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[Music] [Applause] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always this guy is either wrong or perfectly right every time he
00:01:52
is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks
00:01:59
for telling your [Music] mother all right today we are drinking Bourbon Barrel aged milk and cookies by
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The Crafty Brewers at Wicked Weed Brewing garage grade four and a qu bottle caps out of five Captain I
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decided to steal the comments from an untapped check-in from one of my untapped friends Andrew says Bourbon
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Barrel age milk and cookies is sweet smooth dark chocolate cookies and slight bourbon taste a real solid stout beer
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for sure and Andrew you are exactly right my friend and this week's beer was brought to us by these great friends
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right here first up we have Janessa in Lakeville Massachusetts a big shout out to
00:02:47
Adrien from New Orleans and next we have Jenny sending hugs from Sweden and a big
00:02:54
shout out to be from Denver Colorado this next one is from Jonathan and he would like to hear the captain say his
00:03:01
famous catchphrase show me the money he would like the captain to say Chris hubber is a piece of [ __ ] who is Chris
00:03:09
hubber do we know who Chris hubber is I don't know how could I call this guy it might be Jonathan's
00:03:16
friend who knows that's not a nice thing say about friend hey Chris Hub use a piece of [ __ ] all right our apologies to
00:03:26
Chris hubber yeah next up Sor about we have Susan and Calgary Canada and last but not least we have Iona in Belmont
00:03:34
California thanks to everybody for helping us out with this week's set of shows if you want to give us some liquid
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encouragement for next week's shows go to True Crim garage.com and click on our donate button it makes the catchphrases
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flow a little bit better and that's enough of the business yep everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer
00:03:53
let's talk some true crime after the arrest of the Beloved Dr Vince Gilmer people in the town were needless
00:04:27
to say shocked many of them refused to believe it was even true some theorized that it was a mercy killing that Vince
00:04:35
knew his dad was beyond help and decided to put him out of his misery mhm but as
00:04:41
pointed out on This American Life Vince was a medical doctor wouldn't it be more
00:04:46
likely that he would do so with pills rather than a violent strangulation severing the fingers and dumping the
00:04:53
body well and think about his patience as well so many of his patients probably haven't seen him in a year MH and to
00:05:01
know him as this great doctor then all of a sudden it's like your doctor murdered his father yeah I mean it made
00:05:10
no sense to anyone who knew and loved Vince Gilmer now Vince was extradited to Virginia where the body was found from
00:05:18
North Carolina to stand trial pretty quickly after Vince was arrested he confess to strangling his father in his
00:05:26
first court appearance for the first-degree murder charge he told the judge that his brain wasn't working
00:05:33
right right but he was assessed by psychologist and deemed fit to stand trial it was while Vince was sitting in
00:05:42
jail in Washington County Virginia that Vince started writing a series of letters to the Bristol Herold Courier
00:05:50
newspaper based in Bristol Virginia this is around March of 2005 while Vince admitted that he had
00:05:58
killed his father and mutilated the corpse he said in these letters that the actual murder had taken place in
00:06:05
Tennessee not Virginia that there was no reason he said for him to be in a Virginia jail at all he had actually
00:06:13
murdered his father in Carter County Tennessee he wrote quot I Vince Gilmer committed manslaughter on June 29th 2004
00:06:23
it did not happen in Virginia the only thing that happened in Virginia was the body ended up there I am confessing it
00:06:30
happened in elizabethon Tennessee now Washington County Virginia Sheriff's detectives were dubious of these claims
00:06:39
and said Vince's story had changed several times yeah but he's also stating he's not in his right mind mhm well
00:06:46
Vince says in one letter quote each time I tell the story it is a little different you can't include every detail
00:06:53
every time you tell a story a lot of it does not make sense but that also shows it was not planned end quote it seemed
00:07:01
that Vince was eager to prove that he hadn't planned the murder and whatever it was he had done he preferred to be
00:07:09
held accountable in Tennessee but even after meeting with Vince and receiving a full confession in
00:07:16
person Tennessee authorities weren't able to confirm that any crime had taken place in their state they only had
00:07:22
Vince's word to go by the letters Vince sent to the Herold carrier gave a glimpse into to what would be the basis
00:07:30
