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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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I decided to steal the comments from an untapped to check in from one of my untapped friends Andrew says bourbon
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right here first up we have janessa in Lakeville Massachusetts a big shout out today from New Orleans and next we have
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Jenny sending hugs from Sweden and a big shout out to be from Denver Colorado this next one is from Jonathan and he
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would like to hear the captain say his famous catchphrase show me the money he would like the
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captain to say Chris hubber is a piece of [ __ ] well who is Chris Evert do we know who Chris hubber is I don't know
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how could I call this guy it might be Jonathan's friend who knows that's all I say about your friend yeah hey Chris
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ever use a piece of [ __ ] alright our apologies to Chris hover yeah next I'm sorry about that we have Susan in
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Calgary Canada and last but not least we have Iona and Belmont California thanks
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catchphrases flow a little bit better and that's enough of the business yep everybody gather round grab a chair grab
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a beer let's talk some true crime after the arrests of the beloved dr. Vince Gilmer people in the town were needless
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to say shocked many of them refused to believe it was even true some theorize that it was a mercy killing the Vince
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knew his dad was beyond help and decided to put him out of his misery mm-hmm but
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as pointed out on this American Life Vince was a medical doctor wouldn't it be more likely that he would do so with
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pills rather than a violent strangulation severing the fingers and dumping the body one think about his
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patients as well so many of its patients probably haven't seen him in a year and
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to know him as this great doctor then also in Psych your doctor murdered his father yeah I mean it made no sense to
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anyone who knew and loved Vince Gilmer Vince was extradited to Virginia where the body was found from North Carolina
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to stand trial pretty quickly after Vince was arrested he confessed to strangling his father in his first court
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appearance for the first-degree murder charge he told the judge that his brain wasn't working right right but he was
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assessed by psychologists and deemed fit to stand trial it was while Vince was sitting in jail
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in Washington County Virginia that Vince started writing a series of letters to the Bristol Herald Courier newspaper
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based in Bristol Virginia this is around March of 2005 while Vince admitted that he had killed his father
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and mutilated the corpse he said in these letters that the actual murder had taken place in Tennessee not Virginia
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that there was no reason he said for him to be in a Virginia Jail at all he had actually murdered his father in Carter
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County Tennessee he wrote quote I Vince Gilmer committed manslaughter On June 29th 2004 it did not happen in Virginia
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the only thing that happened in Virginia was the body ended up there I am confessing it happened in
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Elizabethton Tennessee now Washington County Virginia sheriff's detectives were dubious of these claims and said
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Vince's story had changed several times deputies also stating he's not in his right mind mm-hmm well Vince says in one
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letter quote each time I tell the story it is a little different you can't include every detail every time you tell
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a story a lot of it does not make sense but that also shows it was not planned and quote it seemed that Vince was eager
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to prove that he hadn't planned the murder and whatever it was he had done he preferred to be held accountable in
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Tennessee but even after meeting with Vince and receiving a full confession in person Tennessee authorities weren't
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able to confirm that any crime had taken place in their state they only had Vince's word to go by the letters Vince
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sent to the herald carrier gave a glimpse into what would be the basis of Vince Gilmer's defense at trial Vince
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also gave several phone interviews with journalists from the paper several in-person interviews and one TV
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interview from prison and he told the following story that on the day before he killed his father he Vince had
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stopped taking antidepressant lexapro Vince had decided he said that he could do without the drug this is a little
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strange given that Vince was a medical doctor and should have known how unsafe it was to stop taking these drugs so
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abrupt right if Vince Gilmer went off lexapro cold turkey he definitely could have
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suffered adverse effects right but would you really suffer them so quickly you'd
