Original subtitles

[birds chirping]

[raven crows]

[Mary] I grew up here

on Hidden Valley Road

on the outskirts of Colorado Springs.

It looks like such a peaceful place,

but things aren't always as they seem.

I was the youngest of 12 children.

From the outside,

our family looked picture perfect.

And that's just how our parents wanted it.

But behind closed doors, it was another story.

And it tore our family apart.

My brothers were turning into something

none of us understood.

As a child, I thought--

I thought they'd been taken over by demons.

The violence they unleashed was terrifying.

Murder, rape,

suicide.

For those of us that survived,

we had to watch

as six of my brothers were consumed by madness.

In the end,

the consequences would consume

us all.

[Daniel] Where schizophrenia is diagnosed

between age 17 and 24.

[Mark] It's a tragic story.

To be part of the Galvin family is

to be part of a tragedy.

[woman] This mutation was present

in every person in that family who had schizophrenia.

[Daniel] They might hear voices.

They can command them to do things.

[echoing] C ommand them to do things.

[Mary] Throwing a cat into a bonfire.

Dismembered a dog in the bathtub.

[man] This family gave us hope

that there might be a chance to cure schizophrenia.

[woman] He shot her first, and then he shot himself.

[Richard] Well, it started to fall apart.

My brothers were falling ill.

They were losing their minds.

[echoes] They were losing their minds.

These are all the family photos. There's...

boxes and boxes of them.

And they're quite heavy.

I'm Mary Christine Galvin,

which my mother always said

was named after Mary, the mother of Christ.

I was born into this large Irish Catholic family.

I was the youngest of 12 children,

10 boys, and two girls.

Don, Jim, John, Brian, Michael,

Richard,

Joseph, Mark, Matthew, Peter, Margaret, and Mary.

Six of my brothers,

diagnosed schizophrenics.

My mom describes that she saw signs,

but couldn't really identify in her...

heart and mind what was going on.

There was something going on with Jim.

Peter breaking all the windows in the house.

Donald,

he dismembered a dog in the bathtub at home.

It was like a snowball effect,

my parents blaming themselves.

There was so much despair

and so much hopelessness

and so much confusion.

I didn't find out until much later as an adult,

maybe in my 20s.

Brian had murdered his girlfriend

and committed suicide.

I remember my mother just being...

distraught.

My parents,

I don't think they knew what to make of it.

Never in their worst nightmares

would they have believed such a thing could happen.

Their children, young men that are so promising,

to end up in a mental hospital.

...after Donald was born.

These are early pictures

of my parents' relationship.

They met at a swim meet.

She jumped the gun

and he had to go in the water after her.

Then he asked her out on their first date.

They went to see The Wizard of Oz.

And she said they skipped all the way home, singing

"We're off to see the wizard."

This is their wedding day.

They eloped.

But our parents never told us they had eloped.

They told us about the grand wedding

they had in New York at the rectory.

But these are from Southern California

when they eloped, 'cause my mom was pregnant.

It was a family secret, yes.

And he was going to war.

So they took the train

from New York to Southern California,

where he was getting ready to ship off for World War II.

So he's in his whites,

his Navy whites.

Neither set of families were terribly happy

because she was, you know, Irish Protestant

and he was Irish Catholic.

And then at some point, she converted to Catholicism.

And it was because my father said

it would help their marriage,

that they could then bring their children up

in the same religion.

It would make them closer as a family.

[interviewer] John, come take a seat.

[John] My mother was a wonderful woman.

She always had our interests at heart,

made sure we had piano lessons.

The house was always full of music.

[violin music playing]

[John] We would listen to classical music

all the time, and...

she would point out how to listen to the music.

She'd say, "Oh, do you hear the French horns,"

or "Do you hear the oboe?"

She liked to listen to Verdi operas,

Mozart operas,

and she loved to be involved, and she loved to sing.

She grew up in New York,

and her mother took her

to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City,

and she fell in love with it.

When my father joined the Air Force,

he moved to Colorado Springs from New York.

I think my mother was probably very anxious

about what kind of culture she would find

in Colorado Springs.