of Vince Gilmer's defense at trial Vince also gave several phone interviews with
00:07:35
journalists from the paper several in-person interviews and one TV interview from prison and he told the
00:07:42
following story that on the day before he killed his father he Vince had stopped taking anti-depressant
00:07:50
Lexapro Vince had decided he said that he could do without the drug this is a little strange given that Vince was a
00:07:58
medical doctor and should have known how unsafe it was to stop taking these drugs
00:08:04
so abruptly right if Vince Gilmer went off Lexapro cold turkey he definitely could have suffered adverse effects
00:08:13
Vince right but would you really suffer them so quickly you'd think that there'd
00:08:19
be some lag time like if you're taking the pill every 24 hours or so mhm like that if he just didn't take them one
00:08:27
day like it's not like you know he stopped taking them a few days before and now we're going to have the the
00:08:34
effects those effects for the next couple weeks could be pretty dramatic well and that's what really calls a lot
00:08:40
of this stuff into question one what would be the expected outcome of of someone stopping taking these drugs so
00:08:49
abruptly right and then two they couldn't find any prescription for this stuff at all so they they had
00:08:55
little proof that he's taking them out if he was actually taking them now Vince did say repeatedly to psychologist uh
00:09:04
prison doctors guards and the media that his brain was not working right without
00:09:08
Lexapro in fact he said in the wake of stopping taking the drug he didn't feel himself at all now these are his words
00:09:17
okay he said he felt mentally [ __ ] and reporters and others who met with him in prison noticed that Vince would
00:09:24
make strange head movements and gestures he would Shake he would become emotional
00:09:30
and cry spontaneously and you're saying that's not normal to do well it's not perceived to be normal okay well I need
00:09:39
to go see therapist well the the other thing though too because this is this is going to be come a key thing in this
00:09:47
case in this story because a lot of this behavior and what Vince could have been
00:09:52
doing before or at the time of the murder will fall into his defense right right because Vince stated in a TV
00:10:01
interview the one that we've been discussing from prison that he was not someone who could hurt anyone he denied
00:10:08
flat out that he had intended to kill his father Vince's letter stated that he killed his father in a fit of anger
00:10:15
brought on by mental problems and years of resentment over childhood sexual abuse M he said quote I did not commit
00:10:24
murder the things that happened that night were beyond my control and quote what had actually happened that night
00:10:32
according to Vince's letters and he details this in these letters was this Vince was driving his father in his
00:10:40
truck moving him to a closer nursing home with a plan to go kaying along the way but his father started taunting him
00:10:50
during the 90-minute drive during which Vince stopped at an Arby's in a gas station the taunting worsened Vince
00:10:59
wrote quote my father started sexually molesting me when I was six and my sister when she was three right Mom
00:11:07
tried to shelter us but it kept on he continued to try to molest us as adults as they drove Vince said Dalton
00:11:16
kept taunting quote he was always saying filthy disgusting things to remind me of
00:11:22
what happened he reached over and tried to pull my head to his crotch the voices
00:11:28
took over from there I started hearing voices telling me to kill people the voices in my head were telling me to
00:11:35
kill my father end quote well and to be clear about this too Gilmer never said that his father
00:11:42
was saying these things all the time like the what he is claiming is that some point his father molested him for a
00:11:53
series of years mhm then then it stopped and then his dad didn't bring it up Dad
00:12:00
didn't talk about it so now with his dad having some kind of Dementia or whatever
00:12:07
they're now riding in a car and he's rubbing his son's leg and talking to him and harassing him about this time period
00:12:16
mhm almost you know and almost acting as if his son the doctor is not 40 some years
00:12:27
old or whatever he is at the time but as as if he's a child mhm and so as that all that stuff is happening you
00:12:35
know the doctor claims that I just snapped yeah he says what what happened next was a blur quote nothing made sense
00:12:43
from then on at some point he strangled his father and loaded his body into the back of the pickup he waited until dark
00:12:52
and then stopped at Food City in Elizabethan to buy gloves and a tarp to cover the body in the truck bed he
00:13:00
stopped on a back road and decided to cut off Dalton's fingers and thumbs to try to hide the
00:13:07
identity he wrote quote I had a saw in my truck for sawing limbs in my yard it took 5 minutes Vince told investigators
00:13:17
he put the fingers in a plastic bag and dropped them in a river this according to Carter County Sheriff Hensen who met
00:13:26
with Vince in prison on March 16th in this interview Vince confessed to the murder on camera denying vly that he had