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think that there'd be some lag time like if you're taking the pill every 24 hours
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or so mm-hmm like that if he just didn't take him one day like it's not like you
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know he stopped taking them a few days before and now we're gonna have the effects those effects for the next
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couple weeks could be pretty dramatic well and that's what really calls a lot of this stuff into question one what
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would be the expected outcome of of someone stopping taking these drugs so abruptly right and then two they
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couldn't find any prescription for this stuff at all so they they had little proof that he's taking them out if he
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was actually even taking them now Vince did say repeatedly to psychologists prison doctors guards and the media that
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his brain was not working right without lexapro in fact he said in the wake of stopping taking the drug he didn't feel
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himself at all now these are his words okay he said he felt mentally [ __ ] and reporters and others who met with
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him in prison notice that Vince would make strange head movements and gestures he would shake he would become emotional
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and cry spontaneously and you're saying that's not normal to do well it's not perceived to be normal okay why I need
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to go see well the the other thing though too because this is this is going to be come a key thing in this case in
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this story because a lot of this behavior in what Vince could have been doing before or at the time of the
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murder will fall into his defense right right because Vince stated in a TV interview the one that we've been
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discussing from prison that he was not someone who could hurt anyone he denied flat-out that he had intended
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to kill his father Vince's letter stated that he killed his father in a fit of anger brought on by
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mental problems and years of resentment over childhood sexual abuse he said quote I
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did not commit murder the things that happened that night were beyond my control and quote way it actually
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happened that night according to Vince's letters and he details this in these letters was this
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Vince was driving his father in his truck moving him to a closer nursing home with a plan to go kayaking along
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the way but his father started taunting him during the 90 minute drive during which Vince stopped at an Arby's and a
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gas station the taunting worsened Vince wrote quote my father started sexually molesting me when I was six and my
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sister when she was three rame mom tried to shelter us but it kept on he continued to try to molest us as adults
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as they drove Vince said Dalton kept taunting quote he was always saying filthy disgusting things to remind me of
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what happened he reached over and tried to pull my head to his crotch the voices
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took over from there I started hearing voices telling me to kill people the voices in my head
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were telling me to kill my father and quote wah and to be clear about this - Gilmer never said that his father was
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saying these things all the time like the what he is claiming it is at some point his father molested him for a
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series of years then then it stopped and then his dad didn't bring it up dad didn't talk about it so now with his dad
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having some kind of dementia or whatever they're now riding in the car and he's rubbing his son's leg and talking to him
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and harassing him about this time period almost a you know and almost acting as if his son the doctor is not 40 some
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years old or whatever years at the time but as as if he's a child and so as that all that stuff is
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happening you know the doctor claims that I just snapped yeah he says what what happened next was a blur quote
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nothing made sense from then on at some point he strangled his father and loaded
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his body into the back of the pickup he waited until dark and then stopped at Food City and Elizabethton to buy gloves
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and a tarp to cover the body in the truck bed he stopped on a back road and decided to cut off Dalton's fingers and
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thumbs to try to hide the identity he wrote quote I had a saw in my truck for sawing limbs in my yard it took five
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minutes Vince told investigators he put the fingers in a plastic bag and dropped
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them in a river this according to Carter County Sheriff Henson who met with Vince
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in prison on March 16th in this interview Vince confessed to the murder on camera denying vehemently that he had
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planned the whole thing the sheriff and his deputies noted that Vince was acting
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very strange and that he was borderline incoherent rambling and couldn't complete a thought and he was breathing
