Warning! This article may contain spoilers for The Crowded Room
This article contains mention of murder.
Danny Sullivan's narrative in The Crowded Room draws its inspiration from the true story of Billy Milligan, which makes it hard not to wonder what happened to Billy Milligan. Set in the summer of late 1970s, The Crowded Room follows the story of Danny Sullivan, who gets arrested for his involvement in a public shooting. When an unlikely investigator shows up to question him and helps him dig deep into his past and motives, shocking details emerge, suggesting that the nature of Danny Sullivan's crime is more complex than it seems.
In its initial episodes, The Crowded Room primarily unfolds from Danny's perspective, who recalls all the milestones of his life that led to the crime. While the show stays true to certain elements of Billy Milligan's true story, it takes creative liberties with many other aspects to enhance its entertainment value. Since audiences may be curious about what happened to Billy Milligan after watching Danny Sullivan (Tom Holland) in Apple TV+'s The Crowded Room, here's a detailed breakdown of Billy Milligan's timeline.
Billy Milligan Was The First Person Found Not Guilty Of A Violent Crime Because Of Dissociative Identity Disorder In 1978
Billy Milligan first served time at an Ohio Youth Commission facility in Zanesville in 1973 and two years in prison in 1975. Six months after getting paroled in April 1977, Milligan was arrested again in October 1977 for the charge of kidnapping, robbing, and raping three women from Ohio State University's campus. As he awaited his trial behind the bars in Ohio State Penitentiary, his public attorneys, Gary Schweickart and Judy Stevenson, arranged for psychological examinations to prepare his defense.
Dr. Willis C. Driscoll concluded from his psychological examination that Danny had acute schizophrenia. Following Dr. Driscoll's diagnosis, another psychologist named Dorothy Turner from the Southwest Community Mental Health Center in Columbus, Ohio, examined Billy Milligan seven times before deducing that he had Dissociative Identity Disorder. With Dorothy Turner's insights, Milligan's attorneys pleaded an insanity defense in court. As a result, Billy Milligan was declared not guilty in December 1978, making him the first person to receive acquittal for a violent crime because of Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Billy Milligan Was Hospitalized For A Decade After His Acquittal
After Billy Milligan was declared not guilty in court, the authorities committed him to the Athens Mental Health Center. Meanwhile, he garnered immense popularity, and many renowned media outlets published multiple articles about him. Daniel Keyes, the author of the book that inspired The Crowded Room, also started interviewing Milligan around the same time. In 1979, Milligan's 14 new personalities emerged, and based on reports of misbehavior at the Athens Mental Health Center, he was moved to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in 1980. Following the transfer, Billy Milligan continued facing several charges throughout the 1980s.
Billy Milligan Escaped Incarceration & Was Suspected Of Murder
After spending the years in a series of different state-run hospitals, Billy Milligan escaped from the Central Ohio Psychiatric Hospital in July 1986. To stay off the radar, he adopted the alias, Christopher Carr. With a friend's assistance, he later moved to Bellingham, where his sibling, Jim Morrison, helped him settle down. During his stay in Washington, Milligan was under suspicion for murdering a 32-year-old man named Michael Pierce Madden, whose father filed him missing after he suddenly disappeared. When an investigation to determine Madden's whereabouts ensued, the police learned that Michael Madden and Christopher Carr were roommates.
While maintaining his identity as Christopher Carr, Milligan reportedly told inconsistent stories to the investigators involved in Madden's case, which further raised their suspicion. Milligan was also collecting Madden's Veteran Affairs disability allowance through a leased post office box. However, since the investigators could not gather concrete evidence to convict Milligan of Michael Madden's murder, Milligan did not face any charges. In November 1986, Billy Milligan was arrested again in Miami and sent back to Ohio.
Billy Milligan Was Released In 1988 & Owned A Film Production Company
In May 1988, Milligan's doctors concluded that all his alternate personalities had fused, which led to his release from state custody. However, he was still kept under supervision for three years before being freed from all supervision in 1991. According to reports, he stayed away from the limelight after his release and lived in California in 1996, where he owned a film production company called Stormy Life Productions. He was going to make a short film, but the project never saw the light of the day.
Billy Milligan Died In Ohio In 2014
Much later, his sister Kathy Preston revealed that he was living with her on her property in 2012 after he filed for bankruptcy in California. Around the same time, he was diagnosed with cancer. Two years later, on December 12, 2014, he died from the disease in an Ohio-based nursing home. As reports suggest, Billy Milligan was 59 at the time of his death. Kathy recounted she had created a mobile home for Billy before his death, where he spent his final years in peace.
The Biggest Differences Between Billy Milligan & The Crowded Room's Danny Sullivan
Unlike Billy Milligan's true story, which raises many complex questions surrounding the intersection of mental health and morality, Danny Sullivan's narrative in The Crowded Room gives a one-dimensional view of the case. Although the Apple TV+ series cites Daniel Keyes book as its inspiration, it does not walk viewers through the nature of Billy Milligan's crimes. Instead, it tries to make viewers sympathize with Danny by avoiding the inclusion of many criminal aspects of Billy Milligan's real-life narrative. This makes The Crowded Room less of an adaptation of Daniel Keyes' The Minds of Billy Milligan and more of a fictional reimagination of the source material's setting and crucial players.
By portraying Danny Sullivan in a completely different light than Billy Milligan, The Crowded Room also avoids delving into the controversies and moral conundrums surrounding the case. While Danny's storyline only evokes a viewer's comion for the character, Billy Milligan's real-life criminal case makes one question traditional notions of ability and moral culpability. It does not negate the value of existing moral frameworks but, unlike The Crowded Room, highlights the limitations in the common perception of morality and criminal justice, especially when mental health conditions like Dissociative Identity Disorder are considered.
New episodes of The Crowded Room release Fridays on Apple TV+.