This American Doctor /// Part 2 /// 289 | Forensic Files

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catchphrases flow a little bit better and that's enough of the business yep everybody gather round grab a chair grab
a beer let's talk some true crime after the arrests of the beloved dr. Vince Gilmer people in the town were needless
to say shocked many of them refused to believe it was even true some theorize that it was a mercy killing the Vince
knew his dad was beyond help and decided to put him out of his misery mm-hmm but
as pointed out on this American Life Vince was a medical doctor wouldn't it be more likely that he would do so with
pills rather than a violent strangulation severing the fingers and dumping the body one think about his
patients as well so many of its patients probably haven't seen him in a year and
to know him as this great doctor then also in Psych your doctor murdered his father yeah I mean it made no sense to
anyone who knew and loved Vince Gilmer Vince was extradited to Virginia where the body was found from North Carolina
to stand trial pretty quickly after Vince was arrested he confessed to strangling his father in his first court
appearance for the first-degree murder charge he told the judge that his brain wasn't working right right but he was
assessed by psychologists and deemed fit to stand trial it was while Vince was sitting in jail
in Washington County Virginia that Vince started writing a series of letters to the Bristol Herald Courier newspaper
based in Bristol Virginia this is around March of 2005 while Vince admitted that he had killed his father
and mutilated the corpse he said in these letters that the actual murder had taken place in Tennessee not Virginia
that there was no reason he said for him to be in a Virginia Jail at all he had actually murdered his father in Carter
County Tennessee he wrote quote I Vince Gilmer committed manslaughter On June 29th 2004 it did not happen in Virginia
the only thing that happened in Virginia was the body ended up there I am confessing it happened in
Elizabethton Tennessee now Washington County Virginia sheriff's detectives were dubious of these claims and said
Vince's story had changed several times deputies also stating he's not in his right mind mm-hmm well Vince says in one
letter quote each time I tell the story it is a little different you can't include every detail every time you tell
a story a lot of it does not make sense but that also shows it was not planned and quote it seemed that Vince was eager
to prove that he hadn't planned the murder and whatever it was he had done he preferred to be held accountable in
Tennessee but even after meeting with Vince and receiving a full confession in person Tennessee authorities weren't
able to confirm that any crime had taken place in their state they only had Vince's word to go by the letters Vince
sent to the herald carrier gave a glimpse into what would be the basis of Vince Gilmer's defense at trial Vince
also gave several phone interviews with journalists from the paper several in-person interviews and one TV
interview from prison and he told the following story that on the day before he killed his father he Vince had
stopped taking antidepressant lexapro Vince had decided he said that he could do without the drug this is a little
strange given that Vince was a medical doctor and should have known how unsafe it was to stop taking these drugs so
abrupt right if Vince Gilmer went off lexapro cold turkey he definitely could have
suffered adverse effects right but would you really suffer them so quickly you'd
think that there'd be some lag time like if you're taking the pill every 24 hours
or so mm-hmm like that if he just didn't take him one day like it's not like you
know he stopped taking them a few days before and now we're gonna have the effects those effects for the next
couple weeks could be pretty dramatic well and that's what really calls a lot of this stuff into question one what
would be the expected outcome of of someone stopping taking these drugs so abruptly right and then two they
couldn't find any prescription for this stuff at all so they they had little proof that he's taking them out if he
was actually even taking them now Vince did say repeatedly to psychologists prison doctors guards and the media that
his brain was not working right without lexapro in fact he said in the wake of stopping taking the drug he didn't feel
himself at all now these are his words okay he said he felt mentally [ __ ] and reporters and others who met with
him in prison notice that Vince would make strange head movements and gestures he would shake he would become emotional
and cry spontaneously and you're saying that's not normal to do well it's not perceived to be normal okay why I need
to go see well the the other thing though too because this is this is going to be come a key thing in this case in
this story because a lot of this behavior in what Vince could have been doing before or at the time of the
murder will fall into his defense right right because Vince stated in a TV interview the one that we've been
discussing from prison that he was not someone who could hurt anyone he denied flat-out that he had intended
to kill his father Vince's letter stated that he killed his father in a fit of anger brought on by
mental problems and years of resentment over childhood sexual abuse he said quote I
did not commit murder the things that happened that night were beyond my control and quote way it actually
happened that night according to Vince's letters and he details this in these letters was this
Vince was driving his father in his truck moving him to a closer nursing home with a plan to go kayaking along
