case.’
“And I asked him what aspect of this rape . . . that he got off on. And he said that he didn’t get off on pain; it was just a fantasy that he had to live out. And he had his fantasies. He had a very heavy sexual life with his wife. He was very happy, but it was just something that he had to do. And that his wife was the only one that knew where he was and what he was doing.”
When she began to tell the jury about how Phillip Garrido had viciously raped her in his Reno warehouse, defender Van Hazel objected, calling it irrelevant.
“The necessary elements,” he told Judge Thompson, “as outlined in the government’s opening statement, is an unlawful seizure and a kidnapping. [This] was consummated when she got to that gas station.”
The prosecutor argued the issue was the defendant’s “state of mind,” and the events in the shed were why he had abducted her in the first place.
Judge Thompson overruled the objection, and Lutfy asked Katie what had happened inside the warehouse.
“Do you want me to go into the rape?” she asked.
“Your Honor,” said Garrido’s attorney, rising to his feet, “I object to the characterization ‘rape.’ I believe rape is something that the jury will conclude in this case, whether it occurred or did not occur.”
“She can call it what she wants,” declared Judge Thompson.
Then Katie described once again what Phillip Garrido had done to her to satisfy his perverted sexual fantasies.
“The sexual intercourse activity was constant,” she told the jury. “He ejaculated maybe three times, twice inside of me, once on top.”
“How long would you estimate, if you can,” asked the prosecutor, “did these sexual activities take place?”
“Approximately five and a half hours,” she replied. “He had a radio on and I would hear the Reno station say, ‘This is Reno.’ And I would hear them say the time. I heard them say twelve-something. Then I heard them say two-twenty something, right before the officer came in.”
There had been a loud bang on the warehouse door, she told the jury, and Garrido had put on his jeans to investigate.
“He came back in and said, ‘I think it’s the heat,’ ” she said. “ ‘Are you going to maintain? Are you going to be good?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll be good.’ ”
At first she thought it was a setup, but had decided to take a chance, literally fighting her way through the series of hanging carpet walls and out of the warehouse naked, screaming for help.
She described her abject frustration, when the uniformed police officer standing outside with her abductor and rapist did not appear to take her seriously.
“They both looked at me like I was insane,” she testified. “I just stood out there in the freezing cold, while the officer [asked] what was going on.”
Then to her horror the officer ordered her back into the warehouse to dress, before allowing Garrido to follow her inside.
She told the jury she was “terrified” Garrido would now take her hostage, but instead he began “begging” her not to tell on him, because it would be so embarrassing. Finally she had dashed out again half-naked, with the officer this time telling her to sit in his car until backup arrived and Garrido was arrested.
In his cross-examination, Willard Van Hazel asked Callaway if she had been provocatively dressed at Ink’s Al Tahoe Market, when Garrido had first seen her.
“Was your jacket zipped while you were in the store?” he asked.
“I don’t remember,” she replied.
“Were you wearing a brassiere that night?”
“No.”
Then Garrido’s defender asked if his client had ever threatened her with a weapon.
“The only weapon,” she replied, “was a pair of scissors [which] he cut my pubic hairs with.”
Van Hazel said he assumed that after his client overpowered and handcuffed her, she had done everything she could not to antagonize him.
“I was completely passive,” replied Callaway. “I was trying to deal with the whole situation as logically as I could, without allowing terror to take over completely. I do have a son and that makes you think twice.”
“All right,” said the defense attorney. “Now, what were the things that put you in fear?”
“The fact of being bound,” she replied. “My hands handcuffed. My head strapped to my knees and being at the complete mercy of someone I had no idea what they were going to do with me, or what was going on in their minds at the time. I could go on and on.”
Van Hazel then asked if she had offered his client sex while they were still in California.
“Yes, I did,” she answered. “I asked him, ‘Couldn’t we just pull over to the side of the road and get it over with,’ because, you know, every girl has to think about rape sometime.”
Later in his questioning, Van Hazel asked if Garrido had ever mentioned his wife’s job.
“He said she was a [21] dealer,” she replied. “I asked him why he told me that if he didn’t want me to do anything about him. He also told me his name was Bill, and then he slipped up later on and he said, ‘My wife said Phil the other day.’ But I continued to call him Bill, so he wouldn’t . . . think that I knew his real name.”
Then Van Hazel wanted to know if she had discussed her own sexual fantasies, after his client mentioned his.
“I completely went along with everything,” she told the jury. “I said, ‘Oh yes. Oh I like that too.’ I tried to completely stay on good terms with him. ‘I’m all for what you’re doing.’ ”
“And this was part of that passive role?” asked Van Hazel.
“That was it,” she replied.
“In that conversation then,” continued Garrido’s attorney, “did you say you often wondered what it would be like to be raped?”
“Every girl thinks about that, yes.”
“But did you say that to the defendant, Mr. Garrido?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Callaway. “I said, ‘If everything you are telling me is true, that you are not going to hurt me, that all you want to do is give me pleasure and just make me feel good, even though you have abducted me un
der force, I guess it is not going to be so bad.’ ”
The public defender then asked if his client had discussed religion on their way to Reno.
“Yes,” she answered, “he talked about Jesus. He said he was going to turn himself over to Jesus next year.”
After a fifteen-minute recess, Katie Callaway retook the stand, and Van Hazel asked if on the drive to Reno she had told his client she wanted a marijuana joint.
“Yes, I did,” she replied. “I said, ‘Gee, I sure wish I had a joint right now,’ meaning it sarcastically to relax my nerves. He said, ‘Oh, well, I’ve got some stuff back at the shed that will just blow your head away.’ ”
Callaway said that when they got to the warehouse she had smoked some of Garrido’s hash, which had been a mistake.
“[It was] very strong,” she said. “It intensified all my paranoid feelings extremely. And I didn’t smoke it any more.”
Late that afternoon, William Emery took the stand. Under direct questioning he told prosecutor Leland Lutfy that he had lived in an adjoining Mill Street storage shed to Phillip Garrido.
The taxi driver told the jury he had met Garrido soon after moving in, and they had become friendly.
“He asked if I would watch his shed,” Emery testified, “and make sure that nobody broke in or anything, because he played music.”
Garrido had then told him which vehicles were allowed in front of his shed, giving him a phone number to call if he saw anything suspicious.
The prosecutor then asked what he had been doing on the night of November 22. Emery said he had arrived back in Mill Steet and seen a blue Pinto with California plates parked in front of Garrido’s mini-warehouse.
He had then gone inside his unit to change clothes, letting his dogs out for a walk.
“Then I went over to his shed,” he told the jury. “I figured he was there, so I went over and knocked twice. The hasp was down so I knew somebody was in there.”