Perfect Victim (36 page)

Now Mcguire wished to introduce some of Cameron Hooker’s S/M and B&D literature. Papendick objected, and again, the jury was excused while the two counsels argued about the relevance of Hooker’s collection of hardcore pornography.

Judge Knight finally ruled that “any literature that either has instructions or rules or suggestions on captivity and any literature that contains ideas that were communicated by the defendant to the victim is admissible.”

With the jury ushered back in and Dr. Hatcher again on the stand, Mcguire introduced another of her impressive exhibits: an enlarged reproduction of the graphics for an article in the June, 1976 edition of Oui magazine, entitled: “Brainwashing: How to Fold, Spindle and Mutilate the Human Mind in Five Easy Steps.”

If the jury had thought Mcguire a prude, taking umbrage at Hooker’s prurient interests, the colorful illustrations before them now presented an interest less in sex than in control. While provocative and lurid, the drawings depicted the “five easy steps,” which Mcguire asked Dr. Hatcher to review.

As Hatcher pointed out, it wasn’t necessary to read the article, written by the Harvard-trained psychologist, Dr. Timothy Leary, to understand the “five easy steps.” The pictures were sufficient: Step one: “Seize the victim and spirit her away.”

Step two: “Isolate the victim and make her totally dependent on you for survival.”

Step three: “Dominate the victim and encourage her to seek your recognition and approval.”

Step four: “Instruct the victim and re-educate her to think and act in terms of your ideology.”

Step five: “Seduce the victim and provide her with a new sexual value system.”

The scene in the courtroom was now a weird tableau: the thoroughly dignified Dr. Hatcher, in his somber, dark suit, surrounded by poster-size pictures of the slavery contract, of the basement, of the rack, of the Oui illustrations, and of Colleen, stripped and hung. And still, the heavy bed and box occupied much of the courtroom floor.

2. Dr. Leary expressed astonishment upon learning that this article had been introduced as evidence in the Hooker trial. He said that, following the Patty Hearst case, he wrote the article “to warn people” how easily they could be brainwashed. Though he said he had “nothing against things being sexy,” he disavowed any responsibility for “those horrible illustrations,” which he called, “disgusting.”

(It doubtless required great restraint on the part of the jurors to be confronted with such images and information day after day, yet never discuss it. Every time court was adjourned, the judge asked that they please remember the “admonition of the court” and refrain from reading about, talking about, or viewing programs about the case. They bottled it up and took it home, without disclosing what they’d learned even to their spouses.)

Some of Dr. Hatcher’s testimony, while phrased in academic language, was explicit — shocking. For instance, he said that places where a customer can rent sadomasochistic paraphenalia and perform various acts on a prostitute, which Colleen had described as “Rent-a-Dungeon,” actually exist in cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. And he briefly analyzed a selection of articles from Hooker’s library, including such literary gems as “Captive Maid,” “Sex Slaves for Sale,” and “Actual Case Histories of Sexual Slavery.”

Mcguire asked Hatcher if, in addition to the nine he’d already outlined, there were other coercive techniques.

There were, and the psychologist related these now.

The tenth technique, he said, is to “present a goal or a model of future behavior, a model of how to please the captor.”

The eleventh is to threaten family and relatives with a similar fate.

The twelfth is to threaten to sell the captive to an even worse master.

The thirteenth is to continue to beat and torture the captive at irregular intervals.

The fourteenth, called “irrelevant leniency,” is to allow small privileges for no reason, making the captive more confused and more pliant.

The fifteenth is to obtain further confessions and signed documents, having the captive give over more and more control in writing.

And the sixteenth and final technique is to incorporate new behavior goals.