[Mary] The Air Force base was supposed to be

on Long Island,

and then they suddenly changed it

to Colorado Springs.

My dad had signed on thinking

they were gonna stay in New York,

and then they ended up in Colorado Springs.

My mother hated it.

This was their first home.

She said it was a dump.

Here's four boys. So, young Don,

and that would have been Jim, John,

and Brian was a baby here.

September 1951,

baby Brian's approximately three weeks old here.

The Catholic Church believed in large families

to keep the faith going.

And so I think my parents just embraced that.

They were doing their Catholic duty.

Don and Jim and John

and Brian

and Richard

and Robert Michael and Joseph, as a baby.

And my dad's in his uniform there.

[Richard] I was always called Number 6.

Occasionally they would call me by my name,

but I was Number 6.

I was right in the middle of 12.

[Richard] Hello.

[exhales] How are you?

I was a little boy growing up with older brothers.

We played baseball and did our things together

and hockey and tennis and swam and hiked

and camped and lived a normal life.

But it started to fall apart.

I mean, people were getting sick.

The boys, my brothers, were falling ill.

They were losing their minds to schizophrenia.

[Mary] Mark was the peacekeeper.

If anyone could deescalate a situation, it was Mark.

'Cause he was a mathematician and a great chess player,

and he always got excellent grades.

He was one of the better students

in our family.

[Mark] I'm in the middle of the youngest five boys.

Richard and Joseph are the older two,

and Matthew and Peter are the younger two.

I lived on the Air Force Academy base

until I was five years old.

So I attended kindergarten there.

Dad was a brilliant guy.

As a political science professor,

he taught Soviet foreign policy

to the cadets back in the Cold War era.

[TV reporter] Among the more significant achievements

of our recent national history

is the establishment of this leadership laboratory

in Colorado.

It is called

the United States Air Force Academy.

[marching band music playing]

[John] When my father started teaching at the Academy,

we moved out onto the base.

They house you by rank, so you get your colonels,

they're up on one end,

and then you go down to the majors,

you're in the middle, and then you have

the non-commissioned officers down south further.

The Officers Club had

swimming pools and tennis courts.

In the summertime, we would spend the whole day

at the swimming pool and playing tennis.

But all the kids went to school together.

I think my parents were a little dismayed

that I spent so much time

with non-commissioned officers' kids.

[laughs]

But they were my friends,

and so we did a lot of things together.

[Richard] Back then it was, you know, military officer,

and you were trying to get a leg up

in the military hierarchy, of the ladder system.

They were climbing the ladder.

And Dad was just a looked-upon figure

by the academy staff,

because he was in charge of the falconry program,

and that was their mascot.

That was a big deal.

We had to go train falcons with him

and feed them beef heart and chop it up

and clean the newspapers and clean up the pen.

[John] We went through training.

Dad had set one on my head

and then he'd walk back so many paces

and bait his glove

and have the bird fly to his glove

and we did that

endlessly, for hours.

[Mary] I think the falconry at the Air Force Academy made

my mother feel special,

something they were known for.

I think that's what my mom liked about it.

It was unusual.

And for my dad, it was just a fun sport

that he got to do with his boys.

[Mark] Arnold Hall was

the concert venue for the Air Force Academy.

You know, that was a photo taken

right after our 10th boy was born.

[Richard] ...Was the Von Trapp family.

That's what they used to call us.

Sound of Music came out.

I'll never forget Mom getting us all

in the Volkswagen van.

And I bet if we didn't see it 10 times,

we saw it 20.

And that's what she wanted us to be,

is that Von Trapp family.

[Mark] We all booed

when Margaret came home from the hospital.

[laughs]

All 10 of us boys sent my mom to tears.

Our quarterback turned out to be a cheerleader.

Margaret, beautiful little girl growing up.

This is the pride and joy of mother.

And she was very smart, very talented, good kid.

Didn't know anything was going on until later in life

when I heard about the stories of brother Jim.

Mary was the second fiddle to Margaret.

She was, you know, "Okay,

I got my pride and joy in Margaret,

and then along came Mary."

[Mary] People would say, "Why do you have so many children?"

And my parents would say,

"Well, we wouldn't have the girls."

