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Praise for Savage Grace“The sizzling, spellbinding story of the rich and powerful Baekeland clan, who owed their money to Bakelite, the original plastic. A snake pit of love triangles, sexual betrayal, and incest, culminating in the crime of crimes, matricide. Features a dazzling cross section of society, literature, and the arts.”—Daily News (New York)“Overwhelmingly compelling…. This tale of aberrant Beautiful People is horrific and potent.”—Boston Herald“An epic portrait of a family…. The Baekelands, on a collision course with disaster, typify the American dream gone sour…. A sobering and sordid story, with the incestuous mother and son as its stars.”—The Milwaukee Journal“A story of spectacular decadence—of money, madness, and matricide….The cast of brilliant characters includes James Jones, William Styron, Patricia Neal, Alastair Reid, Brendan Gill and Francine du Plessix Gray….Seldom has there been so devastating an exposure of consequences, for the most sophisticated people, of failure in the simplest duties of love.”—William F. Buckley, Jr.“The story is evoked with arresting detail…the power of horror.”—Time“You’ve just got to read this book.”—Andy Warhol“A fascinating contemporary morality tale, from vivid real life.”—John Fowles“Hideously fascinating…the authors have…trim[med] the ragged fragments of life into a literary jigsaw.”—The Observer (UK) Chapter 2 Title Page Touchstone For Christopher, Rachel, Noah— They were the perfect happy-American family: the one one hears about, and sees so often in the ad photos in the New Yorker and in all the commercial magazines, but which one so rarely meets in life. Certainly there was absolutely nothing to indicate there might be deeper darker strains to their lives they might be hiding.JAMES JONES, The Merry Month of May, 1971I sometimes think that there is a malign force loose in the universe that is the social equivalent of cancer, and it’s plastic. It infiltrates everything. It’s metastasis. It gets into every single pore.NORMAN MAILER, Harvard Magazine, 1983 Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents PART ILONDON
1. The Crime of Crimes
2IN CUSTODYAROUND FIVE P.M. ON FRIDAY, 17, 1972, Tony Baekeland was escorted unhandcuffed from 81 Cadogan Square by two police officers; it is not the custom in London to use handcuffs unless a person is violent when arrested.He sat silent and self-absorbed as the unmarked car made its way through the narrow streets of Chelsea, one of London’s most fashionable and historic districts. Richard III and Sir Thomas More once lived there, as did the writers Thomas Carlyle, George Eliot, and Oscar Wilde and the painters Turner, Sargent, and Whistler. Bounded on one side by the Thames, Chelsea is bordered on another by the smart shops of Sloane Street with which Barbara Baekeland had felt strong kinship, and by the boutiques, restaurants, and discotheques of the bohemian King’s Road that had so fascinated her son.Tony Baekeland walked through a side entrance into the modern-style Chelsea Police Station. He was told that he was being detained pending his first appearance in lower court on Monday morning, November 20. He was then taken to his cell. It contained, in addition to a toilet, a bench bed with a regulation foam mattress and a couple of blankets. “In view of the charge,” a Scotland Yard official recollects, “he was watched closely to make sure he’d not harm himself.”The next day the London papers headlined the matricide. “The life of the wealthy American woman who had a villa in Spain and apartments in Paris and New York ended as she died screaming from the blows of a knife attacker in her penthouse near Buckingham Palace,” the Evening News reported. “The 50-year-old—she looked much younger, said neighbours—was in the American film business,” the story erroneously went on, “and her work as a film executive took her all over the world on locations of films about romance, adventure and murder.” It was true that Barbara Baekeland had her flickering moment in Hollywood, making a screen test with Dana Andrews, but that had been a long time before; and she had indeed been at the center of a world of romance and adventure all her life, only never in the capacity of a film executive.In New York, the Daily News bannered: “MOM IS SLAIN: NAB YANK SON.™ The New York Times headlined: “BRITISH CHARGE AMERICAN, 26, WITH SLAYING OF MOTHER.”In Barbara Baekeland’s hometown, the Boston Sunday Herald quoted her Cadogan Square neighbors: “‘They appeared to be wealthy globetrotters. They were both witty and charming. She was very attractive and looked about 30. She had a wardrobe full of expensive furs…. Ambulance men said the flat was in a mess and it was difficult to recognize her.’”By now, reports of the murder were being circulated in all the many places the Baekelands had lived, and friends were rallying to console Barbara Baekeland’s widowed mother, Nina Fraser Daly, in New York.Nina DalyOh, Barbara was beautiful, I thought. She was noted as a beauty, you know. She had lovely hair. I used to have naturally curly hair when I was little, but no more. I’ll be ninety in two days, the 27th of May. That’s old, you know. Barbara’s hair was an orangy red, and mine was just red but it wasn’t that sharp red you see on redheads that stares you right in the face. And Tony was another little redhead.Barbara was a natural beauty. She was so natural herself. And she loved people. Oh yes. She was so sweet and kind and loving. She was a wonderful daughter. I miss her so. I used to see her every day. She was a great companion. We were very close, very close.She worshiped him. And he loved her. He loved her more than he loved anybody. His mummy. He loved me next, and then he loved his father next, after me. He loved his father but they weren’t as close as Barbara and Tony or Tony and I. His father wasn’t one of those fathers that goes gaga all the time, but he was good to him and gave him what he wanted and everything that he needed—a bicycle and things like that.I worshiped Tony. He was a dear. He was always trying to do something for you. I lived nearby. I used to walk down the street with him. The happiness he gave me! We’d have lovely walks together, through the park. He loved nature. He could tell you the name of every bird that ever flew. He used to draw birds all the time.She took him everywhere. Everywhere she went she took him. She never tried to get rid of him. I was always ready to take him. We both loved him the same. She was a good mother. She just had the one child. I wish she had had more children.She was a good wife, too. I love her husband. Brooks. He was awfully kind to me. Just like a brother. He’s six-four, and so good-looking. The grandfather invented the plastics, you know.Barbara did all these paintings. Everything in the apartment here she did. She painted so well, and she painted quite a lot, too.That’s Cape Cod up there. We went there as children in my family. Always went to Cape Cod. There was a big thunderstorm coming up, and I walked over to where she was, and she said, “I’m painting that now, Mother.” And I said, “Oh, yes, I see, dear.” So I always loved that picture. There was a great big cloud just like that in the sky that day, you’d think it was coming down and sitting on top of your head.She was left-handed, you know. She couldn’t do anything with her right hand. She just started being left-handed and I didn’t change her. I’d rather she be right-handed. I think it’s so natural. I can’t do anything with my left hand. It seems so awkward to see a lefty. I’d see Barbara turning the paper and writing with that left hand. I was afraid Tony was going to be, but he wasn’t. We didn’t try to change him, but he turned out to be a righty. Oh, Barbara worshiped him.Michael AlexanderHe told me that there was a bit of a struggle or something and that he got the knife into her—one single thing. He happened to do it in the wrong place, that’s all—the heart. And then, he told me, he had sort of a problem about what the hell was he going to do about it, and this shocked me—he said he thought about putting it out of his mind!Of course, his granny was always encouraging him to think it wasn’t his fault. She didn’t believe he could possibly have done such a thing. Because he was such a gentle boy, you know. Her blue-eyed boy.Elizabeth Archer BaekelandNini was just devastated. I used to go and see her after Barbara’s death—until she became too difficult. She kept going on about Sylvie, how all this never would have happened if Brooks hadn’t run off with “that bitch, that bitch, that damn bitch.” On and on—about how first “that bitch” took Tony away and then she took Brooks.Brooks BaekelandAfter years of resisting, and after wearing out four lawyers, starting with Louis Nizer, Barbara had finally agreed to give me my freedom. When Sylvie and I received the telephone call in the house I had built in Brittany telling us that Barbara was dead, we thought she had committed suicide, for it was November 18, 1972, our thirtieth wedding anniversary. “I give you your freedom and my life”—that would have been typically Barbara.Sylvie Baekeland SkiraWhen this happened, Brooks’s cousin, Baekeland Roll, and his wife were staying with us. I always took the telephones because Brooks was too grand-ducal to ever answer the telephone, so I answered and it was the police in London who said, “We believe that Mrs. Baekeland has been killed.” I came back to Brooks with this news and we, neither of us, believed it really. Brooks said, “She’s again found a way to get at me.” And then they called again, and it was true. This time they said, “We believe her son is involved.” And I put down the telephone. I was frightened. I was so frightened I remember very well I fell into a sweat—you know, I smelled like a bad animal—it was something so abominable, and I rushed upstairs to the cousins.It was a horrible thing for me, but for Brooks…he suffered the way you could not imagine. Brooks went out hollering in the garden. He was desperate. He was horrified that Barbara had died. That the boy had done it was something else.We left Brittany and we went together to London. Brooks didn’t have the heart to go and identify her, so it was Baekie Roll who did. Brooks never saw her body, but what his cousin saw was that Barbara had a black eye, and he told Brooks, and I think that hurt Brooks more than anything—that she would have had a black eye on top of everything.Brooks BaekelandHe told me when he returned from the identification that there were a lot of bruises—he had tears in his eyes. He had never liked Barbara but was deeply affected by this visual evidence of brutality.Sylvie Baekeland SkiraWe were staying in a hotel that we thought wouldn’t be too conspicuous, because of the press and so on—Blake’s Hotel—but it turned out anyway there were a lot of rock-and-roll stars staying at the same time. And Brooks kept seeing lawyers and police and so on because of the inquest. And afterward, he had her cremated. She had been three weeks in the morgue.Meanwhile Brooks had been given everything that was in her apartment by the police. Every piece of her mail he made me read, because he said it would hurt him too much to read it. And then there were the cassettes! Barbara had made a whole series of cassettes of a novel she was writing. The police said they were very damaging documents for the Baekeland family and he should take them. Can you imagine writing about going to bed with your son!In Brittany we didn’t have a cassette machine in the house, we had a record player, but we had a cassette machine in the car. Brooks played them in the car. For hours and hours! Yes. Until I broke down in front of him and he got earphones so he could listen to them without me having to listen.Gloria JonesJim and I were horrified. It was the worst thing we ever heard. We were in Paris and we went to London and tried to help. I called Scotland Yard and I said, “I think I’d like to talk to you.” So these two marvelous policemen came, and we were staying at a wonderful hotel, not Claridge’s, the other good one, the really good one—the Connaught. And there was a bar there—you know, all stocked—and they said, “We don’t drink as a rule but, you know, all right,” so we gave them a couple of drinks and they were thrilled with us and we all sat around and I said, “I think you ought to know that she probably aggravated Tony. Can I give some money for cigarettes for him? I want to help him, you know. Can you get him a lawyer?” They wouldn’t let me see him. It was only the day after or two days after. They said they were doing everything.I asked if I could bury her, you know, because I felt that Brooks wouldn’t do anything about that. They said I couldn’t. Brooks did have her cremated later. I think her mother has the ashes.Barbara CurteisJim Jones wrote a novel about the Baekelands, you know—The Merry Month of May. But he wrote it in 1970, before the denouement.Francine du Plessix GrayEthel de Croisset telephoned us that Tony had killed Barbara, and I felt shock and horror.You know, Mr. Wuss was a present of ours to Barbara in 1963—one of five Siamese born that year to our own beloved cat, Astarte, whose son Fabrice, Wuss’s full brother, I buried only last year at the fine age of twenty-one. Couldn’t we all wish for such a peaceful and late age!Just a few days after hearing about Barbara, I bumped into Peter Matthiessen at the Styrons’ and he said to me—we said to each other—almost simultaneously we said—“Are you ever going to use it? Are you ever going to use it?” Use it in a book, you know. And we both said no. Peter said, “I can’t do it, I don’t think you can do it. I’d keep away from it.” You know, there’s only one title for the Baekeland story and it’s already been used—An American Tragedy.Cleve and I met them at a party in New York in the middle fifties and we made this passionate kind of instant friendship with this very flamboyant girl with red hair and a huge smile and all those very prominent big teeth. I always remember the mouth—my mother, Tatiana Liberman, would say, “She’s very pretty but she has too much gum.” And here was this handsome millionaire that she was married to, Brooks Baekeland. And the first impression we got was that they were the ideal couple.In the summer of 1960 we shared a house with them in Italy. Tony was just about to turn fourteen, and he was ideally beautiful—you know, glistening and angelic and with beautiful manners and a sweet smile. When we were a newly married couple in New York trying to have children, Cleve and I used to say to each other, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our child looked like that!”Rose StyronWe had a house in Ansedonia during the summer of 1960 and the Baekelands were neighbors. We had mutual friends, Gloria and Jim Jones, who had told us they were there, but they looked us up, I think. Well, they were very good-looking, very sociable, fairly snobbish—I would say Barbara particularly liked the grand Italian life.I liked Tony. I really liked him a lot. He was a very lonely but self-sufficient boy, and I liked his gentleness with animals. I remember going up to his room a couple of times and he had all sorts of snakes and animals. I liked the fact that he seemed to want to hide from whatever else was going on in the family and keep to himself. The two or three times we were over there I just found myself gravitating to him. I guess I probably knew him better than I knew Brooks or Barbara, who I didn’t have much connection with.I remember Gloria talking to me a lot about Barbara. She was always telling me what the latest chapter was in the Baekeland saga. And one detail after another was so fantastic.Gloria JonesAfter Barbara died, Muriel Murphy, this really great friend of all of ours, sent me one of Barbara’s Chanel dresses. Barbara really knew how to dress, you know—she always had the real Chanel. I guess Muriel had gotten the dress from Mrs. Daly. I was in Haiti, staying at the Oloffson Hotel, and Muriel asked Bill Styron, who was on his way there, to deliver this package to me. I opened it and put the dress on and it was bloodstreaked all down the back. It was the kind of dress you would wear to be stabbed in. Later I asked Muriel, “Why did you send this dress to me?” And she said she hadn’t noticed the bloodstains. I was so freaked that I buried the dress, I actually dug a hole in the ground out in the back of the hotel. That dress is buried in voodoo country, in Haiti behind the Oloffson Hotel.William StyronI didn’t know exactly what was in the damn package. I knew it was some kind of garment, but I didn’t have any idea that it had any bloodstains, nor was I present when Gloria opened it. But I’m sure Gloria is accurate.I remember in Ansedonia that summer there was a lot of partying, a lot of going out on boats, and Brooks had one of those Mercedes sports cars, and there were a lot of drives in the Mercedes sports car with Tony around. And Tony was an absolute young Adonis—if you can be an Adonis at that age. I mean, he was a beautiful kid, he was just charming, and I had no inkling certainly at that time of anything potentially weird. I do think possibly I sensed a “Mother’s darling boy” relationship—not a terribly uncommon relationship with an only child. But I thought he was terrific. Bright. A little withdrawn, maybe. But he was just a figment to me, because I never really got to know him outside of this vision of this beautiful lad—great swimmer and that sort of thing. And a serious young man.I had the sense of a small little family, a couple and their lonely boy, who were sort of misplaced out of some Scott Fitzgerald novel. Barbara and Brooks seemed a bit like Daisy and Tom Buchanan but in a different era and somewhat fish out of water for that reason.I remember exactly where I was when I learned about the murder. I’m in the room right now, up here in Roxbury, Connecticut, where I was that Sunday, whatever date it was. And I was just leafing through the Sunday Times, as we all do, and there was a column of print that said something like “Young man stabs mother in London” and of course the names were right there, and it just shocked the hell out of me. Had I known more about them, their connection, I probably would have been less astounded. But I knew nothing of any stirrings or rumblings psychologically.God, it’s a fascinating story, and the horror of that kid is classic Greek. I do think that the terrible quality of the whole story has got some resonance about our period in some curious way. It has some very large metaphorical meaning.Brendan GillI was trying to remember when it was I first met Barbara and her husband and it was a night when Rose and Bill Styron were there and I think it was at Tom and Sarah Hunter Kelly’s house in New York, on Seventy-first Street. I remember talking with Brooks about the fact that he had jumped into the Peruvian jungle. He was a true adventurer, the opposite of an adventuress. I was fascinated by his account, also because of my interest in his grandfather and Bakelite—that’s just my kind of thing: inventions, making good in America. Brooks seemed tall and heroic because—well, it would be like Lindbergh. My definition of a hero is a man who tests himself by a series of ordeals, each more difficult than the last; he’s not competing in the world at all, he’s competing only against himself. And that’s what it seemed to me Brooks was doing—testing himself.Barbara was a very good-looking girl. I also liked her spirit. She was of an affirmative disposition. She always made you feel good, so that made her a wonderful hostess, of course. I think one of the reasons a great partygiver like Ben Sonnenberg liked her so much is that he liked women who were sunny, who were never down, who didn’t need to be brought up to something, and he probably also admired her because he always admired women who were adventuresses—I mean, women who had succeeded—and she evidently had been one of those.Pico HarndenI was living around Europe at the time and I used to call my mother and my younger brother, Mishka, in London every two or three days to see how they were doing, and one day my mother said, “It’s finally happened.” And I said, “What happened?” And she said, “Barbara has been killed by Tony.” And I—I started laughing. Because everybody knew it was only a matter of time before it happened and finally it did happen and, well, you know, it was so absurd it was almost funny. But my mother was a very religious person and she got very angry because I was laughing, but she was laughing, too, because even my mother, who was the least cynical person you could find, knew how the story was going to end. There was no other ending to the story.Ethel Woodward de CroissetYou know, there was a charming woman, Missie Harnden, a Russian princess, born a Vassiltchikov—her husband was an architect who had built me a house in Spain—and after Barbara died she came to see me. She had been to this cocktail party on Cadogan Square the night before Barbara was assassinated. There was this crowd of people there and the boy was evidently looking in some strange bright-eyed way into space, and Missy thought, I must warn Barbara. She had this feeling, you see. And then she had not done it, and now she felt terribly badly. She was a very—could one say puritanical?—Russian. You know how Russians are when they’re really good people—they’re so straight. She was somebody that was so straight and so good, you know, and she felt she’d failed Barbara.Elizabeth Weicker FondarasI called Saul Steinberg when I heard—just to talk about Barbara to someone. It’s so much easier in a small town when something like this happens. People gather in the street and you can rush out and talk about these things. In New York you can’t do that. Saul spoke of Barbara’s whiteness, her white skin, her Irish skin, white lovely skin, red hair—her fresh marvelous look.Jasper JohnsShe was beautiful.Andy WarholOh yeah, I remember her. But after I heard how she got killed I just wanted to forget her.Robert Beverly HaleI was simply having a cup of coffee in Chock Full o’ Nuts and there it was in the evening Post. It was a great shock. I can’t tell you how attractive Brooks and Barbara were and how they attracted people. I never met anybody more charming than that couple when they were organized and underway. Way back, of course.William ThayerI was over in London painting Ambassador Annenberg when it happened and I saw it in the headlines and realized, My God, that’s Tony Baekeland! I even thought of going and doing something, then I thought, Well, it’s none of my business really—I mean, she’d been killed and there was nothing I could do, and he’d been hauled off to jail. He was a damn good artist, too—awfully good.Michel NegroponteI bumped into him in the elevator about a year before—my parents lived in their building in New York—and he invited me up to their penthouse for a drink. He I guess at that point had just come back from Paris and was going to some art school in New York. I remember I just talked to him for about an hour in his room—he had this tiny little room. And I remember being astounded by his paintings, which were so incredibly bizarre. Some of them I think were even portraits of his mother—decapitated and with serpents sort of wrapped around her neck. And those were paintings that he had done recently. I think two or maybe even three were actually hanging in the living room. And then a few months after that I was going up in the elevator and I saw the headline in, you know, the Daily News or whatever it was—“Wealthy mom slain by…”—and, I don’t know why, it just flashed—I had this strange feeling that it was the Baekelands. And then I looked down the page and it was, in fact. There was something about maybe just being in that elevator where I had run into Tony, especially because I couldn’t forget those paintings. It seemed to me that the entire series of events that happened afterward were really kind of mapped out in them.Ambrose GordonI read it here in the Austin, Texas, newspaper, where the name Baekeland was all garbled, but the ages and details checked out enough so that I was pretty sure it must be them, and then sometime later it was confirmed when Brooks wrote me about it. The newspaper account said they looked—that she looked extraordinarily young and that they looked more like—that they didn’t look like mother and son so much as like…the newspaper certainly couldn’t have used the word “lovers,” but it at least planted that suggestion in my head.Richard HareIt was a Sunday morning, I was in East Hampton, and I usually get up at seven, seven-thirty, and walk to the village to get my Times. And when I got back home I opened it up to read with my breakfast and I hadn’t turned more than two pages when I saw this article datelined London. Well. I said to my wife, “Anne, you won’t believe what I’ve just read in the paper!” Then the telephone rang and it was Liz Fondaras. She said, “Richard, have you read the New York Times?” I said, “Have I! I was just going to dial you.” And of course we commiserated with each other. And five seconds after we hung up Barbara Hale called. I was just about to call her. She said, “Richard, can you believe it?” I said, “I can believe it. How about you?” She said, “Well, I certainly can believe it. It was bound to happen any minute!” Well anyhow, we all lived through that.Will DavisWhat month was she killed? November? My own child had just been born and I can remember saying to my wife, “I can’t shake this Baekeland thing.” I mean, it was like something out of the Oresteia. The closest thing I ever experienced to it is the first time I saw morgue activity—autopsies and stuff. I was fine during them but when I got outside I couldn’t get the formaldehyde out of my nostrils, I couldn’t eat red meat for weeks.Then, way after she was murdered, Brooks sent me this photograph of her in the mail. God, I’d kill that man if I saw him again, I’d absolutely take a brick and kill him in the street! It was a color photograph, and he had written on the back, “From Barbara the lion-hearted.” Because that was what I used to call her—a lioness. Women never mind being called either lions or tigers. They don’t want to be called armadillos or camels, but lions and tigers are fine.Brooks BaekelandBarbara was a fine animal but quite untamable. Her two leading—and I think great—characteristics were pride and courage, both highly exaggerated and therefore dangerous. She was a born fighter and died in battle.Francesca Draper LinkeI dreamt that I saw Barbara—she was in this incredible penthouse apartment somewhere and we were talking and it was like she was the one that was alive and Tony was the one that had been killed. It was very strange because it was almost like in the act of what had happened she had been released—she was happy, she was happier in this dream than I’d ever seen her in life.Richard HareThe memorial service in New York was at St. Vincent Ferrer, I think—on Sixty-sixth and Lexington. And we weren’t invited. Anne and I weren’t even told where it was, so we didn’t go, unfortunately. It wasn’t in the paper, it was all done by telephone and that was it.Phyllis Harriman MasonAs I went in, I saw Daphne Hellman with a black hat on. It was such an awful service. Everybody was looking around to see who was there and hobnobbing. I was, too. There was also some kind of service in London.Letter from Brooks Baekeland to James and Gloria Jones, November 24, 1972There will be a mass given by Barbara’s friends who knew her well and remember what was lovable and brave in her, at St. Mary’s, Cadogan Gardens, at 6:30 p.m. on November 30.She would have been happy to know you had been there, too. I know that. I write for her—not for myself.From the Last Will and Testament of Barbara Baekeland, April 21, 1972I, BARBARA DALY BAEKELAND, of the City, County, and State of New York, give all of my property, real and personal, of every kind and wherever situated, to my trustee, hereinafter named, to invest and reinvest it and pay the net income there from to or for the benefit of my son, ANTONY, during his life.Codicil to the Last Will and Testament of Barbara Baekeland, April 25, 1972I give to my mother, NINA FRASER DALY, if she survives me, my Coromandel Screen.I give to my mother-in-law, CORNELIA HALLOWELL, if she survives me, my yellow Eighteenth Century Clock.Both of the articles referred to above are presently located in my apartment at 130 East 75th Street, New York City.Tom DillowI helped Nini clear out the apartment, and she gave me Barbara’s Larousse Gastronomique, the wonderful thirties edition—you know, the great big one with the color prints of the best kitchens of the time, those wonderful huge kitchens in France. We even cleared off the stuff from the terrace, the trees and all that. I was there for two or three days helping Nini go through all the stuff—Barbara’s wild-animal rugs, those leopard toss pillows, the Audubon lithos, that eighteenth-century Mexican crucifix she had, the Louis Seize breakfast table…Then I called up Vito Giallo, the antiques dealer up the street, to come on over.Sylvie Baekeland SkiraBrooks hasn’t got a cushion from that apartment. Nothing. He made a point of not touching anything and letting Nini have it all because, you know, her first words when Barbara died had been, “Send me Barbara’s jewels from London so that Sylvie doesn’t wear them!” She thinks, poor little woman, that I’m terrible, that I was the wrecker of this fabulous trinity—God, mother, and son. It’s normal—she can’t think otherwise. Her daughter was her dream. I think Nini is very well loved and very sweet. “Send Barbara’s jewels so that Sylvie doesn’t wear them!” You can imagine how I would have worn her jewels!Nina DalyAll Barbara’s things were expensive. She had all her clothes made, she hardly ever bought them. I guess most of them were made in Paris. She had a nice, a lovely dressmaker there. I had some things made in Paris, too, you know. People used to ask me where I got my suits and I’d say, “Well, I guess most of them were made in Paris.” Tony liked clothes. Barbara bought him his clothes, but he had things made, too.Barbara’s clothes were all good-quality. And that’s the thing that I care about, the quality of the material. The ones that I have, they’re all good material. They last a long time. They last forever. They never really wear out.Poor Grace Kelly. I feel terrible about her. I think it was a terrible shame what happened to her and her daughter—you know, the little one. She went berserk, you know, sort of. But you never know. You have to accept it and take it. Make the best of it. The best you can. You can’t sit and weep over it. That doesn’t get you anywhere. You never know what it all will be until it is yesterday. 