Dr. Hatcher pointed out: “It’s enormously time-consuming to carry out a successful coercion. It takes a lot of time, a lot of thought, a lot of energy, and people have difficulty doing that over a period of time. They have to attend to other processes of life, and I’m speaking of the captor. So, you need to establish some type of pattern where you won’t have to be constantly physically monitoring this person.” Some ways to do that are to allow the captive to tend to personal hygiene, allow clothes, some privacy. And, Hatcher explained, it’s important to permit the captive some degree of freedom, without the captor’s constant presence, and then suddenly appear, giving the captive a feeling the captor is omnipresent.

Dr. Hatcher added, “There are many historical examples where slaves not only outnumbered their masters in terms of manpower but also had the opportunity to attempt an escape, and yet that’s done in only a very small percentage of cases.”

The significance of this surely wasn’t lost on the two black members of the jury.

With these sixteen coercive techniques understood, and with Hooker’s research into coercion presented, Mcguire returned to her nearly forgotten hypothetical.

Again, she asked the psychologist to assume certain facts, then outlined the conditions under which Colleen was kept during certain periods — the next six months, the next year, then each subsequent year. At the conclusion of each period, the doctor enumerated which of the coercive techniques had been applied during that time, giving special attention to important aspects, such as the slavery contract and the story of the Company.

Dr. Hatcher shed illumination on Colleen Stan’s darkest hours. He took the components of her captivity — the workshop, the “attention drills,” the slave name, the slave collar, the box — and distilled them into elements of power and control.

Even the freedoms that Colleen was later allowed — to brush her teeth, shower, wear clothes — the doctor explained as giving the person some remnants of self-esteem, with the reminder: “If you displease me, I can remove any shred of personal privacy or personal identity, with the exception of what I have chosen as your slave designation.”

As the prosecutor continued with her hypothetical situation, Papendick fidgeted. He objected to each stage of her hypothetical, but the judge consistently overruled his objections.

Commenting on the captive’s being allowed to do new activities in new settings where other people are present, the psychologist said, “the fact that these situations do not result in discovery” or in anyone interfering, “begins to reinforce, in the majority of captives’ minds, that this is the way life is, and they are going to have to accept that.”

Dr. Hatcher also commented on the gift of the Bible: “Part of Christianity emphasizes that you are going to suffer and that God will provide, that no matter what type of disaster or terrible situation may befall you, if you maintain your faith in God, God will get you out of it. Some captors use a religious tract, they want to assist the captive along the pathway of believing they should have faith in God, and that God is really part of all this, that this is not alien from Christianity. It incorporates [the captivity] within the framework of what’s normal and serves often to make the person more religious. The sad part is that it does make the captive easier to control.”

It seemed a shame that Colleen Stan couldn’t hear this.

Instead, Cameron Hooker, along with the rest of the court, was treated to an educated view of what made him tick.

Addressing himself to periods of greater freedom allowed the captive, Dr. Hatcher undertook an explanation of the captor’s motivations: “The main thing here is that the captor is not necessarily an individual of extraordinary intelligence. He doesn’t necessarily have to have a comprehensive kind of knowledge as, for example, Dr. Leary might have in constructing the article we talked about before. What comes across consistently, however, is that the person, to some extent, has a feeling that is like a hunter.

Think of the person in your acquaintance who is the best hunter.

It usually isn’t the chief executive officer of the bank, a person who has a very high degree of status. It’s a kind of sense or skill that makes them a particularly good deer hunter or duck hunter — a certain amount of patience.

“The analogy drawn for me by the individuals I have interviewed is that they see themselves in a similar way as a hunter. Initially, they are concerned with the stalking and the capture. Then, rather than killing the prey, they see how far they can train this person.

“After a while, curiosity sets in to see just how far he can let this person go and still have control. There is a certain risk or gamble there, but [this is outweighed by] the value or degree of enjoyment and satisfaction, the sense of being able to hunt with higher stakes. The gratification from being able to allow the person contacts with outside people and still know that you have enough coercion and pressure upon them, that’s an extraordinary reinforcement and overcomes some of the other concerns about apprehension.”

One couldn’t help but wonder what Hooker thought of this.

Dr. Hatcher’s direct examination took nearly two days.

