Shattered Innocence

by Robert Scott

  “Didn’t you think it was wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Well, who told you it was right? Did your parents bring you up to believe that was a morally right thing to do?”

  “No. My parents never instructed me sexually at all.”

  “You didn’t learn in school that it was right, did you?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t think it was wrong?”

  “Not at that point in time, no.”

  “Did you tell Miss Callaway that you had a sexual fantasy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell her you couldn’t help yourself?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Was it true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell her you were sorry you were doing this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why were you?”

  “Because she was so nice to me.”

  “But you weren’t sorry enough to stop, were you?”

  “No.”

  Van Hazel asked that if all Phil wanted was sex, why didn’t he just take her into the bushes somewhere in South Lake Tahoe. Phil replied, “I had this fantasy that was driving me to do this. Something that was making me want to do it with no way to stop.” In other words, he wanted to take her to the room he had already set up in the warehouse. That room that Detective DeMaranville had called a “porno palace” was part of Phil’s sexual fantasy.

  Van Hazel said that Katie Callaway mentioned that it almost seemed at one point like Phil wanted to be caught. Van Hazel asked why Phil hadn’t sought psychiatric help if he knew he had a problem. Phil replied, “I don’t know. It must be like a person that has any other kind of trouble, and he doesn’t seek help.”

  Following up on the reasons that it seemed like he almost wanted to get caught, Van Hazel brought up the fact that Phil had mentioned to Katie Callaway his name, his wife’s occupation, that he owned a shed, and that he was in a band. Phil, in response, said that Katie was very nice to him and that he was just having a conversation with her. “She was convincing me that she was enjoying it.”

  Van Hazel asked, “You really thought she wanted to do that?”

  Phil replied, “In my own mixed-up mind, yes.”

  Van Hazel stated, “In the state of Nevada, in some counties, we have places where people can go to seek sexual gratification. A bawdy house. A whorehouse. Why didn’t you go to those?”

  Phil responded, “I went once when I was younger, and it never did nothing for me. I have had the advantage of being with many women. With their will.”

  “But that isn’t your sex thing?”

  “No.”

  “That isn’t what drives you?”

  “No.”

  “And yet you’ve stated that you live a clean life.”

  “I don’t go breaking into people’s houses. I don’t go to hurt anybody.”

  Van Hazel finished his questioning after that.

  On cross-examination, the federal prosecutor Leland Lutfy asked, “Do you know what the terms ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ mean?”

  “Yes,” Phil replied.

  “Is it right to beat your wife?”

  “No.”

  “You and your wife have an understanding about the sexual activity?”

  “Yes.” (At least in Phil’s mind, they did.)

  “Did she know where you were the night that you kidnapped Miss Callaway?”

  “No. The only thing my wife knew was that I went to South Lake Tahoe to get LSD.”

  Lutfy wanted to know how many of Phil’s friends used LSD, and he said a few of them did. Then Lutfy asked if any of them took LSD and went out and kidnapped and raped girls. Phil replied, “I know nothing of their private lives.”

  Asked if Phil had good sexual relations with his wife, he said that he did. Lutfy then wanted to know why Phil didn’t harm his wife during sex. Phil answered, “Because I love her.”

  “Is it only people that you don’t love that you harm?”

  Phil replied, “I didn’t feel that I was harming Katherine Callaway, so I don’t feel I was harming anybody.”

  “You didn’t think you were harming her! You put handcuffs on her.”

  Phil still replied that he didn’t think he was harming her.

  “You didn’t think you were harming her when you grabbed her by the back of the neck and [put] her head down to her knees?”

  “No.”

  For the questions of whether he thought he was harming her for tying her up with a belt, placing tape over her mouth, and telling her to keep her eyes closed, Phil answered no to each question.

  Lutfy said that when Phil masturbated at the drive-in, he had put towels up on the windows, so he must have known that what he was doing was wrong. Phil replied that he had done so because when he first started masturbating in public, he’d been embarrassed about it then.

  When Phil had gone to places near schools and masturbated in his car, Lutfy said that he could have just as well gone into the middle of the street and done it. Phil agreed that was so, but he didn’t do so because he didn’t want to get caught by the law.

  “You didn’t want to get punished, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You did want to punish Miss Callaway, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  Lutfy asked if Phil thought that lots of people went to public places and masturbated. Phil replied that he didn’t know. So Lutfy asked if Phil knew anyone else who did those types of things. Phil answered, “Privately, no. But you read about it in magazines.”

  “Did your parents ever teach you right from wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you get slapped when you were a boy when you did something your parents said was wrong?”

  “Very unfortunately, no.”

  “Did they ever verbally tell you, you were wrong. You shouldn’t do this?”

  “Up to the point when I was ten years old. After that, I was spoiled. My father never did take any restrictions of beating me or disciplining me, and my mother spoiled me.”

  “Do you feel your father should have done that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you think he should have done that?”

  “Because of what I have learned.”