00:13:34
planned the whole thing the sheriff and his deputies noted that Vince was acting
00:13:39
very strange and that he was borderline incoherent rambling and couldn't complete a thought and he was breathing
00:13:46
hard shuffling and agitated Vince told the men that he ended up in Washington County where he had lived in the 1990s
00:13:55
while studying as a resident at Bristol Regional Medical Center in Tennessee saying quote I decided to drop the body
00:14:03
on the side of the road my cover up of the crime was pitiful if I had planned this I would
00:14:09
have had something to cover the body with I covered the body I didn't know where to go or what to do I drove
00:14:17
aimlessly my brain was not working right right now he he might have covered the body when it was in the truck bed but
00:14:25
when he dumped Dalton's lifeless body on the side of the Ro Dalton wasn't covered
00:14:30
by anything he was he was out there really for anybody to find which was as I stated in the first episode I I
00:14:37
thought was a little shocking in itself to make all of these moves and all these
00:14:42
efforts to hide the identity of the victim that would ultimately be found on the side of the road when he could have
00:14:49
taken additional efforts to conceal the body itself even further right and I think a lot of a lot of this story to me
00:14:55
is when you got this intelligent guy that for whatever reason snaps but probably wouldn't have snapped normally
00:15:03
there's something going on with him he snaps then he kills his father and then he tells
00:15:10
you you know I could have done this better you know I'm I'm a smart guy I could have covered him up better that my
00:15:18
attempt to um discard the body is a poor attempt and that sounds sick but I think
00:15:25
he's trying to prove like hey I I could you I'm a doctor I could have even done this better right you guys are looking
00:15:32
for proof of premeditated murder I'm trying to provide you some proof that it was not premeditated right and just the
00:15:39
fact that he is a doctor and has again I think struggling with something but with the
00:15:46
idea that like he's saying look I'm smart enough to to have taken some steps but my
00:15:52
brain's not working enough to let me take all the steps that I probably needed to take so that you couldn't ever
00:15:59
find the body therefore you'd never be able to charge me yeah well and obviously we're just picking apart
00:16:06
pieces of the interview that we mentioned right as well as parts of the letters but as far as the letters go the
00:16:13
the Herold Courier reporter sums up the article about the letters as a whole and
00:16:19
gives this evaluation and published it on March 17 2005 which read the letters which skip over the details of how the
00:16:28
father died tell a sometimes rambling story of mental illness rage and confusion it's the latest twist in a
00:16:36
case that investigators have called one of the most bizarre and gruesome in recent memory I mean it's definitely
00:16:42
gruesome as far as I just remember they kind of skimmed over the fact you know that he basically
00:16:50
cut off every single finger right he he skims over it yeah yeah he said I decided to do this I
00:16:58
pulled over over the side of the road it took 5 minutes but just yeah but even the that's a gruesome 5 minutes mhm well
00:17:07
let's talk about the flip side of the coin because we have Vince Gilmer who's saying look I I was out of my mind I was
00:17:13
not in control um the murder was not premeditated and Happ it as a result of all of these emerging factors right
00:17:22
voices in my head yep the the stop I stopped taking this drug um multiple things here so the other side would be
00:17:31
that a lot of people you know said that it's pretty much evident from listening to the tapes of Vince uh Vince's prison
00:17:40
conversation with with friends and supporters that Vince wanted people to believe that there was something wrong
00:17:47
with him that there might not be something wrong with that he's acting yeah yeah Vince even pointed out that
00:17:52
the news camera footage that showed him being placed in a police car well it showed him having this sort of headbob
00:18:00
tick going on in that footage yeah and he indicated to people around him that he had Tremors that he could not explain
00:18:08
now law enforcement and prosecutors weren't buying it they labeled Vince Gilmer as quote highly manipulative they
00:18:15
conducted an experiment where they set up video cameras to film the exercise yard in the prison the cameras would
00:18:24
catch Vince playing basketball or exercising normally but when an officer of the court or a
00:18:32
guard would step into the scene Vince would start to shuffle suffer from ticks oh Faker and act physically not in
00:18:40
control of his body mhm and then a short time later he would seem to return to normal he starts playing like Air Jordan
00:18:49
yeah he's in the back he's like doing 3 60 dunks and then every time they get around he's twitching right he he can't
00:18:59
do anything so can we get to Air Jordan's trial yes so undeterred by Vince's assertions that he hadn't
00:19:06
committed a crime in their state Washington County Prosecutors proceeded with the murder trial based on the state