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hard shuffling and agitated Vince told the man that he ended up in Washington County where he had lived in the 1990s
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while studying as a resident at Bristol Regional Medical Center in Tennessee saying quote I decided to drop the body
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on the side of the road my cover-up of the crime was pitiful if I had planned this I would have had something to cover
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the body with I covered the body I didn't know where to go or what to do I drove aimlessly my brain was not working
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right right now he he might have covered the body when it was in the truck bed but when he dumped Dalton's lifeless
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body on the side of the road Dalton wasn't covered by anything he was he was out there really for anybody to find
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which was as I stated in the first episode I thought was a little shocking in itself to make all of these moves and
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all these efforts to hide the identity of the victim that would ultimately found on the side of the road when he
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could have taken additional efforts to conceal the body itself even further right and I think a lot of a lot of this
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story to me is when you get this intelligent guy that for whatever reason snaps but probably wouldn't have snapped
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normally there's something going on with him he snaps then he kills his father and then he tells you you know I could
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have done this better you know I'm a smart guy I could have covered him up better that my attempt to discard the
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body is a poor attempt and that sounds sick but I think he's trying to prove like hey I could I'm a doctor I could
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even done this better right you guys are looking for proof of premeditated murder I'm trying to
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provide you some proof that it was not premeditated right and just the fact that he is a
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doctor and has again I think struggling with something but with the idea that like he's saying look
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I'm smart enough to to have taken some steps but my brains not working enough to let me take all the steps so I
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probably needed to take so that you couldn't ever find the body therefore you'd never be able to charge me yeah
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well and obviously we're just picking apart pieces of the interview that we mentioned right as well as parts of the
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letters but as far as the letters go the the Harold Courier reporter sums up the
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article about the letters as a whole and gives this evaluation and published it on March 17 2005 which read the letters
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which skip over the details of how the father died tell a sometimes rambling story of mental illness rage and
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confusion it's the latest twist in a case that investigators have called one of the
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most bizarre and gruesome in recent memory I mean it's definitely gruesome as far as I just remember they kind of
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skimmed over the fact you know that he basically cut off every single finger right and that he skims over yeah yeah
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said I decided to do this I pulled over the side of the road five minutes but just yeah but even the
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that's a gruesome five minutes mm-hmm well let's talk about the flip side of the coin because we have Vince Gilmer
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who's saying look I was out of my mind I was not in control the murder was not premeditated and happied as a result of
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all of these emerging factors right voices in my head yeah the stop I stopped taking this drug
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multiple things here so the other side would be that a lot of people you know said that it's pretty much evident from
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listening to the tapes of Vince Vince's prison conversation with with friends and supporters that Vince wanted
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people to believe that there was something wrong with him that there might not be something wrong that he's
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acting yeah yeah Vince even pointed out that the news camera footage that showed
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him being placed in a police car well it showed him having this sort of head bob
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tic going on in that footage yeah and he indicated to people around him that he had tremors that he could not explain
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now law enforcement and prosecutors weren't buying it they labeled Vince Gilmer as quote highly manipulative they
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conducted an experiment where they set up video cameras to film the exercise yard in the prison the cameras would
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catch Vince playing basketball or exercising normally but when an officer of the court or a guard would step into
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the scene Vince would start to shuffle suffer from tics o faker and act physically not in control of his body
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and then a short time later he would seem to return to normal he starts playing like air jordan yeah he's like
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doing 360 dunks and then every time they get around he's twitching right he can't