  “Do you think you shouldn’t do things that are wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  Lutfy asked if Phil Garrido had been seen by psychiatrists before the present trial. Phil agreed that he had done so. Asked if he had lied to those psychiatrists, Phil answered, “I don’t really want to bring that up, because it might be prejudicial against me, but I will if I must answer it.”

  Judge Thompson spoke up and said to Phil, “All he asked you was ‘Why didn’t you lie to the doctors?’”

  Phil answered, “Because I have been working very steadily the last two months with a minister getting close to God.”

  So Lutfy asked, “Do you feel you have discovered God?”

  “Yes.”

  Asked how long ago he had discovered God, Phil replied that it had been within the last three months. Lutfy then asked if Phil had mentioned about God and Jesus to Katie Callaway on the ride to the storage shed in Reno. Phil said, “I told her I believed in Him and that someday I would like to turn to Him.”

  “Someday? It wasn’t going to be that day, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think God would like the things you have done?”

  “Absolutely not. I am ashamed of them.”

  The defense attorney Van Hazel took one more crack at trying to convey Phil’s state of mind at the time of the crime to the jurors. Van Hazel asked, “Mr. Garrido, were you ashamed when you did what you did to Miss Callaway?”

  Phil answered, “No.”

  “You were not ashamed?”

  “No, I couldn’t feel shame. I didn’t even realize the reality of shame for what I was doing.”

  “The only reason you are ashamed now is because you fear going to prison or being
convicted of a crime. Is that where your shame comes from?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what is the difference between then and now?”

  Phil replied, “Because I have come close to God. Because I feel God. Because God has shown me what is real.”

  “But you were talking about God that night?”

  “Yes. But I did not say I had contact with God.”

  “Since November twenty-second, you have had contact with God?”

  “Yes. I have studied very hard and I have learned what it takes to find God.”

  Whether this line of reasoning would resonate with the jurors would be crucial on the way they reached their verdict.

  CHAPTER 13

  FANTASY WORLD

  From direct testimony by Phil Garrido, the trial now went to the opinion of psychiatrists who had examined him. And the psychiatrist for the defense and the psychiatrist for the prosecution would have almost diametric conclusions.

  First on the stand was Dr. Charles Kuhn for the defense. Kuhn had been a bomber pilot during World War II. After that, he studied at Ohio State University and got his medical degree. Later he obtained a degree in psychiatry and had done his residency in Miami and then Detroit. Since 1975, Dr. Kuhn had been in private practice in Reno, Nevada.

  Dr. Kuhn said of his examination of Phil Garrido, “I went to see Mr. Garrido at the Washoe County Jail and spent an hour with him there. Then I wrote up a report and submitted it. The diagnosis I gave on the report was one of drug dependence, both on LSD and cannabis. The most salient part of his behavior and medical background that impressed me was his judgment, or lack of it, during the commission of the crime. There is no question in my mind that Mr. Garrido has an intelligence somewhat better than average.

  “There are many things in his behavior that do not reflect his use of his intelligence. And from my point of view, there is always a need to look at why that is so. One example I can give right off the top would be his strangely erratic judgment in seeking a girl to abduct in South Lake Tahoe, for example, instead of Stateline, Nevada.”

  Willard Van Hazel wanted to know why that was important, and Dr. Kuhn said, “I would think that if one were only interested in fulfilling this sexual fantasy—and, in fact, if they were driven to do so—there is nothing in the sexual fantasy that has any geographical significance. And unless a person were pretty fogged up one way or another, they wouldn’t incur the involvement of the federal law, which almost every person would know they were doing by crossing state lines.

  “I think that many of the aberrations in Mr. Garrido’s sexual fantasies and sexual behavior might be viewed in the same light if they were to occur in a more circumscribed way or to occur in a less intense way. I think there are a great many people amongst us who engage in various perversions, some of which Mr. Garrido described. Certainly there are a great many people that engage in a number of deviant type of autoeroticism, and that sort of thing. Very few people engage in it to the extent that he did—daily or thereabouts—over a period of years without it becoming disruptive to the other kinds of functioning. And I think that is relevant. I think it does reflect some force or some explanation for his ability to conduct himself in such a preoccupied, obsessed way without having mental illness or without having seriously impaired intelligence.”

  Dr. Kuhn agreed with Dr. Gerow’s report that Phil Garrido had “mixed sexual deviation,” exemplified by his voyeurism and exhibitionism. Dr. Kuhn also said that he had done some “reality testing” on Phil. By this, he meant, “The function that allows us to discern what is real in terms of actions from what isn’t.”

  Van Hazel asked, “In your opinion, did Mr. Garrido have some difficulty in separating this sexual fantasy from reality?”

  Kuhn responded, “I believe there are two different issues involved in terms of degree of control or the degree of awareness of Mr. Garrido and this type of behavior. One of the issues involves the sexual aberration itself and the implications of that in terms of how that determines or shapes his behavior. The other issue is, of course, the drug involvement and the prolonged or lasting effect of that. In some respects, I feel that the question that is being raised is how do I view the effect of his drug use in terms of his ability to conform his behavior with what the law demands.