3AWAITING TRIALON MONDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 20, 1972, Tony Baekeland appeared in lower court. There he was formally charged with the murder of his mother and remanded to Brixton Prison.He was transported in a police van to a district so different from the London he knew that it might have been another country. The squalor of Brixton is alleviated only by a colorful market where anything can be purchased, from exotic fruits and vegetables to such old cockney delicacies as jellied eels.The van, turning down a narrow, two-lane road lined with soot-stained brick buildings, proceeded through an open gate. Ahead was a second gate, controlled from within Brixton Prison and opening onto a barbed-wire courtyard patrolled by guard dogs.Tony Baekeland had traveled a great deal in his life, and over some grim frontiers, but never over one as forbidding as this. The four-story Victorian-style buildings that loomed in front of him looked like a cross between a factory and a low-income housing project.The cell he was assigned had been built for single occupancy, but due to overcrowded conditions he would have to share it with two other inmates.Letter from Antony Baekeland to James and Gloria Jones, Undated 4THE TRIALON THE MORNING OF JUNE 6, 1973, Tony Baekeland was driven from Brixton Prison to Central Criminal Court, known to the general public as the Old Bailey—there finally to stand trial for the murder of his mother.Built on the site of the notorious Newgate Prison and skirted on its east side by Deadman’s Walk, an open passage along which condemned men once took their final steps to keep their appointment with the hangman, the Old Bailey is virtually synonymous with English judicial history and drama. It is here that the infamous Dr. Crippen was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. And it is here that Oscar Wilde sat in the dock and heard the judge sentence him to two years’ hard labor, intoning: “That you Wilde have been the centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men, it is…impossible to doubt.” And it was here on this June morning that Tony Baekeland became a statistic: one of the 4,509 persons tried at the Old Bailey during the year 1973.The trial of Regina v. Antony Baekeland officially opened the moment the High Court judge, who traditionally presides only at the most serious cases such as murder and offenses under the Official Secrets Act, was escorted into the courtroom by an alderman and a sheriff of the City of London, both in violet robes. The judge’s robe was red—indeed, he is known as the Red Judge—and adorned with slate-colored silk trimmings. Over the robe he wore a black stole fastened with a wide, black belt; over the stole, slung across his right shoulder, he wore a scarlet band. His neckwear consisted of a starched wing collar and two plain white bands hanging down in front. On his head was the English judicial headdress—a wig, abbreviated from the reign of Charles II to one with a single vertical curl at the back and two short rows hanging down behind. In his hands he carried white gloves and a folded square of black silk known as the Black Cap—a relic from the days when it was placed on his wig as he passed the death sentence.Since the trial of Tony Baekeland was being held during the summer months, according to ancient custom, sweet-smelling English garden flowers had been strewn on the bench and the ledge of the dock.Three sharp knocks on the door of the judge’s dais signaled the black-robed usher to open the court with the proclamation: “All persons who have anything to do before My Lords the Queen’s Justices at the Central Criminal Court draw near and give your attendance. God Save the Queen.”The counsel representing the Crown wore a long silk gown, long-cuffed black tailcoat, and a waistcoat with flaps to the pockets. Representing the defendant was the barrister-writer John Mortimer, who would later create the character of the portly liberal barrister “Rumpole of the Bailey”; he was garbed in the traditional Tudor gown.To the left of the barristers sat the wigged and gowned clerks of the court, whose function it was to swear in juries, take prisoners’ pleas, and record verdicts.As the trial was getting under way, Tony Baekeland, who had been sitting impassively in the accused’s enclosure at the center of the courtroom, exclaimed, to no one in particular, “I would rather have buggered a prosecutor than killed a peacock in paradise!”Neil HartleyI had been out of town working on a film and when I got back to London, at a dinner party John Mortimer, who was a friend of mine and my partner Tony Richardson’s and who was always involved in these bizarre cases, said, “I’m representing this interesting case—this boy who killed his mother.” And suddenly I was told that the papers had been full of it.Barbara Baekeland had bought the apartment on Cadogan Square from me and a friend of mine, Jim Robertsen, and that was really my only association with her. I went back two or three times to parties there. She was pleasant enough. Just before she was killed, we talked—I think the day before—and she said she was having a party that night and she wanted me to come.I must say I didn’t like the way she had done up the place. I mean, I preferred it the way I had had it. I’d bought it from an Italian antiques dealer on the King’s Road—he had done it up for himself and lived in it for a number of years, and he’d done a beautiful job, but she…I mean, it had a very deep stairwell from the floor below up to a kind of studio room which was the living room, and the stairs had a lovely banister, been there for a long time, and she took it all out. I don’t know how people escaped without killing themselves going up and down those stairs! Things like that I thought were odd, but, you know, women have their own taste.After her death I was contacted by her husband to see if I was interested in buying the apartment back, which I thought was a real creepy idea. He showed up in London while the son was being held in prison.Brooks BaekelandBarbara’s murder by her own son was a kind of grotesque, inartistic accident. She should not have died the way she did. It was not so much her kind of death as his kind of…She had a kind of greatness—no, a real greatness—of heart, and her murder was illustrative not of her but of that crapule, her son. That she had partly made him into a crapule is also true. They were both genetic defectives. But he was also my son, and I had fought against that in him all his life and failed. I would give anything to have been able to help him. I never could.Even as a small child he was aberrant. And then as he was entering puberty it became clear—finally—that he was not only homosexual but a practicing one. That was a terrible shock to his mother, who fought against it with him, ferociously. She may even have died in one of their fights over this. She simply could never accept it, try though she did—gallantly, desperately, despairingly—in their last disorganized years together.Sam GreenBarbara just thought Tony was the Messiah and the greatest child that ever was. Nobody was good enough for Tony. She would rent castles in Italy or Spain or wherever and invite important nobility—shall we say specifically the daughters of important nobility. Later on she would invite older girls, hoping that the inevitable would happen. What I mean is she would set Tony up. She tried it time after time and it just didn’t work. Finally she got a little more desperate and aggressive about it and when Tony himself finally invited a girl to Cadaqués for a holiday—she was from Paris and a few years older than he was—Barbara practically instructed her to seduce him. Now this is the part of the story that really intrigued Cecil Beaton. In that novella he wrote, he gave Barbara the name “Emily,” Tony the name “Jonathan,” and “Dolores,” I guess, represented Sylvie. Thank God it never got published! Cecil was a photographer basically, but when he wrote he always settled for the most superficial frame around the picture. He revealed incredible tawdriness in his prose. But I hasten to his defense: He never displayed it elsewhere!From an Untitled Novella believed to be by Cecil Beaton, UnpublishedEmily continued to feed her son with young ladies. One day she got hold of a girl who was pretty much of a tart. I guess she wasn’t, of course, a whore picked up from the street, but she was a well-known, loose young woman around Paris named Dolores. Emily invited this Dolores down to the house in Portofino which she and her husband had rented, thinking that she’d make things easy for Jonathan. Well, playing a role that most mothers don’t—I mean it was very odd for her to produce a tart in order that her son should be initiated into the rites of love—Emily had a well-deserved disaster dumped on her. The result is Emily is left alone—with the son who is also alone.This all happened in Portofino, which, as you know, is quite a tight community, and the arrival of a tart was remarked upon by all those gossips. So you can imagine the excitement when Dolores, who was asked as a set-up for Jonathan’s entertainment and satisfaction, succeeded in seducing his father.Barbara CurteisWhen Tony was twenty-one or twenty-two he said to me, “You know, I’m still a virgin.” And a couple of months later he met Sylvie. She was one of the groupies in Cadaqués—French, hippyish. And Tony said to me—this is so sad and moving in light of what happened later—he said, “Sex between men and women—people talk about it and make such a big hoohah about it and they say it’s so complicated and everything, but when you meet the right girl everything just falls into place.” Sylvie was his first girlfriend, you see. He brought her to meet Barbara and Brooks in Paris—brought her home like a kitten bringing its first killed mouse, and laid it at their feet.That Christmas they rented Emily Staempfli’s house in Cadaqués—Barbara, Brooks, Barbara’s mother, Mrs. Daly, and Tony and Sylvie. An in principle happy Christmas: Mammy, Pappy, Granny, the Only Child, and the Only Child’s Girlfriend.But Sylvie took another look at Brooks and said, you know, “There’s more money in it for me if I go with the father than if I go with the son.”Sylvie Baekeland SkiraI think that that’s a good story. People say I caught the Baekelands. The Baekelands do their own catching, very easily—believe me.You know, I’m not in the least prudish, and if I had had an affair with the son and then with the father, I would say so. It wouldn’t bother me in the least to say so.I met the son first—in Cadaqués, in the summer of ’67. He was six years younger than I was. He had that pretty complexion of his mother’s. He didn’t have that sort of mad face that he had afterward, of which I only saw photographs. He was soft-spoken, very bright, very gentle. Affectionate. I don’t mean toward me, but toward his dog—he had the most charming relationship with the little dog, who he called Digby. “Mr. Digby, will you be good?” Very sweet.I was going through my first divorce, and Tony and I became great friends. Not the way people say—that there was a love affair. It’s so absurd—because Tony was a homosexual from the day he was born, I think. But a lot of homosexual men like women—as a companion, to talk to and so forth. We were like brother and sister in a way. Of course, later, when I went away with his father, he resented me terribly.From a Psychiatric Report on Antony Baekeland ordered by the British Courts, January 5, 1973He attached special importance to certain emotions and incidents, emphasizing especially that he was devoted to both parents and that they continued devoted to one another, that their separation had disturbed his peace of mind. He wept when describing this.Elizabeth Archer BaekelandBefore they separated, Barbara told Brooks, “You know, I could get Tony over his homosexuality if I just took him to bed,” and Brooks said, “Don’t you dare do that, Barbara!” Fred, my ex-husband, Brooks’s brother, told me that Brooks told him that—now this is brothers!Eleanor WardIt comes back to me now—the very clear clear clear tone—that she did tell me that she slept with him, because I lived on the next street and I remember leaving her apartment on Seventy-fifth and walking down Lexington and walking back to Seventy-fourth in a state of shock, you know—that anyone could do that to their son. She…She let him put his filthy thing inside her.Willie MorrisI always heard that the mother and the son had slept together. That’s what everyone told me. I had no way of knowing whether it was true but it was certainly the talk of the East Hampton set.Tom DillowBarbara told me that it happened in that house they had in Mallorca, this archduke’s palace, but then, a lot of stuff happened in that house. I mean, it was a real spooky place—huge, no electricity, that kind of stuff. She didn’t give me any details. Oh no. Not Barbara. Barbara was a lady.Sylvie Baekeland SkiraI can believe that she would do anything—including that. I can’t believe that he would, that’s all. There might be something in a woman where she wants to save her child to a point that is beyond credibility, but then the child remains a homosexual boy, and I can’t imagine that he would have found this in any way physically possible.Alan HarringtonI was quoted in Newsweek magazine about something, I can’t remember what, therapeutic techniques, I think, and Barbara called me up and said she wanted desperately to talk to me, and she told me that she had slept with Tony. I said to her I didn’t think it was such a bad thing—I was trying to remove guilt—but now that I think of it, there wasn’t any expressed.Barbara HaleSons and lovers—nobody knows the difference anymore.Irving SaboBarbara Baekeland was in a writing class I took at the New School in New York in the early seventies with Anatole Broyard. Well, I can only say, she was a presence. She only came a few times when I was there, and I went to dinner with her a couple of times after class. The first time, we went to Bradley’s, on University Place—there were about ten of us—and she just thought it was all so marvelous. We all went Dutch on those occasions, and she just thought this was great. And a week or two later, she read some of her writing in class, her ongoing novel, which dealt with a mother-son incest, as I recall. Well, it was vivid. She was, I think, a good writer. And after that class, some of us were going uptown on the East Side and she invited four or five of us who were in my car to stop up for a drink.That was a memorable occasion. She had a collection of antiques the likes of which you don’t get from any ordinary dealer. She had a lacquered Japanese highboy which was an extraordinary piece—it’s very vivid to me because I’ve designed furniture in my time. It was top museum quality. And everything in the apartment was on that scale, it just reeked of great wealth. She offered some bourbon and I like good bourbon, and I asked for some ice and she said, “Oh, you won’t need ice for this. This was made for me, it’s a private batch.” Well, there are distilleries that make special blends for special customers. It’s like having a private railroad car these days. Anyway, it was extraordinary bourbon, real sipping stuff. No ice needed.The living room was full of photographs of a very beautiful young man, I would say in his early twenties. She had taken, I believe, a lot of the photographs. What struck me was the way the camera just dwelled on the beauty of this young man. Now this may be hindsight, but they were not the sort of pictures a mother would normally take of a son. After I saw those photographs, I felt that her novel was autobiographical.Ethel Woodward de CroissetI thought the story of sleeping with Tony was perfectly touching, because I think that was a dream of hers, you know—that somebody could make him whole. I think subconsciously she thought that the reason she had lost Brooks was because her son was a homosexual, you see.Brooks BaekelandThe incest thing. I don’t know. If they had not been taking drugs, I would say, unhesitatingly, no. I would say it was a boutade—a caprice—that came out of Barbara’s taste for the outrageous. Pour épater les bourgeois—you know? But I know nothing about the drugged state. So who knows? I know he loved his mother.He loved his mother more than he loved me, but he loved me, too. And he respected me. I was, in a way, his alter ego. He held to me as an exhausted man does to a rock—barnacled and harsh though I was. But I really did love his mother, you see, and I could never forgive him for killing her.From a Psychiatric Report on Antony Baekeland ordered by the British Courts, January 5, 1973His great improvement in prison may be due to relief from the great strain of his relationship with his mother. He requires further medical treatment but the prognosis for his leading an ineffectual but socially acceptable life under medical supervision is probably better than for some time. This treatment could well be provided in the U.S.A.There appear to be two possibilities—to ask the court to make a deportation order and give a short sentence of imprisonment. He is not really medically unsuitable for imprisonment. But I think it would be better to make a Section 65 hospital order to Broadmoor Special Hospital. He would be very soon ready for discharge and his transfer to medical care in the U.S.A. could be arranged fairly simply. In either case he would be likely to spend about a year in England and better in Broadmoor than prison.John MortimerWhat I tried to do at the trial was get the judge to send him straight back to America. The boy was very nice. I mean, I found him very gentle and calm and nice. But off he went.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Sam Green, June 8, 1973Dear Sam,I finally had a trial two days ago and was found guilty of manslaughter under diminished responsibility and am being sent to Broadmoor until I am well. Are you planning any trips? The one to India sounded fascinating. When I get out I hope to get a house in Mallorca.Love, PART II 1THE MATERIAL OF A THOUSAND USESON JUNE 6, 1973, Tony Baekeland was transferred from the city of London to the small, picturesque village of Crowthorne in the Berkshire countryside. The narrow lanes were ablaze with wildflowers and lush with ferns, the village gardens an iridescent display of irises, peonies, and petunias. The large wooden sign reading “BROADMOOR SPECIAL HOSPITAL—NO THROUGH ROAD™ struck an inharmonious note.“The excellent road invited us to speed on and yet the sensation of loveliness was so predominant that we preferred to stop frequently to better enjoy the charmingly reposeful landscape,” Tony Baekeland’s great-grandfather had written of this same countryside sixty-six years earlier, in a privately printed volume.Tony Baekeland would not have the same opportunity to linger that his celebrated ancestor had had. He was driven up a winding road past a cluster of white cottages to the place where he would be detained indefinitely, “at her Majesty’s pleasure.”The red-brick Victorian institution called Broadmoor Special Hospital was built in 1863 as Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. It is surrounded by a wall of uneven height that weaves snakelike through open fields. With its pink-blossomed trees that line the road in front of the main buildings and its rows of daffodils hugging the walls, Broadmoor looks like a friendly New England college campus. But its blue-uniformed nurses look more like guards and in fact belong to the Prison Officers Association; and all staff members are required to sign the Official Secrets Act. Patients’ mail is routinely censored, and occasionally even books are withheld on the grounds that they are “bad influences.”“At Broadmoor, security is the first consideration,” a staff member says. “We are always concerned with the escape and welfare of our patients, since we’re dealing with very violent and dangerous persons here.”Of the approximately 750 patients at Broadmoor, many have committed “heinous, headline crimes”; more than a quarter have committed homicide or attempted murder. There are also patients who have committed no crime but who are mentally ill. There are over twenty attempted suicides a year, and it has been estimated that at any given time Broadmoor houses between 200 and 250 psychopaths. Indeed, it has been described as “the asylum of last resort.”A Dent of London clock sits above the impressive entrance gate through which Tony Baekeland was led that June 6th into a small courtyard. From there he was taken down a passageway to a door where he heard what would become a familiar sound to him: the jangle of the large metal keys carried by every Broadmoor attendant. The door was unlocked for him, then locked again.Tony Baekeland was now in the main body of the hospital, which consisted of eight residential “blocks.” In 1969, in an attempt to abolish prison terminology, the blocks were renamed “houses,” Block A becoming Kent House; Block B, Cornwall House; Block C, Dorset House; and the other blocks becoming Essex, York, Somerset, Lancaster, and Norfolk.From A Family Motor Tour Through Europe, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Horseless Age Press, New York, 1907The farther we went away from London the better became the roads. We were driving through a lovely, rolling country, with a smooth highway and green fields. Now and then we met a cheerful-looking cottage, its stony façade made lovelier by some creeping tea roses. Carpetlike lawns, tastefully laid-out gardens, with very old trees, and everything cared for to perfection—all this gave us a strong impression of pretty, rural England.The main part of the house under the hospitable roof of which we were going to stay had been built in Shakespeare’s time, in the quaint architecture of that day, and the modern additions had been made in tolerable conformity with the original style.The ensemble, with the surrounding gardens and lawns, made a delightful specimen of an English country house.The liberal supply of rain which makes the British climate so humid is also the main reason why, in that country, it is possible to produce such well-kept lawns, better than are to be found anywhere else, and which look more like immense green carpets.There, the lawn extended to a sort of terrace, with a green stairway, and reached out toward a very tastefully arranged rose garden. Stately trees, several of them many centuries old, were artistically grouped all over; giant yew trees next to imposing cedars of the Lebanon; exotic-looking araucarias in proximity to glossy-leaved hollies, the latter with trunks almost a foot in diameter. A shady pathway lined by tree-like rhododendrons led toward an old church. Everything was harmony and every detail gave evidence of centuries of good care and good taste. Yes, this is undoubtedly the secret of these striking effects of English landscape gardening, which seem so hard to imitate successfully.The place just described is merely a representative of hundreds of others, some larger, some smaller, but in all of them the landscape gardening has been the result of a slow and well-studied process, extending through many generations and carried out by a succession of owners, the children being able to follow the improvements which their fathers planned.Dr. Thomas MaguireInside the walls the fact is you’ll find it’s lovely green, with flower beds that the patients take care of, and rather nice trees and all that sort of thing. The hospital has forty acres of land—tennis courts, a swimming pool, and football grounds, as well as gardens. It’s not like a prison where the inmates always see the walls. When you’re inside you can hardly see the walls, because they drop down in places. They’re somewhat higher in the areas where the patients are likely to try to make an escape.Tony was very, very ill in the beginning—he had to be dressed and he had to be taken to the bathroom.He idealized his mother, you know. He was very sorry and showed great remorse. He often said, “Oh, how a few moments of frenzy changed my life!” The fact is it wouldn’t have changed his life, because his illness was just part of a whole picture. There was a deep sickness in the family, and a lack of discipline that too much money will often create.He was fond of his father. He wrote him bad-tempered letters occasionally but then, within the week, he might turn around and write him an affectionate one. That’s the way his illness was.He had ideas of grandeur about who he was. He thought he was a great painter. He wasn’t, but he wasn’t bad. He told me that his great-grandfather was included in some encyclopedia.From Science Magazine, November 1984The toast of society as well as industry, Leo Hendrik Baekeland appeared on the cover of Time magazine in September 1924.From Time Magazine, May 20, 1940FATHER OF PLASTICSThis week Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute presents one of its coveted gold medals to a man who is much less known to the public than are the changes his work has wrought in the many common things people use, from toothbrush handles, telephones and false gums, to airplane bodies. Even more than most scientists, the man is publicity-shy. He is Leo Hendrik Baekeland, inventor of Bakelite, “Father of Plastics.”Born in Flemish Belgium 76 years ago, young Leo became an ardent photographer…. He entered the University of Ghent as its youngest student, graduated in 1882 summa cum laude, promptly became an assistant professor of chemistry…. He emigrated to the U.S. and went to work for a photographic supply manufacturer. Then he started his own consulting practice, invented a quick-action photographic printing paper called Velox, organized Nepera Chemical Co. to manufacture it. George Eastman of Eastman Kodak bought him out.Legend has it that Eastman paid Baekeland $1,000,000, several times the minimum sum on which the young inventor had set his mind. At all events, he found himself, at 35, rich enough to do what he pleased. He converted a stable in his backyard into a laboratory. He found that phenol (carbolic acid) and formaldehyde interacted to make a non-melting, non-dissolving solid like nothing in nature. This was Bakelite, foundation stone of the synthetic plastic industry. After forming General Bakelite Co. (later Bakelite Corp.) to exploit his discovery, Baekeland methodically listed 43 industries in which he thought it would be useful. Today it would be hard to find 43 in which it is not used.From the Bakelite Review, a Periodical Digest of Bakelite Achievements Interesting to All Progressive Manufacturers and Merchants, Volume 7, Number 3 (Silver Anniversary Number, 1910–1935)Millions of uses…. radios, clocks, bottle caps, baseball caps, phonograph records, lamps, fountain pens, pencils, washing machine parts, shaving brush handles, toilet seats, costume jewelry, artificial limbs, coffins, pipes, cigarette holders, saddles, overcoat and suit buttons, subway strap hangers, control devices for submarines, battleships and destroyers, automobile parts and gear wheels.From The Story of Bakelite, John Kimberly Mumford, Robert L. Stillson Publishing Co., New York, 1924Wherever wheels whirr, wherever women preen themselves in the glitter of electric lights, wherever a ship plows the sea or an airplane floats in the blue—wherever people are living, in the Twentieth Century sense of the word, there Bakelite