the way but his father started taunting him during the 90 minute drive during which Vince stopped at an Arby's and a
gas station the taunting worsened Vince wrote quote my father started sexually molesting me when I was six and my
sister when she was three rame mom tried to shelter us but it kept on he continued to try to molest us as adults
as they drove Vince said Dalton kept taunting quote he was always saying filthy disgusting things to remind me of
what happened he reached over and tried to pull my head to his crotch the voices
took over from there I started hearing voices telling me to kill people the voices in my head
were telling me to kill my father and quote wah and to be clear about this - Gilmer never said that his father was
saying these things all the time like the what he is claiming it is at some point his father molested him for a
series of years then then it stopped and then his dad didn't bring it up dad didn't talk about it so now with his dad
having some kind of dementia or whatever they're now riding in the car and he's rubbing his son's leg and talking to him
and harassing him about this time period almost a you know and almost acting as if his son the doctor is not 40 some
years old or whatever years at the time but as as if he's a child and so as that all that stuff is
happening you know the doctor claims that I just snapped yeah he says what what happened next was a blur quote
nothing made sense from then on at some point he strangled his father and loaded
his body into the back of the pickup he waited until dark and then stopped at Food City and Elizabethton to buy gloves
and a tarp to cover the body in the truck bed he stopped on a back road and decided to cut off Dalton's fingers and
thumbs to try to hide the identity he wrote quote I had a saw in my truck for sawing limbs in my yard it took five
minutes Vince told investigators he put the fingers in a plastic bag and dropped
them in a river this according to Carter County Sheriff Henson who met with Vince
in prison on March 16th in this interview Vince confessed to the murder on camera denying vehemently that he had
planned the whole thing the sheriff and his deputies noted that Vince was acting
very strange and that he was borderline incoherent rambling and couldn't complete a thought and he was breathing
hard shuffling and agitated Vince told the man that he ended up in Washington County where he had lived in the 1990s
while studying as a resident at Bristol Regional Medical Center in Tennessee saying quote I decided to drop the body
on the side of the road my cover-up of the crime was pitiful if I had planned this I would have had something to cover
the body with I covered the body I didn't know where to go or what to do I drove aimlessly my brain was not working
right right now he he might have covered the body when it was in the truck bed but when he dumped Dalton's lifeless
body on the side of the road Dalton wasn't covered by anything he was he was out there really for anybody to find
which was as I stated in the first episode I thought was a little shocking in itself to make all of these moves and
all these efforts to hide the identity of the victim that would ultimately found on the side of the road when he
could have taken additional efforts to conceal the body itself even further right and I think a lot of a lot of this
story to me is when you get this intelligent guy that for whatever reason snaps but probably wouldn't have snapped
normally there's something going on with him he snaps then he kills his father and then he tells you you know I could
have done this better you know I'm a smart guy I could have covered him up better that my attempt to discard the
body is a poor attempt and that sounds sick but I think he's trying to prove like hey I could I'm a doctor I could
even done this better right you guys are looking for proof of premeditated murder I'm trying to
provide you some proof that it was not premeditated right and just the fact that he is a
doctor and has again I think struggling with something but with the idea that like he's saying look
I'm smart enough to to have taken some steps but my brains not working enough to let me take all the steps so I
probably needed to take so that you couldn't ever find the body therefore you'd never be able to charge me yeah
well and obviously we're just picking apart pieces of the interview that we mentioned right as well as parts of the
letters but as far as the letters go the the Harold Courier reporter sums up the
article about the letters as a whole and gives this evaluation and published it on March 17 2005 which read the letters
which skip over the details of how the father died tell a sometimes rambling story of mental illness rage and
confusion it's the latest twist in a case that investigators have called one of the
most bizarre and gruesome in recent memory I mean it's definitely gruesome as far as I just remember they kind of
skimmed over the fact you know that he basically cut off every single finger right and that he skims over yeah yeah
said I decided to do this I pulled over the side of the road five minutes but just yeah but even the
that's a gruesome five minutes mm-hmm well let's talk about the flip side of the coin because we have Vince Gilmer
who's saying look I was out of my mind I was not in control the murder was not premeditated and happied as a result of
all of these emerging factors right voices in my head yeah the stop I stopped taking this drug
multiple things here so the other side would be that a lot of people you know said that it's pretty much evident from
