The Man in the Monster (21 page)

Dr. Walter Borden had painted a picture of a very sick man who was the extreme of sadism—a lustful murderer. Michael wrote Ann, “I am evil pure and simple. You can't deny that. I am evil in its purest form, lustful and murderous. How can I accept that? I am everything that I hate and despise. The more I see, the more I hate.” Michael wrote that he was like “a rabid dog that should be taken out behind the barn and shot. The jury should sentence me to death not for what I've done, but rather out of mercy—to put me out of my misery, to stop the suffering.” He was full of self-loathing. “I'm facing this hateful murderous monster that is me, and I hate me. Everything of redeeming value, everything that I thought was good about myself is falsehood.”

As articulate and aware as he was, Michael did not grasp his own pathology in 1987, and neither did the court or the jury. During the penalty phase of the trial, the jury had to decide whether he would receive
several hundred years in jail or death. Dr. Berlin was the chief witness during that part of the trial, but family members, neighbors, and even prison guards were also called to testify. If they had believed that he was mentally ill, as Dr. Berlin testified, a death sentence could not have been given. But once again the jury was not swayed by the psychiatric testimony and sentenced Michael to death in less than a day of deliberation. “It took them longer to come back with a decision than the guilt phase,” said Michael. “But I think they just hung out in there for a while because they didn't want anyone to think they hadn't considered the evidence.”

 • • • 

F
red DeCaprio, one of the defense lawyers at the first trial, has worked for decades as a public defender. When I met him in 1996, he was working in a cramped, dumpy office. Small of stature, balding, with scruffs of hair ringing his pate, DeCaprio spoke softly, sometimes almost inaudibly, but became emotional when I asked him if Michael had gotten a fair trial. “No, not at all,” he said. I asked why not. “Oh God, there were a lot of factors. I think that the jury we—I want to say were stuck with—the jury we selected was not a very good jury for us. That may be the luck of the draw or a by-product of the location of the trial. But it wasn't a very good jury for us, to be able to understand or at least emphasize [with] some things we were trying to tell them. I thought that the trial judge was tremendously offended, wounded by the crimes,” he said, adding that he thought that the nature of the crimes had tilted Judge Ford against Michael. “It was very subtle. He was very smart. So there are a lot of times that there is nothing on the record. It's done with inflection, gesture. It's devastating . . . I thought we had a pretty compelling case, but we never got heard.”

In all his years of practice, DeCaprio said he had never had a judge
take such an active role in trying to influence the outcome of a trial. DeCaprio mentioned the way Ford treated the psychiatric expert. “It was outrageous. . . . Dr. Berlin's a nice man and an excellent witness. It was tragic. I was appalled . . . because this guy didn't deserve it. He was just trying to do his job.” After the trial, Dr. Berlin filed a complaint with the state commission on judicial conduct about the way he was treated by Judge Ford. He was later told that there was no evidence of misconduct, and no action was taken to censure the judge.

Others, including Karen Clarke, a reporter who covered the trial for the New London
Day
, later confirmed DeCaprio's characterization of the trial judge. She said he took a demeaning tone with the defense attorneys, pronouncing their names incorrectly, for instance. Another reporter who covered the trial, but did not want to be identified, concurred with Clark's observations, as had Ann when I first met her.

DeCaprio felt that the jury was not open to the psychiatric testimony. “It was absurd. They didn't take time. . . . How can you make that kind of decision with the amount of evidence they had before them in less than ninety minutes?”

JULY 1987

Michael was tired yet happy when the first trial was finally over. “It was strange, and I doubt if anyone can truly understand, but my lawyers were more upset about my being sentenced to death than I was. What devastated me was the guilty verdict itself. It still bothers me that no one seems to understand this—even you don't understand it, do you, Martha? Everyone focused on saving my life. Yet I didn't give a damn about my life. I would have been ecstatic with a verdict of ‘insane but fry the bastard anyway.' Freedom didn't interest me. Life didn't interest me. All that was really important to me was to prove that I wasn't the cold-blooded animal that everyone portrayed me to be. That is all I ever cared about.”

After sentencing, Michael was brought back to the Bridgeport Correctional Center and placed in an isolated holding cell. He was stripped and given a pair of flip-flops, a T-shirt, a pair of pants several sizes too big with no belt—so he had to hold the waist of the pants to keep them from falling to his ankles—and no underwear. A few hours later, a lieutenant and correctional officer escorted him to Somers, where he arrived just after 11:00
P.M
. Two or three guards with shotguns, as well as two K-9 officers and their dogs, surrounded the van. Two officers, a captain and one of the K-9 officers, escorted him into the prison, which
was locked down, meaning all inmates were locked in their cells. “Their faces were pressed up to the windows, jostling each other to get a better look, but I ignored them.”

 • • • 

T
his was all new. Michael was the first person to be on death row since the last execution in 1960. He was taken to G-basement where he was processed, fingerprinted, photographed, and given his prison uniform. Then he was put in the deathwatch cell, F-36, at the end of the row, isolated by a door at the end of what was to be death row. This is the cell that condemned men are now put into just prior to execution. The cell's furnishings consisted of a bunk, a sink, and a toilet, unlike other cells on death row that also have shelves and desks. About five feet from the cell was a small wooden desk at which a guard was posted 24/7 whose sole responsibility was to watch Michael and log anything he did into a logbook. “I was pretty wound up. I hadn't slept at all the night before and I wouldn't sleep for another twelve hours.”

