HBM064: A Shrinking Shadow

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Erin was fat as a kid. Since middle school, she tried all different methods to lose weight. From a young age she developed the idea that the most important thing she could do with her life was lose weight.

Note: Explicit Content

That's part of why she and HBM producer Bethany Denton were such good friends in high school. They were both fat, nearly the same size. Both tried and failed to lose weight since childhood. Together they felt safe to enjoy food without judgment.

But they parted ways after high school.  Bethany moved to Washington State and Erin to Indiana for college. They fell out of touch, observing each others’ lives mostly through the distance of a Facebook news feed.  

And there, Bethany began to notice changes in Erin.  She looked thinner, but also more hollow.  Her eyes sank into her head.  Bethany was ashamed that she felt jealous.  She also thought her old friend might be gone...turned into a shrinking shadow of her former self.

On this episode of Here Be Monsters, Erin explains how she developed her obsession with exercise and her intense desire to lose weight.  She explains how she descended into a dangerous place with her eating disorder.  She would later understand her symptoms of anxiety, insomnia and irrationality to be typical of starvation, as observed in a 1940s experiment known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

After losing over 100 lbs, Erin hit rock bottom the summer after graduating from college. Her anxiety became intolerable, she was constipated, and her hair was falling out. After months of living with every characteristic of anorexia nervosa, she was given an official diagnosis once she became underweight.

"I felt like a shell...I felt so hollow."

In 2014, Erin sought treatment. The first step in her recovery was a process called refeeding. It's the process of replenishing a calorie deficit, providing a starving body much-needed energy to repair internal damage.

Erin has since made nearly a full recovery. Today she lives in Portland, Oregon and works at a bakery. She keeps a blog about her experiences with anorexia.

If you are suffering from an eating disorder, you can get help today. A good place to start is Eating Disorder Hope. Erin also recommends the website Performing Woman; she personally found it inspiring to her recovery.

This episode was produced by Bethany Denton, and edited with help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White.  

Music: The Black Spot, Serocell

 

Bethany (left) and Erin (right) as teenagers.

HBM062: The Near Death of Sir Deja Doog

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Before Doog could walk, his family gave him a guitar to hold and encouraged him to play music. By the time he was twelve, he'd started writing songs as a way to make sense of the confusing world around him. Back then he was just Eric Alexander, the friendly weird kid who dressed like a punky cowboy.  In college a fellow musician asked Eric what his middle name was. "Douglas," Eric replied. "Douglas? Doug, Doug... Doog... I'm going to call you Doog." The name stuck, and eventually Eric created his raspy, crass musical persona: Sir Deja Doog.

Note: Explicit Content

In his early twenties, Doog started hearing voices, seeing and feeling things that weren't there. He worried that he was losing his mind and avoided telling his friends what was happening. For years he was in and out of the emergency room and psych ward. He sought treatment and was medicated on and off for depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

But his problems persisted. In 2012, Doog became homeless and started hitchhiking up and down the West Coast. All the while he experienced terrifying hallucinations and suicidal thoughts. Throughout this period he continued to make music. With little more than a broken iPhone and an old guitar, Doog recorded hours of harsh, distorted music. Later he edited these recordings into a video he called Bad Dharma. (below).

 
 

Doog's symptoms worsened. By 2013 he started having partial seizures. One night he had a vision that he was being abducted by ancient aliens, so old he could see through their papery skin. One of the aliens poked Doog behind his left ear.

A few weeks later Doog was in the hospital again, feeling suicidal. This time the doctors gave Doog an MRI. When they scanned his brain, they found a small, calcified tumor called a glioma. The tumor was in the left hemisphere of his brain -- just inches from where the alien poked him in his vision. Doctors told Doog that he needed brain surgery immediately or he would soon die.

Faced with the prospect of an early death, he ignored the doctors’ orders fearing the surgery would affect his musical creativity. Instead, Doog decided to focus his energy on creating his masterpiece: Sir Deja Doog's Love Coffin.