Margaret always thought it was mean,

but my mom used to say,

"The roses after all the thorns."

So she called the boys the thorns

and Margaret and I the roses.

[Mark] There were three acres of land,

trees and shrubs,

and things surrounding the property.

It was a beautiful setting.

[John] Not a lot of privacy

with so many siblings living in the same house.

Four bedrooms upstairs and two baths.

Downstairs you had a bathroom

and a bedroom off the stairway,

but that was an open room. There was no door.

And then the garage...

got turned into another bedroom.

[Mary] Chaotic, but to me, it was just normal.

"Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Peter hit me, Mom.

Margaret's not being nice to me, Mom."

I'm guessing she got that from everybody.

She'd always go, "Tattletale...

your tongue will be split

and all the dogs in town will have a little bit."

'Cause she just hated tattletaling,

'cause how could you keep up with it?

You couldn't possibly be interfering

in every... conflict 12 children had.

She'd say, "Go resolve it."

[Mark] Mom was definitely a perfectionist

when it came to housecleaning.

All the boys were assigned tasks,

whether it was sweeping the floor one day,

or doing the dishes the next day,

or cleaning the bathrooms another day, or vacuuming.

It was the white glove test, you know. [chuckles]

If it wasn't clean,

[clears throat] she would let you know

and you'd do it over.

[John] To my mother, social status was important.

I don't think so much to my father,

but I think he went along with it.

She always liked to rub elbows

or rub shoulders with famous people,

famous artists, musicians, dancers,

anyone in the arts.

[Mary] She didn't like the military wives.

They didn't listen to opera.

[laughs] Military wives.

And she had trouble finding the culture

that she was looking for.

The church became a place

where there were levels of importance,

kind of a caste system in and of itself.

The people that were more ingratiated

with the priests...

were elevated in some way.

It gave my mother some level of importance

that the priest would come to our home.

And I vaguely remember the priest coming.

It was a big to-do.

"Oh, Father Freudenstein is coming.

We need to get everything tidied up."

And make sure she had her tea on.

He would show up at the door with records for her.

He would bring her opera records

to listen to,

and-- as a gift...

you know, to her.

[John] I was not particularly fond of him,

and I kind of distanced myself from him.

It's like a instinct.

The only thing I have now is

from what I heard from my brothers about him,

the fact that he became physically or sexually abusive

towards my oldest brother, Don.

[Mary] Everything seemed so picture perfect.

And then this other thing was happening at...

the same time.

I mean, it just unraveled so fast.

It was,

how could this possibly be happening to them?

They'd done everything right.

[John] Donald, he was my father's favorite for sure.

He was a great athlete.

Their football team took state in his senior year.

Got into the state finals in wrestling.

He played hockey.

He was an all-around athlete.

And I kind of admired that when I was younger,

looking up to him.

[Mary] So these are...

pictures of Donald.

My parents sort of elevated him

in our family status.

He was sort of the...

could-do-no-wrong, perfect boy

who, you know, got good grades,

handsome, and dated the General's daughter.

There he is, in high school,

track and field.

It seemed like everybody in the family followed suit.

Jim was an athlete.

I remember him playing football.

Highlight moment,

blocked a punt and scored a touchdown.

[Mary] Jim, he was always in competition

with Don.

From the time they were little, you know,

who was better at baseball,

who was a better swimmer, who could run faster,

who could jump higher, who, you know, I think--

and Donald was always superior. He was older.

That really bothered Jim,

that he was always sort of felt slighted

or that he wasn't good enough,

that my parents loved Don more.

[John] The first time I recognized

that Donald was my father's favorite,

I was about 12 years old.

And he would have been, you know, five years older.

And he became violent.

I became his punching bag.

He would have a couple of my brothers hold me

so he could take swings at me.

And, you know, I had no way to defend myself.

And so I was terrified of him after that.

I told my parents about it,

and...

my father ceased to believe anything I said,

it seemed like, about Donald.

If I would talk about Donald,

it was like-- it just got shoved to the side.

It was not believable.

So you endured what you could,

and then you avoided what you could.

And I'm not the only one in the family

that suffered that way.