will be found rendering its enduring service.From Fortune Magazine, April 4, 1983THE HALL OF FAME FOR U.S. BUSINESS LEADERSHIPThe Business Hall of Fame’s “Roster of Past Laureates”—leaders whose achievements have endured—includes Andrew Carnegie, Pierre Samuel Du Pont, Thomas Alva Edison, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Edwin Herbert Land, Cyrus Hall McCormick, Andrew William Mellon, John Pierpont Morgan, John Davison Rockefeller, David Sarnoff, Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr., Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Washington, Thomas John Watson, Jr., Eli Whitney…Elected this year to the Business Hall of Fame: Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863–1944).From Selected Writings, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Bakelite Corporation, New York, 1944How did I happen to strike such an interesting subject as that of the synthetic resins? I can readily answer that I did not strike it haphazardly; I looked for just such a subject for a number of years until I found it among the many lines of research which I undertook in my laboratory. And, between 1905 and 1909, I obtained an insoluble, infusible substance which we call oxybenzylmethyleneglycolanhydride now known as BAKELITE.From the Private Diaries of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, March 8, 1909After my lecture the boys were singing once in a while the B-A-K-E L-I-T-E song which goes“B-A-K-E-L-I-T-EStands for BakeliteTen times better than graphiteAnd what’s the nameEvery photographer of the country knowsVelox—Velox!”When I went to the station I was escorted by the whole bunch—about thirty—marching like soldiers and singing the Bakelite song.Stephane GroueffIn the atomic bomb, one of the most important problems, and probably the most difficult to solve—I think it’s still one of the two or three biggest atomic bomb production secrets in the world, which any foreign spy would have given anything to have—involved Bakelite. When I was working on my book The Manhattan Project in the middle sixties, I had a sort of gentleman’s agreement with the Atomic Energy Commission that I would show them my manuscript because I wasn’t a scientist and the idea was that they would just correct all the spelling and so forth but that I would keep my total freedom. They sent me a brochure called “U.S. Atomic Energy Act” or something like that, and every paragraph began, “Anybody who knowingly or unknowingly has or divulges or even discusses,” and ended, “is punishable by death or twenty years in prison.” It was really a very scary thing.So I sent them my finished manuscript and then they called me in, and one of the things they were particularly sensitive about was anything having to do with Bakelite. They suggested that they would be most unhappy if I published this information, that it wouldn’t be in the national interest and things like that.So I took certain things about Bakelite out of the manuscript and handed those pages over to the Atomic Energy Commission, and they sealed this file in my presence and put all their stamps on it—which I signed and they signed—and then they locked it up.Brooks BaekelandHad my grandfather known what would evolve from plastics, he would undoubtedly have withheld his invention—just as I think Einstein might have paused before publishing the 1905 paper on relativity. Leo Hendrik Baekeland epitomized hope for the human race. He created himself and he saw no reason why the future could not be created, too.Letter from Leo Hendrik Baekeland to a friend, January 14, 1934If I had to live my life over again I would not devote it to develop new industrial processes: I would try to add my humble efforts to use Science to the betterment of the human race.I despair of the helter-skelter methods of our vaunted homo sapiens, misguided by his ignorance and his politicians. If we continue our ways, there is every possibility that the human race may follow the road of former living races of animals whose fossils proclaim that they were not fit to continue. Religion, laws and morals is not enough. We need more. Science can help us.Brooks BaekelandHad it only been possible for me to have been his son and not his grandson, we two could have taken the world by storm—yes, for we would have pursued the original dreams—dielectrics, textiles, resins, bonding powders for super-strong abrasives and aerodynamic components, molded hulls for boats and…but the list is endless. We would not have been able to foresee then the plastic-polluted world that has become such a monstrous joke, the blue plastic bucket and the plastic cups littering the insulted country roadsides—a world whose very destruction, by burning, only pollutes it more. LHB never dreamed of that. He would have recoiled.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, October 4, 1973BroadmoorDear Miwa—I am sending you these dreams which I have had during the past few days at Broadmoor:Einstein hides a stop sign from police.I come back to my best friend, Jake Cooper, and we travel the world together. I see a fox eat a squirrel.My grandmother Nina Daly embraces me during a party given by a fellow here and myself. I cut up gobbets of meat.I can fly and go all over the place.I dream I am a successful writer and poet.I will continue to send you my dreams. There is so little to tell you except my dreams. I write them out in the middle of the night—there is no light so sometimes in the morning I have trouble deciphering them.Love, 2THE GRAND DUKEDOMON HIS ARRIVAL AT BROADMOOR on June 6, 1973, Tony Baekeland, according to hospital procedure, was given a number—6787—a bath, and a preliminary medical checkup. No medication of any kind was administered so that his psychiatric condition could surface and be observed. He was brought a cup of tea and some bread and jam, and placed in solitary confinement.On his second day he was moved to the special admissions ward, where he would remain for the next two months. In early fall he was transferred to Cornwall House, a three-story building that resembled a tenement more than the ducal residence its name suggested. There he was assigned to a second-floor ward, which consisted of dormitories, single rooms referred to by the patients as “cells,” and a large dayroom where patients could read, play music and games, listen to the radio, or watch television. Occasionally there was a movie. During the Queen’s Jubilee Week, James Bond films were shown; another time there was a screening of The Exorcist, at which several patients were observed “laughing away with great relish” in the middle of one particularly grotesque scene while other, more heavily tranquilized patients simply sat by themselves and stared into space.There was an area off the dayroom of Cornwall House in which meals were served, and also a small kitchen that patients could use at authorized times. All cutlery was counted both before and after meals; if anything was missing, the patients were searched.They were provided only a locker and an iron bed. For anything beyond these bare necessities they had to depend on the generosity of relatives or friends. In Tony Baekeland’s case, his grandfather, George Baekeland, had left him a trust fund, one half of the principal of which would come to him in three years, when he turned thirty, the other half when he turned thirty-five.Tony Baekeland shared the dormitory with as many as sixty men at one time. The beds were packed tightly together, with sometimes only inches between them. High up on the dormitory walls were blue lights that were never turned off, so that it never got completely dark.Patients were locked in the dormitories at night, and bathrooms were off-limits. If anybody needed to use the toilet, he had to resort to the chamberpot under his bed, in full view of everybody. “They were plastic, since a pot of any other kind might be turned into an offensive weapon,” a staff member explains. Often there wasn’t even toilet paper.“We are wheeling and shining with the crème de la crème of European high life,” Barbara Baekeland had written to Sam Green three years before. “The Marquis and Marquise de Surian arrive next week—and the Earl of Shaftesbury is just across the way here. Hope to climb on skis up to the Hospice de St. Bernard with him next week. Adelaide d’Eudeville’s cousin, the Comte de Vogue, is here and it is peaceful and restful. Flew around in a private plane yesterday—took the controls, made a right turn and almost zeroed in—no, not quite true. But had a good look at the countryside.”A good look at the countryside was one of the few things at Broadmoor that Tony Baekeland could enjoy, and it would be filtered not only through barred windows but through the tranquilizers with which he was often heavily sedated. Sometimes when he stood by the window too long, he would be reprimanded by a nurse.“I asked him, ‘Tony, what do you get as medication?’” says Miwa Svinka-Zielinski. “He wrote me four different names. He said he got one kind in the morning, another kind in the afternoon, and another in the evening, and once a week he got this and that. I showed this list to a psychiatrist friend of mine in New York and he said they were all strong tranquilizers. The worst thing was he was not getting any treatment—he saw a psychiatrist only once a month.”For the roughly 750 patients at Broadmoor, there were only four psychiatrists, working one day a week each. “With the best will and the best scheduling in the world, I could only manage to see each patient for two hours every three months,” a former Broadmoor consultant explains.But Dr. Maguire insists, “Tony Baekeland consumed a great deal of my care. He told me I was the only one who would listen to him.”Letter from Antony Baekeland to Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, November 12, 1973BroadmoorDear Miwa—Thank you for your letter after such a long silence. I am getting on all right here. I shall try to give you the dream associations you asked for concerning the dreams I sent you in my last letter.Einstein hides a stop sign from the police: I associate this dream with secret, occult, or hidden things.I come back to my best friend [Jake Cooper], and we travel the world together; I see a fox eat a squirrel: I associate this with the library of our house on Seventy-first Street where I was brought up.My grandmother Nina Daly embraces me during a party given by a fellow here and myself; during the party I cut up gobbets of meat: I associate this with the swans on Georgica Pond in East Hampton where as you know we rented a house for several years.I dream that I can fly and go all over the place: this dream of flight I associate with freedom. I have always wanted to be able to fly.That I am a successful writer and poet: I associate this with a manor house that my mother and father rented one summer in France. It had a beautiful garden and a large potager where I used to hunt for insects.I shall keep jotting down my dreams and will send them to you. Miwa in my thoughts I am much too brutal to myself—I wish I could have gentler feelings toward myself. Also, I don’t understand why but I feel a murderous hatred toward my fellow men—I feel that they are holding me down. I don’t always feel this way, just sometimes. I can’t understand the reason for this feeling as I have always been treated with the greatest kindness.Love, 3MISCHIEF IN THE BLOODTONY BAEKELAND’S DAY at Broadmoor began with a nurse shouting to him—and his dormitory mates—to wake up. From the moment he got out of bed, his every move was supervised—going to the bathroom, brushing his teeth, washing, shaving. He could enjoy the luxury of a bath or shower only one day a week.“Tony remained in a bad way for quite awhile,” Dr. Maguire says, “but eventually, with medication and the realization that he was a member of society and part of a therapeutic community, he was able to receive visitors other than his immediate family.”Under the Mental Health Act of 1959, tribunals were created to give patients certain safeguards. Confined to Broadmoor under a Section 65 restriction order, Tony Baekeland was entitled to one review every two years. On August 22, 1974, he was granted a tribunal to review his sentence. It was determined that Tony Baekeland, after little more than a year at Broadmoor, was not ready to leave. Within several months, however, he was moved to Gloucester House, where patients are accorded a few more privileges; cutlery, for instance, is not counted after every meal. But after a short time at Gloucester, it became clear that he still needed the more protective atmosphere of Cornwall House.All the houses had small courtyards, called “airing courts,” where the patients could walk, but the airing court at Cornwall was distinctive—a patient, using his own money, had planted it with flowers and bushes. Now Tony Baekeland would once again be walking there.“In the airing court,” a patient had written, “you walk round and round, lost in your own private thoughts. There are various games you can play to make it less boring, like counting the stones on the bricks on the wall or counting the number of steps it takes you to get round the court. But it’s all exactly the same, day after day.”Tony Van RoonI was a nurse at Broadmoor for some of the time that Tony Baekeland was a patient there. I left in September 1979 to take up a post in Coventry.I think Tony was in Cornwall House when I worked there. Of course, he might have been in Dorset, the long-stay ward—I also worked there. It was one of the first wards to be upgraded. Well, they stuck some paint on the walls, but they called it modernizing. I know he wasn’t in Norfolk—maximum security—which is where I worked the most. No, the contact I had with him was in Cornwall.What’s it like in Cornwall? Well, you go in through the front door, and immediately to your left is a stone staircase going up to the second and third floors. If you go past the stairs and go right, you’re in Ward One, which is just one very very long gallery.The first door on the right is the charge nurse’s office, and then all the way down on the right are the cells. They were the usual sort of prison-type cells. The only difference was there was only one in a cell. On the left there are windows looking over the terraces, and occasional sort of bathroom areas and toilets, and then, farther down, a huge sort of communal lounge. The second floor is just a duplicate of the first floor.On the right-hand side of the lounge was a snooker table and a card table, and on the left-hand side was a curtained-off area with rows and rows of chairs, easy-type chairs, with a television sort of on a platform in the front. And these were very drab and very dark areas.The third floor, Cornwall Three, was what we called a dead ward—it was only used at night, for sleeping.In the morning the breakfast would be cereals, bread, eggs, and on Sundays bacon and eggs or baked beans. A very very basic breakfast. And then at lunchtime there would be sort of a standard meat and two vegs. No soup to start with, just a main course. Then in the evenings it would be sort of a hot-type meal. In Cornwall they could order one night a week from a local fish-and-chips shop, and it was brought in by hospital transport. It was offered to every house one night a week on a rotation.One of the things I found about Tony was he was always on his own. He never really had that much to do with nursing staff. You have to understand that the nursing staff at Broadmoor is less therapeutic and more custodial in role. That’s not how it’s supposed to be but it’s how it is. That’s one of the reasons I used to grit my teeth, you know—because we weren’t known as nurses, the patients either called us “sir” or “screw.” So it was difficult for a lot of them, particularly those who were isolated anyway, to sort of break through the lines and actually have a lot to do with nursing staff.I had quite a few chats with Tony but they very rarely got into too much depth because he suddenly would realize that I was a part of the system and he was frightened by the system. I mean, I was frightened by the system, and I worked there! In fact, I was petrified of it. I mean, Broadmoor is a hospital but it’s not that healthy a place.Another thing I always felt was that there was a lot of remorse in Tony about what had happened, and because of that he had to be constantly coping and coming to terms with the situation he was in. I think that he sort of thought, “Well, here I am now and I’m here because I did this,” but he could never understand why he did it—which is the key thing with a lot of people who I met there, they couldn’t understand why. Quite often I would see Tony just sitting there and appearing to be miles away.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Rosemary Rodd Baldwin, December 21, 1974BroadmoorDarling Rosie,I wrote to you about a month ago. Did you ever get the letter? My whole life has changed completely—I have become a totally new person—by “new,” I mean the way I used to be a long time ago. But then, I never really realized what I had, which was love and happiness, so I lost it through ignorance and selfishness. I spend hours, lovely happy hours, thinking of my friends.Mummy was such a very wise person—I only began to realize who she really was a while ago—she was such a master of the understatement. I owe everything to her and love her so, Rosie. I was eating a tomato at teatime a few weeks ago and I suddenly realized that she is not dead at all, just very, very mysterious.Love, 4MOTHER’S MILKAS GRADUALLY TONY BAEKELAND became a member of society at Broadmoor, he could choose from among the several occupational therapies available to patients: toy-making, pottery, carpentry, metalwork, printing, radio-making, basket-making…He preferred drawing and painting. “He gave me one or two things—paintings of flowers and things like that,” Dr. Maguire recalls. “We have to be very careful about paint because in some cases it’s very toxic and patients can harm themselves.”Tony Baekeland soon improved to the point where he was reading university-level books—among them, a volume on abstract mathematics. He wrote to his father that he was happy, had “a home and new friends.”Old friends—and friends of friends—began to visit him. There was as well a community group called the Broadmoor League of Friends, two of whose members—a retired army doctor and his wife—took a particular interest in Tony.“Colonel Verbi was at one time in the English army,” Dr. Maguire explains. “He was a wonderful friend to Tony. He and his wife had the time to visit. Tony was so fond of them he gave them a number of gifts—I remember particularly a figure of an elephant. When Mrs. Verbi died some years ago and I went around to their house to call, Colonel Verbi gave me—to give back to Tony—the things that Tony had given to his wife. And, when Colonel Verbi died, he left Tony a silver ashtray in his will.”Toward the end of his third summer in Broadmoor, Tony received word from his father and Sylvie in France of the birth of a half brother.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Sam Green, August 29, 1975BroadmoorDear Sam,My time has been of great profit to me: I have learned a great deal about people, myself, and life in general. I now realize that for many years I had been living a totally false life and it finally ended the way it did because the burden I carried just became too great to bear. Anyway, for Mummy’s sake I have decided to make a new person of myself and I have found great peace and happiness. I realize now how much I always took my mother for granted (and the other good things in life) and how selfish and blind I was in many ways.My father and I are good friends now. I have a little half brother whom I have not met.Yours with love, 5FUN AND GAMESONCE A WEEK TONY BAEKELAND, along with five of his fellow patients at Cornwall House, was escorted to the canteen, where he was free to purchase, among other things, candy, cigarettes, soap, coffee, and tea. A patient was not allowed to handle cash himself; rather, all purchases were charged to his hospital account, into which his money had been placed. Each month he received a computer printout of the status of his finances.“Tony could be very kind to others,” Dr. Maguire says. “In fact, I had to protect him from being overgenerous. I initiated a request for a protector through the Court of Protection, which is a branch of the Supreme Court in England, and Tony’s money was eventually placed under the protection of a court-appointed guardian, who inquired into his needs and then apportioned the money to him. Usually it is given in a yearly sum, but I convinced Tony’s guardian to give it to him in six-month installments. He was also receiving an allowance from his father, and there was quite a lot of money from other sources as well, including income from investments in New York.”By the beginning of 1976, Tony Baekeland had adjusted to hospital routine, both social and therapeutic. “He had a chronic illness, of course,” says Dr. Maguire, “but he fluctuated—he had ups and downs. His true basic personality would show through every now and then. His kind of illness was not strictly an illness that depends on the environment. It was genetic.“Tony was well read,” Dr. Maguire adds, “but he had something a lot of schizophrenics have—a kind of pseudointellectuality about things. I’ve been involved with schizophrenics for a long time, because they’re not boring—they’re very interesting, in fact. There’s a certain truth to everything they say. I find this fascinating, because it all seems so true, yet they can’t function normally. And when they commit criminal acts, they always, in some way, manage to tell the world what they’re going to do before they do it.”Tony Van RoonI knew that Tony Baekeland was fairly solvent but I didn’t know he was, you know, exceedingly rich or anything. But what I would say is always the sociopathic element in Broadmoor would take great advantage of people who were like that and would be their friend until there was nothing left. I do remember that when he went to the canteen he certainly always made adequate allowance for what he’d need in the week. But the thing was, as soon as he got back to the ward, people would say, Well, you don’t need all that, why don’t you give me some, and he was really a very nice guy, you know. So the problem was he would give things away, particularly if he saw somebody who was less fortunate.Patricia GreeneHe was always very sensitive as a child. He was a will-o’-the-wisp child, in a way—now you see him, now you don’t. At his parents’ dinner parties he would fly in and out, like quicksilver.He would come to our house, but our children would not so often go there. He would come to us because we were more of a family, I think, and he rather liked that. I think Brooks and Barbara were rather social. I think they were quite social. He went to his grandmother’s when they went out at night—I would see him walking down the street with his parakeet in a cage and his pajamas over his arm.One Halloween I took him around the block. We made our costumes in those days, we didn’t buy them, and I made one for him. Then I went around with the children. They were quite small. I remember Tony was overwhelmed with the excitement of it. And he ran off through the night, down the block, and I was quite alarmed because he just disappeared. We chased after him and finally caught up with him and he was just running, running, running, in a wild manner. And then we all went around the block together. The block was very nice in those days. At the Paul Mellon house, the butler answered the door and offered us apples on a silver tray. Those days are gone forever.I remember Tony had some mice or something in his room, and of course he had the little bird, and I suppose he had fish. And when he would come to our house he would look at our animals—we may have had a white rat that impressed him, too. That was more of his link with my boys than anything else.There was a vacant lot across the street from us—they had torn down the building—and I think there were rats which intrigued Tony and our boys, and I said, “You’d better stay away because you might get bitten.” Our boys pretty much stayed away, but I think Tony used to go through the boards again and again and poke around and I think that upset Barbara, because I remember her speaking to me about that as a concern—how she could keep him away from the building. I guess Tony just had this enormous interest in any sort of animals.From A Family Motor Tour Through Europe, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Horseless Age Press, New York, 1907My two children are great lovers of animals, and if I let them have their own way, their not too small collection of dogs, rabbits, cats, guinea pigs, birds, etc., would soon increase to the size of a little menagerie…. When I finally heard that my boy, George, had been bargaining for a live and healthy ferret I decided that it now was time to compromise on some gentler representative of the animal kingdom, so I finally consented to the purchase of two tiny Bengalese finches. Housed in a little cage, they were from now on to become our traveling companions.Patricia GreeneOne of the first times I met Barbara, she said, “Oh, Tony’s raising moths in my closet.” And I thought that was enchanting, so I looked and, sure enough, in a shoe box he had some moth cocoons, and she twinkled and was merry over that. I must say I adored her for that—I was always saying, “Get the moths out of my closet!” And she had mink coats and very expensive clothes in hers.Brooks BaekelandI am practically certain they were praying mantises—the cocoons given us by Alan Priest, who was Curator of Oriental Art at the Metropolitan Museum at that time and our friend Aschwin Lippe’s immediate superior. Anthony Quinn, who came to see about renting our house and who opened the closet in Tony’s room where they had just hatched out in their thousands, may remember his astonishment. He did not take the house. Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy did.Patricia GreeneWe invited Tony to our place in the country mainly because one of our sons had gone over to see some of his moths and was intrigued. You see, Tony was really just the boy-next-door type thing. The second time he came to the country, he developed warts from the frogs. There’s apparently a little virus that they carry. I think Barbara was pretty horrified at that. He didn’t come again.You know, he did some drawings at our house in town. I must say they were quite different. Most boys were drawing rockets or airplanes and things like that, and he would be drawing more imaginative stuff—fanciful animals.Barbara used to do paintings of insects. Very large. Mostly representative. They were very good. I remember she worked very hard one summer on Cape Cod, and she came back with an exhibit in the fall. I remember meeting her before the show and she said, “I’m a wild woman, I’ve been painting like mad all summer, I just couldn’t stop, and I’m on my way to the hairdresser!” And her hair was standing out. She was a wild woman.It was a charming show. You walked up some stairs in this very small gallery and Barbara was greeting people. I have a mental picture of her standing with her lovely hair and her lovely complexion and pretty dress. She had little white kid gloves on. I was impressed with that—white kid gloves! She was soft. I can see the little white kid gloves around her little plump hands—she wasn’t plump but she gave the impression of being so. I commented on the gloves and she said, “I don’t like to touch all these people, I guess.” So that was a sidelight I remember of her character. Of course, people did wear gloves in those days.Marjorie Fraser SnowShe studied under, I believe, Gonzalez, I think on the Cape and also in New York at the Art Students League, and also under Hans Hofmann. I think she had a one-man show somewhere in New York. I think she got very fine reviews, as a matter of fact. I know she had one on the Cape. And Nini was so proud of her!Patricia GreeneBarbara was very proud of her mother for taking a job at the Museum of Natural History. Mrs. Daly apparently didn’t have to work at that point, although at one time I know she had rather a hard time making ends meet. It must have seemed like a dream to have Barbara marry all that plastic money! But later on, Mrs. Daly said she was bored just sitting around and she wanted to do something. Of course Tony was delighted when she went to work at the museum—after all, the Museum of Natural History! That was right down his alley.I just took it for granted that he’d be a naturalist. I thought he’d go on and pull himself together—you know, that he’d get to be a rather eccentric naturalist of some sort. Or a painter.Jonathan FrankWhen I visited Tony in New York, we used to cut out to the museum where his grandmother worked. Basically there was sort of a loose connection because we would report to her but we were pretty much on our own—and we were really young at that point.We used to play outdoors a lot and I’d say we preferred it that way. At night we would escape to the bedroom and we had a game where we would climb up on a cupboard way up high and then jump down on the bed, pretending that we were pterodactyls—you know, flying dinosaurs.Nina DalyI went looking for a job and I got one in the gift shop at the museum and we got a vacation in the summer for two weeks and we got holidays. I really enjoyed it. I would have liked to have done something else after I finished there. I would have liked to have worked in some store or something, if it had been a nice store. Anything to keep busy, to get out of the house in the morning.Tony would stop in and see me an awful lot. I loved that. He used to come and spend about three nights a week with me, too. It was to keep me company because I was alone, you see. And I had lived with them for a while, because I hadn’t gotten used to living alone. You have to get used to it if you’re not used to it. My sister used to come and stay a lot with me. She never had any children, so she used the family’s children. She loved children. I love children, too. I miss them now.Tony went right nearby to the Buckley School. He liked it there. He was doing great. He was a good student, he always read and read and read and read. When he was in Broadmoor, he’d write me for some books he wanted and I’d send him some Shakespeare and others.Teacher’s “Comments” on Antony Baekeland, French Class, Buckley School, New York CityWhen he wants to, Tony can produce really beautiful prose and poetry in French as well as in English. The job of getting him to want to do this is tremendous at times, but the result, when it is good, makes whatever has gone before seem worthwhile.Despite everything that has happened this term I still feel that Tony is one of the finest boys I have ever known. If he can realize his full potential he will be the finest.Peter GableI met Tony in the second or third grade at Buckley, which was a very competitive school academically. He was not a peculiar child to another child—to this child—but he was certainly different because of some of his enthusiasms and abilities. I mean, he was uniquely brilliant—brilliant in ways that another child wouldn’t appreciate, I think.His artistic abilities were spectacular—he loved to draw birds, you know. He was a baby Audubon. I remember once we were out playing in the park—we were old enough to be unchaperoned, eight or nine or something—and I captured this pigeon. I don’t think it was an entirely healthy bird, it was a basic Central Park shit-on-the-statues pigeon, and Tony took it from me and tucked it under his coat, and we rushed it back to his house on Seventy-first Street, and it was there for some time, flying free—first in his room and then having the run of the floor. The pigeon rather liked us, as I recall. In any event, it ultimately either conferred lice upon us or there was some fear that it would or whatever, and it was dispatched, I don’t remember how. But I certainly remember Tony’s sketches of that pigeon, in either pencil or pen and ink.Every day after school we’d go home together to his house and stuff. You know, he was my best friend, and his house was more entertaining than my house. I mean, he had an area in his room where he raised orchids. I think that was a passion of his father’s. I remember a rather enormous fishtank-like proposition with a controlled environment, in which these exotic flowers grew.I remember his mother as being striking and a flamboyant and vivacious person. She was certainly more animated than the mothers of other friends. I mean, when you’re a child, what do you know of the adult life? You know your parents, their friends, your teachers in school with whom you probably have some sort of distant relationship, your baby-sitter, the elevator man—in those days everybody had an elevator man; when I was a child the only adult you addressed by his first name was the elevator man.I certainly perceived Barbara Baekeland as being extraordinarily something, you know. I also remember what I perceived at the time to be a rather stormy relationship with her husband. Oh, they would fight, they would fight. I can remember hearing them. Tony and I both sort of listened, though we probably couldn’t make out the exact words that were being spoken. My mother and father were having a rather rocky time, too, so raised voices amongst adults in a household was not foreign to me, I didn’t think what I heard over at the Baekelands was that strange, you know. But the volume!Tony’s father I remember as being austere and uninvolved—very much of a shadow figure. He once took Tony and his mother and me for a picnic one Saturday into some countryside. I remember so clearly being in the back of the car—he kept a Mercedes convertible at the time, I think—a sports car—the top was down, it was a beautiful fair-weather day, and Tony and I were bundled in the back. We buzzed up to where there was a beautiful glade with a pond and I guess we had our lunch and then Tony and I wandered off to play. But the interesting thing is that this and one other time are the only occasions I can remember—and Tony and I were close close friends for several years—when I was in the company of both his parents.When summers would come, Tony would disappear to some foreign clime until fall, then we’d both be back in our short trousers and blazers, hiking off to school.Sylvie Baekeland SkiraBrooks and Barbara were two very powerful people who had their own fight together, and the little boy was sort of a puppet in between. He was trained by these parents to be brilliant. You know, you can teach a child to say the Latin word for “monkey” as easily as to say “monkey,” and he was trained that way. I’m completely against it.Even when the son was in Broadmoor, Brooks was ordering him, “You have to show remorse!” The son would say, “Absolutely not! You have to.” There were letters, there were letters constantly. One would say, “You killed Mummy!” Which is a point of view. And the other one would say, “You didn’t hit your mother with a banana, you hit her with a knife!” So. The thing that Brooks could never understand is that his son never showed him that he felt the slightest remorse. That, Brooks couldn’t understand.Brooks BaekelandNo matter how crazed he was, there was always a cool, lucid center that knew, and he certainly knew that I held him responsible for what he had done. I would not play the “diminished responsibility” game that all the others played and that he wanted me to play, too. I insisted on being his conscience.Mishka HarndenI’m sure Tony was born fairly unstable. On the other hand, all of what he went through when he was a kid certainly scrambled him for good. He was like that dog they had, you know—he was a slightly larger Pekingese. “Tony, do this! Tony, do that!” “Yes, Mother.” I mean, Tony Perkins in Psycho—you know? I mean, it gets to be that close.Yvonne ThomasThe way she would praise him and show you everything he’d written or drawn! Both of them did. They wanted the boy to be a genius. That’s what struck me. And made me feel uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable with the boy because I felt he felt he had to be something.You know, when you impose yourself on your children like that, it’s because you want them to be more than you’ve been. I think they were very ambitious and that nothing had happened with their ambition. She was always talking about what they were going to do. They wanted to do a coup of some sort, either in literature or in…I thought they were silly. She represented something sort of social—purely social—to me. I thought the way she entertained and her conversation and that crispy sort of voice were affectations—everything was something that didn’t interest me that much. Especially at that time. Now I don’t care, you know. But then I was very strict—everybody was—about exactly the style that you chose to be. I became an Abstract Expressionist painter and it changed my life—it changed a lot of my views, a lot of my values. I didn’t see too much of the Baekelands after that.But oh, the son was shining as a little boy! But then when he turned into adolescence, one didn’t hear so much.Willie DraperTony was the most brilliant and the most refined—and the most creative and the most sensitive—so he built the most walls the most quickly and his ability to communicate his feelings was lost the quickest. Tony right from the beginning was a marked man. I knew him at Buckley, I knew him the whole damn time. I mean, just the whole way through, you know, we were tight. But then I phased him out of my life because he was too negative for me, and my sister Checka filled the spot, she was going through more similar things.Tony and I got stabbed trick-or-treating and stuff together—I can’t remember whether we actually got stabbed or whether we almost got stabbed. These roughnecks followed us back from the park and they cornered us, and we were ringing the bell at Tony’s house and nobody was coming down. Another time we had our bikes stolen in the park and some policeman took us around in the patrol car and everybody pointed at us like we were criminals.He had—both of us had—very intense mothers, you know. I loved Barbara. I mean, she loved me, first of all, and part of the time Tony would be really jealous of me because—you know how it is—he’d get along really good with my mother and I’d get along really good with his mother.Barbara was very loving—it’s just that she was so intense emotionally, and her moods would change, based on her relationship with her husband and her whole Celtic character. She was just, you know, a wild woman. Sometimes it was just…it was frightening.But Tony was a great guy, a great guy—he burned with such a pure flame.The biggest mystery in my life is why we choose what we choose, because we do choose—in the end we have total responsibility for what happens to us. And, you know, what ignorance is it, what is the mechanics of what makes someone like Tony who has all of this potential…? I think it’s emotional starvation, myself—I mean, it really has a lot to do with just very basic things.Sara Duffy ChermayeffI saw Tony every day, every single day when he was at Buckley. I’d gotten married when I was twenty, to Ivan Chermayeff, and we lived just a block away from the Baekelands. Barbara was very happy for me—I mean, she liked Ivan because he had, God knows, the scent of success on him. She gave me for my wedding present some very pale emerald earrings, which were very like the rings she used to wear—she told me they had been Brooks’s grandmother’s or something and that she had had them reset—two emeralds with two pearls. I mean, I was her darling baby-sitter, right? And, I suppose, to give her credit, which I don’t like to do, ’cause I’d like to kill her, I suppose she really thought I was a lovely girl. You know, because I adored her—anything that she said went with me.Ivan and I had this funny railroad flat on Seventieth and Lexington, right over the bus stop, and every day, from the time I was twenty until I was twenty-three, Tony came to me on the way home from Buckley, because Barbara might or might not be home. I mean, I lived just that far away from them—I was right there. At three o’clock in the afternoon he’d come in the back—he had a little strap with his books and a little hat. He had a key to my house. Ivan was at work and I’d be trying to write my novel and trying to clean up my house and trying to think my thoughts. And we’d go home to his house together.It was everything I ever thought would be the perfect house. You came in and the dining room was there—I must have had a million meals in that dining room—then you went up the stairs and Barbara took you in to a sort of fawn-colored library, quite a small room—and she had those green rings dripping off her fingers and her feet hanging off the ottoman like nobody’s business. And back there was her bedroom, with lace all over the bed. She was often in bed, with all sorts of men sitting around—Harold Rosenberg, Saul Steinberg…I never saw Brooks there. She had a salon. And I mean, all I thought was, That’s the way to live!Tony’s room was on the top floor. It had a skylight and a little tiny sort of wire balcony. I sure remember his room in that penthouse on Seventy-fifth Street that they moved to later on! I mean, in her room up there, she had the leopard-skin bed, the seven thousand Chanel suits in her closet—right?—and then there was Tony’s room—the maid’s room! I don’t remember when it was, but I began to see that Tony was just breaking to pieces, that they were killing him. They were a perfect couple, for that—to destroy the boy.Brooks BaekelandWhen you came in at 136 East 71st Street, you were in a marbled foyer. You then went up some stairs to a living room with windows the width of the whole front of the house. At the back, on this same floor, looking over a garden, was the dining room. Tony’s room was on the third floor, not the top. In the penthouse at 130 East 75th Street, there was no maid’s room. Tony’s room had been made out of a small library. He—nor anybody else—was ever supposed to live there. He was supposed to be in boarding school when we used that place. But because he kept getting kicked out of his schools, we were forced to take him there. It was too small an apartment for three people, and was in fact ideal for one. Barbara had one Chanel suit at that time.Sara Duffy ChermayeffOh, I can remember her movements when she would say—she would always say—“I’ve found this marvelous…”—right? That was a word she used all the time—“marvelous, marvelous.”Last spring it was a beautiful day and I went down to the Strand Book Store—they have books on the street down in front, many many books—and I bought The Letters of Madame de Sévigné that I’ve always wanted. And I didn’t notice it for a long time but later I saw that the book was signed “Barbara D. Baekeland, 1942—New York.” It must have come from her books in the penthouse that were sold after she died. I mean, how bizarre!And then I thought, God, in 1942 she was already collecting The Letters of Madame de Sévigné! Now I don’t even know if she ever read them. I have them now and I haven’t read them. She obviously already had something in mind. I mean, Madame de Sévigné had a salon.Brooks BaekelandI had bought a selection of the letters of Madame de Sévigné for Barbara in English—she could not read French at the time. She had never heard of Madame de Sévigné, the most celebrated correspondent of the seventeenth century. Madame de Sévigné did not have a salon, but she did have an only daughter living in the south of France whom she wrote to from Paris practically every day for twenty-five years, dispensing court and literary gossip and proffering the most tender expressions of maternal love. She also wrote to the Duc de La Rochefoucauld—the one who said that we all have the strength to endure the misfortunes of others.Sara Duffy ChermayeffShe—they—they were really false, the Baekelands. False. False to everything. When I first saw them as glamorous, I guess I wanted to be false, but when I began to understand how Tony felt, I saw them as—terrible, both of them. Both of them terrible. I mean, I feel they never attended to what was serious—neither one of them ever. They just took on this idea of what was life. What did they have in mind? Imagine, I mean, going to live on the Île Saint-Louis! Who did they think they were? The Murphys?I mean, when I knew Tony I was only a few years older than him and I didn’t have any children of my own. But once I had children and I knew the responsibility that it takes to bring them up, I realized what total bullshitters the Baekelands were, with their goddam salons—well, it just isn’t fair. I mean, I resented my parents—everybody resents their parents in one way or another, I suppose, right?—but, boy, I survived, and when you get down to it, you have to hand that to your parents in a weird way—right? They didn’t kill you. And the Baekelands killed him.And he was a wonderful little boy. I was a very romantic young girl and I had read D. H. Lawrence’s Rocking Horse Winner and, you know, that’s what he was—he was like a little literary boy, he was like all the boys in English novels. And that’s what she had him be. He’d be brought in on a string and shown. She just didn’t leave him alone. Not for one second.I went to Broadmoor to see Tony with Missie Harnden, who I knew from when Ivan and I had a house in Cadaqués for five years, and all he kept saying was, “I’m free, I’m free now, I’m free.” He said it to both of us—“I’m free now.”Letter from Antony Baekeland to James Reeve, February 12, 1976BroadmoorDear James,I just got your letter which came with a lovely Audubon magazine from my grandmother, Mrs. Hallowell. Full of photographs of birds and flowers and forests in the U.S.A. This morning we had group therapy and it went very well. I feel so wonderfully well these days—my grandmother Nini will be very pleased with me.You must be happy to be with your mother—when do you move into your new house? I have decided to be a writer like my Papa.Poor dear Una Verbi has had to be put into a home—her mind has gone and Val feels terribly, of course, that he has abandoned her. He came yesterday in tears and stayed an hour. They both have become such good friends—I will be sad not to see her again, but who knows?James, please give my regards to your mother. And do try to write if you find time in your busy days.Love, 6RUINED ROYALTYIF TONY BAEKELAND had participated in afternoon occupational therapy, he would be returned to his ward at four-thirty—which would leave him with three hours to fill before supper. Although various sports such as football, soccer, tennis, and baseball were available to patients in the late afternoon, Tony preferred watching television or listening to his tapes. “I was always encouraging him to play sports,” says Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, “but he was reluctant. I told him that going out for one of the teams might contribute to an eventual diagnosis of his being cured, and he said he’d think about it.”Sometimes patients mobilized themselves to the point where an entrepreneurial skill emerged. “Surprisingly, in an environment like Broadmoor, very imaginative things can go on,” a staff member comments. A group of patients, including Tony Baekeland, once got together and ingeniously brewed beer in the bathroom area—out of raw material smuggled into the hospital by visitors. “While it was fermenting,” one of the nurses recalls, “the patients—to maintain the temperature in the room—kept taking hot baths! Despite all the time and energy spent on this very elaborate enterprise, the patients lost out in the end—they were caught by a supervisor just as the beer was ready.”Ironically, Tony Baekeland’s great-grandfather, a determined violator of Prohibition, also brewed his own beer. Found among Leo Hendrik Baekeland’s private papers was one titled “A Simple and Rapid Method for Making Beer.”The result was a drink of about three-and-a-half to four percent alcohol, which fermented in anywhere from forty hours to five or six days, according to temperature. “Stronger beer,” Dr. Baekeland advised, “takes more time.” In Broadmoor there was all the time in the world.Elizabeth BlowI think it started going wrong when they sold their house in New York and moved to Europe and then started moving around in a sort of rootless way. They never bought anything, they never had a home in Europe, they just rented houses in various resorts. Mainly, though, they were based in Paris—that’s where they knew Gloria and Jim Jones and so forth.Gloria JonesJim and I were having a drink at the Ritz bar, we’d just come back from the bank or something, and she just came over and said, “Hello, I know who you are.” Like that, you know.Brooks BaekelandBecause I was the shy one, of course it should have been Barbara who first talked to them, but it was I who saw Jim and Gloria sitting in the “alley” that faces on the garden to one’s left as one walks through the Ritz lobby toward the rue Cambon and the bar. Jim was wearing a pair of Hollywood “shades,” and as they both looked up at Barbara and me, I said to him, “That’s a lousy disguise.” He said in his gravelly voice, “Do I know you?” I said, “No, but I know who you are. You wrote a masterpiece.” He grinned and invited us to have a drink.Gloria JonesWe saw quite a lot of them, I guess, in those times, and they seemed all right—they had wonderful parties. They had this little house on rue Barbet de Jouy, 40-bis I think it was, and once a week, probably, we’d go to dinner there.I remember she had a bed down in the living room, sort of a Louis Seize lounge where she slept—which I thought was funny, because Brooks had a bedroom upstairs, which I never saw. She sort of made a thing about that—that she slept in the living room. And they had two Spanish servants. They lived, you know, very well. She decorated beautifully, and she was a good housekeeper, too.Tony was young, I think he was going to school in Paris—a day school. Sort of vaguely I remember him coming home with bird cages and birds. He was a nice little boy. Barbara gave him all the attention in the world as a child.Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Gloria Jones, UndatedGloria—chérie—Sorry about Wed. night. His name is Sonnenberg and he is the king of “Hoopla” (his name for his work), the best, and a very wise and wonderful man.Tony languishes with his drawings and wants to deliver them as soon as you’re back. He’s wild because I forgot them!Wuss sends you a purr and a snuggle and says he wants to meet Pussy What’s-her-name very soon. Call us when you’re back.Also am mad because Brooks returned Jimmie’s manuscript before I got a chance to look at it.A good trip— 7ASPIRING AND PERSEVERINGOFTEN THE BROADMOOR STAFF would “look the other way,” in the words of one nurse, when it came to sex. “As long as it didn’t get out of hand. Even by day there were areas of the wards that weren’t very closely supervised. You only had five nurses on duty for every forty or fifty patients, so you couldn’t possibly patrol all the areas all the time.”“I have the distinct impression that Tony did have relationships at Broadmoor,” says Michael Alexander. “He was quite happy, so they must have let him have some sort of sex.”James Reeve adds, “Tony only talked to me about things he thought I would approve of, though I often wondered what the story really was. I did try once to draw him out on the subject of sex at Broadmoor, but he was very reticent.”“There is a great deal of homosexuality in the hospital,” reports David Cohen in his 1981 book Broadmoor. “On the whole, what sexual activity exists seems both rather cheerless and loveless.” One patient describes Broadmoor in the book as a “homosexual brothel.” Another explains, “If you haven’t got any women available, there does come a point when you just burst.” Yet another offered that he felt rather tender toward another patient simply because “I am quite tender.”“The authorities sometimes break up couples after having ‘tolerated’ the situation for some time,” Cohen elaborates. “Fear that they may be split up arbitrarily makes relationships even more brittle.”Broadmoor authorities are at pains to point out that homosexuality is not at all uncommon in sexually segregated institutions, be they mental hospitals, prisons, or schools.Notes from a Psychiatric Consultation on Antony Baekeland, New York, March 12, 1971From ages 11 to 14, he spent the school year in Paris and then summers in Italy. At age 14 he was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, but was forced to leave because of his grades.James M. HubballI was Tony’s headmaster at Buckley School, a long time ago. I have a vague recollection that when Tony went to Exeter, there was an episode in which he was found hiding in the laundry chute—for what reason I never knew. The last I heard of him was that he was living in London.Sara Duffy ChermayeffWhen he got thrown out of Exeter, the evening he came home, Barbara called me and we had a long talk. I don’t know what exactly he was kicked out for. She always said, you know, “They don’t understand him—he’s an artist.”Notes from a Psychiatric Consultation on Antony Baekeland, New York, March 12, 1971At age 15, he ran away from another private school.From the Private Diaries of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, February 7, 1910George is today fifteen years old. At his age I was I believe in the same mental condition as he is with the difference that he has had the benefit of better intellectual environment. I had to do everything by myself and find my own way. The only help I had was the encouragement of my beloved mother.Suzanne TaylorTony was at Brooks School, in North Andover, Massachusetts, with my son David, who told my husband and me, knowing we knew the Baekelands, that Tony had run away from school to go to the Caribbean and write poetry. And David said, “Guess what he was taking with him!” It went all around the school, you see. I mean, he was going off to write poetry, right? And he was taking a hatchet and a flashlight and I think a rope hammock! He never did get there—he was caught at the airport.Katharine Gardner ColemanI was having lunch with Brooks and Barbara one day when Tony came in from school with his little traveling case. I mean, it wasn’t vacation time. He had walked away from, you know, another school. And I said to Barbara and Brooks, “Here’s some free advice for you.” I had boys then that were older than Tony, you see. I said, “You just cannot let him come home. Don’t even let him think that he can come home. He’s got to get through, and then at the end of the school year, if the school hasn’t been successful, find him another one.”He was just sent to his room and told they’d talk about it later.Brooks BaekelandI was very disappointed to discover that the flame of curiosity and intellectual determination—capacity for, belief in, work—that might, for instance, have made a scientist out of Tony was lacking. Whether that was genetic or due to the values he was being brought up in I cannot say. In any case, I had already educated him to the point where he was ahead—in some directions—of his science teachers in the various prep schools he went to.Two things had become clear—to me, not to his mother—by that time: one, that he was bright enough—and even talented enough—to embark on any career one could think of, and two, that he was bone-lazy. There is a myth that very bright people can accomplish a complete academic program without ever opening a book, to coin a phrase. That is false. In fact, the very, very bright open more books than anyone else. Usually. Therefore my son soon puzzled me, for I had spent every summer, wherever we happened to be at the time, tutoring him mornings to bring him back to the surface, as it were, for his entry in school the next fall. He would always start at the top of his class and end up at the bottom, with strong suggestions from the schools that he be taken out.As he was entering puberty he also began to be a disciplinary problem in his schools—“subversive,” “a bad influence,” etc. But I went on tutoring him right up to the time that he and his mother announced that he wanted to go to Oxford. He had never been able to finish high school and had even been asked to leave a school with the academic standards of Avon Old Farms.From the Catalog, Avon Old Farms School, Avon, ConnecticutAspirando et perseverando—aspiring and persevering: the School motto is more than a figure of speech to members of the Avon community. The motto is a reminder of the way of life that governs the hearts and minds of the people who make up the School. Boys discover at Avon that aspirations can become realities and that perseverance is vital to the attainment of both individual and community goals.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Gloria and James Jones, UndatedAvon Old Farms 8POSSESSIONSAFTER TONY BAEKELAND had been at Broadmoor for three years, he began to wonder if he would ever be allowed to leave. “He was showing great improvement,” says Miwa Svinka-Zielinski. “He sounded quite reasonable on the whole, and he even began to consider what he might do if he got out. He told me he thought perhaps he would teach.”But even though Tony might be feeling better, the legal obstacles surrounding his release were still tremendous. An average stay at Broadmoor is six or seven years, but some patients—and Tony was one of them—are there under restrictions that make it all but impossible to leave. In Tony’s case, not only would Dr. Maguire have to be convinced he was completely well, but the Home Secretary would have to concur that a discharge was in the best interests of society as well as of the patient. It was not unusual for cases as complex as Tony’s to be bound up in red tape for years.