Columbus chapter of the National Organization for Women

The Columbus chapter of the National Organization for Women enters the account through a sharply worded intervention in the controversy over William Milligan’s treatment at the Athens Mental Health Center. In a three-page letter sent to Dr. David Caul on May 11, the chapter challenged reported features of the treatment program and argued that its public framing risked excusing violence against women. Its intervention joined questions of community safety to a broader dispute over who bore responsibility for Milligan’s actions and how the women affected by them were represented.

The Letter and Its Targets

The chapter addressed its letter to Caul and sent copies to a wide circle that included state representative Mike Stinziano, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, and the Columbus Dispatch. That circulation placed the complaint not only before Milligan’s treating physician but also before public officials, a prominent psychiatrist associated with the case, and a newspaper already covering the dispute. The letter responded to newspaper accounts of the program, rather than presenting itself as a clinical assessment based on direct participation in Milligan’s care.

The practices it identified were specific: unsupervised furloughs, unrestricted use of an automobile, and assistance with financial arrangements for books and movie rights. The chapter argued that these reported privileges disregarded the safety of women in nearby communities. The combination mattered to its criticism: freedom to leave the hospital and use a car was presented alongside assistance connected with commercial rights, making the treatment appear to grant both mobility and public opportunity while the chapter questioned whether it adequately addressed the violence at the center of the case.

Responsibility, Diagnosis, and Representation

The letter’s objection extended beyond the practical conditions of Milligan’s leave. The chapter argued that the program did not teach that violence and rape were unacceptable and instead gave Milligan positive reinforcement for his actions. This was the group’s charge, not a finding established by the account; its importance lies in the way it made treatment’s purpose a matter of public scrutiny. The question was not only whether Milligan was supervised, but what lessons the program communicated about accountability.

The chapter also disputed the use of the rapist personality’s lesbian identity in explanations of the offenses. It described that account as a diversion that made a female persona carry responsibility for conduct that, in its view, should not be displaced from Milligan. The letter connected that framing to a wider cultural tendency to treat violence against women as acceptable or marketable. In doing so, it challenged a narrative in which the diagnosis could become an explanation that obscured the women’s experience or relieved the male subject of responsibility. The chapter’s critique thus addressed both clinical language and the gendered implications it believed followed from that language.

The Public Controversy Around Treatment

The letter appeared amid increasingly intense scrutiny of Milligan’s freedom outside the hospital. On March 30, the Columbus Dispatch reported that he could leave the grounds unsupervised, travel around Athens, and take weekend visits to relatives. The article quoted local concern and opposition from Judge Jay Flowers, who had found Milligan not guilty by reason of insanity. The paper followed with almost daily articles criticizing his ability to roam, and an April 5 editorial called for legislation to protect society.

That coverage had made the conditions of treatment a public controversy before the chapter sent its letter. At Harding Hospital, Milligan had first been placed in Wakefield Cottage, a locked unit for difficult patients requiring constant observation and personal attention. After the trial, Caul described a different therapeutic emphasis: Milligan was not to be treated as a criminal, and progress depended on working with Billy and bringing him together. The contrast between close observation in a locked unit and later unsupervised leave helps explain why the treatment plan became a focal point of debate. The chapter’s letter addressed the risks it saw in the later arrangement without erasing the distinction between a treatment program and a criminal sentence.

Institutional Consequences and Significance

The wider controversy led to changes in the hospital’s management of Milligan, but the account does not establish that the chapter’s letter itself caused them. Staff on the Admissions and Intensive Treatment ward, upset by publicity and Milligan’s reaction to it, demanded changes and threatened to strike. Caul agreed to transfer day-to-day management to the staff team and limit his own role to medical and therapeutic concerns. A written contract then restricted Milligan’s possessions, calls, visitors, spending, painting, and contact with other patients, with privileges to be restored in stages if he complied.

The chapter’s documented role is therefore that of a local organization entering a public dispute through a specific, widely circulated letter. Its intervention brought women’s safety and the language of gendered responsibility into discussion of hospital privileges and psychiatric treatment. It did not resolve the conflict between therapeutic freedom, institutional control, and public concern; instead, it made clear that decisions about leave and diagnosis were also being contested as questions of accountability and whose account of the case would shape public understanding.