listening to the tapes of Vince Vince's prison conversation with with friends and supporters that Vince wanted
people to believe that there was something wrong with him that there might not be something wrong that he's
acting yeah yeah Vince even pointed out that the news camera footage that showed
him being placed in a police car well it showed him having this sort of head bob
tic going on in that footage yeah and he indicated to people around him that he had tremors that he could not explain
now law enforcement and prosecutors weren't buying it they labeled Vince Gilmer as quote highly manipulative they
conducted an experiment where they set up video cameras to film the exercise yard in the prison the cameras would
catch Vince playing basketball or exercising normally but when an officer of the court or a guard would step into
the scene Vince would start to shuffle suffer from tics o faker and act physically not in control of his body
and then a short time later he would seem to return to normal he starts playing like air jordan yeah he's like
doing 360 dunks and then every time they get around he's twitching right he can't
do anything so can we get to Air Jordans trial yes so undeterred by Vince's assertions that
he hadn't committed a crime in their state Washington County prosecutors proceeded with the murder trial based
the state law that permitted them to prosecute the case since the body was recovered in Virginia Vince Gilmer went
to trial on August 15 2005 prosecutors painted Vince as a cold-blooded killer who planned the murder of his father
they pointed to the following circumstantial and other evidence one Vince confessed to killing his father -
he had done so in a brutal fashion strangling him twice and cutting off his fingers 3 Vince came prepared to commit
murder with the saw and the Rope already in his truck for someone who helped Dalton into
Vince's truck that fateful day actually heard Vince say this is their testimony heard Vince say to his father quote I've
been waiting for this day for a long time some other information Vince was overwhelmed by the amount of debt he was
in there was also no evidence to back up Vince's claims of abuse at the hands of
his father furthermore at trial the prosecution presented tapes of conversations Vince had in prison which
were quite damning in the conversations with his mother and Friends he appeared to be trying to manipulate the venue he
would be prosecuted in in order to get the most leniency remember the letters to the newspaper where Vince said he
shouldn't be on trial in Virginia ring because he actually killed his father in Tennessee well on the tapes Vince says
to his mother a guy in here said Carter County Tennessee is the best place to go to
receive a shorter sentence but he's also attacking people in prison mm-hmm well an Virginia had the death penalty right
and in another phone call with a friend Vince mentioned that he was trying to work out a deal with a DA in North
Carolina it sounded very much like Vince Gilmour was forum-shopping and his his story changed accordingly to try to get
this thing where he wanted it to go right but the nail in Vince's coffin was hammered home by the fact that the
clinical psychologist who and evaluated Vince to determine whether he was fit to stand trial found him to
be restless agitated and fidgety but concluded that Vince was faking this this was all a big fake according to
them his quote symptoms and quote just didn't fit any known psychiatric disorder he determined that Vince was
sane a psychiatrist who also examined Vince found him to be evasive dramatic and
manipulative the prosecution alleged that Vince had deliberately started acting bizarrely well prior to the
murder as part of his long-term plan to fake insanity as a he's been doing this for over a year or close to a year so
you gotta think that's that's some commitment yeah well it's you can commit yourself beforehand or you can find
yourself committed to prison for the rest of your life or possibly facing a death penalty yeah now in a very
questionable judgment call you know and I say that with all honesty the judge agreed to allow Vince to represent
himself at his trial this is great yeah we never we never like this win pulled a
Bundy even when people will seem to behaving somewhat normally he had a lawyer dawn Davidson present with whom he
consulted from time to time but Vince was the one up there questioning people in front of the jury and by all accounts
it was a disaster yeah well when you're attacking people in prison and your counselors changing their story and
you're constantly stating to people that there's something broken in your brain that your brains not working right they
shall let you defend yourself hmm well you also have to wonder is this also hey an attempt that I can put on a
theatrical performance right in front of this jury and maybe maybe somehow we get
this I've been deemed competent to stand trial maybe my actions or my theatrical
presentation might change that opinion that now my insanity defense is a real actual defense so I to sum this up and
I'm gonna use some other people's words to sum this up because I thought there was a lot of good play by play so to
speak on the way that this went down Vince was not able to keep his train of thought this was very noticeable or
effectively cross-examine witnesses he stumbled over words he forgot what he was talking about and he rambled in a
sort of stream-of-consciousness type of manner now Davidson said that he could not
string together a thought or ask a coherent question and that watching it was like watching someone commit suicide