“I’ve got a patient who’s been here for seventeen years,” Dr. Maguire points out. “And sometimes a patient may need to stay for twenty.” According to a former superintendent at Broadmoor, “half the patients would be perfectly safe to release but the problem is to know which half.” In fact, out of its population of approximately 750, Broadmoor releases an average of 104 patients a year.Early in 1976, Tony told a visitor, “I would like to come to New York if I could see Dr. Greene instead of being hospitalized.” After a visit that Dr. and Mrs. Greene made to Tony that year, they discussed at length with Broadmoor authorities the practical difficulties that would be involved in his rehabilitation: He had no relatives—except for Mrs. Daly, who was elderly and frail—who were willing to take responsibility for him.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, February 9, 1976BroadmoorDear Miwa,I have discovered Buddhism and it has helped me tremendously in my attitude to Life. Before, I was forever chasing after things, never satisfied for long and always let down in the end. Now that I have stopped grasping and clinging to the world and the ideas and concepts of the mind I feel free and peaceful as never before. I have completely stopped forcing myself to do things but just accept them now as they come to me. The Ego, that horrible giant-dwarf, which ruled Life like a childish tyrant, forever posturing and imagining and suffering, is melting away like the Wicked Witch in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. I wish more people could become acquainted with this wonderful doctrine. It is truly a panacea, the end of all suffering.I will write to Fred Baekeland, my uncle, who is a psychiatrist, and ask him to write to the doctors here for me to see if I can get some treatment. I feel much better than when you last came, and feel that I will soon be well.I have some dreams to tell you. The first one is that I sense the wish to come home in an intense religious experience. Next, I am naked in a hailstorm in an Indian valley hotel—nobody seems to mind my nakedness and I finally get my clothes back. Then I dreamed that Barbara Hale had cut the back of my neck open so I could breathe, and then I dreamed that I was eating more so thatI could come home. I think you must realize what I mean by home.And lastly I dreamed that I was in Paris with Nini buying clothes for my wedding.I must end here—there is so little to tell you except my dreams. I write them out in the middle of the night—there is no light, so sometimes in the morning I have trouble deciphering them.Love, 9CALLING IT QUITSIN 1977, an unofficial committee of concerned friends of Tony Baekeland began looking into the possibility of having him freed. The group consisted of Heather and Jack Cohane, Michael Alexander, Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, and the Hon. Hugo Money-Coutts, whose family controlled London’s exclusive Coutts Bank, and whose wife, Jinty, was a daughter of the Baekelands’ old friend Rosemary Rodd Baldwin.Tony’s aunt, Elizabeth Archer Baekeland, who was living in London at the time, refused to be drawn into the group. She says, “The people who were helping Tony all believed that his violence was spent when he killed his mother. But Tony’s uncle, Fred Baekeland, my former husband, always believed the exact opposite. He said to me, ‘Nonsense. Tony’s capable of killing other people. He’s highly dangerous and always will be, so don’t ever try to get him out of Broadmoor.’”Of the unofficial committee, Miwa Svinka-Zielinski alone recognized the need for caution in the selection of a hospital for Tony if and when he was discharged from Broadmoor and repatriated. “I believed,” she states, “that Tony had a classic love/hate relationship with his mother and that his sickness was absolutely only connected to her. I was convinced, after seeing him all those years in Broadmoor, that his illness would not surface again.”Official Visitors File, Broadmoor Special Hospital, May 14, 1976Visitor’s Name: Mrs. Nina DalyRelationship to Patient: GrandmotherSummary: Thinks he looks and behaves so much better than last year. There’s no one who has any interest in sponsoring him outside hospital, either in U.K. or U.S.A., in his welfare, or who would be prepared to spend a penny on him, except herself, and she is not well off. She was informed that there is no certain date by which Tony will be discharged.Brooks BaekelandI had reason to hope that Tony’s mind might clear one day in the peace and quiet of Broadmoor Hospital where he had friends and where, he repeatedly told me, he was happy.Many people with his symptoms had, after the age of forty—for reasons as mysterious as schizophrenia itself—gradually become calm and peaceful citizens. I was hoping for that. Occasionally he still wrote me violent, paranoidal letters, which I forwarded to his doctors. They worried me—not for myself but for him, since some English and American friends with strings to high places were trying to get him set free. It was a sentimental, well-meaning movement—which worked and was tragic in its consequences. I was against all their energetic and romantic efforts to open the cage door for this gifted hawk who I feared would soon swoop down on some helpless prey.Official Visitors File, Broadmoor Special Hospital, May 24, 1977Visitor’s Name: Mrs. Nina DalyRelationship to Patient: GrandmotherSummary: Saw Mrs. Daly in waiting room and she is more frail and in a wheelchair.Official Visitors File, Broadmoor Special Hospital, June 3, 1977Visitor’s Name: Michael AlexanderRelationship to Patient: No blood relationshipSummary: Has known Tony Baekeland since 12 years. Was very close to family prior to and after the time of the manslaughter. Mr. Alexander was helpful, clear, and incisive. Is eager to help in whatever way he can, especially if repatriation is sought.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, November 3, 1977BroadmoorDear Miwa,I hope very much to be discharged before too long. I have some dreams to tell you. The first one was that I was with a great friend of mine who was building a house and I remember watching him put pink stucco on a wall. The next was that again I can fly. I let loose a bird at Michael Alexander’s house—later we became brothers. Next I dream that a man accuses me and René Teillard of confessing one another: I associate this with life prior to the French Revolution. My last dream was that my father lives with Sylvie in a mountain chalet—he scolds me but later forgives me.I try nowadays to be less careless and more careful in the thingsI do.All the best.Love, 10CRUISINGIN 1978, AFTER TONY BAEKELAND had been in Broadmoor for five years, the authorities still considered his condition “severe” and did not feel he was ready to be released. Nonetheless, the unofficial committee of his friends continued in their efforts to have him freed.Miwa Svinka-Zielinski felt that Tony ought to be in a setting where he could receive regular therapy on a one-to-one basis. She suggested a halfway-house arrangement. But he resisted this idea—he wanted to be on his own when he got out, he said. “I kept telling him,” she says, “that if he ever wanted to get out of there he would have to behave rationally. ‘Don’t tell Dr. Maguire you want to be independent the minute you are free,’ I told him. He had to have some sort of a transition from this place to real life.”Miwa Svinka-Zielinski herself explored various alternatives for Tony’s care in the event of his repatriation. “I asked myself some questions, such as: What is his exact clinical status? Is there anywhere in England where he can stay as a transition before being sent to New York? Can he really function outside a hospital or halfway house? Can he be persuaded to have others handle his money for him in the U.S.?”Visitors that year reported that Tony’s eyes seemed vacant. This disturbing symptom was one of the reasons Dr. Maguire was reluctant to take seriously the requests of the unofficial committee. “Our hospital is designed for patients who are violent,” he explains, “and as soon as their behavior is tolerable, we are bound to send them to less secure places. This is the logic I followed with Tony.”In February, a consul officer from the American Embassy in London made the first of what would be eleven visits to Broadmoor to assess Tony Baekeland’s condition. Sarah Fischer, a member of the consulate, recalls that “the psychiatrist seemed to care very much about Tony and thought he would be happier back in the United States—he hoped in an institution similar to Broadmoor.”Consular Officer’s Report on Visit to Antony Baekeland, February 10, 1978I had a nice visit with Mr. Baekeland in the “great hall” at Broadmoor. He seemed happy and content, with no serious complaints. He said that his doctor had mentioned returning him to the USA, but he didn’t know much more about it.Consular Officer’s Report on Visit to Antony Baekeland, March 10, 1978Mr. Baekeland and I had an animated conversation during my visit. He stated that he was in “fine” health, and seemed in good spirits, although he said that he was “vegetating” at Broadmoor as inmates in his ward were not afforded the opportunity to do anything of substance during waking hours. However, he felt that Broadmoor was treating him as well as could be expected. Following our conversation, he had a chat with two guards; this chat appeared to be quite friendly and enjoyable for all concerned.Official Visitors File, Broadmoor Special Hospital, May 3, 1978Visitor’s name: Mrs. M. Svinka-ZielinskiRelationship to Patient: FriendSummary: As before, she discussed Tony’s needs with brisk chatter and with an air of official authority while in fact she has no standing in the case except as a “friend” of the family. She intends to seek out names and addresses of hospitals in New York which might be more accessible to Tony from a financial point of view. Has promised to call with these details in the near future.Letter from Antony Baekeland to Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, August 30, 1978Dear Miwa,First of all I would just like to tell you how much your visits have meant to me over the last five years. Had a very interesting dream about that nice Princess Pallavicini you brought to see me.I am learning all kinds of new and interesting things about the nature of the Universe. The weather has been relatively cool, except for a few hot days. I feel quite ready to face the world. I am getting very tired of being here and I greatly wish they would let me out. A great and wonderful friend of ours called Ethel de Croisset just sentMichael Alexander some money to try to help get me out.I want to go back to Mallorca. Miramar, our house there, has a beautiful old garden, and a chapel and cloisters. The very old palm trees were brought there more than a hundred years ago. There are miradors or look-outs all up and down the mountainside and the view of the sun setting into the vast blue sea is truly something never to be forgotten. I spent most of the happiest years of my life there, mainly in the company of the Mallorquin peasant family who lived downstairs and looked after the land.Robert Graves lives nearby in Deyá and I came to know him quite well while I lived there. He told me my poetry was excellent, which was encouraging. I spend my days now in a happy dream of what I will do in the garden and cloisters when I go back there and what repairs will have to be done to the house to make it comfortable again.Love, 11SNAPPING BACKIN 1979, TONY BAEKELAND was gradually taken off his medication until he reached a stage where he seemed to the authorities “quite rational, quite reasonable.” Dr. Maguire was still resistant to the idea of his being released without the assurance of regular follow-up care. When Tony himself learned what the costs involved might amount to—$50,000 and up per year for a private facility—he told Dr. Maguire, “No way—I don’t have it.”An officer from the American Embassy in London continued to monitor Tony. A State Department document concerning a visit on March 20 notes that “Baekeland appeared to be in good health and spirits.” Another document, dated June 8, states that “Baekeland says he has been told by his doctor that he can expect to be released in a few months.” But another document reporting on a visit five months later, on November 13, mentions that Tony Baekeland could count on being released only “sometime in the near future.”Postcard from Antony Baekeland to Sam Green, September 9, 1970Dear Sam—On the plane to Mallorca. Been visiting with my father who is now living in Brittany—a nice change. I miss you and think of you often. Perhaps we’ll see each other soon? Much love from your screwy friend.TonyP.S. How is my sainted mother?Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Sam Green, September 18, 1970France 12STRIKING OUTLATE IN 1979, Broadmoor officials contacted the International Social Service of Great Britain about Tony Baekeland’s case. A “senior intra-country caseworker” recalls that “some alternatives were explored, because there was very definite pressure from somewhere that Baekeland leave Broadmoor.”The pressure was coming, of course, from the unofficial committee of friends. “It was taking far too long to get Tony organized somewhere,” says Michael Alexander, “and I think I rather annoyed Dr. Maguire by putting the heat on.”Soon an officer from the American Embassy in London was able to report: “Broadmoor appears close to a decision to release Tony Baekeland. He could be back in the U.S.A. in about six weeks.” Indeed, a passport application had been made in his name.Dr. Maguire remained concerned that Tony’s long hospitalization would make it impossible for him to readjust successfully in America on his own, and informed the embassy that Broadmoor could not in good conscience recommend to the Home Secretary that Tony be released without a guarantee that “a period of social rehabilitation” would follow.The next piece of news the committee received was therefore not the yes they had been expecting but, rather, the nebulous statement that “Baekeland’s release is not imminent.”Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Sam Green, July 18, 1972Miramar PART IIINEW YORK 1REPATRIATIONFORMER BROADMOOR PATIENTS have reported that after their release they missed the orderly, controlled life they had gotten used to and sometimes even become fond of. When the time came for Tony Baekeland to leave, would he also find life on the outside chaotic and threatening?New York City had changed in the eight years since he had last seen it, but his old neighborhood, to which he would be returning—the Seventies on the Upper East Side—had remained pretty much the same, although a few fashionable new shops, boutiques, and restaurants had opened.Brooks BaekelandThere were three alternatives for Tony once the right strings were pulled in high places in London and his release achieved: one, that he be released in some innocent person’s custody and undergo private medical treatment from time to time since he would be considered well; two, that he be transferred to some place like Payne Whitney in New York, which I enraged some by dubbing “Pain Witless”; and three, that he go straight to the equivalent of Broadmoor in America—that is, a state institution.Every one of these alternatives was clearly idiotic—the first and second if for no other reason than that they were beyond my means, so far beyond as to be preposterous; and the third alternative was too tragic to think of.The fact is, there is nothing that I know of in the world like Broadmoor, at least when I knew it. A gentleness, a kindness, a compassion, and a civilized concern by civilized people for the cruelly wounded within its walls—or the fatally malborn—are the first things that strike a foreign visitor. And Tony was happy there—as long as the tiger slept. And the tiger did sleep until Maguire—under pressure, I believe, from higher-ups to send all the foreigners back to their own countries—began to take away the drugs that made the tiger sleep. And the tiger awoke!I began to receive a stream of violent—and obviously paranoid—letters from Tony, one of which I sent, as an example, to my psychiatrist brother. I called Maguire from Italy, where I was living then, separated from Sylvie. I told him—and I later reinforced it by telegram—that letting Tony go would be absolutely irresponsible, that I would send him copies of the letters I had been getting from Tony ever since he had been taken off “the drugs that dull the rage,” to quote myself, and I repeated then what I had said and written before: that I would be happy to make a gift every year to the British government that would more than compensate them for the cost of their care for my son.Dr. Thomas MaguireBrooks Baekeland talked to me about payment, but of course you can’t pay for anybody in a public hospital where there are no private patients.I think he thought that perhaps I was trying to get rid of Tony, that we considered him a burden on the state—he had some sort of notion like that. But indeed it wasn’t true, because in this country we keep patients—not alone at Broadmoor but in all the hospitals. We as doctors are under no pressure whatever to send patients anywhere else unless they have recovered sufficiently or we think they would do better in their own cultural environment.Letter from Dr. Thomas Maguire to the Undersecretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security, London, August 9, 1979BroadmoorDear Sir,I wish to recommend repatriation for Antony Baekeland to his homeland, the United States of America. His dossier is voluminous and complicated but I have chosen certain medical reports and other communications, which I herewith enclose, that detail his history and treatment, up to the moment of his mental health review tribunal hearing on 22 October 1974.During 1975 in spite of vigorous physical therapy his mental illness remained largely unchanged. I wrote of him then: “He presents as a chronic schizophrenic, blunted in affect, with vague superficial interests, and lacking insight into the grave, disabling nature of his mental illness. He tends to upset other patients by making vicious and malignant allegations about them. At present the more gross symptoms of his psychosis are controlled by medication.”His disorder gradually came more and more under control so that he was able to take part beneficially in group psychotherapy. At this stage, however, he was quite unable to engage himself in any occupational therapy, but since then he has succeeded in settling down at recreational painting, at which indeed in the past, it is said, he showed more than average talent.In the beginning of 1979 he was commended by nursing staff for his increasing ability to socialize more normally; much of his former hostility, bitterness, and resentment had eased off and he was capable of cooperation and helpfulness on the ward scene. My consultant psychotherapist colleague noted a definite improvement with willingness to engage more earnestly in treatment. He was now showing true insight and appreciation of the realities of his situation.It was at this point that I reduced his medication in order to establish whether his psychosis was in remission. He has now been without medication for a period of nearly six months: his improvement has been fully sustained. For quite a long time he has been requesting repatriation and I have tried to elicit information about hospital placement for him somewhere in New York.Because of the nature of his offence, the fact that he is mentally ill and lacking in insight and cooperation when motively ill, and because of his previous propensity for indulging in drug misuse, it is absolutely necessary that his placement in hospital should involve such a degree of security and supervision as to ensure continuing treatment and rehabilitation without the risk of his absconding.It is with all this in mind that I formally recommend that Antony Baekeland should now be repatriated to a hospital in New York, where his rehabilitation may be more realistically carried forward within his own culture and near his relatives and friends.Yours faithfully, 2REORIENTATIONSusan LannanThe International Social Service of Great Britain was still looking into the matter of Antony Baekeland’s rehabilitation in America when we heard that he had been released. We were concerned.Cecelia BrebnerAnd so we arrived. It was ninety-two degrees in New York that day. Tony said, “You know something, Celia—New York hasn’t changed. It’s just the same.” And he was extraordinary—he saw to all the baggage and when we got into the cab he said, “I want to stop and get Nini some flowers but I haven’t any money on me,” and I said, “I have money,” so he got her a huge bouquet.Shirley CoxNini did not know Tony was coming until she got a call, I believe the day before, saying he would be here the following day. That’s what she told me when I stopped by to pick up her mail. I live in her building and I handle all her bills and all her business affairs—I’ve done that for many years.Lena RichardsMrs. Daly had broken her hip and needed round-the-clock care. I was the weekend nurse but I was still there on Monday afternoon when Tony came in from the airport with Mrs. Brebner. She wanted to know what the setup was going to be, who was to be responsible for Tony’s care, and when Nini and I said nobody, she couldn’t believe it.He looked a little distant to me, but I didn’t know what his problems were. Nini had never said anything, she’d never said anything but good things about him.Cecelia BrebnerWhen we arrived at Nini’s apartment on Seventy-fourth Street, we went directly into her bedroom to see her. And there was a huge painting of Barbara Baekeland there, and Tony saw it and said, “Nini, take it down!” And she said, “Oh no, Tony, it’s my favorite, favorite portrait of Mummy.” “Take it down!” he said. I saw the look on this man’s face and I knew that I had done the wrong thing.Dr. Thomas MaguireMy conscience is quite clear. I did ten times the normal amount of work to get Tony to America. I tried everything I possibly could to find the proper care for him.Brooks BaekelandI felt sorry for Maguire then, and I feel sorry for him now. I did not berate him, as you might think. I tried to comfort him, whom I did not know—realizing how he must be feeling, how I would feel.Shirley CoxNini told me later that the moment he walked in the door she knew he wasn’t well. And later I saw that for myself. My first thought was, “I’m going to call Fred Baekeland.” But Nini said, “No no no no! Promise me you won’t do that. Promise me you won’t! You’re my friend, promise me.”Ethel Woodward de CroissetWhen he wrote me saying he was going back to his grandmother’s place where he had spent so many happy days as a child—it was where he sometimes used to go in the afternoons when he was let out of Buckley School, you see—I said to myself, This boy’s going to find that apartment very small. And later Nini told me that she could see at once that he felt oppressed—and it was also very hot, to make matters worse—so she suggested they go out immediately, that first night, and have dinner around the corner.Brooks BaekelandBy coincidence I came back to the U.S. at about the same time as Tony. I went, first, to stay with probably my oldest friend, my cousin Baekeland Roll, and his wife, Kate, in Rhode Island. The Rolls are much reputed for their hospitalities and other virtues: a gregarious, large-familied tribe, their house always bulging with children and guests. I had not seen it, breathed its wacky air, for many a year, and a great weight seemed to go off me there for a while.I had not been on Block Island more than a week, I think, when I got a telephone call—everyone in the house listened to it—from Tony, who had just arrived at Nini’s. He said he wanted to come out to that full, happy, child-brimming house. I said no.Clement Biddle WoodI suppose Brooks was terrified to see Tony for fear that Tony might attack him.Brooks BaekelandFor myself I felt no fear. My pessimism makes me immune to fear, and I have a certain confidence, even now, in my wits and brawn. But I knew my tiger, and I did not even ask the Rolls if they would receive him. I just said no. My bad reputation increased with that “no.”Oh yes, he had often wanted to assault me—I saw the lust for it come into his eyes. But he never did—he was a woman-beater. I said to him once in Mallorca, in Robert Goulet’s house in Fornalutx, “Crazy you may be and you are, but there are crazy saints—the hospitals are full of gentle Christs—and there are crazy brutes, and you are one of the latter.” I had crossed him about something, and he was crouched in front of me with his fists clenched and a murderous look on his face. But I was bigger than he was—and I wasn’t kneeling on the floor like poor Sam Shaw! Had I turned my back and had he been armed, he would have killed me. Tony never attacked anyone equally armed or stronger than he was—had he done so, had he ever dared to take me on, for instance….Cecelia BrebnerI was staying nearby, on Sixty-ninth Street, with Georgette Klinger. I was going to look after her little poodle for about three months while she did a European tour. I called Nini every day and she always said, “He’s okay, Celia,” and one day I said, “Look, I’d like to come round and see him,” so I took him out for dinner, and he seemed quite rational, perhaps a little bit strange but certainly not manic.Shirley CoxTony promised he would get Nini’s breakfast every day, she told me, because, you see, her nurse could not be there overnight when Tony was staying, there was simply not enough room. This meant that Nini had no care at night if she wanted to get up and go to the bathroom and things like that.I know he didn’t fix her breakfast because the nurse would arrive in the morning and he would still be in bed. Nini told me he stayed up all night playing the record player. Well, I think that’s understandable. Having been incarcerated for so long, you now have freedom, you know, to do all the things you’ve been prevented from doing. But he was in a small apartment, in a small apartment house, where the people on either side and around have to get up and go to work, so Nini knew that if the noise lasted for more than two or three days the neighbors would complain and she was terrified of that. So she said she asked him to lower the volume, and he completely ignored her.Sam GreenHe called me right after he got to town and it was a close call. Bart, my assistant, took the call. Tony said he wanted to see me urgently, that I was his only friend and he wanted me to get him some dope so he could get high. Bart told him that I was out of the country.At some point you just have to protect yourself. I mean, clearly one should have been nice to Tony, and generous—he had been through a terrible ordeal and needed companionship and forgiveness, but I just didn’t want to do it anymore.Tom DillowTony asked Bart for my number, and Bart called to warn me that Tony was trying to find me. I mean, I was in the phone book, but, you know, for the Baekelands a telephone number didn’t exist unless they got it from someone. Bart said Tony told him, “T-t-t-tom n-never understood why I m-m-murdered M-mummy.”Bart GorinWhen I first started working for Sam Green, he told me that probably someday a person named Tony Baekeland would call and that I was just to make up anything to keep him away. I guess it was just sort of understood that Tony would be coming back at some point, but we never knew when exactly. So anyway, one hot day there he was on the phone. Sam was out on Fire Island, but I said, “Gee, Tony, Sam’s in Singapore,” or somewhere like that. And then he asked if I knew about him and I played sort of dumb, and he said, “You don’t know who I am?” And I said no. Then he told me fairly matter-of-factly that he had killed his mother. I said, “What are you going to do now? What are your plans?” And he said, “Well, my grandmother Mrs. Daly is the only person who has stood by me all this time, in fact she was the one who got me out of that awful place I was in. She’s an old lady now and I want to make her last days as happy as possible”—I remember that very well. And then he asked me if I would go shopping with him because all he had were winter clothes, from England, and it was summer out. I said I was going away for the weekend and he said, “Can I call you on Monday?” and I said sure. I never spoke with him again.Gloria JonesI didn’t know they’d let him out till he called from New York. He called Muriel Murphy first and then he called me. He said he’d like to come out to visit me on Long Island, where I was living now. I was absolutely terrified. Jim was dead by then so I called up Irwin Shaw, who I wouldn’t have bothered if Jim were alive. Irwin said, “You can’t have him come out,” and I said, “Well, God, we’ve got to do something about him.” Irwin didn’t know the Baekelands that well—I guess he was very smart, he just stayed away from the whole thing, very clever. He said to me, “Stay totally out of it. You just don’t know…. You have children around and everything.” So I called Tony back and said that my house was filled, you know. And it was filled.Clement Biddle WoodJessie and I had