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do anything so can we get to Air Jordans trial yes so undeterred by Vince's assertions that
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he hadn't committed a crime in their state Washington County prosecutors proceeded with the murder trial based
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the state law that permitted them to prosecute the case since the body was recovered in Virginia Vince Gilmer went
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to trial on August 15 2005 prosecutors painted Vince as a cold-blooded killer who planned the murder of his father
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they pointed to the following circumstantial and other evidence one Vince confessed to killing his father -
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he had done so in a brutal fashion strangling him twice and cutting off his fingers 3 Vince came prepared to commit
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murder with the saw and the Rope already in his truck for someone who helped Dalton into
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Vince's truck that fateful day actually heard Vince say this is their testimony heard Vince say to his father quote I've
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been waiting for this day for a long time some other information Vince was overwhelmed by the amount of debt he was
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in there was also no evidence to back up Vince's claims of abuse at the hands of
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his father furthermore at trial the prosecution presented tapes of conversations Vince had in prison which
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were quite damning in the conversations with his mother and Friends he appeared to be trying to manipulate the venue he
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would be prosecuted in in order to get the most leniency remember the letters to the newspaper where Vince said he
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shouldn't be on trial in Virginia ring because he actually killed his father in Tennessee well on the tapes Vince says
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to his mother a guy in here said Carter County Tennessee is the best place to go to
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receive a shorter sentence but he's also attacking people in prison mm-hmm well an Virginia had the death penalty right
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and in another phone call with a friend Vince mentioned that he was trying to work out a deal with a DA in North
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Carolina it sounded very much like Vince Gilmour was forum-shopping and his his story changed accordingly to try to get
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this thing where he wanted it to go right but the nail in Vince's coffin was hammered home by the fact that the
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clinical psychologist who and evaluated Vince to determine whether he was fit to stand trial found him to
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be restless agitated and fidgety but concluded that Vince was faking this this was all a big fake according to
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them his quote symptoms and quote just didn't fit any known psychiatric disorder he determined that Vince was
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sane a psychiatrist who also examined Vince found him to be evasive dramatic and
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manipulative the prosecution alleged that Vince had deliberately started acting bizarrely well prior to the
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murder as part of his long-term plan to fake insanity as a he's been doing this for over a year or close to a year so
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you gotta think that's that's some commitment yeah well it's you can commit yourself beforehand or you can find
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yourself committed to prison for the rest of your life or possibly facing a death penalty yeah now in a very
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questionable judgment call you know and I say that with all honesty the judge agreed to allow Vince to represent
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himself at his trial this is great yeah we never we never like this win pulled a
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Bundy even when people will seem to behaving somewhat normally he had a lawyer dawn Davidson present with whom he
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consulted from time to time but Vince was the one up there questioning people in front of the jury and by all accounts
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it was a disaster yeah well when you're attacking people in prison and your counselors changing their story and
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you're constantly stating to people that there's something broken in your brain that your brains not working right they
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shall let you defend yourself hmm well you also have to wonder is this also hey an attempt that I can put on a
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theatrical performance right in front of this jury and maybe maybe somehow we get
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this I've been deemed competent to stand trial maybe my actions or my theatrical
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presentation might change that opinion that now my insanity defense is a real actual defense so I to sum this up and
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I'm gonna use some other people's words to sum this up because I thought there was a lot of good play by play so to
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speak on the way that this went down Vince was not able to keep his train of thought this was very noticeable or
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effectively cross-examine witnesses he stumbled over words he forgot what he was talking about and he rambled in a
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sort of stream-of-consciousness type of manner now Davidson said that he could not