[Mark] When I was a child,

I would wait on top of the hill opposite my home

for my mother to come home.

I would wait for her until her car pulled up.

I was afraid of being beaten by my brothers.

That was not something that's normal

for a child to experience.

You know?

They would, uh...

make me hold encyclopedias in my arms

and hit me in the stomach and tell me not to drop them.

Or even sometimes they would...

pour Tabasco sauce on my tongue

or [grimaces] make me eat cat food.

It's like the fear of this,

and it was always something that was with me every day.

I was always breaking up the fights

between the older brothers and the younger ones.

Dad used to call me Kissinger,

the diplomatic one.

So I was always trying to make peace in the family.

There was a lot of tension

between John and Jim and Don, always fighting.

The one I'll never forget is at Woodmen Valley.

Don and Jim started fighting in the house.

Of course, Mother said,

"Get out of the house if you're going to fight."

Donald started running after Jim down the road,

Hidden Valley Road.

And I'll never forget looking down the road

with my mom and watching him.

And Donald took a swing

and lifted my brother up off the ground.

I've never seen anybody get hit so hard in my life.

[Mark] You know, I don't know

if some of this had anything to do

with Donald's mental health issues already,

even though they weren't diagnosed yet.

It could be that even as a younger boy,

he had some mental issues

that caused him to behave toward us like he did.

[Richard] Donald met Jean in college

and brought her home and told the family

that he's going to get married.

So we were all happy for him.

They were getting married, they were in college.

Donald was a straight-A student,

I understood.

Everybody was happy.

Jean was just a very nice lady,

big, tall, strong woman.

She was a rancher's daughter,

you know, very tough-minded.

I can only tell you what is hearsay.

Uh, again, I didn't know them very well,

but, uh...

Don, um, wanted to have a family.

Jean didn't.

Um, Jean wanted to pursue her doctoral degree.

Don wanted to start a family.

I think that was a huge rift between them.

Might have tipped the scales on Donald

as far as his mental illness.

I'm not sure it made any difference,

but probably did.

[Mark] Donald, he went away to college

when I was... six.

Didn't really see him much

in the next several years until he came home.

And by then, he was, uh,

very much in psychotic states from time to time.

[Mary] My first memory of Donald is

his coming home

from college

and being very, very upset and crying.

[dog barks distantly]

[Mary] In my bedroom, being adjacent to my parents,

and there being a lot of yelling and screaming

and commotion and him on his knees.

saying, "What's wrong with me, what's wrong with me,

what's wrong with me? Help me, please help me."

Everyone was awake in the house,

and "What's going on, what's going on?"

Donald was screaming and yelling

at everybody in the house to please get down,

that there's somebody outside that's trying to hurt us.

My mother, you know, saying,

"Oh, dear God, what is going on?

Is he on drugs?"

Get the younger children out of the environment,

where my father was trying to--

to calm him down.

-[ambulance wailing] -[dog barks in distance]

[Mary] This is Donald's records

from Colorado State University Student Health Services.

"The student is the oldest of 12 children,

ten boys, two girls.

He's been self-supporting in school.

He gave up an apartment

to save expenses

and is living in an old fruit cellar

which he described as,

'Large enough to hold his mattress.'

He has no water.

In past two weeks, has run through bonfire,

put cord around his neck, turned on gas,

and even gone to a funeral home

to price caskets.

Very sadistic killing of a cat

and fantasies of killing a person at a football game.

Fear, realistic at the time

that he had killed an instructor.

Dr. Oxman, a psychiatrist, predicted

he was dangerous to others."

And then it says,

"Possible schizophrenic reaction.

Recommendation, immediate hospitalization

for evaluation and prescription."

Being admitted to...

a state mental hospital when your child is

however old he is, 20, 21,

I mean, I think of that now. My son is 22.

And what would that emotionally feel like

to be told

that your son is schizophrenic

and that he needs to be sent to a place

that everyone knew

was horrific.

[TV reporter] For years, what was called insanity

was regarded as a problem for each state to solve

as best it could.

In nearly all state mental hospitals,

little more than custodial care was provided.

Few who were committed could hope

to return to society.

Many, whose illnesses were comparatively mild at the start,

became increasingly worse

until all hope of recovery vanished.