00:19:13
law that permitted them to prosecute the case since the body was recovered in Virginia Vince Gilmer went to trial on
00:19:20
August 15th 2015 prosecutors painted Vince as a cold-blooded killer who planned the
00:19:27
murder of his father they pointed to the following circumstantial and other evidence one
00:19:33
Vince confessed to killing his father two he had done so in a brutal fashion strangling him twice and cutting off his
00:19:40
fingers three Vince came prepared to commit murder with the saw and the Rope already in his truck four someone who
00:19:49
helped Dalton into Vince's truck that fateful day actually heard Vince say this is their testimony heard Vince say
00:19:57
to his father I've been waiting for this day for a long time some other information Vince was overwhelmed by the
00:20:06
amount of debt he was in there was also no evidence to back up Vince's claims of
00:20:12
abuse at the hands of his father furthermore at trial the prosecution presented tapes of
00:20:19
conversations Vince had in prison which were quite damning in the conversations with his
00:20:26
mother and Friends he appeared to be trying to manipulate the venue he would be prosecuted in in order to get the
00:20:33
most leniency remember the letters to the newspaper where Vince said he shouldn't
00:20:39
be on trial in Virginia right because he actually killed his father in Tennessee
00:20:43
well on the tapes Vince says to his mother a guy in here said Carter County Tennessee is the best place to go to
00:20:53
receive a shorter sentence but he's also attacking people in prison mhm well and
00:20:57
Virginia had the death penalty right and in another phone call with a friend Vince mentioned that he was trying to
00:21:04
work out a deal with a DA in North Carolina it sounded very much like Vince Gilmore was Forum Shopping and his his
00:21:13
story changed accordingly to try to get this thing where he wanted it to go right but the nail in Vince's coffin was
00:21:22
hammered home by the fact that the clinical psychologists who had evaluated Vince to determined whether he was fit
00:21:29
to stand trial found him to be restless agitated and fidgety but concluded that Vince was faking this this was all a big
00:21:37
fake according to them his quote symptoms end quote just didn't fit any known psychiatric disorder he determined
00:21:46
that Vince was sane a psychiatrist who also examined Vince found him to be evasive dramatic and manipulative the
00:21:55
prosecution alleged that Vince had deliberately started acting bizarrely well prior to the murder as part of his
00:22:02
long-term plan to fake Insanity that's a but he's been doing this for over a year
00:22:09
or close to a year so you got to think that's that's some commitment yeah well it's you can commit
00:22:17
yourself beforehand or you can find yourself committed to prison for the rest of your life or possibly facing a
00:22:25
death penalty yeah now in a very question judgement call and and I I say that with all
00:22:32
honesty the judge agreed to allow Vince to represent himself at his trial oh this is great yeah we never we never
00:22:39
like this when pull a Bundy even when people seem to behaving somewhat normally he had a lawyer Don Davidson uh
00:22:49
present with whom he consulted from time to time but Vince was the one up there questioning people in front of the jury
00:22:57
and by all accounts it was a disaster yeah well when you're attacking people in prison and you're constantly changing
00:23:06
your story and you're constantly stating to people that there's something broken
00:23:09
in your brain that your brain's not working right they shouldn't let you defend yourself M well you also have to
00:23:17
wonder is this also hey an attempt that I can put on a theatrical performance right in front of this jury and maybe
00:23:26
maybe somehow we get this uh I've been deemed competent to stand trial maybe my actions or my theatrical
00:23:36
presentation might change that opinion that that now my Insanity defense is a real actual defense so I to sum this up
00:23:48
um and I'm going to use some other people's words to sum this up because I thought there was a lot of good um um
00:23:55
play byplay so to speak on the way that this went down Vince was not able to keep his train of thought this was very
00:24:02
noticeable or effectively cross-examine Witnesses he stumbled over words he forgot what he was talking about and he
00:24:10
rambled in a sort of stream of Consciousness type of manner now Davidson said that he could not string
00:24:18
together a thought or ask a coherent question and that watching it was like watching someone commit suicide with a
00:24:26
butter knife and Vince's defense was a very unorthodox one Vince blamed the actions on serotonin or rather the lack
00:24:36
thereof now remember Vince is a medical doctor he told anyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that he knew what
00:24:44
he needed to fix his brain and it was an SSRI medication Vince told the jury that he
00:24:51
suffered from withdrawal when he stopped taking his anti-depressants and the voices in his head had repeatedly told
00:24:58
him to kill his father his brain he emphasized again was not working [Music] right this show is sponsored by better