For months, Doog obsessed over Love Coffin. He wrote and recorded day and night through partial and full seizures and debilitating headaches. It was only once his album was finished and his symptoms became unbearable that he agreed to surgery. Doctors removed the tumor and some surrounding parts of his brain.

Today, Doog continues to recover, and he's slowly re-learning how to be independent as his brain heals. Seventeen months after surgery Doog was in remission, but soon after that doctors found gliosis in his brain—scar tissue that forms after severe brain trauma. Doctors continue to monitor him for additional cancers. It is possible that Doog will need chemotherapy.

Doog performed for the first time after his cancer diagnosis on Halloween of 2015 (picture above). Since then, he's released an EP called The Return of Sir Deja Doog.

This episode was produced by Colleen Leahy and Christopher Mosson, and was edited by Bethany Denton. Additional editing help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White.

Music: Sir Deja Doog

 

HBM060: The Predators of McNeil Island

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Ferry doc to get to McNeil Island. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

Ferry doc to get to McNeil Island. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

 

Content Note:
This episode is largely about sexual violence towards children.  Most of the descriptions throughout the audio are clinical, but one description from our court recordings is particularly graphic and disturbing.  Keep this in mind, especially if you are listening within earshot of children. 

 
 

McNeil Island sits in Washington State's Puget Sound, just three miles northwest of Steilacoom. For much of its existence, the island served as a fishing outpost for indigenous coastal people. But for the last 150-odd years, McNeil Island has been a place to house society's undesirables.  Soon after white settlers claimed it in the 1850s, they built a prison there--Charles Manson served a stint there, long before his infamous Hollywood killing spree.  At that point, McNeil Island was a sustainable community that consisted of the prison staff and their family members. There were houses, an elementary school and a graveyard.

But the world changed, and the island prison became too expensive to operate. In 2011 the prison closed, the inmates were relocated, and the staff moved to the mainland.

But by then, McNeil Island had sprouted a different kind of facility, also nested inside razor wire. It wasn't a prison, but its residents weren't exactly free to leave.

 

McNeil Island's abandoned prison is visible from the city of Steilacoom, Washington.

 

It was a late summer morning in 1989 when Washington Governor Booth Gardner came to work at the state capital to find thousands of empty tennis shoes dumped at the capital steps. The shoes were left there by demonstrators calling for harsher punishments for sex offenders.  The group did it in response to several gruesome crimes that had happened earlier that year; crimes which the activists argued were enabled by lax sentencing laws and early releases for violent prisoners. The group called themselves the Tennis Shoe Brigade, and the shoes they brought were meant to represent the forgotten victims of rape. Their action prompted Governor Gardner to assemble the Task Force on Community Protection.

That fall, as the Governor Gardner's task force deliberated, serial child rapist Westley Allen Dodd raped and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington.  Despite Dodd's long criminal history of child molestation, he never served a full prison sentence for his crimes. Even Dodd himself felt the legal system had failed him and his victims, telling one reporter, "If you add up all the prison time I was given but never made to serve, I'd be in prison until 2026... and those boys would still be alive."   Dodd wrote a pamphlet advising children on how to avoid violent sex offenders like him.

In the wake of Dodd's crimes, the task force penned the Community Protection Act of 1990. This act required law enforcement to keep a sex offender registry, and allowed for the civil commitment of Sexually Violent Predators, or SVPs.  This meant that this special class of sex offenders could be legally and indefinitely detained after they'd served their criminal sentences if the court deemed them likely (aka. more than 50% likely) to re-offend, if released into the public.  But, per the law, civil commitment would be rehabilitative, not punitive, and therefore wouldn't violate double jeopardy. The act passed into law RCW 71.09 also known as the Sexually Violent Predator law.

In order for a sex offender to be deemed an SVP in Washington, they must meet three criteria:

     1) They must have been convicted or charged of a sexually violent crime.

     2) They must be suffer from a "personality disorder" or a "mental abnormality", and

     3) That condition must make them likely to commit predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility.