[Daniel] There were dark chapters

in the history of treatment of psychiatric patients.

Castration was common,

taking out people's pancreas.

Lobotomy was a way of cutting into the brain

and breaking up

fibers that connect cells in the brain to each other.

[TV reporter] Operations can be performed

under local anesthesia

if the patient is sufficiently cooperative.

[Daniel] Surgeons would cut a hole in your skull,

introduce a knife into that hole,

and then go like this with the knife

to cut the fibers

in the frontal lobe of your brain.

And that became a very popular procedure

in certain institutions.

And the frontal lobe is the part of your brain

that learns from experience,

that uses judgment.

It's the executive of your brain.

When you break up the frontal lobe's connection

to the rest of the brain,

you've obviously reduced somebody's capacity

to exercise all those frontal lobe functions,

but you've made them much more docile.

[Matthew] For Don's mom,

I just can't imagine-- just the, um-- the shock,

the shame, and the fear that Mimi experienced,

and her husband as well,

that to have a son

whom you love and you've seen

this very handsome, beautiful son,

and now you're having

to have him in an institution.

I think it would have been horrifying.

[Mary] Well, here, I mean, he's being diagnosed

with schizophrenia,

and he's being recommended immediate hospitalization.

And I can't read the date,

but I'm assuming-- well, it's different handwriting. So...

um, "Patient was not admitted...

per instructions,

but has been treated as an outpatient

at the Air Force Academy Hospital."

So this is the letter from...

the Department of the Air Force.

[Mary reading]

That's unbelievable.

[chuckles]

My father was probably trying

to use his influence

to keep Don in school.

I think my parents were like,

"Well, shape up and get on with it."

Somehow, I think they were wishing

or hoping or praying

that this would be a temporary situation

that he would somehow outgrow.

And if he just stuck with his studies,

that he would be okay.

Certainly, sending him to Pueblo

to a psychiatric hospital

would have admitted defeat.

They would have had to accept the diagnosis

that he was, in fact, schizophrenic.

Were my parents so blind

to what was going on with him?

Were they so trying to ignore it or...

pray it away?

Whatever they were doing with this information...

was putting somebody else in danger.

[Mark] You know, when Donald first came home

from college,

they weren't seeking treatments for him

at the time, I don't believe.

They were just trying to... keep him home

and take care of him the best they could, and...

hopefully that that wouldn't disrupt

the rest of the family too much.

[Richard] They did the best they could

under the circumstances.

What else were they going to do but just

try to minimize the exposure of the illness,

so they could maintain their status, if you will,

with the... um,

with the governors

and people they were dealing with.

They were dealing at a very high level

in our society.

My father, he was a-- what I call an overachiever,

doing too many--

too much for most people to even comprehend.

He actually wrote a book about American politics,

and he got his doctorate degree.

That was a proud moment, I suppose.

And I was proud of him for doing that.

Having a big family and going to school

and [chuckling] doing your doctoral degree?

That doesn't happen very often.

That's pretty rare, I think.

We ordered Kentucky Fried Chicken.

[laughs]

Had a picnic out on the lawn and...

uh, in front of the Boulder Library.

Yeah, I can remember that day.

It was a nice day.

It was a good day.

But...

probably no more family gatherings

that were as nice after that.

After Dad's graduation,

this is 1969,

so I would say shortly after that was

when Donald really became seriously ill.

[indistinct overlapping whispering]

[Mary] I was maybe three or four years old.

I remember Don being psychotic

and it being scary.

He paced, constantly,

constantly paced, and paced, and paced,

and paced, and spoke-- talked to himself, just...

[indistinct overlapping whispering]

[Mary] Hours, and hours, and hours, and hours on end,

he paced and talked to himself.

He's, I think, believed himself to be

a prophet.

He was dressed in these robes, this brown sheet.

He created these rituals around his life.

[Richard] The biblical babbling, I called it,

it was just always relating everything to the Bible.

Everything that went on in the world was

related to the Bible somehow.

He was just trying to...

stay in a reality of some sort.

[indistinct overlapping whispering]

[Richard] I can remember Dad lecturing him.