come over from Europe for the summer and we were visiting Muriel Murphy in East Hampton when Tony called. He said, “Muriel, I’m in New York and it’s boiling.” It was an exceptional heatwave—I mean, even for July. He said, “I’m cooped up in this tiny little apartment with my grandmother and there are pictures of my mother everywhere and her ashes are in an urn on the mantelpiece and I’m just going crazy. I’ve got to get out of town.” Obviously he was hoping Muriel would invite him out to Long Island. Which she didn’t. And then he said, “Maybe I can find rooms for my grandmother and myself out there somewhere.” And Muriel said, “Everything’s pretty full up,” which of course is always true in the summer. So then he said, “Well, I’ll probably be coming out if I can find anywhere to stay, and I’ll give you a ring.” Muriel got terribly upset, she said to us, “This boy’s a homicidal maniac, he shouldn’t be in an apartment alone with his grandmother, but I certainly don’t want him coming out here and fastening on to me as some sort of mother substitute.”Phyllis Harriman MasonOne day that week I thought I saw him on the street, Sixty-ninth Street, and I was scared stiff because I was afraid he would identify me with Barbara.René Jean TeillardI saw Tony on Lexington Avenue. I am a friend since a very long time of his beautiful grandmother, Mrs. Hallowell. I was going to buy a newspaper and suddenly I saw him there and I said, “Tony, what are you doing here? I’m so glad you came back,” and he said, “I’m buying a pair of shoes.” I said, “But to buy a pair of shoes you should go to Alexander’s.” “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t know. I’ve been in England.” And so we chatted and I said I wanted him to come and have dinner and he came the next day and it was all right.When he and his mother left for London a year before her assassination I invited them to dinner and I gave them some frogs’ legs, because they were international and I’m French myself. And I gave him frogs’ legs again. I gave him the exact same dinner as when he had left.We ate on a little bridge table which I had beautifully prepared, near the telephone and close to some weights which were on the floor by my feet in case something should happen, since I hadn’t seen him since he left that night for England and if something happened now because he was crazy in a moment, I was therefore prepared with my telephone and my weights.He was not reluctant to answer all the questions I asked. First of all I asked him what happened and he told me how he had killed his mother. He was able to tell me without any emotion how he plunged the knife in her chest. I told him, “You need friends now that you are back here and you need to see the doctor.” “I don’t need to see any doctor,” he said. I said, “But Dr. Greene is a friend of yours since your youth, and I am certain he would be delighted to see you since he even went over to England to see you.”His face changed when I first spoke “doctor.” But then when I said “Dr. Greene,” everything was just fine and we finished dinner. I said, “You can come back, you have my telephone number.” And he left.Shirley CoxOn Wednesday and Thursday, the third and fourth days he was here, he put all the pictures of his mother and some candles on a chest of drawers in Nini’s living room—he made it into an altar.Cecelia BrebnerHe was evidently playing the most macabre music and he had those photographs of Barbara and the black candles and he was performing a kind of black mass.Lena RichardsI was nervous around him because I just didn’t know what to expect—I couldn’t tell. He didn’t have much to say, really. And he didn’t seem to have much patience for anything, I noticed. Apparently all week he’d been using the telephone a lot and drinking all the wine—Nini said, “He’s to have it,” so he ordered more. On Saturday when I got there, he asked me to go to the store for him to get him some writing paper. I was wondering why he couldn’t go out himself. I told him it was early, I didn’t feel like going out yet. So he did go, after all, and I asked him to get me a newspaper, but he forgot. And when he came back he curled up in a chair and slept for a long time.Cecelia BrebnerLate Saturday afternoon I went over to have tea with Tony and Nini and no sooner had I gotten there than the nurse beckoned me into the bedroom, she said Nini wanted to talk to me. Nini told me, “I’m so frightened of him, Celia.” I said, “Well, Nini, I don’t know how to advise you at this point. I don’t know whether we can call the police because he hasn’t committed a felony.” When I came back into the living room, Tony said to me, “I’m not well, Celia,” and I said, “Now, Tony, tell me—define this. Are you sick mentally or are you sick physically?” He said, “I wake up at three in the morning,” and I said, “Well, so do I. It’s the jet lag, the time difference. But each day it will get a little better. And you know where I am if you need me.” And he threw his arms around me and said, “Oh, I love you, Celia, I love you.” I said, “Well, Tony, prove your love. All I want you to do is be kind to Nini and show them that you can fit into normal society again.” He said, “Yes, yes, I can, I can.” So I said fine.Lena RichardsI didn’t prepare supper for Nini that Saturday because he said he wanted to do it. He even told her what he was going to make her. But then I think somebody called and asked them out to dinner. Anyway, I left.But later that night I called to see if she was okay. She said she was. I knew she wasn’t going to say she wasn’t, but I thought she wasn’t her own self.Dr. Frederick BaekelandI had dinner with them that night, the Saturday after his arrival, and he seemed rather tense but not extraordinarily so—and of course I’ve seen him very tense at times. One of the big problems in psychiatry is the limits of predicting behavior. Another big problem is that a person may look tense and it could have to do with any number of things, and if the person’s not going to tell you anything about it, that presents still another problem.Thilo von WatzdorfTony called me in New York and I told my secretary, “No no—tell him I’m not available.” I had only arrived in town a few days before and was just starting a new job at Sotheby’s and a new life. The telephone call came during my very first meeting with the staff of my department. The last time I’d seen Tony was at the party Barbara gave on Cadogan Square the night before he killed her, and I hadn’t communicated with him at all during the whole time he was in Broadmoor.When he couldn’t reach me by phone in New York he wrote me a letter saying how fondly he remembered me from Ansedonia and how all he wanted now was to take care of his little grandmother and how he didn’t have any friends in New York his own age and would so much like to see me and couldn’t we meet.I got the letter on a Sunday night—I’d been in the country for the weekend—and I was touched by it. I rang and rang and kept getting no answer. I couldn’t imagine why no one was picking up since I knew his grandmother was in her late eighties and there had to be somebody there to look after her. 3ATTACKLena RichardsOn Sunday I came maybe a couple minutes after nine a.m., and Tony didn’t open the door for me right away. I didn’t have my own key, I’d given it to him. When he finally came to the door—he was wearing his cutoff pants—he said, “Lena, quick! Get the police!” Or the ambulance, or something to that effect. “I just stabbed my grandmother.” He didn’t move. I got scared, so I didn’t go in. I ran back down the stairs—I had on high heels—and I ran to the corner and called the police. Then I waited outside Nini’s building for them to come, and when they did I took them up.Sergeant Joseph ChineaWe responded to a 911 call, and when my partner John McCabe and I entered the apartment on East Seventy-fourth Street, he came running out of the bedroom at us, saying, “She won’t die!” We could hear his grandmother screaming. I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him past me, and McCabe, who’s a beefy man, grabbed him and he didn’t struggle. He kept repeating, “She won’t die, the knife won’t go in! And she keeps screaming! I can’t understand it.”I ran into the bedroom and saw this elderly, frail lady lying against the wall. The nightstand was turned over and she was in the corner. It looked as if she was trying to get away from him. She was wearing a satiny nightgown and the blood was just running through it, it wasn’t soaking up. She was still screaming, but once she saw me she started to calm down. The nurse had arrived during the assault, and she probably saved the woman’s life.An ambulance arrived right after we did, and then additional policemen arrived, and while she was being ministered to she was lucid enough to comment that her grandson had been talking on the phone and playing music twenty-four hours a day all week and that he had been up all night mumbling over a table that had his mother’s ashes in the center.From a Psychiatric Interview with Antony Baekeland, New York City, 1980My grandmother helped me and brought me back to New York. I spent one week with her but I had a difficult time. I was up all night and I couldn’t eat. I felt I was being denied physical and eye contact with my grandmother. There is something in my eye that stops me from meeting other people face to face. I suppose if it meant having sex with my grandmother, I might have wanted to have sex with her. At the end of that week I knew that I would be unhappy with her. I was calling the airlines to fly to Mallorca or England but my grandmother, who is a very mysterious woman, tried to prevent me from making these phone calls. I kept hearing voices, including my grandmother talking in my head, but I couldn’t hear her voice clearly because there was noise around and my voices kept bothering me. The voices are those of people I know and people I don’t know. They sound like a machine. They talk back to me and it really bothers me a lot. The voices tell me that I’m a savior, that I’m Satan, that I’m an angel, that I’m royalty. Sometimes they say that I’m a dirty little man or a bad woman or a dog. They also give me helpful messages. I hear them all the time. I also hear music and the music lifts my soul.We were in my grandmother’s bedroom but she wouldn’t shut up. She kept talking and talking and talking and she wouldn’t let me make the phone call. Then I threw the telephone across the room at her and she fell down. When she fell down, I felt very bad for her. I didn’t want her to go to the hospital with broken bones and suffer more, so in order to help her I rushed to the kitchen, took a little knife from the drawer, went back, and stabbed her in the breast. I wanted to kill her so I could liberate her—not because I was angry, just to liberate her from the mistake I had made and from the suffering that she was experiencing at the time and from the time I was thirteen years of age.All this happened because I was denied physical contact with my grandmother and homosexual relations with anybody else.After I stabbed her, the nurse came to the door and she must have called the ambulance.Lena RichardsI can’t understand how he didn’t kill her. All those blows! Her only comments in the hospital were that she wished nobody to know. She wanted to know if everybody knew. That’s how she reacted—she didn’t want anybody to know anything. She wanted to keep it quiet.Gloria JonesSomebody called right away. You know—people, everybody.Cleve GrayI heard it on the radio, that he’d stabbed his grandmother. That’s how I found out about it, on WINS.Cecelia BrebnerHe was not on any medication at all, and I think probably that was the problem. But you know, what happened really is that Broadmoor made a mistake—they make so many mistakes. They took him for purely a schizophrenic. In fact, he was a paranoid homicidal maniac. You know, when I took him to Nini’s that first day, she said to me, “Look at this lovely photograph of Tony with his cat.” I have never seen anything so terrified in my life as that cat!Brooks BaekelandThe photo was taken out at Verderonne, where Mary McCarthy lived later with her last husband. The photographer wanted Tony, then aged about eleven, to hold the cat, but cats don’t always accept to be restrained, and that strange man with one huge eye, crouching and telling Tony, “Hold it!,” had alarmed the cat. The fact is, Tony was an absolute charmer with animals.Police Officer John McCabe (Retired)He didn’t look capable of violence. The grandmother evidently repeated things and this annoyed him, he told me.Nina DalyIt was in the morning. We had had breakfast together, I think. I was very close to him. He was with me every minute. I never thought he would go that way. I don’t know how it happened. I can’t imagine. Just something snapped. Yes, that’s it. That’s what happened. You never know.He was so loving. All I did was break my heart over him. Why could this happen to me, you know? And then I remembered it happened to Barbara, too—and I knew how much she loved him. We both loved him the same.It was too much for me. Too much. It could have been dangerous. It nearly killed me. I wasn’t in a lot of pain. It didn’t hurt because I loved him so much.Sergeant Joseph ChineaMrs. Daly told us that he had taken over her apartment. And then the nurse let us in on a lot of things. She pointed out the ashes to us and told us about the bizarre way he’d been behaving—the loud music, that he was making a mess out of the apartment, that he was telling everyone to shut up and not talk to him. He had become very agitated as the week progressed, and he was staying up all night, worshiping.He spoke about what he called his grandmother’s nagging. “Nini was exactly like my mother,” he said, “nagging and bothering me, constantly talking to me.” Then he told us that he had killed his mother—I remember the shock on that. He volunteered that information to us. “I just came here from England,” he said. “They had kept me there for killing my mother.” Everybody just looked at themselves. “My mother never left me alone, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. But she was easy—one shot and she was finished. I just stabbed her once and that was the end of it. But I kept stabbing Nini and she wouldn’t die.” Apparently what happened was most every blow struck bone and the knife was deflected.Invoice, Investigatory Evidence, Police Department, City of New YorkARTICLE1 brown handle knife app. 5" blade w/all blood stains.The above is a complete list of property removed.Brooks BaekelandThere was only one person in the world both silly enough and generous enough to want that released tiger in her house. And she was almost killed for her goodness—a few days after I’d said no to Tony’s request to come out to see me in Rhode Island, he kicked and beat and stabbed his little granny almost to death when she objected to his voodoo rites with his mother’s ashes.I had kept every letter and drawing that I had ever received from him from the time he was three years old—not just from sentiment but from presentiment. But when I learned of the stabbing, I destroyed every single thing I ever had of him.Cecelia BrebnerAt Broadmoor he made the most terrible terrible toys for his little half-brother—apparently they were so grotesque and so macabre that his father threw them away immediately. And his paintings…apart from a rather delicate one he did for me, all without exception were macabre in the extreme—huge white hearts on a green background, pierced with a sword and dripping blood. He said he hid these from the warders. Later I saw the same motif on a box he’d made for Nina Daly.Sergeant Joseph ChineaWe had realized right away that we were dealing with what we call an EDP—an emotionally disturbed person. It was just a matter of controlling him—handcuffing a person like that can make them violent, and then it’s necessary for us to use violence against them, so we contained him in the living room but we let him roam around the room. It was cluttered because he had his things in there—suitcases, his music. He was sleeping on the couch—there was bedding on it and it wasn’t made up. I remember it being a very tiny little apartment and I remember thinking, “Someone with all this money,” you know. He also had photographs in his belongings—things he had laid out. Apparently when he was over in England he had become involved with the occult. It seemed that way to me. Anyway, you could see that the room had totally become his.He showed us his paintings and drawings that he said he had done while he was incarcerated. And you could see in the drawings that…To this day I can’t understand how the British government could repatriate him.Telegram from Kingman Brewster, Jr., United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, to Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., July 30, 1980AS MR. BAEKELAND HAS RETURNED TO THE U.S., LONDON CONSIDERS HIS CASE CLOSED BREWSTERDr. Thomas MaguireThe moment he stepped on the airplane, he was outside English authority. But I was very disappointed when the U.S. Consulate could not accept authority for him—I had asked and they had said they couldn’t. No one would accept legal authority for him. Once he got on that plane he was basically a free person.Rosemary Rodd BaldwinMichael Alexander says he’s never going to try and get anybody released ever ever in his life again. Ever.Michael AlexanderI don’t feel any sort of responsibility. On the other hand, I suppose you might say that I was as deceived by Tony as everybody else.Sergeant Joseph ChineaIn the patrol car riding over to the 19th Precinct for debriefing, he talked all the time about his grandmother. When we arrived we asked him if he knew where he was and he said, “Yes, I’m in the police station.” “Do you know what you did?” we asked him. “Yeah, sure.” Detective McLinskey, one of the detectives who was questioning him—there were three of us in the debriefing room with him—hit a nerve. Essentially what he was doing was nagging Tony with questions. And Tony became agitated immediately. “My grandmother nagged me,” he said. “My mother nagged me. Why did they have to nag me? I don’t like people to nag me.” Right away we laid off. We sensed this guy’s going to go crazy on us.Terence McLinskeyI could imagine his emotions at the time: “Am I going to go to jail? Are they going to kill me?” He was in bad shape, and somewhat disheveled. I was just doing my ordinary everyday job. You live by your wits as a detective, you live by your communications skills. You can do great work—not punitive, but directing people to the proper agency. I wanted to help Tony Baekeland make peace—I was trying to help him find his personal salvation. I was trying to build up that he was worth saving, no matter what. I mean, he happened to be a homosexual who had killed his mother and then tried to kill his grandmother.I wonder if the poor guy found any answers to the whys and the wherefores.From a Psychiatric Interview with Antony Baekeland, New York City, 1980I intend to read many religious books. They lighten my awareness and I get full with love and power and heavenly minds, all in the form of music.From the Logbook, Sergeant Joseph Chinea, July 27, 1980To Manhattan Central Booking, arrived 11:03 a.m. Defendant made complete admission to events leading to assault and actual assault.Statements: Before Rights—“I stabbed her. She kept nagging. I asked her to stop. I threw the phone at her but she continued to nag so I got the knife and stabbed her. Get some help.”Statements: After Rights—“I stabbed her five times. I wanted her to die fast but she wouldn’t die. It was horrible. I hate when this happens.”Mrs. Cecelia Brebner, friend of the family, interviewed at 19th Pct.She said she wanted to volunteer as a witness to the fact that Baekeland was mentally disturbed.Out of Central Booking with Defendant 12:23 p.m. To Department of Correction to begin processing, 12:32 p.m.To Manhattan Criminal Court, Room 131, 3:15 p.m. Await paper & arraignment.From Police FilesNature of grandmother’s injuries: multiple (eight) stab wounds to chest, arms, and hand; fractured collarbone; multiple fractured ribs (four-five), causing breathing problem; bruises and abrasions. Confined to Lenox Hill Hospital.Other members of family fear for their lives. Ask for remand.Victim may not want to press charges. Told one police officer she still loved him.From a Psychiatric Interview with Antony Baekeland, New York City, 1980Oh, my grandmother survived. She has ways and means I know nothing about, but let’s forget about her and talk about homosexual relations.I’m not going to call the hospital and find out how she’s doing—why should I call her? She talks to me all the time through the special power that she has.From the Logbook, Sergeant Joseph Chinea, July 27, 19809:00 p.m. Defendant held over for a.m. 7/28 arraignment.From the Arraignment, The People of the State of New York Against Antony Baekeland, Defendant, Criminal Court of the City of New York, County of New York, July 28, 1980The Court: Psychiatric examination ordered, administrative psychiatric segregation; suicide watch.Headline, the New York Times, July 29, 1980EX-PATIENT IS HELD IN 2D STABBINGHeadline, New York Daily News, July 29, 1980HE’S CHARGED WITH STABBING GRANDMA AFTER SERVING TIME IN MURDER OF MOMHeadline, Daily Express, London, July 29, 1980FREED BROADMOOR PATIENT ACCUSED OF U.S. MURDER BIDDr. Frederick BaekelandIt was very much against my opinion and my advice that Tony was let out of Broadmoor without any adequate follow-up program set up. I’m not surprised that there was a problem eventually.From Broadmoor, David Cohen, Psychology News Press, London, 1981If an ex-patient commits a crime, the symphony of outrage from Fleet Street is loud and vicious. In 1980, Now magazine ran a dossier on Broadmoor “disasters” and identified twenty cases in which ex-patients had committed acts of violence after being released.Michael AlexanderThe papers in London attacked Dr. Maguire quite strongly over what happened with Tony. And Tony was described in the media here as “the mad axman of Broadmoor.” It was “the mad axman strikes again” sort of touch, you know. I got on to the papers about that. I said, “Look, that’s not the way to present this case. Dr. Maguire behaved extremely correctly under the circumstances.” I didn’t get very far. They stuck to their story.Letter from Dr. Patrick G. McGrath to Miwa Svinka-Zielinski, UndatedBroadmoorDear Mrs. Svinka-Zielinski,I have received your letter and clip from the New York Times. I have also heard from Antony’s father. Let me say straightaway how distressed we here all were to hear of Mrs. Daly’s injuries at the hands of Antony, but we are somewhat relieved to see from the report that she will recover.I do hope that the whole family, including Antony, will recover from this incident which you rightly describe as a catastrophe.Yours sincerely, PART IVRIKERS ISLAND 1JULY 27–OCTOBER 31, 1980THE MAJORITY OF NEW YORK CITY inmates are housed on an island in the East River between the Bronx and Queens, known as Rikers Island. It originally belonged to a Dutch immigrant by the name of Jacob Ryker, who sold all of the original ninety acres to the city in 1885.In 1900, a wood-frame construction suitable for one hundred prisoners was completed; soon afterward, wooden barracks capable of housing up to four hundred were added. By 1918, there were eight barracks on the island, as well as a stable, a guardhouse, a mess hall, and several employee buildings. Inmates labored on coal barges, iceboats, and garbage dumps, and on a hog farm located on the premises.Eventually the workhouse aspect of Rikers Island was abandoned and in 1955 the island became known officially as the Penitentiary of the City of New York. Landfill increased its size to over four hundred acres and by the 1980s it was home to six major prison facilities—three for adult male inmates, one for females, one for adolescent boys, and a hospital. It also now contains a power plant, maintenance garage, firehouse, print shop, shoe-repair shop, tailor shop, laundry, and bakery. Eight days after his return from England, Tony Baekeland was entering a community not unlike Broadmoor.Property Envelope, Department of Correction, City of New YorkLIST OF PROPERTYNoneI Acknowledge The Surrender Of My Property As Listed AboveDate: July 28, 1980Signature of inmate: Antony BaekelandFloor and Cell Location Form, Department of Correction, City of New YorkDate: July 29, 1980Floor: Mental ObservationCell: Lower 6-8Letter from Antony Baekeland to Shirley Cox, July 30, 1980Rikers IslandDear Shirley,More Horror. In case you don’t know what happened, this is it—by Tuesday I realized that it was no good. I had been up several nights reading in the Bible and was feeling very nervous. I began to hear Nini’s voice, clear as day coming from her room. (It felt just like a wolf gnawing at my entrails.) When I would go and ask her what she was saying, she said she had said nothing. I had no one to talk to—I had tried to give myself to Nini in various ways but it was no go. It was like having someone you loved right in the next room and thousands of miles away. Once in the middle of the night I had a very clear vision or memory of us (Nini and I) a long long time ago in our house in Italy, how we used to go hunting for pretty stones and leaves and things, and how we used to hold hands. I also remembered how my family sheds its blood (and each other’s blood) for one another. Anyway, I was in tears and I got up and quietly went into her room. She was asleep and I held her hand but she didn’t wake up.Anyway, I finally realized I couldn’t stay, that it wouldn’t be right for either of us, and Sunday morning I went to her room and began telephoning for reservations for England. Please realize that I was in a desperate state of mind—many beautiful and terrifying spiritual things had been happening and I hadn’t slept properly for a week. N kept on at me and I warned her three times that if she wouldn’t be quiet I would throw the telephone at her. Anyway, finally my nerves broke and I threw the phone at her. She fell down and began to moan and I realized what I had done and that she had probably broken more bones. Then I felt that all her suffering in the past (hip, etc.) had been for my sake and that was too much to bear. I knew that if I gave her the Coup de Grâce God would take her Home and there would be no more misery. I tore into the kitchen, found a knife, rushed back, and tried to kill her but wasn’t strong enough and/or didn’t know how. Then I started screaming and praying and pleading with God to take her Home. I tried ringing the ambulance for 1/2 hour without realizing that the phone was kaput. The poor darling asked me to straighten her legs which I did. Then Lena came and I told her to get an ambulance. The police came as well and took me away.Shirley, if you do not want to speak to me or see me again I understand perfectly but I want you to know that I am as horrified as you are—believe me please. I am sure if I hadn’t been so alone it wouldn’t have happened, but it’s no use saying “if,” ever.If you would like to help me could you get me my Bible, Shakespeare, & Spiritual Canticle by St. John of the Cross. They are on the table in the drawing room.If you would like to visit I would like to hear how N is. Do ring up the place beforehand as I may be in court that day. My number: 349-80-4228. Could you send or bring any letters which may have come for me?After it happened, at the police station and here, I continued to hear her voice, saying, “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” and other things.I am better off here than I was at Nini’s. At least there is company. (Blacks and Puerto Ricans mainly.)I am on Legal Aid but am hoping my lawyer will let me have him on a money basis as I feel unable to accept government help since I have money.Please understand that I understand what a terrible thing this is for you, me, and any friends we may have.Yours, 2NOVEMBER 1–DECEMBER 16, 1980John MurrayI met Tony in the bull pen, which is where they hold you before you go to court. I was in for burglary. Coincidentally, he was in the same quad as me, too—I was about eight cells away. We were together about six or seven months. I was his closest friend at that time. I definitely was, yes. He said he’d been staying at his grandmother’s and he felt all right and then all of a sudden he just heard her saying things like he couldn’t go out to see anybody or somebody couldn’t come over to the house, and she was next to the phone and he just hit her a few times. I told him that was a lie. I said, “Why don’t you tell me the truth?” And he said, “Oh, yeah, well, the truth of the matter is that she was almost killed.”Then he told me that he had spent time in London, England, for psychiatric reasons for killing his mother. He was sorry about it, because he loved his mother. No one knows why people do things like that. They just do them, and after that, it’s over and done with, and you have to live with that—without that person—for the rest of your