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00:27:01
[Music] that cheers this might be the closest I ever get to one of my dreams and that
00:27:15
would be to do the music for This American Life just one episode I don't want paid this is it' be a Ultimate
00:27:24
Dream of mine there you go and I've I've sent him a lot of messages and I've never never got a reply yet well
00:27:32
regarding this trial Captain I don't think that some of the best fiction authors out there could could script
00:27:39
this thing I mean as as the way that it sounds that it was going down King could
00:27:44
well there you go uh Vince's mother Gloria testified at the trial and she states that Dalton her husband Dalton
00:27:53
Gilmore did have a history of mental problems and he had violent Outburst towards her and the kids but the
00:28:00
prosecutors were able to show that there was really there really wasn't any evidence of the violent sexual abuse
00:28:07
alleged by Vince right although Vince's sister was alleged to have backed up the
00:28:13
abuse story she disappeared prior to the trial so Vince wasn't able to produce any corroborating
00:28:21
Witnesses and what Witnesses he did call in the course of the trial were frankly
00:28:27
irrelevant or even harmful to his cause Gilmer's mental disorder argument backfired in court when his expert
00:28:35
witness his expert witness claimed that his behavior sounded more like anxiety rather than a disorder and Vince called
00:28:44
his ex-girlfriend to the stand and asked her quote to the best of your knowledge
00:28:49
have I hurt anyone or killed anyone to which she responded your father right yeah
00:28:58
well the jury didn't buy Vince's Insanity defense jurors noted that at times Vince seemed quote nuts but other
00:29:07
times he was totally normal they believed he was faking they convicted him of first-degree murder the judge
00:29:14
said at a post-trial hearing quote the defendant would go into an act he would look up to see if the jury was buying it
00:29:22
when the jury wasn't buying it he would go back to normal it was clear that he was acting Vince was sentenced to life
00:29:30
in prison and at the trial the judge said the jur found you to be a coldblooded killer he says this directly
00:29:40
to Vince Gilmer yeah so that's where the story would end basically we have this guy that was a he was a great guy he was
00:29:47
a great doctor he was a great husband for a while then he has this car accident maybe that had some effect on
00:29:55
him maybe it's maybe he had some mental thing that was creeping up on him cuz a lot of those things you know uh kind of
00:30:02
rear rear their ugly head over time and of age or maybe this trauma as a as a child rears its ugly head but either way
00:30:12
he kills his father now he's in jail and that's kind of where the story would stop yep sent to prison for the rest of
00:30:19
his life a life sentence but now you have this guy that if you heard him talk he definitely sounds like there's
00:30:26
something wrong with him and then to find out that he's attacking I he I mean I've said it five
00:30:33
or six times during this show he keeps attacking people in prison and now he's losing teeth because he's losing these
00:30:39
fights he is not a fighter and so then he is he's just not a good oh right right yeah he's a he's he's not a
00:30:48
winning fighter he's definitely a fighter uh but now you have this guy that took over his practice with the
00:30:56
same last name yeah and he's curious why are these people saying such good things about him
00:31:02
he knows what it takes what kind of man it takes to what kind of man or woman I guess um it takes to run this type of
00:31:11
facility and then to hear what he did it didn't line up to Ben Gilmer right so he
00:31:18
starts asking some questions like any you know Walk of Life or any line of work or any career choice you know a lot
00:31:28
of people can be doctors but Dr Ben Gilmer is hearing from previous patients and the staff that he works closely with
00:31:36
that the former that the the previous doctor Dr Vince Gilmer the murderer was a good doctor was a great doctor a
00:31:43
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
00:31:51
about Dr Ben reaching out to Dr Vince who's already in prison by this time they start off with just trading some
00:31:59
letters back and forth then it goes to phone conversations and then to meeting in person at the prison yeah and through
00:32:07
all of this correspondence the entire time Dr Ben Gilmer is he's wondering look the appearance of this man of Dr
00:32:18
Vince the appearance of the prisoner the the the letters that he's writing the the words that he's speaking the
00:32:26
interactions with with him it looks to Dr Ben as this man is actually sick that he that you know regardless of you know
00:32:35
Ben Dr Ben knows that the authorities believed that Vince was manufacturing his symptoms right but now Dr Ben has to
00:32:43
wonder what would be the incentive for Vince to continue to fake these symptoms six years into the life term by the time
00:32:52
that they start interacting with each other right so the trial's over there's no reason to fake it you're not put who
00:32:58