That was Friday night. On Monday, he returned to G-basement, where his property was searched, and he was allowed to bring it to his cell. To get there he had to walk past the inmates on the tiers adjacent to the death cell; the cells were later to be used for death row inmates but at the time held men who had been put in segregation. Because he was such a high-profile inmate, the inmates peppered him with bars of soap and rolls of toilet paper as he walked by. “The guards, for the most [part,] always kept a couple of steps away from me so that they wouldn't get hit.” While in G-basement, he also had a meeting with the deputy warden, during which he was told the rules. Michael brought up several issues. He asked for a desk and a shelf, which were granted and installed within a week.

Michael knew there would be an automatic stay of execution until the state Supreme Court had reviewed his sentence, a mandatory appeal in all death penalty cases. But every time he left his cell “there were the ever present catcalls from both inmates and guards. Most common was the buzzing sound,” like the electric chair. Yet the hardest to deal with was his complete lack of privacy. No one has much privacy in prison, and Michael had learned to deal with it in his three years in county jail, but now a guard was posted directly in front of his cell, monitoring every movement every minute of every single day.

When he first got to death row, Michael was consumed by anger. He felt that he didn't get a fair trial and that Malchik and Satti were “twisting the evidence” to secure a death sentence, that the judge was against him, and that the jury ignored the evidence. It was a very personal feeling of injustice, not a critique of the entire justice system. He began to do legal research to keep busy. Eventually he was allowed to get books from the law library, but he also got lawyers to donate their outdated books for a death row library and even got the
Law Tribune
to provide a free subscription. He read articles that charged that the death penalty was meted out in a capricious manner. If one compares capital prosecutions state by state, prosecutor by prosecutor, or case by case, it is impossible to see any logic in prosecutors' decisions as to whether a death sentence is sought. After about a year, he realized that his case was not unique and that abuses occur in many capital cases. Seeing this, he started writing anti–death penalty articles. But instead of making Michael feel less persecuted, these activities made him feel hopeless. He had decided that the entire system was broken and corrupt.

Michael slowly spiraled into a deep depression. Prozac helped, but his violent sexual fantasies became much worse. One of the cruel ironies of prison—with its lack of physical and mental activity—is that it's the perfect place for mental illness to grow stronger. “On the outside,
at least I had work and daily activities to keep my mind busy and drive away the thoughts. When there is nothing to do but sit in an empty cell, the thoughts of raping and murdering became a much larger part of my life. The hardest time for me was in the evening when it was time to relax and go to sleep. I couldn't relax without the sexual imagery invading my mind and without feeling an immense compulsion to masturbate. If I fought the urge, I could never get to sleep, so daily masturbation just before bed became the norm. Once I gave in and satisfied the urges, I had no problem sleeping.”

Even during the day, he felt the need to masturbate. Usually he masturbated when he woke up and before his usual afternoon nap. He said that his illness had cycles and seemed to ebb and flow. “There were periods when he [the monster] came on with a vengeance and I would masturbate several more times a day. During these periods I would masturbate myself raw—literally open raw spots on my penis. At these times, masturbation would often be painful as I rubbed the open sores.”

Before the first trial began, Dr. Berlin told Michael about his clinic at Johns Hopkins and the success he'd had treating patients suffering from sexual sadism with Depo-Provera. Some refer to the controversial treatment as chemical castration, but Dr. Berlin objected to that term's negative connotations and considered it misleading. “I prefer talking about medications that suppress sexual appetite,” he explained. “With an appetite suppressant, it would be easier for you to diet, but not impossible to eat.” Dr. Berlin pointed out that many of his patients with appropriate sex partners are able to continue functioning sexually without the temptation to act out in harmful ways. When the sex drive is diminished, a sexual sadist can control his behavior. Even if he has the thoughts about the abnormal behavior, it no longer overpowers him.

At the Johns Hopkins clinic, sex offenders are carefully screened and evaluated, then given the medication in concert with extensive
psychotherapy. In a study of 626 males who were treated at the clinic, only 9.7 percent repeated their crimes. According to Dr. Berlin, other studies have shown that recidivism of sex offenders without this treatment is as high as 65 percent. The effectiveness of hormone-suppressing drugs drove California, Florida, Georgia, and a growing number of other states to enact or consider mandatory chemical castration for sex offenders: no hormone treatment, no parole. However, Dr. Berlin cautions that this is a misguided public policy. Not all sex offenders are suitable for the chemical therapy—only those with paraphiliac disorders, such as certain pedophiles or sexual sadists. Research has shown that for treatment to work, the offender must acknowledge that his conduct is out of control and must want treatment. Treatment also must include psychotherapy during parole, because it helps teach clients how to control their former behaviors.