He would take him up into his bedroom and lecture him,

but you could hear it through the house.

You know, "Why are you doing this?

Why are you going to the school

in a priest robe?

What are you doing?

You're embarrassing his family."

[Mark] I certainly wouldn't want to be seen

in public with him

at the time, you know,

for afraid he would do something crazy.

None of my friends knew

that I had a mentally ill brother.

It was not something that we talked about.

It was my dad's philosophy

that you don't air your dirty linen in public.

Mom felt the same way.

[John] To me, this would be the family shame,

you know.

My father was always about...

trying to keep a family reputation,

and you're known by the company you keep.

And so I think he was afraid

that the stigma of...

schizophrenia,

anybody finding out about it,

would affect...

what he did.

[Mary] Don was the bad guy, though, in the family.

He was the one that was causing so much trouble.

And my mother relied on Jim

to get the younger children out of the house.

So then, while we were with him,

Jim would just go on and on.

He even gave him a name...

"Oh, it's...again."

Jim was very cruel, very cruel.

I was unaware, as a child,

Jim was mentally ill.

I had no...

understanding or indication

that he had sought treatment

and that my parents had helped him get treatment.

And in retrospect, of course, you know,

he was quite ill.

[Mark] The dynamics started changing in the family.

I remember Dad and Donald getting

into fisticuffs.

Nobody ever challenged Dad up until Donald,

and Donald was stronger.

I don't know how long they fought for, but...

it was a serious fight.

Bodies crashing to the ground, wrestling,

and fists being thrown, and...

my brother, Donald, won.

And I do remember Donald coming after my mother...

physically a few times.

And it always was probably around...

her being the one that told him

to take his medications.

"Have you taken your medications?"

And Donald would say, "Screw you.

I'm not taking that stuff."

And my mother would say, "Yes, you are."

And he'd say, "No, I'm not."

And so a conflict would ensue.

[Richard] There was a lot of bad times for Mom

and I don't know how she did it,

come to think about it,

and just how Donald stayed in that home with her

just so he wouldn't have to spend his life

in a mental hospital.

I remember one in particular

where my father and Donald were wrestling.

And I remember there was this mushroom.

It was crystal.

I remember that being picked up and used as--

and that could kill someone easily.

It was a heavy object.

And I remember being terrified that...

Donald was going to kill my father

because my father was

trying to protect my mother from Donald.

[indistinct overlapping whispering]

[Mary] Often, Donald's anguish

was centered around his wife having left him.

And...

he was...

obsessed--

absolutely obsessed with finding Jean.

And I would guess she probably had to...

find a way to get away from him

where he couldn't necessarily find her.

[door opens]

And I remember my parents getting a phone call

from the police.

"10.20 a.m., Donald Kenyon Galvin, 24,

was booked for protective custody

in connection with an alleged homicide attempt.

Mixed acid and cyanide

and held his wife and himself in the room.

He had little insight

and gave little feeling

about the seriousness of his actions.

He is psychotic and that he is losing control and insight,

is dangerous to himself and the community."

[indistinct overlapping whispering]

I feel sorry for my parents.

I mean, they were...

brilliant people.

They seemed to have...

really had a pretty picture-perfect... thing going

from the outside.

You know, they had this beautiful family that--

You know, my mom put on her white gloves

and off to church we went

with [sobbing] our beautiful outfits

all perfectly pressed.

If you look at the first incident,

which was really Donald,

it took 10 years

before we really started to know

what was-- something was really wrong.

Nobody knew who had what or what was going on.

I don't think they knew what to make of it all.

I think my parents were so dumbstruck.

How could this possibly be happening to them?

[Mark] It's a tragic story.

To be part of the Galvin family is

to be part of a tragedy.

[interviewer] What's your relationship

with Donald today?

I don't have one.

I never see him.

I don't think he cares.

[Richard] It's very difficult to be around people

that are mentally ill,

like my brother, Donald,

'cause they're so harmful

and they get into your psyche.

[Mary] Don, hey.

-You comfortable? -[Donald] Mm-hmm.

[Mary] Okay.

And if there's anything you don't want to answer,

just...

say, "Move on."