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JOURNAL OF POSSIBLE PARADIGMS
Issue 4, Summer '96     

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MKC: MIND KONTROL CORNER

What is it about Texas and mind control cases? Add Scott Panetti to a list which already includes Bernie Nelson, Whitley Strieber, and S. Miles Lewis. Scott is from sleepy little Fredericksburg, a small German community in the Texas Hill Country. He is 38.

On Sept. 8, 1992 Scott, dressed in camos, went to the home of his parents-in-law. He beat his ex-wife with his 30.06, then broke into the home and killed her parents with a sawed-off shotgun. He then took his wife and three-year-old daughter to a nearby cabin, where they had a nine-hour standoff with the police. When captured by his self-named heroes, the Texas Rangers, Scott confessed immediately. He said he had been drinking Canadian Mist. He said he was "psychotic. The confession was taped. It took two hearings to determine he was competent to stand trial. In the murder trial, held in neighboring Kerr County, Scott chose to defend himself. The tapes were admitted as evidence.

Scott tried to build a case of not guilty by reason of insanity. He blamed the shootings on an alternate personality named Sarge Ironhorse. Scott said Roy Rogers once gave him a "ragtag law book." He called on John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ, and the Pope as witnesses. I'm not sure how those warrants were served. Scott called his ex-wife and his own parents to the stand for many hours of grueling interrogation.

Scott's father said he nearly died at birth, nearly drowned at age 2 or 3, and suffered serious head injuries as a teenager in a car wreck. Scott's history with mental illness began in the military. He was recruited for Naval Intelligence, but that fell through when they drugged his beer for mind control purposes. After he returned home, he suffered an electrical shock while working for the power company. It left him hospitalized for several weeks.

During the taped confession Scott said of the murders, "It was like I wasn't even in control, like somebody else was pushing me." During the trial, Scott described that day. He said Sarge cut all his hair off, then dressed him in jungle fatigues. "Sarge saw a shotgun and sawed the barrel off. He grabbed Scott's 30.06 and a shotgun, went out the door, got in the jeep and began driving. Why? Back of the house. Scott, 30.06 in left hand, shotgun in right. Tap. Tap. What are you doing here, Sarge? Taps on window. Shatters window. Shot lock off door. Walks in. Joe and Amanda [in-laws]. Kitchen. Screams. Runs. Follows. Boom. Boom. Scott, you see what Sarge has done? Demons!" Scott laughs hysterically. He ended his testimony with the statement, "Thy will be done." He never formally rested the defense.

During his 45-minute testimony Scott opined, "I just don't think anybody can explain insanity unless they've been there." The trial lasted eight days. It took the jury less than one day to decide Scott was guilty. The next day they sentenced him to death by lethal injection.

"The law sometimes sleeps," Scott said during his trial, "but it never dies."

A government panel says that warning people about the dangers of radioactive nasal treatments they received a half-century ago would only cause unnecessary worry and useless medical tests, AP reports. It says the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments said the benefits of notifying patients of the dangers of the radioactive nasal treatments do not outweigh the potential harm of doing so, and little could be done to help those suffering from brain cancers. The recommendation is contained in a draft report the panel is to give the Clinton administration next week of its study of a wide range of human radiation tests the government conducted after World War II, the story notes. The treatments with radium, encased in capsules and inserted into nostrils to shrink Eustachian tubes, were given to military pilots and divers, including Navy submariners, to prevent broken ear drums due to drastic pressure changes, the story says. It says the panel's conclusions bitterly disappointed patients and their advocates who since early 1994 have been lobbying the government for aid in conducting an epidemiological study and notifying people. After a Senate subcommittee hearing in August, the story says, VA agreed to investigate whether an epidemiological study was feasible.
 

The following was seen on a sticker on a men's room wall at the Sahara Hotel & Casino when I was in Vegas last week:
 
Las Vegas Mental Health Center
Electronic Mind Control Lab
Anybody Can Be A Victim
Close Them Down
Induces Sickness
Psycho-Tronics
PSYCHIC WEAPONS
A.I.D.S. at a Distance