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string together a thought or ask a coherent question and that watching it was like watching someone commit suicide
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with a butter knife and Vince's defense was a very unorthodox one Vince blamed the actions on serotonin or rather the
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lack thereof now remember Vince is a medical doctor he told anyone who would listen and many who wouldn't then he
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knew what he needed to fix his brain and it was an SSRI medication Vince told the
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jury that he suffered from withdrawal when he stopped taking his antidepressants and that voices in his
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head had repeatedly told him to kill his father his brain he emphasized again was
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00:29:10
this might be the closest I ever get to one of my dreams hmm and that would be to do the music for this American life
00:29:17
just one episode I don't want paid this would be a ultimate dream of mine there you go
00:29:24
and I've sent them a lot of messages and I'm never never got a reply yet well regarding this trial captain I don't
00:29:32
think that some of the best fiction authors out there could could script this thing I mean as the way that it
00:29:40
sounds that it was going down King good Wow there you go Vince's mother Gloria testified at the trial and she states
00:29:50
that Dalton her husband Dalton Gilmore did have a history of mental problems and he had violent outbursts towards her
00:29:57
and the kids but the prosecutors were able to show that there was really there really wasn't any evidence of the
00:30:05
violent sexual abuse alleged by Vince right although Vince's sister was alleged to have backed up the abuse
00:30:12
story she disappeared prior to the trial so Vince wasn't able to produce any corroborating witnesses and what
00:30:22
witnesses he did call in the course of the trial were frankly irrelevant or even harmful to his cause Gilmer's
00:30:31
mental disorder argument backfired in court when his expert witness his expert witness claimed that his behavior
00:30:38
sounded more like anxiety rather than a disorder and Vince called his ex-girlfriend to the stand and asked her
00:30:45
quote to the best of your knowledge have I hurt anyone or killed anyone to which she responded your
00:30:53
father right yeah well the jury didn't buy Vince's insanity defense jurors noted that at times Vince seemed quote
00:31:04
nuts but other times he was totally normal they believed he was faking they convicted him of first-degree murder
00:31:12
the judge said at a post trial hearing quote the defendant would go into an act he would look up to see if the jury was
00:31:20
buying it when the jury wasn't buying it he would go back to normal it was clear
00:31:25
that he was acting Vince was sentenced to life in prison and at the trial the judge said the jury found you to be a
00:31:35
cold-blooded killer he says this directly to Vince Gilmer yeah so that's where the story would end basically we
00:31:44
have this guy that was a he was a great guy he was great doctor he was a great husband for a while mmm then he has this
00:31:50
car accident maybe that had some effect on him maybe it's maybe he had some mental thing that
00:31:57
was creeping up on him because a lot of those things you know kind of reared their ugly head over time and of the age
00:32:04
or maybe this trauma as as as a child rears its ugly head but either way he kills his father now he's in jail and
00:32:13
that's kind of where the story would stop yep sent to prison for the rest of his life a life sentence but now you
00:32:19
have this guy that if you heard him talk he definitely sounds like there's something wrong with him and then to
00:32:28
find out that he's attacking I he I mean I've said it five or six times during this show he keeps attacking people in
00:32:35
prison and now he's losing teeth because he's losing these fights he's not a fighter and so then he is he's just not
00:32:44
well right right yeah he's a it's not a winning fighter he's definitely a fighter but now you have this guy that
00:32:52
took over his practice with the same last name yeah and he's curious why are these people saying such good things
00:33:00
about him he knows what it takes what kind of man it takes to what kind of man or woman I
00:33:06
guess it takes to run this type of facility and then to hear what he did it didn't line up to Ben Gilmer right and
00:33:17
he starts asking some questions like any you know walk of life or any line of work or any career choice you know a lot
00:33:26
of people can be doctors but dr. Ben Gilmer is hearing from previous patients and the staff that he works closely with
00:33:34
that the former that the the previous doctor dr. Vince Gilmer the murderer was a good doctor was a great doctor a
00:33:42
caring doctor and a good man right yeah so that's where this story takes a bit of a twist because we've already talked
00:33:50
about doctor been reaching out to dr. Vince who's already in prison by this time they start off with just trading
00:33:58
some letters back and forth then it goes to phone conversations and then to meeting in person at the prison yeah and
00:34:05
through all of this correspondence the entire time dr. Ben Gilmer is he's wandering look the appearance of this
00:34:16
man of dr. Vince the appearance of the prisoner the the the letters that he's writing the the words that he's speaking
00:34:24
the interactions with him it looks - dr. ben as this man is actually sick that he
00:34:30
the you know regardless of you know been dr. ben knows that the authorities believe that Vince was manufacturing his
00:34:38
symptoms right but now dr. ben has to wonder what would be the incentive for Vince to continue to fake these symptoms
00:34:47
six years into the life term by the time that they start interacting with each other right so the trials over there's
00:34:54
no reason to fake it you're not putting up who are you putting this fake show on
00:34:58
for this might be real right and also he took a oath so what's the worst thing that can happen yet test it right yeah
00:35:06
let's let's give him a test and if we get and we if we take the simple test we might be able to figure out what's wrong
00:35:12
with them if there's anything wrong with them so basically what happens is we have dr.
