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

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flow a little bit better and that's enough of the business yep everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer
let's talk some true crime after the arrest 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 theorized that it was a mercy killing that Vince
knew his dad was beyond help and decided to put him out of his misery mhm 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 well and think about his patience as well so many of his patients probably haven't seen him in a year MH and to
know him as this great doctor then all of a sudden it's like your doctor murdered his father yeah I mean it made
no sense to anyone who knew and loved Vince Gilmer now Vince was extradited to Virginia where the body was found from
North Carolina to stand trial pretty quickly after Vince was arrested he confess 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 psychologist 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 Herold 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 quot 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 elizabethon Tennessee now Washington County Virginia Sheriff's detectives were dubious of these claims
and said Vince's story had changed several times yeah but he's also stating he's not in his right mind mhm 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 end 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 Herold carrier gave a glimpse into to 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 anti-depressant
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 abruptly right if Vince Gilmer went off Lexapro cold turkey he definitely could have suffered adverse effects
Vince 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 mhm like that if he just didn't take them one
day like it's not like you know he stopped taking them a few days before and now we're going to have the 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 taking them now Vince did say repeatedly to psychologist uh
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 noticed 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 well I need
to go see therapist 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 and 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 M he said quote I did not commit
murder the things that happened that night were beyond my control and quote what had 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 kaying along the way but his father started taunting him
during the 90-minute drive during which Vince stopped at an Arby's in 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 right 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 end quote well and to be clear about this too Gilmer never said that his father
was saying these things all the time like the what he is claiming is that some point his father molested him for a
series of years mhm 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 a car and he's rubbing his son's leg and talking to him and harassing him about this time period
mhm almost you know and almost acting as if his son the doctor is not 40 some years
old or whatever he is at the time but as as if he's a child mhm 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 in Elizabethan 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 5 minutes Vince told investigators
he put the fingers in a plastic bag and dropped them in a river this according to Carter County Sheriff Hensen who met
with Vince in prison on March 16th in this interview Vince confessed to the murder on camera denying vly 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 men 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 Ro 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 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 be 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 got 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 I'm a smart guy I could have covered him up better that my
attempt to um discard the body is a poor attempt and that sounds sick but I think
he's trying to prove like hey I I could you I'm a doctor I could have 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
brain's not working enough to let me take all the steps that 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 Herold 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 he he skims over it yeah yeah he said I decided to do this I
pulled over over the side of the road it took 5 minutes but just yeah but even the that's a gruesome 5 minutes mhm well
let's talk about the flip side of the coin because we have Vince Gilmer who's saying look I I was out of my mind I was
not in control um the murder was not premeditated and Happ it as a result of all of these emerging factors right
voices in my head yep the the stop I stopped taking this drug um 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 uh 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 with 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 headbob
tick 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 ticks oh Faker and act physically not in
control of his body mhm and then a short time later he would seem to return to normal he starts playing like Air Jordan
yeah he's in the back he's like doing 3 60 dunks and then every time they get around he's twitching right he he can't
do anything so can we get to Air Jordan's 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 on the state
law that permitted them to prosecute the case since the body was recovered in Virginia Vince Gilmer went to trial on
August 15th 2015 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 two he had done so in a brutal fashion strangling him twice and cutting off his
fingers three Vince came prepared to commit murder with the saw and the Rope already in his truck four 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 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 right 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 mhm well and
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 Gilmore 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 psychologists who had evaluated Vince to determined 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 end 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 that's a but he's been doing this for over a year
or close to a year so you got to 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 question judgement call and and I I say that with all
honesty the judge agreed to allow Vince to represent himself at his trial oh this is great yeah we never we never
like this when pull a Bundy even when people seem to behaving somewhat normally he had a lawyer Don Davidson uh
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 you're constantly changing
your story and you're constantly stating to people that there's something broken
in your brain that your brain's not working right they shouldn't let you defend yourself M 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 uh I've been deemed competent to stand trial maybe my actions or my theatrical
presentation might change that opinion that that now my Insanity defense is a real actual defense so I to sum this up
um and I'm going to use some other people's words to sum this up because I thought there was a lot of good um um
play byplay 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 that 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 anti-depressants and the voices in his head had repeatedly told
him to kill his father his brain he emphasized again was not working [Music] right this show is sponsored by better
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[Music] that cheers this might be the closest I ever get to one of my dreams and that
would be to do the music for This American Life just one episode I don't want paid this is it' be a Ultimate
Dream of mine there you go and I've I've sent him a lot of messages and I've 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 as the way that it sounds that it was going down King could
well there you go uh 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 Outburst 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 jur found you to be a coldblooded 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
a great doctor he was a great husband for a while 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 cuz a lot of those things you know uh kind of
rear rear their ugly head over time and of age or maybe this trauma as a 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 is not a fighter and so then he is he's just not a good oh right right yeah he's a he's he's not a