In Washington State, that secure facility is the Special Commitment Center (SCC) on McNeil Island.   It's not a prison–it's a treatment facility administrated by Washington State's Department of Social and Health Services.   They told us that 242 people are confined on McNeil Island as of publish date.  

There have been two supreme court challenges to Washington's SVP law (other states have challenged too).  One plaintiff claimed inadequate treatment, the other claimed they were serving a second prison term.  Both times, the court ruled in favor of Washington's law.   

 

Booth Gardener, the former Governor of Washington State spoke highly of the Task Force on Community Protection during his 1990 State of the State Address.

Graphic showing the state of SVP laws in the US as of time of publishing. Click to enlarge.

 

This episode is about a man named Chris.  To protect him, his family and his victims, we're only referring to him by first name. 

According to court documents, Chris was nine years old when he started molesting his younger siblings in the mid 1980s. Eventually he started molesting other children in the neighborhood, and even had sexual contact with one of the family dogs.  The documents say that In 1995, at age 16, Chris was caught with a 12 year old neighbor boy who he'd pinned down; both boys were naked from the waist down and Chris had either penetrated the boy with his penis or had inserted it between the boys legs (records vary).  By the time he was convicted, further questioning established that Chris had forced sexual contact on other children hundreds of times, including his younger siblings. He was sent to juvenile detention for two years, where he stayed until he was 18.  He was released on parole. 

Within a few months of his release, Chris checked himself into an inpatient mental health facility in Seattle for a psych evaluation.  Court documents say that Chris kissed up to three other residents during his stay, and later asked staff repeatedly for contact information for one of the women. He started telling staff of his violent sexual fantasies about rape.  The documents also say he disclosed fantasies about having sex with human organs and body parts, as well as fantasies about having sex with large sea and land mammals.

Given his history of forced sexual contact and the graphic and deviant nature of his fantasies, the hospital staff filed a petition to have Chris classified as an SVP. He was given a number of tests to measure the severity of his sexual deviance. One of these tests was a penile plethysmegraph (PPG) in which they wrapped a pressure-sensitive, plastic band around Chris's penis and measured his arousal to sexual visual and audio stimuli. He was also analyzed through an actuarial tool called the Static 99R which attempts to statistically predict a sex offender's chance of recidivism.  Near the time of his commitment, one of the doctors analyzing Chris wrote this:

"Christopher clearly presents an extremely high risk of sexual assault of younger or vulnerable persons of either sex…Under no circumstances should he return to live with his family now or in the foreseeable future."

Throughout his life, Chris has received a number of diagnoses, including:

Doctors prescribed him a number of psychotropics to meant to calm his symptoms, including:

 

One of several patrol boats that puttered around Steilacoom Ferry Dock.

 

As a result, the SVP unit of the King County prosecutors' office drew up an SVP petition for Chris. This document would designate Chris as an SVP and send him to live indefinitely at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. However, Chris would be allowed to challenge his civil commitment in front of a jury of his peers.  And when he did so, the burden of proof would be on the state to prove that Chris continued to meet SVP criteria.

Soon after he got to the island, Chris said he changed.  Nearly immediately, he requested to take a "medication holiday" (see sidebar).  According to documents written by his lawyers, soon after he stopped taking the medications, the most egregious fantasies dissipated. He describes being on the medications as being in a mental fog, as if he were drunk. He does not claim that his offenses were a result of being overly medicated, but he does believe his inhibition was lowered. By the second year of his commitment, Chris stopped attending group therapy with the other SCC residents.  He says that by then he no longer experienced deviant fantasies, and that recounting his offenses week after week was not conducive to his recovery.  We found no evidence that he's sexually assaulted anyone since arriving on the island. 

In late 2016, per the stipulation he signed, Chris received a trial for his unconditional release. One of his attorneys, Andrew Morrison, contacted us to see if we were interested in attending the trial.  We said "yes." 