00:35:18
Ben he decides that it's likely that Vince Gilmer was actually sick and he was determined to get to the bottom of
00:35:26
it so he's going but he doesn't know what the what the affliction is he doesn't know what's wrong with Vince
00:35:33
Gilmer right so he returns to the prison in the company of an experienced psychiatrist and the two of them met
00:35:41
with Vince so that the psychiatrist could observe Vince for himself after the meeting the two doctors they leave
00:35:49
the prison they talk they're talking they're trying to come up with theories as to what could be wrong with Vince and
00:35:57
the psychiatrist actually didn't think that it was the SSRI withdrawal he didn't think that that that that would
00:36:05
explain what he was seeing he also didn't it might explain some of his symptoms but not all of them he also
00:36:12
didn't even think that it was the head injury either and they just kind of kept coming up empty in the beginning and
00:36:20
then eventually the psychiatrist says you know could he have could Vince have Huntington's disease to which dr. Ben
00:36:29
thought to himself that this fits this might fit it's very rare so dr. Ben was desperate to get Vince
00:36:36
tested for Huntington's disease the test is a simple blood test and luckily these
00:36:42
tests for Huntington's for the gene are 100% accurate there is virtually no chance for error he was unsure how to
00:36:51
proceed until three weeks later when he discovered that Vince had been moved to a psychiatric hospital after threatening
00:37:00
to commit suicide with a razor blade that was found in his cell dr. Ben met with a social worker at the hospital and
00:37:08
suggested that they test Vince for Huntington's and they did and dr. Ben was not surprised to learn that the test
00:37:16
was positive Vince had 43 repeat markers for Huntington's disease so what is Huntington disease alright here's what I
00:37:25
was able to find it is you're no doctor that's right that's right it is a hereditary neurological disease
00:37:33
in which the carriers neurological condition deteriorates over time specifically according to the Mayo
00:37:40
Clinic the disease causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain eventually it leads to loss
00:37:49
of bodily and cognitive control and then death it has been described as a cruel combination of ALS Parkinson's and
00:37:58
Alzheimer's typically there are no symptoms until age 30 or 40 and then the severity of the cognitive and behavioral
00:38:09
symptoms depends on the number of genetic markers for the disease the sufferer has one of the common symptoms
00:38:16
of the disease is a loss of control of the muscular system resulting in dance like tics also common are muscular
00:38:25
rigidity slow or abnormal eye movements impaired balance and difficulty speaking
00:38:31
or swallowing but other symptoms include cognitive deterioration personality changes impulsive mood swings
00:38:38
irritability aggression and even psychological symptoms typical typically associated with schizophrenia or
00:38:46
psychosis so I knew there was something wrong and just didn't know exactly what it was yes yes and and look I mean when
00:38:54
we rattle off all of those symptoms and all of what could be going on with one individual that you're observing that's
00:39:05
a lot of different things here they could be going on which could could be very difficult for even a very good
00:39:11
doctor to pinpoint the actual disease or pinpoint what is actually going on with
00:39:17
that person just based off of visually seeing them and I mind you a lot of these interactions are probably taking
00:39:26
place on the other side of prison bars or at least glass right it is very often misdiagnosed apparently because the
00:39:36
significant aspect of Huntington's is that it causes psych at Rick disorders like depression mania
00:39:43
bipolar disorder and can actually vary widely in the symptoms exhibited by different patients yeah I would assume
00:39:50
that this is misdiagnosed a lot as bipolar or schizophrenia yes and notably Huntington's patients are noted often to
00:40:00
clash with law enforcement and this because of their uncontrollable impulsive actions or even drunken
00:40:07
appearance or their movements appear to be that of a drunken person when when really they're not obvious right this is
00:40:16
a difficult thing here captain because really what all this may suggest is that we have we definitely have this
00:40:30
doctor dr. Ben Gilmer who's trying to find out what happened to dr. Vince Gilmer mm-hmm how did he go from being a
00:40:37
caring loving doctor to to murdering his father I don't think it's that complex he has Huntington's disease and when you
00:40:46
have that yeah but so so that last bit of information that that I threw out there in regards to what I could find
00:40:53
online about Huntington's disease the the portion of the of where it says Huntington's patients are noted to often
00:41:01
clash with law enforcement look I I think that's a that's a difficult thing to really state and say it that way you
00:41:10
know that's not my information that's me passing along some information that I found right and I don't know that the
00:41:16
answer here is just simply that he has Huntington's disease and that's why he killed his father that doesn't there's a
