Dead And Buried (34 page)
Authors: Corey Mitchell
“What’s the impact of alcoholism on sexual sadism?”
“The impact on sexual sadism is like pouring a fuel on the fire. If I have a condition where I’m already having difficulty inhibiting my impulses, and now I’m intoxicated and being intoxicated impairs my judgment, it disinhibits me in my abilityto be in control of myself. It’s certainly going to make it much worse.”
“Were you able to look at the materials that were available and determine if there was a personality disorder here?”
“Yes. The third issue I looked at carefully but didn’t come down in terms of actually making a diagnosis was antisocial personality disorder. What that means is a person who just tends to be, in a pervasive way, irresponsible and nonproductive,self-centered, things of that nature.”
Dr. Berlin listed some of Krebs’s antisocial behaviors that he exhibited throughout his life. He then stated that as part of his testing of Krebs, he wanted to know if he was “just an antisocialperson, but then I have to balance that against a lot of other things. He was described as being very kind and caring. I began to get a sense that this is a complicated person.
“But I just felt it didn’t do justice to him to diagnose him an antisocial personality disorder as though that were pervasivein the totality of who he is as a person. So I didn’t. But it was a close call.”
“Dr. Berlin, what are the causes of sexual sadism?”
“I’ll make three points. The first is the most important one, and that’s what it’s not due to. And that is, it’s not due to a voluntarydecision. None of us decide, none of us think about it, make choices as little children about the nature of our own sexual makeup.
“In Mr. Krebs’s case he has discovered—not decided, discovered—thathe’s afflicted with an incredibly awful sexual disorder. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
“What are the factors that seem to play a contributory role in terms of the medical and psychiatric literature?” Dr. Berlin continued. “Nurture means the effect of early life experiences.One of the factors that contribute to the development of this pathological sexual makeup is early childhood abuse.
“The other thing is nature. That’s what the role of biology might be as opposed to early life experiences. There may be some abnormality in the brain in sexual sadism. I think it’s less compelling than the evidence about the influence of havingbeen an abused child.
“But, to close, what I think is most important here is simplyto appreciate that he didn’t choose this as an alternative state of mind.
“Because you wish you could sort of teach someone to get rid of it, there have been dramatic examples of how that can’t be done. One example, a number of years ago here in AtascaderoHospital, a man named Theodore Frank, who was a known sadist and pedophile, and they tried to do some conditioning,some behavior therapy to get him to masturbate to different fantasies, to not think about his sadism. They thought they had cured him.
“They released him into the community, and horribly, he sadistically raped and killed a young child. So it isn’t somethingwhere you can unlearn it by practicing a different kind of fantasy and masturbating.”
McLennan honed in on his client’s condition. “Was Rex Krebs under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance?”
“Yes. I would consider the sexual sadism to be extreme emotional disturbance. I mean, something is horribly wrong when a person is walking around preoccupied in this way.
“If he just didn’t have a real strong desire to do this, why, when so much was going well in his life, would he have acted this way?
“I think there’s something terribly wrong with this man in his mental makeup. I don’t think he was so impaired cognitivelythat he didn’t know right from wrong because I think he did.
“But I do think he was impaired in his ability to be in full control of himself.
“I’m not defending him or excusing anything, but in terms of trying to explain an answer, but for the presence of the sexualsadism, which he has, I do not believe that he would have been a threat to these women or particularly to any other women.”
“Thank you, Dr. Berlin”—McLennan closed with this witness—“I have nothing further.”
Deputy District Attorney John Trice seemed to be licking his chops. He had kept quiet during the majority of Dr. Berlin’s testimony, but now he was ready to pounce.
“So you’re not trying to excuse the conduct that this jury has found him guilty of, are you?”
“Oh, my goodness,” the offended Berlin responded. “I mean, he is either going to be put to death or spend the rest of his life in prison. Nobody is here to excuse it. What he did was horrible. The issue here is whether he has a mental disorder.”
“So that’s a ‘no’?”
“If you want me to be—yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
“You can give me a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ every now and then. It will make this go a little faster.”
“All right.”
“Sometimes you go around the country testifying in ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ cases, isn’t that right?”
“There’s probably a handful of those. But the answer is yes.”
“So when you testified in Jeffrey Dahmer, that was ‘not guilty by reason of insanity,’ is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“The case you testified in Connecticut, the first Michael Ross case, one of the reasons you went there and testified beforethe jury was to convince the jury that Michael Ross was insane, is that correct?”
“No, sir. It’s not my job to convince the jury of anything. It’s my job to provide them with information that hopefully enables them to make a more enlightened decision.”
“So your job was to go there. And the information you providedto the jury was that your opinion was he was insane under the laws of the state of Connecticut?”
“I don’t remember if Connecticut used that word. I did feel in the case of Michael Ross that he lacked substantial capacityto control his behavior.”
“In Connecticut they call that NMR, isn’t that correct? ‘Not mentally responsible.’ ”
“If you tell me that, I have no reason to disbelieve it. But I don’t recall.”
Trice decided to switch tactics. He began to cast some doubt on Dr. Berlin’s credentials. “The last time you went to the White House as a presenter was 1983, is that accurate?”
“That’s correct.”
“When’s the last time you talked to colleges of judges?”
“It’s been several years.”
“And the Senate subcommittee, that was several years ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
Trice switched gears back to Berlin’s earlier testimony in other high-profile cases. “When you testified in the Jeffrey Dahmer case, did you testify for the prosecution in that case?”