  “My point of view on that is that I feel that he, and many other people in similar positions, don’t, or can’t, get involved with certain real issues, such as legal issues or a moral issue. It isn’t a question of whether he is thinking or feeling something is right or wrong. It seems to me that in most cases these people don’t even raise that question. That is not a part of their behavior—whether they are in the private confines of their own bedroom or not. One of the issues of reality testing would be the normal change in one’s thinking or one’s attitude when they leave the bedroom. Without the influence of any of this drug involvement, I think Mr. Garrido would pause carrying out sexual fantasies. I am describing his inability to use a reasonable degree of self-control or self-discipline when it comes to doing things that are clearly wrong, clearly illegal, and clearly self-destructive.”

  Van Hazel asked, “Surely, Doctor, everybody that takes drugs does not go out and commit these types of offenses, do they?”

  Dr. Kuhn replied, “I don’t believe that the drug, in this case LSD, is responsible for creating either the obsession or the content or quality of the fantasy. I really don’t believe the drug did that. I think the drug permitted it to flourish, so to speak, and survive, and ultimately the drug permitted it to get acted out.”

  Van Hazel then said, “When we talk about fantasy, Doctor, it sounds like Disneyland, Fantasy World. It is something stronger, more vivid than that, correct?”

  Kuhn answered, “Yes. I think that is a poor choice of words on my part. It would be much better to refer to it as a sexual preoccupation or obsession. It is a very complex ideation. It is something that pushes its way into a person’s conscious thoughts and, in this case, into his actions. One of the issues that I am trying to deal with is what did he have available to keep it in check. It seems to me that was very limited.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the drug.”

  Van Hazel then asked, “Now, Doctor, do you have an opinion on the issue of whether the defendant lacked, as a result of mental disease or defect, substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law?”

  Dr. Kuhn said, “Yes, I do. I am fairly strong about the latter part of that alternative. I think that the defendant did not have adequate control to conform his behavior.”

  “You have not stated you believe that the defendant was psychotic at any point. Is that correct?”

  “That is correct. What is important (in this case) is what I would call impulse neurosis. It is not an official name of anything, but it is fairly typical of most perversions wherein the person’s attention and anxieties mount over a period of time in a way that is not particularly unpleasant, but rather exciting, stimulating, though sometimes sort of scary.

  “As the tension does mount, they are driven to do some particular act such as engage in a type of voyeurism or exhibitionism or much more complex kind of sexual ritual, which is what in this case we are considering. The effect of this is that throughout the whole act, their physiology does change. They become stimulated, their heart rate changes, their breathing changes, and at times it seems almost uncontrollable. An irreversible, driven sort of behavior. The outcome or the end result of it is, of course, that the sexual, not necessarily coinciding with the sexual gratification—they experience a very pleasurable release of tension.”

  Van Hazel asked, “Doctor, do you believe that Mr. Garrido would be a menace to the health, safety, and morals of himself and others without psychiatric treatment?”

  Dr. Kuhn replied, “I certainly do.”

  During a break, Judge Thompson had some unfinished business to attend to. And it was expl
osive business. Judge Thompson said to the prosecutor, “Mr. Lutfy, there have been certain matters that we have discussed that so far have been excluded from the testimony in this case. I want to tell these two doctors what you desire to prove, either through cross-examination of Mr. Garrido or with respect to his conduct.”

  Lutfy replied, “We offer to prove, Your Honor, that approximately an hour prior to the kidnapping of Katherine Callaway, that Mr. Garrido at that time attempted the kidnapping of another woman, in which he entered her car, by asking for a ride. He got in the vehicle, went a certain distance with her, directed her to a different street, the same as he did with Miss Callaway. Upon stopping the vehicle, again Mr. Garrido grabbed this woman, put one handcuff on this woman, and was unable to put the other one on. She jumped out of the vehicle, struggling with him. And after that, she promised that she would not tell the police or tell anybody about what he had done. He agreed to unloosen that handcuff. The vehicle was moving, then she jumped out of the car and ran up the street and took off. I believe under rule 404—”

  Judge Thompson interrupted him and said, “I didn’t ask you for a legal argument. What else do you want to prove?”

  Lutfy said, “We want to show that conduct, Your Honor.”

  “That is all?”

  “That is all.”

  Judge Thompson said, “All right. This is forever, you are not going to change your mind, this is all you want to prove?”

  Lutfy replied, “As far as the testimony is concerned.”

  “With respect to other so-called bad acts?”

  “That is correct.”

  Judge Thompson turned to Dr. Kuhn and said, “Would that information be important to you in reaching a psychiatric opinion in this case, or would it have any influence on your opinion whatsoever?”

  Dr. Kuhn replied, “Not at all, sir.”

  Judge Thompson then turned to Dr. Gerow and said, “If I asked the same question of you?”

  Dr. Gerow responded, “It just tells me, Your Honor, part of the state of mind prior to the alleged offense, in that he formed the intent.”

  “Would it change the opinion you have reached with respect to Mr. Garrido in any respect?”