A month-long juried trial ensued.  After a day of deliberation, the jury's verdict was unanimously against the State of Washington.  They failed to prove that Chris continued to meet the definition of an SVP.  On March 17th, 2016, Chris was released from the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island.   According to Andrew Morrison, Chris registered as a Level 2 sex offender shortly after his release, as was required of him.  

The topic of recidivism for sex offenders is hotly contested, since sex crimes are often unreported and good data for long-term recidivism is sparse.  However, some of the best numbers we have come from a report put together by the Office of Justice Programs.  They reported that compared to other criminals, sex offenders are re-arrested at significantly lower rates.  They also report that after three years after a sex offender's release, five percent were re-arrested a sexual crime.  After 15 years, 24% were re-arrested for another sex crime.

 

An empty boat meant for transporting vehicles at the Steilacoom Ferry Dock.

 

It's been almost 26 years since the Community Protection Act of 1990 paved the road to civil commitment laws in 20 states and the District of Columbia (see graphic earlier in this article). In 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which instated a federal system of civil commitment.

In 2015, an advocacy group called Disability Rights Washington drafted a lawsuit against the SCC on McNeil Island. They claim that the SCC fails to provide adequate treatment for mentally disabled residents, making commitment there more punitive than rehabilitative. This claim is backed by a 2013 Washington State Institute for Public Policy Report that cites that special needs residents were receiving just 2 hours of treatment per week in 2011. 

That same WSIPP report cites that the cost of Special Commitment Center is roughly $150,000 per resident, per year (and significantly more for those in transitional programs).  The center received $47,609,000 in the 2013 state budget.  Civil commitment at the SCC is roughly five times more expensive than incarceration in a Washington State prison. 

 

Trains regularly pass by the Steilacoom Ferry Dock. This one carries military equipment. Presumably, this shipment is bound for nearby Fort Lewis.

Close-up of the abandoned prison on McNeil Island.

Close-up of the abandoned prison on McNeil Island.

 

Jeff Emtman and Bethany Denton produced this piece.  George Lavender fact-checked the audio for this story.  Nick White did content editing. 

People who appear on tape:

  • Bethany Denton - Host

  • Jeff Emtman - Host

  • Andrew Morrison - One of Chris's Defense Attorneys

  • Chris - Former SVP

  • Jennifer Ritchie - King County Prosecutor's Head of the Sexually Violent Predator Unit

  • Alison Bogar - King County Prosecutor

  • Bill Bowman - Judge

  • Dr. Harry Goldberg - Expert for Prosecutors

  • Dr. Joseph Plaud - Expert for Defenders

  • Dr. Holly Coryell - SCC's Head of Clinical Treatment

People who did not appear on tape, but provided background information:

  • Christine Sanders - Chris's other defense attorney

  • Kristen Richardson - King County Prosecutor

  • Chris Wright - Communications for Washington's Department of Social and Health Services

For this story, we were originally granted permission to visit the island to interview Dr. Coryell and Chris.  However, that permission was revoked because our scheduled date happened to coincide with Chris's release date.  The SCC was unwilling to reschedule us.  Mark Strong, the CEO of the SCC declined our request for an interview.  

Music: The Black Spot

Photos: Jeff Emtman

 

HBM057: Impostor in a Pink Pinstripe Suit

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Bethany Denton participating in high school speech and debate.

Bethany Denton participating in high school speech and debate.

 

Growing up in small-town Montana, Bethany Denton's parents and teachers told her what she knew already: she was brilliant.  Bethany couldn't help but feel destined for something big, even though she often skipped her school readings and phoned it in.  Why try hard when you already know everything?

Content Note: Explicit Content

Bethany in her pink pinstripe suit at her final tournament. Photo by Katy Allen-Schmidt.

Bethany in her pink pinstripe suit at her final tournament. Photo by Katy Allen-Schmidt.

