The case I'm going to discuss is several years old but I found it very interesting and relevant to psychology and law. In 1992, a hunter found the body of a decomposing woman while hunting. After the police found out that the dead woman had been a prostitute, it led them to believe that a possible suspect was Thomas Huskey, a man known for bringing woman to the area. Huskey had a reputation for taking women, tying them up behind the zoo, beating them, and then having sex with them.
About a week after the first body was found, police searching the area found three more dead women. Huskey was arrested and confessed, on tape, to all four murders. During the confession, Huskey changed his voice and expressions and said that he was now "Kyle". Apparently, "Kyle" was the one who killed the women, not Thomas. After "Kyle" emerged, "Philip Daxx", a British man, surfaced. This lead investigators to believe that Huskey had multiple personality disorder.
After 6 years had passed, the trial finally began. Huskey plead not guilty by insanity. The defense psychologist said that Huskey suffered from multiple personality disorder, however, the prosecution psychologist said that Huskey simply created these personalities to manipulate the court. During the course of the trial, the cellmate of Huskey, testified that Huskey had read Sybil and was going to try to make it seem like he had multiple personality disorder to avoid the death penalty. Huskey's mother also agreed that he did not have this disorder. To further the case against Huskey, the prosecution noted that he gave specific details about the crime while he was Tom but if he really did have multiple personality disorder, he would have no recollection of these memories, since they belong to "Kyle".
After the jury deliberated for quite some time, they still had not come to a unanimous decision. The judge declared a mistrial. Huskey was to be tried again in 2002 but he asked for a lawyer during his confession, which was then ruled inadmissible. Huskey is currently in prison for 44 years for previous rape charges.
On another website, I found that the murder charges against Huskey were dropped due to detective errors. He is still in jail for the rape charges mentioned earlier.
Psychology is obviously present here. Because multiple personality disorder is so rare, it probably wasn't Huskey's best idea to pretend he had it. Any personality disorder is severe and it's likely that Huskey may have had some other form of one. Although he wasn't proven guilty, it seems pretty possible that he did commit the four murders. I'm glad that he's at least in jail for the rape crimes he committed so that he can't go out and murder more innocent women.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/multiples/index.html
About a week after the first body was found, police searching the area found three more dead women. Huskey was arrested and confessed, on tape, to all four murders. During the confession, Huskey changed his voice and expressions and said that he was now "Kyle". Apparently, "Kyle" was the one who killed the women, not Thomas. After "Kyle" emerged, "Philip Daxx", a British man, surfaced. This lead investigators to believe that Huskey had multiple personality disorder.
After 6 years had passed, the trial finally began. Huskey plead not guilty by insanity. The defense psychologist said that Huskey suffered from multiple personality disorder, however, the prosecution psychologist said that Huskey simply created these personalities to manipulate the court. During the course of the trial, the cellmate of Huskey, testified that Huskey had read Sybil and was going to try to make it seem like he had multiple personality disorder to avoid the death penalty. Huskey's mother also agreed that he did not have this disorder. To further the case against Huskey, the prosecution noted that he gave specific details about the crime while he was Tom but if he really did have multiple personality disorder, he would have no recollection of these memories, since they belong to "Kyle".
After the jury deliberated for quite some time, they still had not come to a unanimous decision. The judge declared a mistrial. Huskey was to be tried again in 2002 but he asked for a lawyer during his confession, which was then ruled inadmissible. Huskey is currently in prison for 44 years for previous rape charges.
On another website, I found that the murder charges against Huskey were dropped due to detective errors. He is still in jail for the rape charges mentioned earlier.
Psychology is obviously present here. Because multiple personality disorder is so rare, it probably wasn't Huskey's best idea to pretend he had it. Any personality disorder is severe and it's likely that Huskey may have had some other form of one. Although he wasn't proven guilty, it seems pretty possible that he did commit the four murders. I'm glad that he's at least in jail for the rape crimes he committed so that he can't go out and murder more innocent women.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/multiples/index.html
In my opinion, multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder) is one of the most controversial disorders in the DSM.
Personally, I am skeptical about the disorder for various reasons.
Here is an article that I like that deals with the arguments against the existence of dissociative identity disorder and it is a really easy read.
http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/pdf/0809/0809CP_Article3.pdf
The article outlines these arguments:
1. The fallacy of equal-footing arguments
This argument basically talks about how there is little disagreement on the existence of DID. In a survey of 301 psychiatrists, 35% had no reservations about DID, 43% were skeptical, and 15% favored the removal of DID in the upcoming revision of the DSM. This article also suggests that "informed skepticism" is important when dealing with a patient who claims to have DID. Therapists are supposed to look for malingering (which seems the case in the case of Husky).
2. Illogic of causation.
This argument is based on the idea that there is no agreed upon cause of DID. A cited literature review found no evidence that sexual abuse in childhood predicts DID. In my opinion, one of the most interesting arguments on the causation is iatrogenesis. Iatrogenesis is the idea that therapists essentially create multiple personalities in the patient.