with a butter knife and Vince's defense was a very unorthodox one Vince blamed the actions on serotonin or rather the
lack thereof now remember Vince is a medical doctor he told anyone who would listen and many who wouldn't then he
knew what he needed to fix his brain and it was an SSRI medication Vince told the
jury that he suffered from withdrawal when he stopped taking his antidepressants and that voices in his
head had repeatedly told him to kill his father his brain he emphasized again was
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this might be the closest I ever get to one of my dreams hmm and that would be to do the music for this American life
just one episode I don't want paid this would be a ultimate dream of mine there you go
and I've sent them a lot of messages and I'm never never got a reply yet well regarding this trial captain I don't
think that some of the best fiction authors out there could could script this thing I mean as the way that it
sounds that it was going down King good Wow there you go Vince's mother Gloria testified at the trial and she states
that Dalton her husband Dalton Gilmore did have a history of mental problems and he had violent outbursts towards her
and the kids but the prosecutors were able to show that there was really there really wasn't any evidence of the
violent sexual abuse alleged by Vince right although Vince's sister was alleged to have backed up the abuse
story she disappeared prior to the trial so Vince wasn't able to produce any corroborating witnesses and what
witnesses he did call in the course of the trial were frankly irrelevant or even harmful to his cause Gilmer's
mental disorder argument backfired in court when his expert witness his expert witness claimed that his behavior
sounded more like anxiety rather than a disorder and Vince called his ex-girlfriend to the stand and asked her
quote to the best of your knowledge have I hurt anyone or killed anyone to which she responded your
father right yeah well the jury didn't buy Vince's insanity defense jurors noted that at times Vince seemed quote
nuts but other times he was totally normal they believed he was faking they convicted him of first-degree murder
the judge said at a post trial hearing quote the defendant would go into an act he would look up to see if the jury was
buying it when the jury wasn't buying it he would go back to normal it was clear
that he was acting Vince was sentenced to life in prison and at the trial the judge said the jury found you to be a
cold-blooded killer he says this directly to Vince Gilmer yeah so that's where the story would end basically we
have this guy that was a he was a great guy he was great doctor he was a great husband for a while mmm then he has this
car accident maybe that had some effect on him maybe it's maybe he had some mental thing that
was creeping up on him because a lot of those things you know kind of reared their ugly head over time and of the age
or maybe this trauma as as as a child rears its ugly head but either way he kills his father now he's in jail and
that's kind of where the story would stop yep sent to prison for the rest of his life a life sentence but now you
have this guy that if you heard him talk he definitely sounds like there's something wrong with him and then to
find out that he's attacking I he I mean I've said it five or six times during this show he keeps attacking people in
prison and now he's losing teeth because he's losing these fights he's not a fighter and so then he is he's just not
well right right yeah he's a it's not a winning fighter he's definitely a fighter but now you have this guy that
took over his practice with the same last name yeah and he's curious why are these people saying such good things
about him he knows what it takes what kind of man it takes to what kind of man or woman I
guess it takes to run this type of facility and then to hear what he did it didn't line up to Ben Gilmer right and
he starts asking some questions like any you know walk of life or any line of work or any career choice you know a lot
of people can be doctors but dr. Ben Gilmer is hearing from previous patients and the staff that he works closely with
that the former that the the previous doctor dr. Vince Gilmer the murderer was a good doctor was a great doctor a
caring doctor and a good man right yeah so that's where this story takes a bit of a twist because we've already talked
about doctor been reaching out to dr. Vince who's already in prison by this time they start off with just trading
some letters back and forth then it goes to phone conversations and then to meeting in person at the prison yeah and
through all of this correspondence the entire time dr. Ben Gilmer is he's wandering look the appearance of this
man of dr. Vince the appearance of the prisoner the the the letters that he's writing the the words that he's speaking
the interactions with him it looks - dr. ben as this man is actually sick that he
the you know regardless of you know been dr. ben knows that the authorities believe that Vince was manufacturing his
symptoms right but now dr. ben has to wonder what would be the incentive for Vince to continue to fake these symptoms
six years into the life term by the time that they start interacting with each other right so the trials over there's
no reason to fake it you're not putting up who are you putting this fake show on
for this might be real right and also he took a oath so what's the worst thing that can happen yet test it right yeah
let's let's give him a test and if we get and we if we take the simple test we might be able to figure out what's wrong
with them if there's anything wrong with them so basically what happens is we have dr.