In high school, Bethany joined the speech and debate team and started winning medals in an event called Serious Oral Interpretation.  One afternoon Bethany went to the bookstore and stumbled across a monologue by American author Joyce Carol Oates entitled Nuclear Holocaust, from her play I Stand Before You Naked.   It's a first-hand account of a religiously devout and mentally unstable Southerner who eagerly awaits the world's destruction. It was the perfect kind of material for a Serious Oral Interpretation monologue, so Bethany bought the book. Her dramatic performance of this piece soon won her a trip to Las Vegas to compete against teenagers from across the country.

Bethany spent the next couple months slacking off, per usual.  Later that summer in Las Vegas, Bethany steps in front of a room full of strangers and realizes that she's made a huge mistake.

Bethany Denton wrote and produced this story, with editing help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White from KCRW. Track image by Angie Foreman.

Music: The Black Spot, Flower Petal Downpour

 

HBM052: Call 601-2-SATAN-2

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HBM052.jpg
 

Christian prayer hotlines are common in the United States. Less common are prayer hotlines for the other guy.  Since 2012, the Satanic Missionary Society in Olympia, Washington has managed a Satanic prayer line on their blog and receive prayer requests from people all over the country.  They ask for help with things like miscarriage, a romantic affair with a mother-in-law, a successful rap career, and more.

Content Note: Explicit Content.

Among those callers is Tyler Higgins, a young man from New England asking for Satanic prayers to get into The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (aka. AMDA), his dream acting school. But Tyler was raised a Seventh Day Adventist.  And his whole life, his pastors and parents told him that all popular actors sold their souls to Satan in exchange for fame and success. With that in mind, Tyler researches Satanism online and found the Satanic Missionary Society and their prayer line. Desperate to follow his dream of acting, Tyler calls and asks for Satan's help to get into AMDA. A few weeks later, his devout Christian parents stumbled upon email exchanges between Tyler and the Satanic mission. They call the pastor over immediately to perform an exorcism.

The Satanic Prayer Hotline was started by a man who calls himself "The Anti-Chris" in Olympia, Washington. It is no longer active, but you can still hear the entire archive of prayer requests. And if you're feeling frisky, you can purchase a one-of-a-kind Faustian Bargain kit, including tools and instructions on how to sell your soul to the Prince of Darkness himself.

Below are varying depictions of hell and Satan.  Click images to enlarge and read about their origins.

Special thanks to The Anti-Chris, Ashlee the Blind Satanist and Lillith Starr for their help on this episode. 

This episode was produced by Bethany Denton with editing help from Jeff Emtman. Our editor at KCRW is Nick White.

Please review us on iTunes! 

Music by The Black Spot ||| Serocell ||| Swamp Dog

 

HBM051: Sister Bethany, Proxy for the Dead

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Bethany Denton in high school.

Bethany Denton in high school.

 

Bethany Denton was about five years old when she learned that she was a Mormon. When she was eight, she learned that she was an eternal spirit destined for an eternal afterlife.  The idea of eternity terrified her, and made her afraid to stargaze into the boundless universe.

When she got older, Bethany was allowed to enter the Mormon temple in Billings, Montana to act as the proxy in baptisms for the dead.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded in 1830, and has practiced baptisms for the dead (or "baptism by proxy") since 1840. This practice intends to give dead people the opportunity to join the church in the afterlife from Spirit Prison, where all souls wind up. Mormon teenagers are eligible to serve as a proxy when they turn twelve years old.  Over the course of her adolescence, Bethany was the proxy for about 30 dead people. 

When Bethany was seventeen, the late prophet Gordon B. Hinckley tasked the youth of the LDS church to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. Bethany took him up on his challenge, and started noticing inconsistencies that made her question (and ultimately lose) her faith. She doesn't go to church anymore and hasn't for almost ten years, but she's still a member of the church, and always will be...unless she sends a formal letter of resignation.

Today, Bethany Denton is the Managing Editor of Here Be Monsters and loves to marvel at outer space.  She co-produced this piece with Jeff Emtman, along with help from Nick White, our editor at KCRW. Track image by Kyle Keenan.

Music: The Black Spot. 

 

"Mormon Baptism" by Frederick Hawkins Piercy (1830-1891), a Mormon artist.