Polly Newton Kidnapping, Attempted Sexual Assault, and Coerced Cash Withdrawals

The abduction of Polly Newton begins as Ragen’s third journey toward Ohio State University in search of money, but becomes an episode shaped by a change in who controls the body. Adalana takes over during the encounter, and the resulting confusion of identity allows her to act under Ragen’s name while steering events toward her own purposes.

Background and Abduction

In the early hours of Wednesday, October 26, Ragen crossed Columbus for the third time, intent on finding someone to rob. He had already decided that the children needed food and clothing for the coming winter, and he had taken his gun before setting out. At an intersection, he considered approaching a police cruiser for money, but it drove away when the light changed. He continued along East Woodruff Avenue and saw Polly Newton arriving in a blue Corvette at a brick apartment building marked Gemini.

Ragen had never considered robbing a woman, but his desperation for money overcame that reluctance. He ordered Polly into the car and told her, while displaying his guns, that she had to take him somewhere. As Polly drove, Adalana took control for the third time. Her intervention concealed the change in identity from Polly, who was left to understand the threat through the armed stranger’s conduct, and from the other personalities, who might otherwise have learned that Adalana had been on the spot.

Adalana admired Ragen’s aggression and his tenderness toward Christene, qualities she wished she possessed. She spoke and acted as though she were Ragen, using the identity to direct Polly’s movements. First she instructed Polly to stop near an office building because she wanted to kill a man she accused of dealing cocaine and causing a child’s death. The threat did not become an attack: the man was not there, and Adalana continued the drive with Polly. This shift from Ragen’s immediate search for a robbery target to Adalana’s declared mission marked the beginning of an episode in which the borrowed identity served both as cover and as a means of control.

Deception, Assault Attempt, and Coerced Money

To hide that she had taken control, Adalana continued to perform Ragen’s identity while Polly drove. She directed Polly toward an office building, claiming that she intended to kill a man she accused of dealing cocaine and causing a child’s death. After finding his limousine but not the man, Adalana abandoned that plan and told Polly to continue north. She paid for gas, then had Polly stop at a Friendly ice cream store in Worthington, Ohio, before leading her onto a deserted country road. Adalana knew Polly was studying her face so she could identify her later, and spun false stories about having killed people, belonging to the Weathermen, and possessing another identity as a businessman who drove a Maserati. The invented histories served to confuse Polly and conceal who had been controlling the encounter.

At a secluded field near a pond, Adalana told Polly that she intended to have sex with her. Polly began to cry. Adalana offered reassurances but also made clear that Polly had no choice, turning the supposed reassurance into another instrument of pressure. When Polly pleaded with her not to rape her, the word brought Adalana’s attention to what she was doing. She recalled what had happened to David, Danny, and Billy Milligan, recognized the horror of rape, and stopped. She then addressed Billy aloud, asking him to get himself together. The change was decisive: the assault did not proceed, although Polly remained under Adalana’s control.

The episode then shifted from the sexual threat to obtaining money. Adalana searched Polly’s handbag and said she needed about two hundred dollars for someone. Polly cashed a $150 check at the Kroger office; attempts at the State Savings Bank and several drive-in bank windows failed. At the Union store in Graceland Shopping Center, Polly was able to cash another check, this one for $50. Adalana suggested that Polly could keep money from an additional check, but this offer did not end the coercion. She tore a page from Polly’s address book and threatened to send it to the Weathermen, claiming they would kill Polly’s family if she contacted police or gave them an accurate description.

Adalana briefly shifted from threats to a personal gesture, writing a poem for Polly on a check, but destroyed it because she feared the police could match her handwriting. She also kept the address-book page as leverage. When she noticed a police car passing, she slipped away, ending Polly’s direct encounter with her and leaving the identity of the person who had controlled the car concealed from Polly.

Conflicting Accounts and the Unavailable Witness

When trial strategy came under discussion, Arthur proposed changing the plea: Ragen would admit to the three robberies but would not plead guilty to rape, even though four of the ten indictment counts included rape. Arthur relied on Adalana’s account to argue that the three women had cooperated, had not been injured, could have escaped, and had received part of the money back so they would benefit when insurance paid. His version recast the encounters as transactions rather than crimes, but Judy Stevenson rejected it as inconsistent with what the women said.

Judy and Gary Schweickart understood that Arthur was describing Adalana’s perception of events, not establishing that Polly Newton or the other women had consented. Arthur insisted that Adalana had been present, but she could not be questioned: he said she had been banished from the spot forever. The case thus preserved a sharp divide between an internal account that minimized the women’s victimization and their own accounts of what had happened, while the personality whose testimony Arthur invoked remained inaccessible.

Immediate Aftermath and Identity Disruption

The encounter’s abrupt end did not produce a stable return to awareness. After Adalana noticed a passing police car and slipped away, Philip found himself looking out from a moving car at an unfamiliar blond woman behind the wheel; he could not account for how he had arrived there. The handoff leaves the episode suspended between its outward conclusion and its inward aftermath: Polly had been left behind, while the person who next occupied the consciousness had no clear memory of the preceding events.