Ben he decides that it's likely that Vince Gilmer was actually sick and he was determined to get to the bottom of
it so he's going but he doesn't know what the what the affliction is he doesn't know what's wrong with Vince
Gilmer right so he returns to the prison in the company of an experienced psychiatrist and the two of them met
with Vince so that the psychiatrist could observe Vince for himself after the meeting the two doctors they leave
the prison they talk they're talking they're trying to come up with theories as to what could be wrong with Vince and
the psychiatrist actually didn't think that it was the SSRI withdrawal he didn't think that that that that would
explain what he was seeing he also didn't it might explain some of his symptoms but not all of them he also
didn't even think that it was the head injury either and they just kind of kept coming up empty in the beginning and
then eventually the psychiatrist says you know could he have could Vince have Huntington's disease to which dr. Ben
thought to himself that this fits this might fit it's very rare so dr. Ben was desperate to get Vince
tested for Huntington's disease the test is a simple blood test and luckily these
tests for Huntington's for the gene are 100% accurate there is virtually no chance for error he was unsure how to
proceed until three weeks later when he discovered that Vince had been moved to a psychiatric hospital after threatening
to commit suicide with a razor blade that was found in his cell dr. Ben met with a social worker at the hospital and
suggested that they test Vince for Huntington's and they did and dr. Ben was not surprised to learn that the test
was positive Vince had 43 repeat markers for Huntington's disease so what is Huntington disease alright here's what I
was able to find it is you're no doctor that's right that's right it is a hereditary neurological disease
in which the carriers neurological condition deteriorates over time specifically according to the Mayo
Clinic the disease causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain eventually it leads to loss
of bodily and cognitive control and then death it has been described as a cruel combination of ALS Parkinson's and
Alzheimer's typically there are no symptoms until age 30 or 40 and then the severity of the cognitive and behavioral
symptoms depends on the number of genetic markers for the disease the sufferer has one of the common symptoms
of the disease is a loss of control of the muscular system resulting in dance like tics also common are muscular
rigidity slow or abnormal eye movements impaired balance and difficulty speaking
or swallowing but other symptoms include cognitive deterioration personality changes impulsive mood swings
irritability aggression and even psychological symptoms typical typically associated with schizophrenia or
psychosis so I knew there was something wrong and just didn't know exactly what it was yes yes and and look I mean when
we rattle off all of those symptoms and all of what could be going on with one individual that you're observing that's
a lot of different things here they could be going on which could could be very difficult for even a very good
doctor to pinpoint the actual disease or pinpoint what is actually going on with
that person just based off of visually seeing them and I mind you a lot of these interactions are probably taking
place on the other side of prison bars or at least glass right it is very often misdiagnosed apparently because the
significant aspect of Huntington's is that it causes psych at Rick disorders like depression mania
bipolar disorder and can actually vary widely in the symptoms exhibited by different patients yeah I would assume
that this is misdiagnosed a lot as bipolar or schizophrenia yes and notably Huntington's patients are noted often to
clash with law enforcement and this because of their uncontrollable impulsive actions or even drunken
appearance or their movements appear to be that of a drunken person when when really they're not obvious right this is
a difficult thing here captain because really what all this may suggest is that we have we definitely have this
doctor dr. Ben Gilmer who's trying to find out what happened to dr. Vince Gilmer mm-hmm how did he go from being a
caring loving doctor to to murdering his father I don't think it's that complex he has Huntington's disease and when you
have that yeah but so so that last bit of information that that I threw out there in regards to what I could find
online about Huntington's disease the the portion of the of where it says Huntington's patients are noted to often
clash with law enforcement look I I think that's a that's a difficult thing to really state and say it that way you
know that's not my information that's me passing along some information that I found right and I don't know that the
answer here is just simply that he has Huntington's disease and that's why he killed his father that doesn't there's a
part of it it's a percentage of it right I think that that could be a part of it
but and I remember when they covered this on this American life that at some point I believe it was sarah caning she
offered a maybe somewhat of an apology because I think some people came after the show
in regards to how they may have represented or misrepresented people that are afflicted with Huntington's
disease right and I think that my take from hearing their show was not so much that
they are pointing towards Huntington's disease as being the cause of this murder no I think really what this story