He seemed to sort through every aspect of Colleen’s captivity and place it in context: The “love letters,” he pointed out, were consistent with types of statements in S/M literature, and it was common to have the captive echo the captor’s belief system. He reviewed the letters, citing Colleen’s repeated references to her position as a slave.

Still posing a hypothetical situation, Mcguire asked if the doctor could account for the calls and letters to the captor and his wife.

“There is a great deal of dependency upon the wife in the situation you’ve described,” Dr. Hatcher explained. “It’s not as if there was a relatively rapid, clean escape without having the possibility [the captor might come after her].”

By talking with the captor, yet experiencing that this doesn’t result in being put back in the box, “the person gradually begins to feel they have a greater degree of control, that they have reestablished themselves somewhat.”

Further, the psychologist said, it’s common that captives, once free, express the idea “that they want to let God or someone else take charge of retribution or punishment,” and he quoted sections of Colleen’s letters to Cameron and Jan saying, for example: “I don’t want to play God and I forgive you and Cameron for all things.” Additionally, Hatcher said, victims are often averse to pressing charges because criminal proceedings would force them to relive the experience.

Hatcher made comparisons with several other cases in which the victims were “mentally restrained,” fearful of attempting escape, and then, once free, reluctant to go to police. These cases shared many elements in common with Colleen Stan’s, but by the time the psychologist concluded his remarks it seemed clear that Hooker’s coercion of Colleen had been uncommonly intense.

Dr. Hatcher said as much: “The circumstances as you have described them to me, with the possible exception of issues that go farther back in time (such as black slavery in America), would be unique in recorded literature. There would not be a similar situation in which this degree of captivity and of sadomasochistic torture of a human being had existed in a previous case.”

After nearly twelve hours of eliciting expert testimony — an outpouring of information — the prosecutor at last came to the end of her questions, took her seat, and handed Dr. Hatcher over for crossexamination.

Defense Attorney Papendick opened by trying to belittle psychologists as opposed to psychiatrists (since the expert witness for the defense, Dr. Lunde, was a psychiatrist), but Dr. Hatcher’s answer was so complete it seemed only to emphasize his competence.

Papendick persisted: “You are not a licensed physician, are you?”

“No, I am not.”

“You are not an expert on the physical effects of diet control, are you?”

“No, I am not.”

“Or the physical effects of lack of sleep?”

“I would have a degree of expertise in the physical effects of lack of sleep, but as it pertains to captivity.”

3. Mcguire was astonished that Papendick had retained Dr. Donald Lunde, the Stanford psychiatrist she had interviewed for the prosecution months before.

From here Papendick launched an extensive examination of Dr. Hatcher’s experience in related cases, such as the Parnell case and the People’s Temple and Jonestown. Though Hatcher’s accounts of these were informative, they served more to showcase his experience than to discredit it and seemed far from the matter at hand. It was difficult to understand what Papendick was trying to get at. Judge Knight finally stepped in: “I fail to see the materiality of this rather detailed questioning about Jonestown. What are we getting to?”

Still, Papendick continued his questions about tangentially related cases, such as Patty Hearst and Korean prisoners of war.

Since it was late in the day, Mcguire privately wondered if he were simply trying to lull time so he could prepare OVERNIGHT for the beginning of his case tomorrow.

At length, Papendick referred to the spectrum Dr. Hatcher had described: from persuasion, to coercion, to brainwashing.

Specifically, he wanted to know at which point persuasion ended and coercion began.

The doctor naturally said there’s a gray area here, and that, for example, some people would call a military draft persuasion, and some, coercion. But, he added, “a person in a captive situation against their will is in a coercive situation.”

“In your opinion,” Papendick asked, “can a person involved in a captive situation be subjected to persuasion?”

“Yes.”

This was the answer Papendick wanted to hear. He brought up the example of a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp having relations with a guard or officer. “Is that an example of persuading the person as opposed to coercing the person into a sexual type of relationship?”