are you putting this fake show on for this might be real right and and also he took a oath so what's the worst thing
00:33:05
that can happen you test it right yeah let's let's give them a test and if we get and we if we take the simple test we
00:33:12
might be able to figure out what's wrong with him if there's anything wrong with
00:33:15
him so basically what happens is we have Dr Ben he decides that it's likely that
00:33:22
Vince Gilmer was actually sick and he was determined to get to the bottom of it so he's going but he doesn't know
00:33:30
what the what the Affliction is he doesn't know what's wrong with Vince Gilmer right so he returns to the prison
00:33:37
in the company of an experienced psychiatrist and the two of them met with Vince so that the psychiatrist
00:33:44
could observe Vince for himself after the meeting the two doctors they leave the prison they they're talking they're
00:33:53
trying to come up with theories as to what could be wrong with Vince and the psychiatrist actually didn't
00:34:00
think that it was the SSRI withdrawal he didn't think that that that that would explain what he was seeing he also
00:34:09
didn't it might explain some of the symptoms but not all of them he also didn't even think that it was the head
00:34:15
injury either and they just kind of kept coming up empty in the beginning and then eventually the psychiatrist says
00:34:25
you know could he have could Vince have Huntington's disease to which Dr Ben thought to
00:34:30
himself that this fits this might fit it's very rare So Dr Ben was desperate to get Vince tested for Huntington's
00:34:39
disease the test is a simple blood test and luckily these tests for Huntington's
00:34:44
for the gene are 100% accurate there is virtually no chance for error uh he was unsure how to proceed
00:34:53
until 3 weeks later when he discovered that V Vince had been moved to a psychiatric hospital after threatening
00:35:01
to commit suicide with a razor blade that was found in his cell Dr Ben met with a social worker at
00:35:09
the hospital and suggested that they test Vince for Huntington's and they did and Dr Ben was not surprised to learn
00:35:16
that the test was positive Vince had 43 repeat markers for Huntington's disease so what is Huntington disease all right
00:35:26
here's what I was able to find it is and you're no doctor that's right that's right it is a hereditary neurological
00:35:33
disease in which the carrier's neurological condition deteriorates over time specifically according to the Mayo
00:35:42
Clinic the disease causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain eventually it leads to loss
00:35:50
of bodily and cognitive control and then death it has been described as a cruel combination of ALS Parkinson's and
00:36:00
Alzheimer's typically there are no symptoms until age 30 or 40 and then the severity of the cognitive and behavioral
00:36:10
symptoms depends on the number of genetic markers for the disease the sufferer has one of the common symptoms
00:36:18
of the disease is a loss of control of the muscular system resulting in danik ticks also common are muscular idity
00:36:27
slow or abnormal eye movements impaired balance and difficulty speaking or swallowing but other symptoms include
00:36:35
cognitive deterioration personality changes impulsive mood swings irritability aggression and even
00:36:42
psychological symptoms typical typically associated with schizophrenia or psychosis so he knew there was something
00:36:50
wrong he just didn't know exactly what it was yes yes and and look I mean when we rattle off all of those symptoms and
00:36:58
all of what could be going on with one individual that you're observing that that's a lot of different
00:37:07
things here that could be going on which could could be very difficult for even a
00:37:12
very good doctor to pinpoint the actual disease or pinpoint what is actually going on with that person just based off
00:37:21
of visually seeing them and mind you a lot of these uh interactions are probably taking place on the other side
00:37:30
of prison bars or at least glass right it is very often misdiagnosed apparently um because the significant aspect of
00:37:39
Huntington's is that it causes psychiatric disorders like depression Mania bipolar disorder and can actually
00:37:47
vary widely in the symptoms exhibited by different patients yeah I would assume that this is misdiagnosed a lot as
00:37:54
bipolar or schizophr yes and notably Huntington's patients are noted often to clash with law
00:38:03
enforcement and this because of their uncontrollable impulsive actions or even drunken appearance or their movements
00:38:11
appear to be that of a drunken person when when really they're not obviously right um this is a difficult thing here
00:38:19
Captain because really what all this may suggest is that we have we definitely have this
00:38:31
doctor Dr Ben Gilmer who's trying to find out what happened to Dr Vince Gilmer how did he go from being a caring
00:38:39
loving doctor to to murdering his father I don't think it's that complex he has Huntington's disease and when you have
00:38:48
that yeah but so so that last bit of information that that that I threw out there in regards to what I could find
00:38:55
online about Huntington's dis disase the the portion of the of where it says Huntington's patients are noted to often