“No, I was asked in by the defense.”
“And in that case you expressed in the opinion in Wisconsinthat Jeffrey Dahmer was insane, is that correct?”
“I don’t mean to be facetious. I really don’t want to be taken this way because this is a real serious matter. But I don’t know how many people someone would have to try to eat beforesomebody was going to say they had a mental disorder. Because this man is disturbed as anyone I’ve seen.
“So I respect the jury’s decision, but it wasn’t difficult for me to conclude that this man had a mental disorder.”
“OK.” An annoyed Trice attempted to steer the conversation back. “I think that question was, you went out to Wisconsin and expressed an opinion that he was insane. Is that ‘yes’?”
“Well, again, I don’t think they used the term ‘insane.’ I think it was whether he had a mental disorder.
“But I don’t want to beg the question with you. I was testifyingin a way where I felt that he had a mental illness whereby his responsibility, criminally, was diminished.”
Trice brought the cross-examination back to the Krebs case. “You believe everything that Mr. Krebs told you, don’t you?”
“Not necessarily,” responded Dr. Berlin.
“What don’t you believe?”
“Oh, that’s a broad question.”
“Let me ask you this: you believe Rachel Newhouse strangledherself to death like he told you?”
“He didn’t tell me she strangled herself to death. He said that he had left the ropes on her in a particular way without intendingto kill her, and then she was strangled as a result of the way in which he tied them and, presumably, her movements.”
“Do you believe when he told investigator Hobson that he was going to wash up these girls and douche them and take them back to San Luis Obispo and set them free?”
Defense attorney William McLennan jumped in: “I’m going to object, Your Honor, as irrelevant—”
Trice interrupted and continued to pound on Berlin: “Do you believe that?”
Judge LaBarbera barely got in, “Objection is overruled.”
An uncomfortable Dr. Berlin shifted in his chair. “I don’t know. I’m not a mind reader. I have no idea.”
Trice continued to drive it on home. “One of the problems you have in the diagnosis is, for instance, Aundria Crawford; the sex acts are over with, he thinks she can identify him, and he makes a conscious decision—does he not?—to put that rope around her neck and strangle her to death. What has that got to do with sexual sadism?”
McLennan objected again. Judge LaBarbera overruled him again.
“First of all,” Dr. Berlin answered, “he does not claim with respect to Aundria Crawford that the killing was as a result of the sexual sadism. He says he panicked because she saw him and he ended up killing her. I haven’t disagreed with that.”
“You said, ‘First of all.’ Is there a second of all?”
“Well, I’m sorry,” stated the flustered doctor. “I guess you asked me about Rachel Newhouse.”
“No, I didn’t ask you about her.”
“I thought you asked both. But if you didn’t, that’s fine.”
“I asked you if you believed that she strangled herself to death, and you said you did.”
“I didn’t say that. You’re mischaracterizing. I said I don’t know. It is hard to take a human life. And prior to Rachel Newhouse, he’d never taken one. So I don’t know that perhapshe wasn’t struggling with the idea that he wouldn’t go that far, and that maybe the first death was one which hadn’t been intended. It’s certainly a possibility.”
Trice needed to nail down the definition of sexual sadism in regard to Krebs’s case. “When he approached Rachel at the Jennifer Street Bridge, you’re saying he was suffering from sexual sadism at the time?”
“I’m saying that he had sexual sadism at that time, yes.”
“When he knocked her down and drug her down the steps, he was doing that for sexual pleasure?”
“No. I think it was a means to an end.”
“When would you think the sexual pleasure began for him?”
“Obviously sexual gratification would come at the time of the sexual act.”
“Are you able to focus on any specific moment in time, when you think, when the sexual pleasure would have begun for him?”
“Let me answer it this way: that the end of the sexual act is the pleasure that’s tied to it. But until one can have the act, it can be sort of a frustration or sexual tensions that are pushing the individual. I think he was being pushed by these discomfortingtensions and at the same time aroused and ultimately gained gratification at the time of the sex acts themselves.”
“Your opinion is, he wasn’t experiencing any sexual pleasurewhile he had her tied up and she was screaming at him?”
“Yeah. I don’t think it’s the same sexual pleasure that he would have at the moment that he was doing this. It’s kind of like the distinction between foreplay and ultimately being involvedsexually. This is kind of the foreplay of this disturbed disorder. There’s a certain excitement in anticipating what’s about to happen.”
“I’m trying to figure out when the sexual pleasure starts for Mr. Krebs over there.” Trice tossed another disgusted look toward the defendant. “All the things we’ve been talking about sound like just violent things of a mean individual.”
“The drive, I think, is with him the whole way. The pleasure comes at the time that he, to be blunt about it, ejaculates.”
“So when he took this knife and cut her shirt off the back, he wasn’t getting any sexual pleasure from that?”
“I’m not completely satisfied with the term ‘foreplay,’ but I think that may convey it. I think that was part of the turn-on for him, part of the sadistic drive that was pushing him.”
Trice approached closer to the doctor. “So when he lifted her up over his head and slammed her down on the concrete, that’s what you could loosely call foreplay? When he drug her down the stairs by her hair, is that what you would call fore-playfor sexual sadists?”
“As I said, I’m struggling with the term. I do think it was part of the actual way in which he does it.”
“You say he has the ability to defer these urges?”
“Yes, but not to stop himself completely over the long haul.”
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