The Measure of Madness:. Katherine Ramsland
without pain. And said he wanted to go home.”
It was clear that, for Mr. Bailey and his grandmother, home meant heaven.
Mr. Bailey was the only defendant I have ever evaluated who provoked the police this way. It was an unusual case because he lived to tell his story. There have been other cases, however, that have not ended so well. Suicidal shooters more often than not get their wish; they are killed by police.
Suicide in any form is a tragedy; suicide by cop is doubly so. The officers are forced to live with the knowledge that they were unwilling participants in what amounts to an assisted suicide. It made me doubly relieved that no one was hurt in the case of Mr. Bailey. What truly amazed me was that the police had shot at him and missed. I have always wondered, on some unconscious level, did they miss on purpose, somehow aware that he was mentally ill and not truly dangerous?
My evaluation was complete. All the clinical and legal information was consistent with the defendant’s own story. I believed that Mr. Bailey was depressed and psychotic when he aimed his gun at the police officers.
I was convinced that Mr. Bailey was delusional and could not appreciate the nature and consequences of his actions or their wrongfulness. He felt trapped and believed that suicide would lead to “burning in hell forever.” When he found a gun disposed in a trash can he psychotically concluded, “God had given me a way; he wanted me to do it.” His only salvation was to provoke the police to kill him. His solution was to pretend to shoot at them.
I wrote and submitted a report explaining my conclusions.
Now the ball was in the prosecutor’s court. Months passed while I waited to hear who the assistant district attorney would hire to assess Mr. Bailey. Would he choose a “hired gun,” someone who was more likely to view the defendant as guilty? I was more than ready to testify about my opinion, but juries are unpredictable, and I knew it was likely they would find him guilty. There would be no need for a trial if the prosecution-retained expert also believed that Mr. Bailey was not responsible for the crime.
I was relieved to hear that the prosecution’s psychiatrist agreed with my diagnosis and opinion. He, too, concluded that this was a classic case of suicide by cop. Since we both found Mr. Bailey not responsible, the case never went to trial. He was one of very few defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity. Assistant District Attorney David Kelly once told me that, since 1965, there have been only one hundred and thirty-three such cases in Brooklyn, a county with a population that would make it one of the largest cities in the United States.8
Insanity acquitees, the legal term for individuals in his situation, are regularly evaluated to determine whether they are still dangerous and need to remain in a secure forensic hospital. Many individuals found not responsible are kept in secure forensic hospitals because they remain psychotic, even when medicated. They often spend more time in a hospital than they would have served in prison if they had pleaded guilty.
I recently heard from Mr. Bailey’s attorney. His client was stable in the forensic hospital and his depression had not returned. His treatment was successful but his future remained uncertain. We chatted a bit about whether he would be transferred to a less secure state hospital. Would he then be released to the community?
The last I heard, Mr. Bailey was still a patient in the forensic hospital, four years after he was admitted.
Chapter 3
THE BUTCHER OF TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK
There was no physical evidence found at the scene of the crime; all the blood had been cleaned up. Police searched a Port Authority Bus Terminal locker and found a five-gallon bucket containing Ms. Beerle’s skull and some bones. Someone had spent a good deal of time and effort removing the flesh from the bones, bleaching them clean, and packing them up. The bucket contained chlorophyll-scented cat litter to mask the smell.
Daniel Rakowitz, 28 years old and mentally ill, was the primary suspect, and Ms. Beerle, the victim, had been his roommate. Many were convinced that he had cooked Ms. Beerle’s remains and fed them to the homeless. He became known as “The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.” The nickname reflected the public’s fascination with the case, fueled by months of extensive media coverage.
Like most New Yorkers, I had been following this case closely in the news. The murder took place on the Lower East Side, a neighborhood in Manhattan that was once the destination of thousands of European immigrants. In 1989, gentrification had not yet taken over the neighborhood, and the run-down blocks were widely perceived as a wasteland of drugs and homelessness.
The killing occurred only a few blocks from where I had lived a couple of years earlier. Then an unemployed graduate student, I shared a tiny second-floor apartment on 2nd street off Avenue A with some friends. My former roommates and I talked about the Rakowitz case as a symbol of everything that was wrong with the city during those years.
Mr. Rakowitz’s defense attorney, Norman Reimer, retained Dr. Schwartz to evaluate his client. At the time of this case, Dr. Schwartz was about 60 years old and had been Director of Forensic Services at Kings County Hospital for almost thirty years. He was a nationally renowned psychiatrist who often got called in on high profile cases. The psychiatric unit at Kings County was also famous in forensic circles for having admitted a number of notorious criminals over the years.
Dr. Schwartz ran the department democratically and made a habit of inviting junior staff members to work on cases with him. One morning, he called me into his office, “I’m evaluating Rakowitz for an insanity defense,” he said cheerfully. “Would you like to work on this case?”
I was a newly licensed psychologist, having graduated only four years earlier from my doctoral program in clinical psychology. I had some experience taking the stand in more routine cases, but this was the first time I would be testifying at a trial with so much media attention.
“Yes!” I said. “I’d love to.” Privately, though, I thought: I hope I don’t say anything really stupid at the trial.
All my pressing hospital work was put aside as Dr. Schwartz took me through the complex story of Beerle’s murder and Rakowitz’s arrest. I sat transfixed in his office for what seemed like hours. Dr. Schwartz loved to tell stories, and he was in no rush.
His enthusiasm for bizarre crimes and difficult cases was evident, but his ebullience was a little at odds with the gory details of this particular case. As we talked, I looked around at his diplomas and crime memorabilia, the bust of Freud on his desk, and the framed newspaper articles featuring him as the expert witness in famous cases. Then I looked back over at him. Dr. Schwartz was a short man—a fact accentuated by the large wooden desk he sat behind—yet his height never seemed to affect his confidence.
“I was hired to examine Rakowitz for competency to stand trial,” he told me. It was a complicated hearing with three doctors testifying for the defense and two for the prosecution. Mr. Rakowitz was eager to be found competent and insisted on testifying at the hearing as well.
Dr. Schwartz leaned over his desk and handed me the judge’s ruling. “Rakowitz’s testimony was quite a spectacle. Three of us thought that Rakowitz was not competent but the judge ruled that he was able to stand trial.” There was no hint of annoyance or wounded pride in his voice. Dr. Schwartz had testified in hundreds of cases and I assumed he was accustomed to having judges and juries disagree with his opinion.
Dr. Schwartz, always busy with hospital business, answered a few phone calls while I finished reading the judge’s ruling. Then he went on. The murder allegedly occurred in August, but the police did not begin their investigation until September. During the weeks before his arrest, rumors spread through the community that Mr. Rakowitz had killed Ms. Beerle and cooked her remains to serve in soup.
Initially the police did not believe the defendant could commit such a violent crime. “Rakowitz was a colorful character,” Dr. Schwartz said, “and the police thought he was harmless.” Rakowitz must have appeared to them as one of the many drug addicted, mentally ill homeless people living around Tompkins Square Park.
“No blood