00:39:02
clash with law enforcement look I I think that's a that's a difficult thing to really State
00:39:09
and say it that way you know that's not my information that's me passing along some information that I found right and
00:39:16
I don't know that the answer here is just simply that he has Huntington's disease and that's why he killed his
00:39:23
father that doesn't that does a part of it it's a percentage of it right I think
00:39:28
that that could be a part of it but and I remember when they covered this on This American Life that at some point I
00:39:38
believe it was Sarah kanig she offered a uh maybe somewhat of an apology because
00:39:44
I I think some people came after the show in regards to how they may have represented or
00:39:52
misrepresented people that are afflicted with Huntington's disease right and I think that my take from hearing
00:40:00
their show was not so much that they are pointing towards Huntington's disease as
00:40:06
being the cause of this murder no I think really what this story tells me and keep in mind this is not everybody's
00:40:17
got to keep bear this in mind when when they listen to this show or or to other shows This American Life didn't write
00:40:25
this story they didn't this isn't some fictitious story that they came up with this is living breathing people this is
00:40:32
real life that's why it's called True Crime garage not a fictitious crime garage they are simply
00:40:39
reporting and telling the story of something that actually happened that involved a bunch of other people and
00:40:46
really what you have here is one doctor's dedication Dr Ben Gilmer one doctor's dedication to determine what
00:40:54
was wrong what is wrong with the man that I see before me now 6 years after the murder right what is wrong with this
00:41:01
individual that I'm interacting now with now not necessarily what was wrong with
00:41:06
him at the time it might bring to it might help bring some of that to light or give some uh suggestion as to what
00:41:13
could have been going on with this individual before he murdered his father but it's simply a doctor looking at a
00:41:20
man in a prison and viewing him as a possible patient as a patient as some that he should try to take care of and
00:41:30
that's what they came the conclusion was that this man absolutely did have Huntington's disease yeah so I think
00:41:38
that with this situation first we have do Ben Gilmer trying to look into this and see what
00:41:46
was going on he wants to know why just like we started off the show saying that often when we look at a murderer after
00:41:53
the fact after we know that they're guilty after we know that they 100% did it we still want to know why right he
00:42:00
wanted to know why I think in this situation the Huntington's disease and and God bless Dr Ben Gilmer for for do
00:42:08
this was a lot of stuff he didn't have to do yeah a lot of effort that he didn't have to do let's let's be honest
00:42:14
though chances are if his last name's not Gilmer just like Vince Gilmer it the story stops with oh the other guy kind
00:42:23
of you know went off the deep end and killed his father okay cool moving on you know but the fact that it was taking
00:42:30
over a practice and you have the same name and there similarities that that's kind of what drove that that extra mile
00:42:38
to get to that answer you know where I think and but good because again maybe it's just a
00:42:46
percentage uh of the reason of why this murder took place but like the big difference when you
00:42:55
especially if you listen to that episode is when you hear him talk the first time
00:42:58
Vince Gilmer and then you hear him talk after they put him on medicine and it's like a different person and he's not now
00:43:05
attacking people and getting into to fights that he can't even he shouldn't be getting into um he's almost became a
00:43:13
different person immediately within a couple days of being medicated right and I mean you can sit there and say all you
00:43:21
want that oh he could have been could have been faking it that maybe maybe maybe there was some
00:43:30
faking going on but it doesn't matter we know you can't fake that we know 100% yeah according to the blood test you
00:43:36
can't fake a blood test so so I don't know that Dr Ben Gilmer got his answer as to why but then we're tasked with
00:43:45
looking back on this story and all the information we know and wondering still wondering why and I think that for me I
00:43:54
I keep going back to the whole thing of was this actually premeditated or was it
00:43:59
spur the moment I think that you can have all these factors go into why Dr Vince
00:44:06
Gilmore committed this murder and it still be premeditated I think but then on the
00:44:14
other side of the fence you could have all these factors that went into it and it not be premeditated at all I do find
00:44:19
it strange that they went way out of their way to this quote unquote kaying trip that seems very weird to me I
00:44:29
wouldn't discredit I wouldn't take away from the fact that we know that he likely had a severe head injury I think
00:44:37
that the I think that's a percentage of this all too I I agree and and I you know we made a little light of it
00:44:44