3. Tautology in DID's definition.
This argument points out that the diagnostic criteria for DID essentially say the same thing with different wording.
4. Bewitchment by language
What does dissociative mean? Well, that question is the basis for this argument. The article gives several different meanings for the word dissociate which are not similar to the definition intended. The article makes the statement that "dissociation is used to describe so many things that it has become almost meaningless."
5. Validity of first-person authority
In a nut-shell, this argument is based on the idea that DID is not reliably diagnosable.
6. Does a DID diagnosis do harm?
This argument is also dealing with iatrogenesis and alludes to the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
7. How is self-deception possible?
8. Experts and conflict of interests.
I also think this point is very interesting and plausible. It is argued that therapists may "make-up" a diagnosis of DID because it takes a long time to treat which results in great financial gain to the therapist. Another argument is that therapists may make these diagnoses because they want to become "experts" on the disorder. This idea is based off of the statistics that a small number of therapists are responsible for the majority of the diagnoses of DID (I believe 10% of therapists are responsible for 90% of the diagnoses...I'm not exactly sure about those statistics but I think they are probably close).
I also found the fact that Huskey read the story of Sybil. Although not outlined in the article provided above, media has been proposed to be influential in the development of DID. In abnormal psych, I remember my teacher talking about the spike in DID cases after the release of "Three Faces of Eve" and "Sybil."
Given the information provided above, I highly doubt that Huskey truly had dissociative identity disorder. I agree with the post that I think it is good that he is incarcerated and didn't get away with claiming he had DID!
This was a very interesting case and from what I have read about DID, I do not think that Huskey had it. I think he should have been found guilty of all the murders and rapes. I could see how someone could fake DID though. This person would have to always be aware of who he/she was at that moment and remember what the different personalities acted like. Also I think that you would need to be good at changing your facial expressions on cue and talking in a different voice with each different personality. I think Huskey would have had a better chance of making people believe if he went with another disorder. I guess that he did make some people believe that he had DID, since a mistrial had to be called.
The things that made me think that Huskey did not have DID were that his mother or cell mate didn't think that he had it. I guess the cell mate might not be a very good informant, but I’m sure his mother would have noticed some behavior changes before this. Another thing that got me is this condition is so rare. It’s just hard to believe that he suddenly had DID. I have seen TV shows (so who knows how accurate those are), but the people with DID in those shows did not act the same as Huskey. I also looked up DID in the DSM manual to see what that said and Huskey didn’t fit with what the DSM stated that DID was. He had some of the symptoms of DID, but not enough and he was missing or lacking in a lot of areas. I can see how the jurors might believe that he had DID. A lot of people have only heard of DID and really don’t know what it is. Since it is so rare and people are still debating the existence of the disorder, I can see how jurors could come to either conclusion. Being an average citizen in that juror, not having a psychology major I can’t say that I wouldn’t believe Huskey’s defense either.
I do have to give props to Huskey for making some people believe that he had DID. He was able to change voices with each personality and he even wrote with a different hand, when another personality was talking. Also he was able to make different facial expressions with each personality. Huskey did his homework and he was a very good actor. Even though he did show "sings" of DID, I do not think that he had the disorder, he was just good a faking it.
The insanity plea is tricky to prove no matter what, but DID would be nearly impossible. I don't know if there are any legitimate cases out their, but this is certainly not one of them. With no one collaborating the story of multiple personalities this seems like a open and shut case. It seems obvious to me that he faked the symptoms of DID to make his case. The prosecution did a good job proving that he didn't have this disorder, with his former cell mate and even his own mother saying that he's never had any symptoms. It would be difficult to convince a jury that somebody does have multiple personalities because its such a bizarre disorder.
This is an interesting case and as stated above, the insanity plea is tricky to prove in the first place, even when someone is really insane. I feel like DID would be easy to fake, if someone did some basic research online. I feel that after reading more about Huskey, I beleive he did not have DID. However, DID seems impossible to proove since it can be easy to fake. I think the fact the Huskey menationed that he read Sybil and that he said he was going to try and fake insanity, doesn't help his case whatsoever. Also his own mother didn't think he had any signs of a mental illness, and you would think she would be on of the first to take notice of him acting different at random times, being different personalities.
Also nothing is mentioned about trauma in Huskey's life and that is usually the main cause of a split personality(ies). I think Huskey used this mainly as a defensive and to maybe get some attention out of the deal, since he was most likely raping and murdering women he lacked the respect or ability to approach women. He may have felt insignificant around women, so maybe there was an incident with his mother, and maybe by a small chance Huskey does have some mental issues caused by his mother. And why would the mother want to incriminate herself? She wouldn't, so she says she thinks he's just faking it to get out of the life in prison, or the death penalty.