00:41:24
part of it it's a percentage of it right I think that that could be a part of it
00:41:29
but and I remember when they covered this on this American life that at some point I believe it was sarah caning she
00:41:38
offered a maybe somewhat of an apology because I think some people came after the show
00:41:46
in regards to how they may have represented or misrepresented people that are afflicted with Huntington's
00:41:54
disease right and I think that my take from hearing their show was not so much that
00:42:02
they are pointing towards Huntington's disease as being the cause of this murder no I think really what this story
00:42:11
tells me and keep in mind this is not everybody's gotta keep bear this in mind when they listen to this show or or to
00:42:20
other shows This American Life didn't write this story they didn't this isn't some fictitious story that they came up
00:42:28
with this is living real people this is real life why it's called true crime garage not a fictitious crime garage
00:42:36
they are simply reporting and telling the story of something that actually happened that involved a bunch of other
00:42:43
people and really what you have here is one doctor's dedication dr. Ben Gilmer one doctors dedication to determine what
00:42:52
was wrong what is wrong with the man that I see before me now six years after the murder what what is wrong with this
00:43:00
individual that I'm interacting now with now not necessarily what was wrong with
00:43:05
him at the time it might bring - it might help bring some of that to light or give some suggestion as to what could
00:43:12
have been going on with this individual before he murdered his father but it's simply a doctor looking at a
00:43:19
man in a prison and viewing him as a possible patient as a patient is somebody that he should try to take care
00:43:28
of and that's what they came the conclusion was that this man absolutely did have Huntington's disease Jim so I
00:43:36
think that with this situation first we have dr. Ben Gilmer trying to look into this and see what was going on he wants
00:43:46
to know why just like we started off the show saying that often when we look at a
00:43:51
murderer after the fact after we know that they're guilty after we know that they 100% did it we still want to know
00:43:57
why he wanted to know why I think in this situation the Huntington's disease and and God bless dr. Ben Gilmer for for
00:44:06
Duke this was a lot of stuff he didn't have to do yeah a lot of effort that he didn't have to
00:44:11
do doesn't let's be honest though did chances are if his last name's not Gilmer just like Vince Gilmer it the
00:44:19
story stops with all the other guy kind of you know went off the deep end and killed his father okay cool
00:44:25
moving on you know but the fact that it was taken over a practice and you have the same name and there's similarities
00:44:32
that that's kind of what drove that that extra mile to get to that answer you know where I think and but good because
00:44:42
again maybe it's just a percentage of the reason of why this murder took place but like the big difference when you
00:44:53
especially if you listen to that episode is when you hear him talk the first time
00:44:57
Vince Gilmer and then you hear him talk after they put him on medicine and it's like a different person
00:45:02
and he's not now attacking people and getting into fights that he can't even you shouldn't be getting into
00:45:10
he's almost became a different person immediately within a couple days of being medicated right and I mean you can
00:45:18
sit there and say all you want that all he could have been could have been faking it that maybe maybe maybe there
00:45:28
was some faking going on but it doesn't matter we you know you can't fake that we know 100% yeah according to the blood
00:45:34
test you can't fake a blood test so I don't know that doctor Ben Gilmer got his answer as to why but then we're tasked
00:45:43
with looking back on this story and all the information we know in wondering still wondering why and I think that for
00:45:51
me I keep going back to the whole thing of was this actually premeditated or was
00:45:57
it spur-of-the-moment I think that you can have all these factors go into why doctor Vince Gilmour committed this
00:46:06
murder and it still be premeditated I think but then on the other side of the fence you could have all these factors
00:46:14
that went into it and it not be premeditated at all I do find it strange that they went way out of there
00:46:21
to this quote-unquote kayaking trip that seems very weird to me I wouldn't discredit I wouldn't take away from the
00:46:31
fact that we know that he likely had a severe head injury I think that the I think that's a percentage of this all
00:46:38
too I I agree and and I you know we made a little light of it yesterday but you know you asked me
00:46:45
have I seen or witnessed people throughout the history of the course of my life people behave sometimes
00:46:53
dramatically different after a head injury and the sad truth is yes and often it's not it's not you know someone
00:47:03
is a good person and becomes a better person it's usually it's some strange things that I wouldn't have thought
00:47:13