yesterday but you know you asked me have I seen or witnessed people throughout the history of the course of my life
00:44:52
people behave sometimes dramatically different after a head injury and the sad truth is
00:44:59
yes and often it's not it's not you know someone is a good person and becomes a better person it's usually it's some
00:45:09
strange things that I wouldn't have thought about the person before the head injury if that makes any sense yeah
00:45:17
I had I had a student that he came to me after a head injury he wanted to learn how to play guitar he was in his 60s and
00:45:26
he didn't seem normal 6-year-old he almost acted like a almost acted like a eight-year-old or a 10-year-old but real
00:45:35
nice real polite and his and his girlfriend God bless her she said look he we were dating for just a little bit
00:45:43
he had an accident at work he basically acts like a little kid now um and but you know he's nice he means well and and
00:45:53
so I didn't know him before but I definitely saw the the effects of it afterwards mhm and I know of at least
00:45:59
one individual that I thought that I knew very well for a long period of time that um you know didn't ever get into
00:46:09
much trouble if it was it was all you know Small Time stuff normal teenager type
00:46:15
stuff and this person at some point suffered a head injury maybe more than one and later in life exhibited violent
00:46:25
behaviors that I never thought they were capable of yeah before I I think whether it's premeditated or not that
00:46:34
that doesn't really matter too much to me because I like I said I think it's a combination of having this disease this
00:46:40
head injury a lot of factors the fact that you know if if the allegations of molestation are
00:46:48
true you know that's a factor as well and then this crime takes place um but it's great to see that somebody cares
00:46:57
and goes the extra mile to say hey especially with mental illness because it's just something that we're not
00:47:02
talking we just don't talk about enough in this country and it's like so taboo and it's like the amount of emails that
00:47:10
I still get for saying oh it's so great that you talked about depression we all should be talking about it everybody
00:47:15
faces depression at some point and the fact that um that this is another thing by talking about the
00:47:26
disease that somebody can go hey my my uncle's acting a little strange hey maybe we can test him for this and and I
00:47:33
think it just opens up the gateways U of communication yeah and to be perfectly clear here I mean yes we pointed out
00:47:41
that that Dr Vince Gilmer at the time that he murdered his father he was at the age where the symptoms of
00:47:47
Huntington's are usually just starting to really set in and in the year before the crime he exhibited the changes in in
00:47:55
behavior that we discussed including anxiety and other psychological symptoms he suffered a significant head injury
00:48:04
but to be very clear Huntington does not typically cause people to become violent
00:48:10
okay and same thing goes with head injuries does not typically cause people to become violent we are simply looking
00:48:18
at a very specific story of of of a man who killed his father and asking the question of why right but each
00:48:28
individual is going to be affected differently by a disease and each individual is going to be affected
00:48:34
differently by head injury MH um Vince Gilmer has since started to take SSRI medication Celexa to help stabilize his
00:48:45
brain and the results have been dramatic as pointed out by the captain as noted by Ben Gilmer Vince is now able to
00:48:53
conduct a normal conversation and his symptoms have eased but sadly the only treatment for Huntington's is
00:49:00
symptomatic there is no cure and eventually the disease will overtake Vince and end his life now Ben Gilmore
00:49:07
and other advocates for Vince including his attorney Don Davidson and the Virginia Innocence Project are pushing
00:49:15
for Vince to receive a conditional release from prison and be placed in a mental health facility to receive the
00:49:23
care he needs Vince's diagnos certainly calls into question the constitutionality of allowing him to
00:49:30
represent himself at trial and of course it calls into question whether Vince Gilmer was in his right mind when he
00:49:37
killed his father and cut off his fingers and here's a little recommendation before we leave you this
00:49:47
week you'll want to check out HBO's new docu series the case against Adnan Sayed
00:49:54
and while you're at it check out our show off the Record available on Stitcher premium where we have been
00:50:00
discussing the case against Adnan sayet yeah so every Sunday a new episode comes
00:50:05
out we've covered part one and part two uh so next week after we watch part three on Sunday on Monday we'll talk
00:50:13
about part three so check it out you can kind of watch the documentary with the captain and the colonel and if you want
00:50:21
to sign up for Stitcher premium just go to our website true Crim garage.com to start listening today all right until
00:50:27
next week everybody be good be kind and don't [Music] live you can start your day off right when
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