Depo-Provera, the most commonly used drug in this type of treatment, is marketed as a female contraceptive because it blocks ovulation. When one is sexually aroused, the brain secretes endorphins, opiate-like substances that are biochemical stimulants of pleasure. Dr. Berlin speculated that in men, Depo-Provera blocks opiate receptors, thereby preventing the endorphins from having their normal, pleasure-producing effect, but no studies have been done to prove or disprove that theory. It's interesting that hormone therapy may be more effective than surgical castration, because testosterone is produced in the adrenal glands, not only the testes. Moreover, unlike physical castration, the effect of the drugs is not permanent.

A normal adult male has a blood testosterone level of 400 to 800 nanograms per deciliter. With Depo-Provera, those levels go below 200. Dr. Robert Prentky, who researched the connections between sex and aggression, says that elevated testosterone levels have been linked to aggressive behavior but not necessarily criminal behavior. “Corporate
CEOs and professional hockey players have been shown to have abnormally high levels of testosterone,” Berlin explained. High levels of testosterone can produce constructive aggression. There is also a correlation between high levels of testosterone and paraphiliac disorders, such as sexual sadism. No study has been able to predict criminal behavior based on testosterone levels nor explain how and why some commit sexual violence but not others.

After Michael was placed on death row, Dr. Berlin again suggested that he try Depo-Provera because of the success that he had with this treatment at his Johns Hopkins clinic. By this point, Michael was still reluctant but also desperate. “To be perfectly honest, I didn't believe in Depo-Provera before I got my shots,” he admitted. At first, the mental health department refused to approve Dr. Berlin's treatment, saying that it was not a medication it prescribed, nor was it FDA approved for the treatment of sex offenders. Dr. Berlin wrote a letter to the Mental Health Unit offering to prescribe the medication and go to see Michael every couple of months to monitor his progress, but he was still refused treatment. Then in 1989, Bryn Freedman from WTNH Channel 8 did an extensive investigative report on the case. One of the issues she looked into was the refusal by the Department of Correction to offer the treatment. She interviewed Dr. Berlin, and the policy was soon reversed.

On October 16, 1989, Michael's blood test revealed a testosterone level of 434 nanograms per deciliter, near the low end of the normal range and inexplicably significantly below his pretrial level of 645, which is also within the normal range. There was no medical reason for the drop in testosterone levels or any explanation as to why Michael appeared to be so sensitive to even levels within the normal range. His first shot was 500 mg on November 15. During the first few months, he didn't notice any effects, so the dosage was increased twice until it
got to 700 mg per week. Michael said that shortly thereafter “I noticed a decrease in my need for masturbation and less desire to engage in sexual fantasizing.” He said the changes were gradual. But at some point after receiving 700 mg per week, his incessant urges to masturbate began to subside. As his need to masturbate declined, so did the violent sexual fantasies in his head. By the time his testosterone levels dropped below 50, he masturbated only once a day. Below 35, he could abstain for a couple of weeks, and at 20 or less, he reported that he had “essentially no sexual urges at all and [did] not masturbate at all.”

“It cleared my mind and allowed me to be quiet,” he explained. “Before the Depo-Provera, I had to always be actively doing something mentally or the obsessive sexual fantasies would pop up. What Depo-Provera did was greatly lessen the control that the monster had over me. It didn't take so much effort to force the fantasies out of my mind. I could fight the compulsive urge, yet still be able to get to sleep. I was in control. He [the monster] was still in my mind, but banished to the back.” Michael's whole world changed. He said for the first time in years he could watch a movie without later fantasizing about raping and murdering one of the female actresses. “I could just lie there and do nothing but let my mind wander without drifting into some sexual murder fantasy. I developed extensive nonsexual fantasy worlds where I could escape for hours on end and not have guilt to deal with afterwards.”

Michael understood that most people would have difficulty understanding the change he had undergone. So he came up with an analogy that he often repeated to me and wrote in articles printed in several publications, “I often describe it as living with an obnoxious roommate. What the Depo-Provera did was move the roommate to his own apartment down the hall. You still had to deal with him, but it was much easier without him always being in your face. Yet he was never ever totally
gone. He was always there—just over the horizon waiting for his opportunity.” He explained that he was never totally free of the problem because “he just sits there waiting for you to let down your guard and let him back in the front of your mind.”

In 1990 and 1991, Michael began to have complications of high blood pressure and liver dysfunction and was permanently taken off Depo-Provera on October 1, 1992. Depo drugs are injected into muscle, and the medicine is slowly absorbed over time. Depo-Provera injections are given every week because of the relatively rapid release of the drug into the bloodstream. Dr. Berlin, who had been allowed to prescribe the medication in exchange for promising to monitor it for the DOC, recommended an alternate, Depo Lupron. Because it is released more slowly into the bloodstream, it has to be injected only once a month and has fewer side effects. However, the DOC rejected his recommendation. Without the medication, Michael's violent sexual fantasies returned, and he became so depressed that he even attempted suicide by putting a plastic bag over his head. “I considered trying to castrate myself with a razor blade. And though I prepared myself on several occasions—got the razor out and sterilized it with a match and tied off the scrotum with a string to slow bleeding—I could never actually cut myself.” Scared that he would completely revert to “what I was before my medication,” he went on a hunger strike for twenty days.