life.On good days Tony would keep himself confined to where he was and what he was doing. On days when he was restless and reckless he’d talk about how he killed his mother. He’d whisper, like someone mortified. He’d either whisper or his lips would move and he wouldn’t be speaking. That’s how he’d say how sorry he was.He told me once or twice that his mother was very beautiful but he never described her to me in detail or anything. And he told me he knew a beautiful lady named Jinty Money-Coutts and he said that when I got out, if I had no place to stay, I could maybe stay there with her in London.He told me he had a very small family and that his father had died when he was younger—or something like that. I think he said died but maybe he told me his father just didn’t want to see him anymore. But mostly we talked about what the correctional officers were up to—whether this guy dilly-dallies all day or that guy bullshits around or not.Sometimes he did drawings—rough sketches with crayons. And some pastels—pictures of sailboats and rivers and docks. But one day he just tore them all up.Sara Duffy ChermayeffI drove out to Rikers Island to see him. We just talked in a room, at a table. He didn’t talk about stabbing his grandmother. We just talked about old times. I mean, that’s all I had to talk to him about. To me, he looked just like he’d always looked—very handsome. I always thought he was wonderfully handsome.Look, I’d known him when he was little, and I never again expect to know anyone who killed anybody. I wondered when I went there what the hell I was doing—I mean, there was probably some sort of curiosity and vanity involved in my going to see him. I felt ashamed afterward, because I felt that I’d exploited him. I remember we said goodbye as if we would meet again—it was like we were at Schrafft’s.James ReeveBroadmoor was a sort of retreat, really, wasn’t it? He was safe there. My God, when he was in that hellhole in America he must have looked back on Broadmoor as nirvana.Martin J. SiegelI was relieved as Tony Baekeland’s lawyer in November of 1980. I turned his entire file over to his new lawyer, Ronnie Arrick. I was very surprised when Tony hired him because Tony and I had had a very good attorney-client relationship and there really hadn’t been any problem. But apparently a friend of his at Rikers recommended him to Tony. Now, I know Arrick is a very fine and competent attorney—he’s also a very nice guy. Who can explain why people want to go into this coffee shop as opposed to that coffee shop?Ronald ArrickThe first time I met Tony Baekeland was in November when I think Siegel was canned. Anyway, I took over the defense. My job was to represent him on the entire criminal matter all the way through trial and to try to work it out to his entire advantage. His grandmother was not withdrawing the charges. The D.A. was not withdrawing the charges. I was also involved in long-distance dealing with certain facilities in England, because his only defense was a psychiatric defense.My hope was to get him placed in what I gather his grandmother thought he should be in when she had him brought back here—a hospital. I wanted to have him found not guilty by reason of insanity, and I discussed this with him as about the only thing that could be done.He had access to funds—I think it was a combination of trust and cash available. He would give in a written request to his trustees, U.S. Trust, sort of like a check facsimile, and they would issue the funds.John MurraySince Tony had money, he was wary of who would know his business by the way he was acting: Would it show on him? Would people abuse him for it? Would they try to get it from him too quickly?Tony was very well liked as far as I could see. He had a calm nature, you know, but he had a very rude temper. He had a thing about if he couldn’t get his way he would more or less say shove off, you know—kiss it goodbye.Dr. Helene WeissHe was very volatile and I’m sure after a while he had some trouble with other inmates. I know he had some transient episodes. On December 11th he was switched over to our Mental Health Center.John RakisThe Mental Health Center has single cells and a higher complement of officers than anywhere else at Rikers Island.Natalie RobinsI wanted to see Tony’s cell. Captain Earl Tulon, who was to be my prison guide, met me in the visitors’ parking lot on the Queens side of the island and drove me in a big Cadillac across the narrow bridge that is the only access to Rikers Island. He pointed out the various buildings to me as we took the exact route Tony Baekeland’s blue prison bus had taken. My first impression of the island was that of a bleak but tidy campus. School again, for Broadmoor Special Hospital had had the same effect on me at first sight. The difference is that here there seemed to be miles and miles of barbed wire, and once you began to follow it you couldn’t take your eyes off it.We went inside a building called the Anna M. Kross Center where the reception area had a strong antiseptic smell. Here I received a visitor’s badge and my briefcase and shoulder bag were thoroughly searched by a correction officer. I then had to walk through a metal detector. Now I had officially arrived at Rikers Island.We went down a very long corridor whose walls, surprisingly, were decorated with red-yellow-green-blue rainbows interspersed with large orange and purple triangles. Then we entered an older part of the building where the walls were bare. This area housed the Mental Health Center.Here we were joined by a staff psychologist, J. Victor Benson—everyone called him “Benson” or “Vic.” He escorted us into Lower Three Quad. On the left was an area that reminded me of a classroom in a run-down elementary school: plastic chairs piled up on one side, two or three tables scattered around—one next to a wall. “That’s the table where I used to sit and talk to Tony. It’s even in the same place,” Vic Benson told me.Then I was taken to the cells, a series of tiny single rooms, with doors that have small squares cut out, covered with metal bars. Tony’s old cell was at the end of a corridor on the left. Most cells don’t have windows, but his had one; it was covered with wire mesh embedded in the glass and looked out on a dirt lot that had one or two patches of crabgrass and weeds.The current inmate-in-residence was in court, I was told. There was a thick gray wool blanket on the bed. Vic Benson said the bed was in the exact same spot as when Tony was there. Two pairs of underwear were hanging to dry on a metal shelf, and a dirty pair of socks and shoes were on the floor. There was some red-ink graffiti on the walls: Somebody loves somebody. I don’t remember what the names were, but Vic Benson said they weren’t there when Tony was in the cell.Custodial Medical Information Form, Prison Health Services, New York City Department of Health, December 11, 1980MENTAL HEALTHName: Baekeland, AntonySuicide Potential: No evidenceDepression: MildAssaultive Potential: No evidenceViolence Potential: No evidenceMedication: ThorazineJ. Victor BensonAs a psychologist at the Mental Health Center, I got to know Tony quite intimately when he was detained on my quad. When I found out about his family background, I did some research on it. Tony himself didn’t take much pride in his background, and in fact when he spoke of it, and the wealth, it was all quite casually.Some of the things he told me sounded like delusional material. It wasn’t, though. He told me quite blandly about murdering his mother. He mentioned that his relationship with his father was strained because of his homosexuality—he said his mother had been dissatisfied with his sexual orientation, too. The only good thing he said about his father concerned a trip they both took up to Yonkers once to visit his great-grandfather’s lab. It was a pleasant memory, that trip to the lab.At the time Tony was here we had a relatively quiet quad, although emotions are easily aroused because the inmates live so closely together. Some inmates have to be kept off balance—separated, you know, so they don’t get into fights and so on. There’s also constant cell movement. They want to go to the law library, then they want to go to the barber shop—in this unit the barber shop comes to them.The commissary is a very big thing—that’s the supply of niceties that the inmates have. They deposit money in their commissary accounts and once a week they submit an order. The most popular items are cigarettes, and candy and cookies—because so many are drug addicts, they love the sweets. If you’re in the general population here, you can go directly to the commissary and pick up your order, but if you’re in a mental observation unit like Tony was, they deliver the commissary to you.Tony was very generous with many of the inmates. He was supporting them—well, not exactly supporting them, but he was very generous with commissary. He maintained friendships in that fashion. That’s one of the methods he used in cementing his friendships. He ordered huge amounts of commissary. But nobody could challenge that because he always had the money.You know, all during the day on this quad the correction officers have to make repeated security inspections—check the keys, the locks, check the bars, the gates, the shower room, the windows, the screens, the walls, the dayroom, utility closet, the lighting, the cell walls which they could cut through because they’re only made of tile. They’re supposed to be impregnable but they are not—an inmate could chip away at the tiles and remove them a few at a time until they had a hole for escape. Also check the vents, because inmates have a habit of storing things there, like jail booze, which they’re very clever in fermenting. Check the slop sinks. Check the toilet bowls.It’s a very noisy place, sometimes it gets to be unbearable—the telephone ringing, the inmates wanting to make telephone calls. They can’t receive calls, but they can arrange through Social Services to make calls and have an extended conversation, either local or long-distance.Note from File on Antony BaekelandTony Baekeland and a friend of his in prison have been calling Nina Daly repeatedly and abusively. We can’t prevent Tony from telephoning his grandmother since she seems to acquiesce and won’t tell the police; but he can be advised to cut it out.John MurrayI spoke to his grandmother when Tony called her. They were not harassing phone calls. That must have been someone else. I don’t know who that could have been. I asked her not to press charges on Tony, and I also spoke to her about reducing the charges, and she told me that she definitely, invariably would.One time she got mad and I said, “Whoa, slow down, slow down, I didn’t know all that about Tony. Could you tell me that a little bit slower?” And she said, “I’ll slow down,” and then she said Tony’s gay and this and that, and I said, “I know about it.” 3DECEMBER 17, 1980–JANUARY 14, 1981John MurrayTony was madly in love with me. He asked me a couple of times if I would come to his cell at night, but I told him I couldn’t do it. Of course I could, I could go to anybody’s cell that I wanted to. I told it to him like this—I said, “Well, Tony, I have a lot of work,” because work was the only thing I could do to excuse me not responding, since I’m not gay, you know. I was working—in the receiving room. I wasn’t working as a mopper or something like that.The receiving room is where you go when you come back from court or from anywhere or if you’re just getting in from the street. They strip you on a table and search you, then they tell you to put your clothes back on. I was sleeping down there and I was working out down there with weights. I had priority there. But the first time I went there I was treated like one of the savage slaves they have. You know, everyone is pretty much a slave there.Tony wanted me to be with him wherever he was, that was the main thing. He wanted someone to be his friend, to more or less straighten him out. I was concentrating on his money, and I was also concentrating on his family case. We got a letter from Broadmoor Hospital in England saying that he’d have to see a few more doctors to say whether he was competent to stand trial or not.J. Victor BensonThey used to call John Murray “Big John” in the receiving room, where he was working on the house gang or paint gang, which is made up of the sentenced inmates who have specific work assignments while they’re doing their time. They call it “city time,” which is a year or less.There was something going on between Murray and Baekeland, although Murray wasn’t a true homosexual. But in jail some inmates will do anything.John RakisMost of these guys are welfare kids from welfare families and have no qualms about taking money from someone. It’s just part of their nature. Once when there was a plane crash on Rikers, a lot of the inmates came and helped with the rescue efforts and most of them wound up getting reduced sentences or were allowed to leave altogether because of the heroics they showed. But later we discovered that they went and looked in the newspaper and found out the names of some of the survivors and wrote them letters or called them up, if they could get the phone numbers, and tried to extort money from them. They’d say, “Hey, I saved your life—don’t you think you owe me something?” To them this was just a normal way of life.John MurrayTony gave away money for protection and also just to be friendly. He did it for both reasons.Ronald ArrickHe did give away some funds. Primarily it was to relatives of people he knew in prison who treated him like family, who brought him things, like clothes, books. Mothers of prisoners primarily. Because his own mother was not around. It was not protection money that he was giving out.John MurrayHe never gave away money in front of me, except once. He gave away something like fifteen hundred dollars in a check, to some kid, I don’t remember his name. He lent people their bail money, money for clothes, money for drugs, stuff like that. He lent other people money just so they could have money. He was lending out around three thousand dollars a person. Really. He gave away something like forty-two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-five dollars. I seen that number written down on a piece of paper that he had.Also, you gotta remember Tony fooled around with guys—we both know that. He was fooling around with whoever was around. He wasn’t giving them cash money, but he was giving them stuff like for commissary, or he’d promise them cash money later, just for being in a relationship with him.Word got around Rikers that he had money, so people were always coming up to him and saying, you know, “Can I borrow?” or “Could I have?” In other words, “Please may I?” You know. They’d get how much they could.I told him many times not to do it anymore, but he kept on doing it. And then what really got me mad was when he tried to offer me money. See, ’cause I didn’t want money. I was his friend.He was afraid of some people, and other people he just wanted to make sure he got along with because he liked them rather enough, you know. But the dangerous people, the ones who carried a shank, formed an organization and lived off Tony. Nobody ever tried to stop it. I was the only one who tried. Once, this guy wanted money and Tony wouldn’t give it to him. I heard about it in the receiving room and I was on my way over to help get the guy off Tony’s back. By the time I got there, a couple of the guys Tony had been giving money to rebelled against the new guy and said, like, “Hey, man, bug out, get out of here,” and they got rid of him. If I had had to take care of him, the C.O. probably would have let me fight him—and I would have won. I’d beat him up whether he had a shank or not.Injury to Inmate Report, Department of Correction, City of New York, January 11, 1981At approx. 12:30 p.m. Antony Baekeland got involved in a fist fight with inmate Jose Perez. This occurred in Upper Three dayroom. Inmate Baekeland was treated and examined in L4 Clinic by Dr. C. Park (psychiatrist). No apparent injuries.Juan MartinezThere was a couple of people—we used to hang around together, like a little crowd, you know? I was in for five years. I was on the first page in a big newspaper when I got busted. You know, with a big picture, and a big smile on me.Tony was a good friend of mine. We were together ever since he got in jail—we were like brothers. He told me all about his family. Things like that.He was giving money out like crazy, you know? He gave money to Eddie Cruz, who’s in the street now—he was in for burglary. And Jackie Monroe, who’s doing eight years upstate now. Tony sent quite a bit of money to Jackie’s wife.John MurrayHe gave a really big check to this one guy with a mustache and a beard and long, shaggy hair. He was kind of young-looking and he was white, Spanish. He was in the quad. He had just got there. He borrowed a pair of shoes from Tony. Then there was another guy Tony was also helping out—Michael something. He gave him, I think, a big check to use when he got out on the street. The guy was going to use it for his mother’s house.John RakisIf an inmate had a check and gave it to a relative of his and said you can deposit this and draw on it, there would be no way for prison officials to track down that sort of extortion.Howard NaborI was the warden at the Anna M. Kross Center when Tony Baekeland was there, and I think the money he gave out there he gave out to win friends more than anything else. I mean, you don’t give out checks for protection—if the inmates are running a protection racket they’ll take all the guy’s commissary or have his mother or his wife or somebody deposit cash in their account. Anybody can send cash to an inmate—all they got to do is just mail it to his name in an envelope and it goes. But a check is going to nail them right to the wall. All the guy has to do is go to the D.A. or the Department of Correction and say, “I’m being forced to pay protection,” and they say, “Can you prove it?” and he shows them the check. The inmates aren’t that stupid.So one of the things we usually check on is the commissary. Our cashiers monitor that closely and if they see one inmate getting an exceptionally large amount of money from the same two or three people—and I don’t mean his mother or his girlfriend or his aunt Mary—then we know he’s either doing one of two things. He’s running a racket bullying people, right? Or else he’s selling something, he’s selling drugs or himself—he could be a homosexual selling his own body. If some inmate was running a game on Tony Baekeland, he wouldn’t be doing it with checks, because he wouldn’t want anybody to know about it.John MurraySometimes Tony would try to offer the guards money but they wouldn’t take it. I don’t know what they said to him because they’d tell everyone to scram first.Brooks BaekelandTony wrote me letters describing the vice, violence, and corruption in that prison. His homosexual seductiveness even involved the guards, and promises of money in large amounts to everyone who might satisfy his humors or desires—that was all in those letters.Letter from Dr. Thomas Maguire to Cecelia Brebner, January 13, 1981BroadmoorDear Mrs. Brebner:Thank you very much for your recent letter about Tony; you appear to be the only person who is aware of the facts—certainly the only one who has kept me up-to-date with recent developments. In fact, I had been given to understand that Mrs. Daly had died as a result of her injuries and that Tony was to be brought to trial for murder!I am very pleased to learn that she is still alive and able to contemplate visiting Tony. It is indeed worrying that she feels unable to press charges against him as this would be for his (and others’) benefit in the long run. However, knowing her great affection for Tony, her attitude is understandable.May I offer you belated Happy New Year wishes.Again my best thanks.Yours sincerely, 4JANUARY 15–MARCH 19, 1981John MurrayI was like a conscience to Tony. I would tell him, “You gotta get on top of it. You gotta take back all that money you lent out and you gotta leave yourself some. You just can’t give it all away because people keep asking you to until it nearly kills you.”I promised to try to get his money back with my influence in the receiving room. I had access to prisoner inmate cards—where people are, where they’re going on the outside—and I was going to use a list that his lawyer had sent him with the amounts that people owed him.Tony and I made real plans to go on a trip around the world together. We were going to go to Thailand first—go see the monks and all that. You can stay warm there, and then you can go in the mountains and cool off if you want. Tony told me he had been there. And then we were maybe thinking about going to Indonesia, and Turkey, and England, you know, and we were talking about going to, maybe, Russia or something like that. Tony thought he’d be getting out soon. I assured him that he would if he told the judge that the devious thoughts in his mind had left and that he’d seen the error of his judgment, you know?J. Victor BensonTony did plan a trip around the world. Possibly it was with John Murray, but possibly it was with one of those listed on his visitors’ sheet.John RakisInmates are allowed three visits of one hour each a week. We have thousands of visitors. The average number per month for our entire system was twenty-eight thousand for the fiscal year 1983. So we can’t thoroughly check the credentials of each visitor.J. Victor BensonThe essential requirements are that they have to be a relative or a close friend of the inmate’s. They have to show an affidavit of one sort or another—birth certificate, marriage license, and so on. Visitors are searched as they come in, but there’s not much checking on whether they are or are not, let’s say, an inmate’s cousin—first, second, third, or shirttail.Approved Visitors Form, Rikers IslandName: Baekeland, Antony, 349-80-4228APPROVED VISITORSName: Anastase, JoanneAddress: Brooklyn, New YorkRelationship to Inmate: FriendName: Firenzi, VinceAddress: Flushing, New YorkRelationship to Inmate: CousinJohn MurrayI think Vince Firenzi was in for holding a gun to his mother’s head. He was a short fellow, not really one of the dangerous ones, but sort of. He was in another quad and he was running a con game on Tony. He came back because he probably wanted more money. He’d hustle Tony, give him a little kiss on the cheek or something like that and say, “I need more money.”Joanne Anastase was a skinny, pathetic-looking guy who used to be at Rikers. He dressed in women’s clothes and I think he had an operation. He sort of looks like a woman and he sort of looks like a man—sort of in between. He probably came back and said to Tony, “I need money for my boyfriend,” or “I need money for clothes to go to the disco,” or “I need money for drugs.” You know—if it’s not one thing, it’s the other. And Tony gave him what he wanted, he was afraid to say no because he was afraid that Joanne might send somebody to go after him. But then he stopped giving money to Joanne. He said, “I’m going to stop giving money away.” But then he wrote someone else a check for fifteen hundred dollars, and he wrote someone else one for, I’m not sure, I think it was two thousand. And he wrote me out a check for two thousand also. We had talked about me maybe borrowing a hundred dollars or something like that to get started when I got out. I gave the check to Mr. Benson to put in my account but I had a feeling I was never going to get that two thousand.J. Victor BensonMurray wanted me to take the check to the cashier, and I did take it personally to the cashier, mostly because I was interested in getting a check like that off the quad. They gave me a receipt and I presented it to Murray. But nobody would credit his commissary account with the check—and even the captain at the desk refused to handle it because it was so large. They thought there was something strange about it.John RakisThe check was returned uncashed by the prison officials to Tony Baekeland’s bank.John MurrayMy check from Tony fell through, and the parole for me fell through also. It just did, it just did, and I left Rikers on February 13th for Auburn State Prison upstate.Juan MartinezAfter John Murray left, I was trying to manage Tony’s affairs for him but he didn’t give me no time. I told him, “Wait up, man, give me some time, you know, and I’ll find out some way that you can get out.” See, I was going to the legal library every day for my own case.J. Victor BensonJuan was pretty much of a jailhouse lawyer. He was no dummy. He became knowledgeable about all procedures and all precedent cases. He was in for murder but was pleading insanity.Note from File on Juan MartinezDate of birth 2/27/54; 1978 arrested 75th Pct.; previous charge, grand larceny; accused of murdering young boy, victim’s head had been cut off, sodomy, drugs found around body, Juan found in victim’s car with bloodstains on clothes. “Watch yourself, this is the car of the guy I killed,” he may or may not have said.J. Victor BensonJuan had one of those special relationships with Baekeland, too.Juan MartinezWe were together in court in February and I told him, “Give me some more time,” you know?From the Transcript, The People of the State of New York Against Antony Baekeland, Defendant, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, February 19, 1981The Defendant: May I ask you something? I understand my grandmother has dropped her charge.The Court: She is not dropping the charge. It’s not up to a witness to drop charges or not drop charges.The Defendant: She wasn’t the witness. She was the victim.The Court: It’s not up to a victim. It’s up to the prosecutor of the State of New York.The Defendant: Oh! I see.The Court: March 5th.From the Transcript, The People of the State of New York Against Antony Baekeland, Defendant, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, March 5, 1981The Court: How about the medical records, counsel?Counsel for the Defendant: We spoke to England this morning and they put it in the mail this afternoon.The Court: That’s the same information for the last three adjournments.Counsel for the Defendant: Okay. And the other medical report is on its way.The Court: The 20th of March.Counsel for the Defendant: I would like an application at this time due to the fact that the defendant has been held without bail. It’s apparent that the complainant is—does not want to pursue this case. I wonder if bail could be set?The Court: No, counsel. Remand continued. March 20th all right? (No response)The Court: March 20th. 5MARCH 20, 1981: 12:00 A.M.–4:39 P.M.Breakfast Menu, Rikers Island, March 20, 1981Bread and margarineStewed figsRice KrispiesReconstituted milkCoffee and teaFrom the Transcript, The People of the State of New York Against Antony Baekeland, Defendant, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, March 20, 1981The Court Clerk: Number 15, Antony Baekeland.(Whereupon, both counsel—Sarah Hines, Esq., Assistant District Attorney [For the People] and Ronald M. Arrick, Esq. [For the Defendant]—approach the bench for an off-the-record discussion.)The Court: April 16th for Trial.Counsel for the Defendant: Your Honor, if I may be heard? Mr. Baekeland’s grandmother is in Court. She is eighty-eight years old. She is confined to a wheelchair. She has attempted to go to Rikers Island to visit the prisoner but has been advised that they have no facility for wheelchairs. She asked me to make an application to the Court for an in-Court visit with her grandson.The Court: Because she is the complaining witness in the case, because there have been statements made by you and your firm that she does not wish to proceed with the charges, because of the severity of the case and all the other special circumstances, I’m not going to permit a Courtroom visit in this case. April 16th for Trial.Assistant District Attorney: Judge, would you make a ruling on the Grand Jury Minutes?The Court: I have reviewed the Grand Jury Minutes and find them sufficient to warrant the indictment.Assistant District Attorney: I have received certain medical records from the defense, from England. I’ve not received the complete medical records as I expected.The Court: April 16th.Cecelia BrebnerNini had asked me if I would go with her to court and I went. Tony looked dreadful. When I had brought him back from London he had his Savile Row suit on and he looked very elegant, and now he was in rags, his hair tied back. He looked across the courtroom and said to Nini, “I love you, I love you, I’m sorry.”Ronald ArrickI know his mood in court that morning and it was fairly good. He talked to his grandmother—they both mouthed across the courtroom. As he was being taken out the door, he saw Grandma, she was sitting down near the back with her nurse or someone, and he went “I love you.” I had had a bench conference with the judge to see if he would grant Tony and Grandma a courtroom visit. I didn’t want them in a room alone together. What I wanted was for Tony to sit on one side of the rail, with guards, and Grandma on the other side—not within reaching distance of each other but three to five feet away where they could still talk to each other in a fairly low voice so as not to disrupt the court. Or even at a recess. But the lady D.A. was adamant against it. She didn’t want Tony having any contact with Grandma. One of the main reasons, I can only presume at, would be that it might influence her getting the verdict—the more contact they had, the less chance of Grandma testifying against Tony.I don’t see how his sitting there handcuffed in a chair—or handcuffed to the chair, let’s say, if they wanted to go that far—five feet away from somebody, surrounded by, let’s say, two court officers—would have been endangering the old lady’s life. If it had been, I wouldn’t have asked for it.When Tony was refused the visit, he accepted it, he accepted it fine. I don’t build up anybody’s hopes. There are no guarantees.Judge Robert M. HaftFor humanitarian reasons I would allow a courtroom visit—a woman has to see her child or a man has to see his new baby, or somebody’s pregnant, or some case like that. But in Tony Baekeland’s case I just didn’t see that it warranted it. To see the complaining witness would not be proper.