tells me and keep in mind this is not everybody's gotta keep bear this in mind when they listen to this show or or to
other shows This American Life didn't write this story they didn't this isn't some fictitious story that they came up
with this is living real people this is real life why it's called true crime garage not a fictitious crime garage
they are simply reporting and telling the story of something that actually happened that involved a bunch of other
people and really what you have here is one doctor's dedication dr. Ben Gilmer one doctors dedication to determine what
was wrong what is wrong with the man that I see before me now six years after the murder what what is wrong with this
individual that I'm interacting now with now not necessarily what was wrong with
him at the time it might bring - it might help bring some of that to light or give some suggestion as to what could
have been going on with this individual before he murdered his father but it's simply a doctor looking at a
man in a prison and viewing him as a possible patient as a patient is somebody that he should try to take care
of and that's what they came the conclusion was that this man absolutely did have Huntington's disease Jim so I
think that with this situation first we have dr. Ben Gilmer trying to look into this and see what was going on he wants
to know why just like we started off the show saying that often when we look at a
murderer after the fact after we know that they're guilty after we know that they 100% did it we still want to know
why he wanted to know why I think in this situation the Huntington's disease and and God bless dr. Ben Gilmer for for
Duke this was a lot of stuff he didn't have to do yeah a lot of effort that he didn't have to
do doesn't let's be honest though did chances are if his last name's not Gilmer just like Vince Gilmer it the
story stops with all the other guy kind of you know went off the deep end and killed his father okay cool
moving on you know but the fact that it was taken over a practice and you have the same name and there's similarities
that that's kind of what drove that that extra mile to get to that answer you know where I think and but good because
again maybe it's just a percentage of the reason of why this murder took place but like the big difference when you
especially if you listen to that episode is when you hear him talk the first time
Vince Gilmer and then you hear him talk after they put him on medicine and it's like a different person
and he's not now attacking people and getting into fights that he can't even you shouldn't be getting into
he's almost became a different person immediately within a couple days of being medicated right and I mean you can
sit there and say all you want that all he could have been could have been faking it that maybe maybe maybe there
was some faking going on but it doesn't matter we you know you can't fake that we know 100% yeah according to the blood
test you can't fake a blood test so I don't know that doctor Ben Gilmer got his answer as to why but then we're tasked
with looking back on this story and all the information we know in wondering still wondering why and I think that for
me I keep going back to the whole thing of was this actually premeditated or was
it spur-of-the-moment I think that you can have all these factors go into why doctor Vince Gilmour committed this
murder and it still be premeditated I think but then on the other side of the fence you could have all these factors
that went into it and it not be premeditated at all I do find it strange that they went way out of there
to this quote-unquote kayaking trip that seems very weird to me I wouldn't discredit I wouldn't take away from the
fact that we know that he likely had a severe head injury I think that the I think that's a percentage of this all
too I I agree and and I you know we made a little light of it yesterday but you know you asked me
have I seen or witnessed people throughout the history of the course of my life people behave sometimes
dramatically different after a head injury and the sad truth is yes and often it's not it's not you know someone
is a good person and becomes a better person it's usually it's some strange things that I wouldn't have thought
about the person before the head injury if that makes any sense you know I had a
student that he came to me after a head injury I wanted to learn how to play guitar is
in his 60s and he didn't seem normal six-year-old he almost acted like oh I almost acted like a 8 year old or a 10
year mm-hmm but real nice real polite and his and his girlfriend god bless her she said look he would war dating for
just a little bit yeah accident work he basically acts like a little kid now and
but you know he's nice he means well and and so I didn't know him before but I definitely saw the effects of it
afterwards and I know of at least one of individual that I thought that I knew very well for
a long period of time that you know didn't ever get in too much trouble if it was it was all you know small-time
stuff normal teenager type stuff and this person at some point suffered a head injury maybe more than one and
later in life exhibited violent behaviors that I never thought they were capable of yeah but I think whether it's
premeditated or not that that doesn't really matter too much to me cuz I think like I said I think it's a
combination of having this disease that's headed injury a lot of factors the fact that you know if if the
