Dayton Forensic Center

Dayton Forensic Center became a decisive setting in Billy Milligan’s story after his treatment and freedom of movement were overtaken by disputes about security and public safety. He arrived in November 1980 at a maximum-security institution whose strict physical controls stood in contrast to his hope of returning to therapeutic work. His stay brought a period of deterioration and separation from the treatment he associated with Athens, but it did not end there: after an interim transfer, a judge eventually ordered his return to the Athens Mental Health Center.

Placement and Security

The question of where Milligan would be treated became a public and legal issue in 1980. With a hearing scheduled in Columbus to consider his placement, state Department of Mental Health officials instead informed prosecutor Jim O’Grady that Milligan would be sent to the newly opened Dayton Forensic Center. The prosecutors’ office then withdrew its demand for a hearing. Opened in April, the facility was described as a maximum-security institution surrounded by double fences, with razor-ribbon concertina wire over barbed wire and a security system more stringent than that of most prisons.

On November 19, 1980, Milligan was moved there. Arthur and Ragen, fearful that his despair might lead him to attempt suicide, put him to sleep again. This was a consequential change in his internal state as well as his physical location: the move placed him in a highly secured hospital while the personalities sought to manage a crisis they believed they could not safely meet otherwise.

The institutional setting also reflected a shift in how Milligan’s case was being handled. The book describes the transfer as a state decision made while the proposed hearing was delayed, rather than as the outcome of that hearing. Security considerations therefore determined his immediate destination, even as his treatment needs remained unresolved.

Daily Life and Treatment

At Dayton, Milligan spent time reading, writing, and sketching when he was not in the visiting room. He was not allowed to paint. The superintendent, Allen Vogel, was sympathetic to his needs and permitted him to paint in oils; Tommy and Allen arranged for art supplies to be brought in. The security office overruled that permission, reasoning that linseed oil could be dangerous, and the supplies were removed. The episode shows how a specific therapeutic and creative activity remained subject to institutional security decisions, even when the superintendent supported it.

Milligan looked forward to a 180-day hearing and hoped Judge Jay Flowers would conclude that he did not need maximum-security placement and could return to Athens. He believed Dr. David Caul could treat him, help fuse the personalities, and bring back the Teacher. With Billy-U asleep, he felt that matters had returned to how they had been before Dr. Cornelia Wilbur awakened him. The prospect he clung to was not simply release from confinement: it was a return to a known treatment relationship and the possibility of renewed integration.

That hope coexisted with a worsening sense of disconnection. During visits, Milligan sometimes said that he did not know who he was. When a partial fusion occurred, he became a person with no name. He reported that Ragen had lost the ability to speak English and that the personalities had stopped communicating with one another. A daily log, suggested so that whoever occupied the spot could leave messages for the others, helped for a time, but interest faded and entries dwindled. The breakdown of communication thus appeared not only in Milligan’s reports but in the diminishing record meant to bridge it.

Relationships and Crisis

Mary, a young outpatient Milligan had met during his first months in Athens, visited him at Dayton and moved there so she could see him daily. As his depression increased, Allen urged her to return to graduate school and build a life of her own; he did not want her to feel imprisoned by his confinement. Several weeks after she left, Tanda, who visited her brother at the facility, met Milligan through him. She began helping in ways Mary had: typing, bringing outside food, and buying clothing. Tanda’s later concern that Milligan was withdrawing from contact and had lost interest in living helped bring the severity of his condition to the attention of the book’s narrator.

By July 1981, according to Tanda, Milligan was not changing his clothes, shaving, or eating. During a visit, Tommy reported that Arthur had given up hope of treatment and cure and had decided to commit suicide. The narrator argued for a transfer rather than suicide, pointing to Dr. Judyth Box, a psychiatrist who had testified for Milligan and had recently become clinical director of the Central Ohio Regional Forensic Unit. Tommy initially rejected moving from one maximum-security hospital to another, but agreed after hearing that Dr. Box had experience treating multiple-personality patients, knew Dr. Caul, and had taken an interest in Milligan’s case. The Department of Mental Health, the prosecutor, and the judge agreed that this internal transfer required no court hearing, though the process moved slowly.

Before the transfer, a patient reportedly told the narrator that Milligan had volunteered for seclusion because he feared that he might hurt someone and jeopardize the move. The account says that guards then assaulted him in the seclusion room. When the narrator next saw Allen, Milligan’s condition required him to be transferred in a wheelchair. On September 22, 1981, he left Dayton for the Central Ohio Regional Forensic Unit. The episode binds the institution’s security practices to the fragility of the transfer Milligan had accepted as an alternative to remaining there.

Hearings and Aftermath

The legal decision about whether Milligan could leave maximum security continued after his departure. On May 20, Judge Jay Flowers ordered continued treatment at Dayton as the least restrictive alternative he considered consistent with treatment goals and public safety. Flowers relied heavily on a letter and Dr. Lewis Lindner’s interpretation of it, and also cited Dr. Caul’s testimony that he would not accept court-imposed limitations at Athens. The decision did not discuss the other mental-health professionals who had testified that Milligan was not dangerous. It also permitted treatment by a Dayton psychologist at Milligan’s own expense, although that psychologist had told the judge she had no experience treating multiple personality.

Milligan did not seem bitter about the ruling, though the narrator thought he was weary. The book records the human consequence in his uncertainty about his own identity and in the failure of the internal messages to continue. After Milligan’s transfer, the Department of Mental Health sued him for $50,000 to cover involuntary hospitalization and treatment at Athens, Lima, and Dayton. His attorneys filed a countersuit seeking payment for murals he had painted at Lima and damages for physical abuse and malpractice; the countersuit was denied, while the state’s suit remained pending.

On April 8, 1982, Judge Jay Flowers ordered Milligan’s return to Athens, where he was to be allowed to paint and do woodworking, with close supervision off the ward and notice to the court before leaving the grounds. He returned on April 15, after two and a half years in three Ohio maximum-security hospitals. Dayton’s significance lies in this contested interval: the institution offered a highly controlled destination, but the restrictions there, Milligan’s worsening fragmentation, and his hope of treatment elsewhere kept the question of care inseparable from the question of confinement.