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkBaekeland returned from court with a white plastic bag with red and blue lettering on it. He arrived back at quadrant 3 Lower at approximately 3:30 p.m. and requested to be locked in his cell.John RakisHe could have gone in the hallway or in the dayroom—inmates are entitled to be locked out for fourteen hours during the day. They’re also entitled to lock themselves into their cells when they want to be. It’s optional. Some people want to be in their cells and read or write, or they want to lie down, or they just don’t want to be bothered by anybody else.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkInmate John Lewis #346-80-2360 was the area suicide prevention aide on the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift.John RakisSuicide prevention aides are an extra pair of eyes and ears for the officer, who may be busy entering something in the logbook or supervising food distribution or doing something to that effect. The aides get paid anywhere from thirty-five to fifty cents an hour—which is the highest rate of pay for inmate help. We test them to make sure they know what they’re doing, we give certificates for the training, and we do periodic inspections and evaluations of their work.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkInmate Lewis said that he spoke with Baekeland when he returned from court. Baekeland reportedly said that things had not gone well in court because he had hoped to be granted bail and that there had also been some talk he would be sent to a civil hospital, but instead he was remanded back to the Department.John RakisTony had told several inmates that he expected to be bailed out. It was poor judgment on his part to expect bail.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkCorrection Officer Patrick Raftery #2851 stated that he was assigned as the Lower 3 “B” Post Officer on the 3:27 p.m. to 11:58 p.m. tour. He arrived on his post at approximately 3:50 p.m. at which time he made a count. The Officer states that inmate Baekeland was sitting up on his bed at this time.Again at 4:30 p.m., C.O. Raftery made his rounds. He reported that everything appeared normal. Baekeland was lying on his bed covered with a blanket: both feet and one hand were exposed. At 4:39 p.m., Nurse Mauretta Link entered the quadrant to dispense medication. She was accompanied on her rounds in the area by C.O. Raftery. After dispensing medication to two inmates, Nurse Link with C.O. Raftery approached Baekeland’s cell. 6MARCH 20, 1981: 4:40 P.M.–11:59 P.M.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkBaekeland did not respond to his name. C.O. Raftery rapped on the cell door, then opened the door and tapped his keys on the bed-frame, then rubbed Baekeland’s foot with the keys. When Baekeland still did not respond, C.O. Raftery pulled the blanket off the inmate and discovered that he had a red and white plastic bag over his head.John RakisIt was a plastic bag with one of those drawstrings, and the drawstring was pulled tight.J. Victor BensonI heard it was tied.John RakisIt was not tied. Just pulled tight.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkC.O. Raftery went to remove the plastic bag from Baekeland’s head and Nurse Link called to the “A” Officer, C.O. George Forbes #1235, to send a manual resuscitator (ambubag). Nurse Link said at this point Baekeland had no pulse or respiration. C.O. Paul Jefferson #3076, the “B” Post Officer, responded with an ambubag which Nurse Link began to use immediately. C.O. Forbes notified the 4 Lower clinic of the emergency and the need for a doctor. Nurse Practitioner Gloria Howard-Mello responded immediately and instructed Officers Raftery and Jefferson to move the inmate from his bed to the floor of the 3 Lower corridor to provide more room to perform first aid. Nurse Link continued to use the ambubag and Nurse Howard-Mello applied external heart massage. Doctors Doyle and Jhaveri responded at approximately 4:43 p.m. and found the inmate without pulse or respiration and with fixed and dilated pupils. Baekeland was pronounced dead at 4:45 p.m. by Dr. Doyle, who then left the area. At approximately 4:52 p.m. Montefiore Hospital personnel (Dr. Nickerson, Registered Physician’s Assistant Ulrich, Nurse Johnson, and Nurse Minort) arrived in 3 Lower; they were not informed that Dr. Doyle had pronounced Baekeland dead, and recommenced cardiopulmonary resuscitation. During this procedure blood was observed spurting from the inmate’s nose and mouth. After Montefiore personnel had ceased their attempt to revive Baekeland, he was placed back in his bed.Correction Officer John HernandezAt the time of Baekeland’s suicide I was on the staff of the deputy warden, who investigates all matters pertaining to security. Right after it was discovered, the inmates on the quad were locked in. I then entered the cell to take pictures of Baekeland and the contents of the cell. I remember that there were some letters, some writing pads, a box of Ritz crackers, and not that much else. We preserved the cell for evidence, to rule out foul play, which was ruled out, almost immediately.Record of Inmate Transfer, Department of Correction, City of New YorkName: Baekeland, Antony #349-80-4228Date: 3/20/81Transferred to: City Morgue D.O.A.John RakisAfter the suicide, I talked to the staff and to other inmates. There was a mixed reaction among the inmates. Some acted as if nothing had happened and some acted concerned—“Yes. Too bad. He expected to be bailed out.” No one cried, no one was emotionally distraught. The general attitude was, another guy gone.Tony didn’t leave a note behind. Only a small percentage of our suicides do leave notes—perhaps one out of ten. Sometimes they’ll underline a part of the Bible and the underlining is like a note.From the Autopsy Report on Antony BaekelandCase No.BX 81-1146External DescriptionThe body is received clad in the following items of clothing: two sweater shirts, the outer of which is green with a zippered neck and reveals vomitus and a small amount of blood on its anterior surface. The inner is gray short-sleeved (the green is long-sleeved) with black, white, red, and gray piping. A pair of gray pants. A pair of jockey-type shorts. Also submitted with the deceased is what appears to be a piece of sheeting from an institutional-type bed on which are small quantities of blood. The plastic bag has not been received with the body.Juan MartinezSomebody in his family made the plastic that the bag was made out of—that’s why I think he did it like that.From “Science and Industry,” a Lecture delivered by Leo Hendrik Baekeland, June 21, 1938There is hardly any field, any branch of industry where plastics are not serving successfully in one form or another…. The whole fabric of modern civilization becomes every day more interwoven with the endless ramifications of applied chemistry. Ignorant people misjudge the value of chemical science and denounce its applications for war and other evils. Let us remind them that one of the most useful instruments ever invented, the knife, may, in the wrong hands, be used for evil, as well as for the best purposes.Edward HersheyThe unusual thing about this was, of course, the method. We’ve never had anybody else suffocate himself with a plastic bag before.Brooks BaekelandI do not believe that Tony, who was the prince of hope, bravura, and challenge, as well as of self-expiation and despair, took his own life. We were to the very end in constant epistolary contact. Everyone who really knew him agrees that he would never have gone without a big announcement—not that hyperarticulate, dramatizing gent. And he died without a word to me or anyone.I think he was murdered by his jailers. So easy to do. He had admitted his sexual relations with one of the guards in a letter to me. Maybe he threatened exposure, or retracted a promise of money? In both hands he held death: Who lives by the sword…But let it lie. Suicide or murder: Does it matter? Yes. But why and how much? Both he and his mother lived by violence and so they were bound to die by the same. I always knew it, and that was one of the reasons I had to get away from them.Edward HersheyIt is almost routine in every suicide for people to start saying, you know, that it really wasn’t a suicide. For the family members in most instances, it’s so much more acceptable to have somebody be murdered than have them commit suicide. What a great guilt deflection that is.J. Victor BensonI was shocked to hear about Tony because I couldn’t believe that he had that kind of violence in him—toward himself, that is. He had never expressed suicidal thoughts. And also, it was not an impulsive act—it was very carefully done.John MurrayI don’t think it’s possible that someone did Tony in. He told me he was going to kill himself because I didn’t love him. That’s what he told me. Unless he just said it to make me feel guilty. I believe sometimes someone kills themself because someone doesn’t love them, so I kind of think in a way he did kill himself for me a little bit. He was a very sentimental guy. It stands to reason—anyone gives out that much money is sentimental. I miss him tremendously. I miss him very much.Ronald ArrickI heard it on the news and I spent about four or five hours on the phone with Rikers trying to confirm it—you get a goddam runaround over there—and trying to get details, until I found the guard, who told me himself.What I’m most interested in with Tony is what the hell happened at Rikers that he committed suicide—if he committed suicide. It’s my impression that he didn’t. It just doesn’t make sense, to commit suicide by suffocating yourself with a plastic bag. Swallowing pills or slashing your wrists or shooting yourself of course is fairly easy, you know—assuming you want to do it—and depending on how far you go with it, it’s irreversible. But something like this you can stop at any given time, and your normal impulse—I mean it would be involuntary even—would be to stop it.Elizabeth Archer BaekelandWhen I heard that Tony had committed suicide by putting a plastic bag over his head, I told a doctor friend that I thought it was extraordinary that he had the courage—I mean, it’s the most noble thing that Tony did in his life—and the doctor said it’s not difficult to do. He said you just breathe in your carbon monoxide and become euphoric. So later I thought, I’ll test that out. I took a plastic bag, and I couldn’t find any string so I took some telephone wire and wrapped it around, and I couldn’t believe it, within a matter of…you cannot measure time under those circumstances but very soon I was really feeling high, and good, and so I thought, Oh-oh, I’d better take it off—and I couldn’t find the end of the wire! Well, I finally found it and ripped it off—I mean, obviously.Ronald ArrickGo back another step. He was on a suicide watch at the time, so how come he had a plastic bag? Where did he get a plastic bag?I’d seen him before court session, I’d seen him during court session, and I went back in after court session and we discussed how we were going to proceed and he seemed in a very good mood. I mean, look, maybe he knew he was going to commit suicide and that’s one of the reasons he was in the good mood. We’ll never know.From a Draft Document, Board of Correction, City of New YorkThere is no evidence to suggest that Baekeland’s death was not suicide, as he was locked in his cell immediately after he returned from court. All other inmates in the area were also locked in from the time of the count (4:00 p.m.) through the discovery of the emergency, with the exception of inmate John Lewis, the suicide aide.From the Financial Records of Antony BaekelandTo John Lewis—$2,000.00John RakisIt seems unlikely that if Tony was giving John Lewis money, John Lewis would do any harm to him or want him to die. Besides, there’s nothing a suicide prevention aide could do to another inmate that any other inmate couldn’t do, too.Also, inmates don’t have any control over the keys. One of Correction’s biggest concerns is key control—they probably spend more time at the Academy teaching key control than suicide prevention. Keys are very carefully accounted for. The loss of a key would be tantamount to the loss of an inmate. It’s against procedures to even allow inmates to touch keys.That door was locked. Officer Raftery had to open it with a key. And there were several witnesses to that.Every time we see a suicide, the thought of homicide is always foremost in our minds, and the investigation is conducted with that in mind. And there was no indication whatsoever that there was any foul play in Tony Baekeland’s death.Juan MartinezIt didn’t come as no surprise. Not really. Because he told me he was gonna kill himself. And I saw it. I saw everything. Everything. And I didn’t help. Forget it. Just forget it. I’m the only one to know the real truth. And the C.O.s know that I’m the only one that knows the real truth, too. It’s too many things. It’s too many things, man. It’s dangerous, you know? You see what I’m saying? You understand what I’m telling you? I was there. I know what happened. Somebody said, “Do it, Tony, or else!”Howard NaborIt was suicide, there’s no question about it. One of my officers took it very bad. You know, it was unusual that he got so upset about it. He felt, you know, that Tony was a very sensitive boy, and just to see somebody die like that really upset him. I think he even resigned from the job after that—if I remember right.The type of suicide was unusual. I felt that somebody that did it that way really wanted to go. Some of the others, if they try to hang themselves, sometimes they’re doing it for show and then they accidentally kill themselves. But definitely—no question about it—Tony Baekeland wanted to go.Edward HersheyI remember it was a Friday evening when word came. We try to make sure the next of kin is notified before we inform the press. And in this instance, it became apparent that the next of kin was the very selfsame grandmother. I had a sense that the tragedy would be compounded if our minister and the correction officer assigned walked in on her and said, “Your grandson has just killed himself,” her having seen him in court that day. So I reached out for the assistant D.A., and I found her—I don’t know how I did it but I found her. It was a Friday night, she was visiting people in Jersey, and I said, “What do we do?” She knew the grandmother and she was concerned, and we were able to locate a tenant in the grandmother’s building so that she wasn’t alone when she was told the news.Lena RichardsI came to Nini’s on Saturday morning and the weekday nurse said, “Have you heard?” I said, “What?” She said, “He killed himself.” I was shocked. I went in to Nini, and she said, “Oh, Lena, oh, Tony’s killed himself.” She didn’t cry. She said, “Such guilt I put on the family, and I might as well confide and tell you everything.” She said Frank, her husband, was cleaning his car in the garage with Frank Jr., and Frank Jr. left to do something and when he came back the garage door was closed and the motor was on. I’m afraid she’ll never get over Tony.Nina DalyIt’s a sad story. It was the biggest heartbreak. It was terrible. But you see, I don’t dwell on it. I can’t. I think about how much I loved him and how much he meant to me. I still wish he was here.Brooks BaekelandIt was a beautiful ending—in plastic, too!The terrible thing was that in his secret heart he always thought that in the end I could save him. Like his mother, he was without fear—and Daddy would come, somehow, out of somewhere, like Superman. They both believed that. You know, there is no such thing, when there is a child, as a divorce. It’s a contradiction in terms. Until their very last moments—for both of them—I was supposed to burst through a door and save them. But the odds they played against were so enormous that even Superman could not have arrived in time.Courage they both had, but to the point of folly. They were great romantics. I cannot laugh at them. Who can laugh, for instance, at Zelda Fitzgerald? I mourn because I failed them. I failed their unrealistic marvelous dreams. But the word “unrealistic” is a weasel word to the true romantic, who accords the greatest value to that which really is truly and absolutely impossible. Barbara’s mad audacities always made me feel ashamed of myself—as Zelda’s did Scott Fitzgerald. No wonder in his madness that her son thought her a goddess. He gave himself, too, a minor god’s rank, but that was a faerie geste, on dope. And I have no doubt that—his ear against that cold prison floor as though listening to hoofbeats pursuing him to another world—part of him really did believe that she was waiting for him up, up there, where only Mozart and Bach and champagne and “the beautiful people” would flow in the chiaroscuro of Gustave Doré’s enormous canvases, in eternal round, waiting now for him, too, for this world below had become far too vulgar. Henry Aldrich in that corny radio and television series used to always get a laugh saying, “Coming, Mother!”If I have shocked you, let me remind you that only laughter clears the vision. Without laughter, there can be no seeing of the truth. Tragedy does not allow laughter. It is pity that does. And I have never seen tragedy in all my short, wasted, eager life—only pity. And I see that everywhere around me, and in the markings of my own hand. That is all I see. 7THE FINAL REPORTHeadline, the New York Times, March 21, 1981INMATE KILLS HIMSELF IN A CELL AT RIKERSHeadline, New York Daily News, March 21, 1981PLASTICS HEIR WHO KILLED MOM AN APPARENTSUICIDE IN JAIL CELLHeadline, Daily Telegraph, London, March 23, 1981PLASTICS HEIR DEAD IN JAILFrancine du Plessix GrayWhen Tony died with this thing of putting a plastic bag over his head, Ethel de Croisset called me—she was in New York at the time—and she said, “Don’t you see the relationship to his stealing the baby food that summer in Italy?” I said no. She said, “Well, he chose a baby’s way of dying, didn’t he? Smothering.”Ethel Woodward de CroissetHe just went to sleep in his little plastic bag, and I saw this as being perhaps his desire to return to the womb.Eleanor WardWhen I heard he had killed himself, I thought, What a relief for him, what a blessing—out of the agony at last.James ReeveSo many of one’s friends seem to have died under peculiar circumstances, one way or another, recently. Mine, anyway. A great friend of mine—and kindred spirits are few and far between—I mean, somebody I could tell anything to, and she me—anyway, she had a house in Greece and she was motoring back to France and all of a sudden she got a heart attack for no reason and died. That was that. Very shocking. In a curious way—it’s sort of animal defense or something—I refused to face it. I just put it out of my mind. I didn’t really sit down and think about her being dead. I just think of her as gone away. One should sit down and look it in the eye and face up to the fact.When I heard Tony had died, I was horrified. But then I put it out of my mind, too. I haven’t really thought about it since.Gloria JonesI guess it was John Sargent who told me how Tony had committed suicide, and I thought it was the end of the whole horrible story. But you would never write it that way—it’s too corny. How did he get the plastic bag, I wonder.Rose StyronIt was the perfect ironic end.Samuel Parkman ShawIt seemed to me that it was a perfectly normal end to his career. It was a good solution, and a not unclever way of doing it. It took some determination—how to get into the bag and stay there until he suffocated. That’s not a bad trick.John RakisAs a result of Tony Baekeland’s suicide, inmates are not allowed to have plastic bags in their possession. Also, the correction officers are now told that when they see an inmate lying fairly still and the blanket is over his head, they really ought to check for signs of breathing. Now, many inmates do this to keep out noise or keep the lights from getting in their eyes; Tony of course put the blanket over his head to cover up his intentions.From the Final Report of the New York State Commission of Correction Medical Review Board in the Matter of the Death of Antony Baekeland at the Anna M. Kross Center, Rikers Island, December 22, 1981The Medical Review Board recommends that the NYC Department of Health, Prison Health Services, advise mental health treatment staff at the Anna M. Kross Center that special attention should be given to inmates under psychiatric treatment as significant life events or status changes approach. Mental health treatment staff are often aware of these events.The Medical Review Board recommends that the NYC Department of Health, Prison Health Services, develop policies and procedures whereby previous psychiatric hospital records are obtained when an inmate is in detention and under psychiatric treatment for extended periods.Miwa Svinka-ZielinskiTony never talked about taking his life, never once in all those years. It was a waste, his life. All that time I wasted on that boy! I continued to believe that he could be cured. His disease was Barbara.Letter from Brooks Baekeland to Nina Daly, June 8, 1981Stonington, MaineDear Nini—I grieve over him, too—more as time goes by, more as I remember him as a child—for while seeming to know, to understand, that he was doomed if he continued as he did, he always so continued, from one disaster to the next, fascinated as it were by his own destruction. Seeing it, knowing it, reveling.That—that knowing—is a side of Tony that very few people ever knew. I did, because between Tony and me there always was a curious: “I know that you know that I know…” almost ad infinitum. We both had, for instance, unspoken knowledge and understandings about his mother, my relationship to her and his relationship to her. Also about his to me and mine to him!One of the results of these extraordinary, multileveled intuitional understandings between us was that when we were together there was nothing to say. We both knew it all and knew that we both knew it. Silence.It was that—let me be as fair as I can—which separated us just as much as the fact that morally we were bitter enemies. I hated his immorality—remember, I do not speak about sexuality but about ethics—but so did he! But he also loved it. Was drawn to crime—again, I do not mean law-breaking but sordid self-immolation—as a moth to a flame. He was the quintessential pederast, in fact. He was an American Genet, but without the overriding desire for fame and capacity to work.He was just as gifted—far more gifted than his father or mother—or if not, then his terrible failings made those gifts shine in their surrounding darkness, shine angelically.There is a line from one of Byron’s letters that comes into my mind: Was he a “halting angel who tripped against a star,” or was he “Le Diable Boiteux,” the devil on two sticks?Love, Biographical Notes ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe would like to thank the many people quoted in these pages for the time they gave us.We would also like to thank the following for their contributions to this book: Charles Addams, Al Anderson, John Jay Angevin, Jr., Hetta Asencio, Tony Banwell, Marvin Barrett, Mary Ellin Barrett, Dr. Milton Bastos, Alexander Beard, Patricia Beard, Eleanor Bender, Detective Chief Inspector Roger Bendle of Scotland Yard, Jay Benedict, Rehlein Benedict, Glynne Betts, Zerina Bhika, Dorothea Biddle, June Bingham, David Blasband, Denise Bouché, Heather Bradley, Laurel Buckley, Maureen Bune, Hazel Burke, Captain Jerry Caputo of the New York City House of Detention on Rikers Island, Joel Carmichael, Isobel Cartagena, Blair Clark, Lady Mary Clayton, Michael Cleary, Mike Cobb, David Cohen, Elaine Cohen, Patrick Cook, Jane Cooke, Matthew Cowles, Shelly Dattner, Robert Darling, Elizabeth de Cuevas, Ormonde de Kay, Frances Ann Dougherty, Maggie Draper, Barbara Dunkel, Brooke Edgecomb, Jonathan Fast, Irene Fine, Sarah Fischer, Joseph M. Fox, Captain Harry Foy of the New York City Department of Correction, Leda Fremont-Smith, Fred Friendly, Lou Ganim, Jacqueline Gatz, Ann Geiffert, Abigail Gerdts, Nancy Giagnocova, Virginia Taylor Gimbel, Judy Greif, Letty Grierson, Lew Grimes, the Hon. Desmond Guinness, Sabrina Guinness, Beth Gutcheon, Pat Hackett, Lucile Hamlin, Jones Harris, Robert Harrison, Ann Harvey, Shirley Hazzard, Lillian Hellman, Cathy Henderson, Paul Hoeffel, Sally Iselin, Jill Isles, Ted Johnson, Katrina Hall Jordan, Carl Kaufmann, Anita Herrick Kearns, Judy Kicinski, Tony Kiser, Carol Kitman, Marvin Kitman, Carol Klemm, Hans Koning, Kate Koning, Marcella Korff, Carol Kotwick, Helen Laws, Inge Lehmann-Haupt, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, Karen Lerner, Ellen Levine, Dr. Richard U. Levine, Olga Lewis, Gael Love, Catherine MacDonald, Gerald MacDonald, Sukie Marlowe, Frances Matthews, Lester Migdal, Hon. E. Leo Milonas, George Mittendorf, Jinty Money-Coutts, Barbara Mortimer, Victor Navasky, Lynn Nesbit, Sue Nestor, Hugh Nissenson, Marilyn Nissenson, Charles Pate, Peter Pennoyer, Robert M. Pennoyer, Victoria L. Pennoyer, Paula Peterson, Emily Read, Piers Paul Read, Hon. Martin Rettinger, K. G. Rimmington, James Rossbach, Sue Rossbach, Digger St. John, May Sarton, Ronnie Scharfman, Denise Scheinberg, Dr. I. Herbert Scheinberg, Barry Schwabsky, Ann M. Seeger, Marvin Siegel, Babs Simpson, Mark Slifer, Betty Ann Solinger, Margaret Sone, Paul Spike, Dr. Robert J. Stoller, Diana Stuart, Douglas Stumpf, David Taylor, Shoe Taylor, Trevor Tester, Gwen Thomas, Lionel Tiger, Virginia Tiger, Captain Earl Tulon of the New York City Department of Correction, Richard Turley, Marian Underhill, Ernst von Wedel, Alison Wakehan, Shelley Wanger, Julius Wasserstein, Jeannette Watson, Jacqueline Weld, A. Matthew Weld, Merida Welles, Lloyd Wells, Tom White, Hilma Wolitzer, Jessie Bruce Wood, Dr. Joseph Youngerman, and Frances Rogers Zilkha.We would like to thank the following for their cooperation: The Leo H. Baekeland Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Bakelite Museum Society, London; Boston Globe library; Boston Public Library; the Estate of John Philip Cohane; The James Jones Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin; London Weather Centre; National Association for Mental Health, London; New York City Department of Correction; New York Public Library; New York State Department of Correction; the New York Times London Bureau; the New York Times morgue; Sarah Lawrence College Library; Scotland Yard; and Union Carbide Research Library. ABOUT THE AUTHORSNATALIE ROBINS is the author of four volumes of poetry. Since Savage Grace first appeared, she has published four other nonfiction books, including Alien Ink: The FBI’s War on Freedom of Expression, winner of the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award, and The Girl Who Died Twice: The Libby Zion Case and the Hidden Hazards of Hospitals. Her latest book, Copeland’s Cure, about the war between conventional and alternative medicine, came out in 2005. She lives in New York City with her husband, the writer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, and is at work on her tenth book. (www.natalierobins.net)STEVEN M. L. ARONSON, a former book editor and publisher, is the author of HYPE, an investigation of the phenomenon of disproportion. He has contributed scores of articles to national magazines, including Architectural Digest (where he is a contributing writer), Vanity Fair, The Nation, Poetry, Town & Country, New York, Esquire, and Vogue. Most recently, he wrote the biographical text for the Taschen Collector’s Edition of the work of the artist and photographer Peter Beard. He lives in New York City. * Biographical notes can be found on Back Matter. * The information in these notes was current at the time this book was first published.
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