allegations of molestation are true you know that's a factor as well and then this crime takes place but it's great to
see that somebody cares and goes extra mile to say hey especially with mental illness because it's just something that
we're not talking and we just don't talk about enough in this country and it's like so taboo and it's like the amount
of emails that I still get for saying oh it's so great that you talked about depression we all should be talking
about it everybody faces depression at some point and the fact that that this is another thing by talking about this
disease that somebody can go hey my uncle's acting a little strange hey maybe we can test him for this and and I
think it just opens up the gateways of communication yeah and to be perfectly clear here I mean yes we pointed out
that the doctor Vince Kilmer at the time that he murdered his father he was at the age where the symptoms of
Huntington's are usually just starting to really set in and in the year before the crime he exhibited the changes in
behavior that we discussed including anxiety and other psychological symptoms he suffered a significant head injury
but to be very clear Huntington's does not typically cause people to become violent okay and same thing goes with
head injuries does not typically cause people to become violent we are simply looking at a very specific
story of a man who killed his father and asking the question of why rain but each
individual's will be affected differently by a disease and each individual is going to be affected
differently by head injury mm-hmm Vince Gilmer has since started to take SSRI medication celexa to help stabilize
his brain and the results have been dramatic as pointed out by the captain as noted by Ben Gilmer Vince is now able
to conduct a normal conversation and his symptoms have eased but sadly the only treatment for Huntington's is
symptomatic there is no cure and eventually the disease will overtake Vince and end his life now Ben Gilmore
and other advocates for Vince including his attorney Don Davidson and the Virginia Innocence Project are pushing
for Vince to receive a conditional release from prison and be placed in a mental health facility to receive the
care he needs Vince's diagnosis certainly calls into question the constitutionality of
allowing him to represent himself at trial and of course it calls into question whether Vince Gilmer was in his
right mind when he killed his father and cut off his fingers whatever struggles you are facing from depression anxiety
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recommendation before we leave you this week you'll want to check out HBO's new docu-series the case against
Adnan Syed and while you're at it check out our show off the record available on
stitcher premium where we have been discussing the case against Adnan Syed yeah so every Sunday a new episode comes
out we've covered part 1 and part 2 so next week after we watch part 3 on Sunday on Monday we'll talk about part 3
so check it out you can kind of watch the documentary with the captain and the colonel and if
you want to sign up for stitcher premium just go to our website true-crime garage
comm to start listening today alright until next week everybody be good be kind and don't live
[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Source: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-cru55-ab7180

This American Doctor /// Part 2 /// 289 Part 2 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com The psyche of a murderer has fascinated us for centuries. At the center of this week’s case we have a small-town doctor, beloved by his community. The doctor suddenly and without warning commits a heinous and brutal murder of someone close to him. What drove this seemingly gentle and caring man to kill. This week we discuss the case of Dr. Vince Gilmer Beer of the Week - Bourbon Barrel Aged Milk & Cookies by Wicked Weed Brewing Garage Grade - 4 and a quarter bottle caps out of 5 Show some love to this week’s fine sponsors. The companies that keep the Garage going! www.FabFitFun.com - use code GARAGE for $10 off your first box! www.BetterHelp.com/Garage - - use discount code GARAGE for 10% your first month www.Madison-Reed.com - Get 10% off plus FREE shipping on your first color kit with code GARAGE The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Vince Gilmer murdered his father, claiming mental illness; Huntington's disease complicates his case and raises questions about his sanity during the crime.

Key points

Vince Gilmer's Confession. Vince Gilmer confessed to strangling his father but claimed it was not premeditated.
The Trial of Vince Gilmer. Vince Gilmer's trial revealed his mental state and the prosecution's strong evidence against him.
Vince's Insanity Defense Fails. The jury didn't buy Vince's insanity defense, leading to his conviction for murder.
Discovery of Huntington's Disease. Dr. Ben Gilmer discovers Vince has Huntington's disease, shedding light on his behavior.
The Impact of Head Injuries. Head injuries can lead to dramatic changes in behavior, often surprising those around them.
Mental Health Awareness. Discussing the importance of talking about mental illness and its effects.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Each time I tell the story, it is a little different.

Vince Gilmer explaining the inconsistencies in his confession.

5:49WatchMar 20, 2019

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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