about the person before the head injury if that makes any sense you know I had a
00:47:17
student that he came to me after a head injury I wanted to learn how to play guitar is
00:47:23
in his 60s and he didn't seem normal six-year-old he almost acted like oh I almost acted like a 8 year old or a 10
00:47:33
year mm-hmm but real nice real polite and his and his girlfriend god bless her she said look he would war dating for
00:47:41
just a little bit yeah accident work he basically acts like a little kid now and
00:47:47
but you know he's nice he means well and and so I didn't know him before but I definitely saw the effects of it
00:47:55
afterwards and I know of at least one of individual that I thought that I knew very well for
00:48:03
a long period of time that you know didn't ever get in too much trouble if it was it was all you know small-time
00:48:11
stuff normal teenager type stuff and this person at some point suffered a head injury maybe more than one and
00:48:20
later in life exhibited violent behaviors that I never thought they were capable of yeah but I think whether it's
00:48:31
premeditated or not that that doesn't really matter too much to me cuz I think like I said I think it's a
00:48:37
combination of having this disease that's headed injury a lot of factors the fact that you know if if the
00:48:44
allegations of molestation are true you know that's a factor as well and then this crime takes place but it's great to
00:48:54
see that somebody cares and goes extra mile to say hey especially with mental illness because it's just something that
00:49:01
we're not talking and we just don't talk about enough in this country and it's like so taboo and it's like the amount
00:49:07
of emails that I still get for saying oh it's so great that you talked about depression we all should be talking
00:49:13
about it everybody faces depression at some point and the fact that that this is another thing by talking about this
00:49:24
disease that somebody can go hey my uncle's acting a little strange hey maybe we can test him for this and and I
00:49:32
think it just opens up the gateways of communication yeah and to be perfectly clear here I mean yes we pointed out
00:49:39
that the doctor Vince Kilmer at the time that he murdered his father he was at the age where the symptoms of
00:49:46
Huntington's are usually just starting to really set in and in the year before the crime he exhibited the changes in
00:49:54
behavior that we discussed including anxiety and other psychological symptoms he suffered a significant head injury
00:50:02
but to be very clear Huntington's does not typically cause people to become violent okay and same thing goes with
00:50:11
head injuries does not typically cause people to become violent we are simply looking at a very specific
00:50:18
story of a man who killed his father and asking the question of why rain but each
00:50:27
individual's will be affected differently by a disease and each individual is going to be affected
00:50:33
differently by head injury mm-hmm Vince Gilmer has since started to take SSRI medication celexa to help stabilize
00:50:44
his brain and the results have been dramatic as pointed out by the captain as noted by Ben Gilmer Vince is now able
00:50:51
to conduct a normal conversation and his symptoms have eased but sadly the only treatment for Huntington's is
00:50:59
symptomatic there is no cure and eventually the disease will overtake Vince and end his life now Ben Gilmore
00:51:06
and other advocates for Vince including his attorney Don Davidson and the Virginia Innocence Project are pushing
00:51:14
for Vince to receive a conditional release from prison and be placed in a mental health facility to receive the
00:51:21
care he needs Vince's diagnosis certainly calls into question the constitutionality of
00:51:27
allowing him to represent himself at trial and of course it calls into question whether Vince Gilmer was in his
00:51:35
right mind when he killed his father and cut off his fingers whatever struggles you are facing from depression anxiety
00:51:52
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a truly affordable option true-crime garage listeners even get 10% off your first month with discount code garage so
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why not get started today simply go to better help calm slash garage and fill out a questionnaire to
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get matched with the counselor you'll love today that's better help calm slash garage and here's a little
00:52:28
recommendation before we leave you this week you'll want to check out HBO's new docu-series the case against
00:52:35
Adnan Syed and while you're at it check out our show off the record available on
00:52:40
stitcher premium where we have been discussing the case against Adnan Syed yeah so every Sunday a new episode comes
00:52:48
out we've covered part 1 and part 2 so next week after we watch part 3 on Sunday on Monday we'll talk about part 3
00:52:57
so check it out you can kind of watch the documentary with the captain and the colonel and if
00:53:04
you want to sign up for stitcher premium just go to our website true-crime garage
00:53:07
comm to start listening today alright until next week everybody be good be kind and don't live
00:53:14
[Music] [Applause] [Music]