winning fighter he's definitely a fighter uh 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 um it takes to run this type of
facility and then to hear what he did it didn't line up to Ben Gilmer right so 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 Dr Ben 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 wondering 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 with him it looks to Dr Ben as this man is actually sick that he that you know regardless of you know
Ben Dr Ben knows that the authorities believed 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 trial's over there's no reason to fake it you're not put who
are you putting this fake show on for this might be real right and and also he took a oath so what's the worst thing
that can happen you test it right yeah let's let's give them 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 him if there's anything wrong with
him 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 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 the 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 uh he was unsure how to proceed
until 3 weeks later when he discovered that V 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 all right
here's what I was able to find it is and you're no doctor that's right that's right it is a hereditary neurological
disease in which the carrier's 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 danik ticks also common are muscular idity
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 he knew there was something
wrong he 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 that's a lot of different
things here that 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 mind you a lot of these uh interactions are probably taking place on the other side
of prison bars or at least glass right it is very often misdiagnosed apparently um because the significant aspect of
Huntington's is that it causes psychiatric 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 schizophr 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 obviously right um 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 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 that I threw out there in regards to what I could find
online about Huntington's dis disase 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 that does 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 kanig she offered a uh maybe somewhat of an apology because
I 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
got to keep bear this in mind when 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 breathing people this is
real life that's 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 doctor's dedication to determine what
was wrong what is wrong with the man that I see before me now 6 years after the murder right 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 to it might help bring some of that to light or give some uh 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 as some 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 yeah so I think
that with this situation first we have do 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 right he
wanted to know why I think in this situation the Huntington's disease and and God bless Dr Ben Gilmer for for do
this was a lot of stuff he didn't have to do yeah a lot of effort that he didn't have to do let's let's be honest
though chances are if his last name's not Gilmer just like Vince Gilmer it the story stops with oh 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 taking
over a practice and you have the same name and there 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 uh 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 to fights that he can't even he shouldn't be getting into um 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 oh 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 know you can't fake that we know 100% yeah according to the blood test you
can't fake a blood test so so I don't know that Dr 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 and wondering still wondering why and I think that for me I
I keep going back to the whole thing of was this actually premeditated or was it
spur the moment I think that you can have all these factors go into why Dr Vince
Gilmore 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 their way to this quote unquote kaying 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 yeah
I had I had a student that he came to me after a head injury he wanted to learn how to play guitar he was in his 60s and
he didn't seem normal 6-year-old he almost acted like a almost acted like a eight-year-old or a 10-year-old but real
nice real polite and his and his girlfriend God bless her she said look he we were dating for just a little bit
he had an accident at work he basically acts like a little kid now um and but you know he's nice he means well and and
so I didn't know him before but I definitely saw the the effects of it afterwards mhm and I know of at least
one individual that I thought that I knew very well for a long period of time that um you know didn't ever get into
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 before I I think whether it's premeditated or not that
that doesn't really matter too much to me because I like I said I think it's a combination of having this disease this
head 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 um but it's great to see that somebody cares
and goes the extra mile to say hey especially with mental illness because it's just something that we're not
talking 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 um that this is another thing by talking about the
disease that somebody can go hey my 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 U of communication yeah and to be perfectly clear here I mean yes we pointed out
that that Dr Vince Gilmer 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 in
behavior that we discussed including anxiety and other psychological symptoms he suffered a significant head injury
but to be very clear Huntington 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 of of a man who killed his father and asking the question of why right but each
individual is going to be affected differently by a disease and each individual is going to be affected
differently by head injury MH um 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 diagnos 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 and here's a little recommendation before we leave you this
week you'll want to check out HBO's new docu series the case against Adnan Sayed
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 sayet yeah so every Sunday a new episode comes
out we've covered part one and part two uh so next week after we watch part three on Sunday on Monday we'll talk
about part three 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 Crim garage.com to start listening today all right until
next week everybody be good be kind and don't [Music] live you can start your day off right when
you find a professional on Angie to get your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals
to get all your home projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you
Angie that

This American Doctor /// Part 2 /// 289

Part 2 of 2

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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

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Brief Summary

Dr. Vince Gilmer murdered his father, claiming mental illness; Huntington's disease was later diagnosed, complicating his case.

Key points

The Shocking Confession. Vince Gilmer confesses to killing his father in a fit of anger, claiming mental illness.
Trial and Manipulation. Vince's trial reveals his attempts to manipulate the legal system for leniency.
Vince's Insanity Defense. Vince's defense claimed he was suffering from withdrawal and hearing voices.
Trial Testimonies. Witnesses described Vince's erratic behavior during the trial, raising doubts about his sanity.
Discovery of Huntington's Disease. Dr. Ben Gilmer discovers Vince has Huntington's disease after testing.
Vince's Transformation. After medication, Vince shows a drastic change in behavior, no longer attacking others.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I did not commit murder; the things that happened that night were beyond my control.

Vince Gilmer's defense claims about his mental state during the murder.

10:24WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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