Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Mimi

In 1963, the Galvins moved to a larger house on Hidden Valley Road, just outside of Colorado Springs. Donald had by this point left for Colorado State University, but Jim was acting out more than ever, to the point of expulsion from Air Academy High School after his antics around one of the planes put a friend’s life in danger. Though frustrated, Don and Mimi believed Jim would settle down after graduation.

Following a successful career in intelligence, Don retired from the Air Force and took a job supervising federally-funded programs first in Colorado, and later in a federation of seven Western states. The role introduced the Galvins to the social and cultural elite of the American West: “By the late 1960s, Don and Mimi and whichever children were too small to leave at home on their own would travel to Aspen and Santa Fe for concerts, fund-raisers, conferences, and galas” (57). Mimi was thrilled by all of this, though aware that the family’s modest income kept them on the fringes of this glamorous lifestyle.

Donald

Over the course of Donald’s sophomore year, he repeatedly visited the campus health center with strange complaints. These culminated in the spring of 1965, when he sustained serious burns after jumping into a bonfire. Donald struggled to explain the action and was referred to a psychiatrist at the Air Force Academy Hospital, who recommended that he resume classes.

After returning to school in early 1966, Donald had a brief but intense relationship with a woman named Marilee. Following their break-up, Donald spent much of his rent money on phone calls to her. Rather than turn to his parents for help, he moved into an abandoned fruit cellar. Soon afterwards, he visited the health center with a cat bite and admitted that he had tortured and killed a cat living in the cellar. Donald was hospitalized for observation and sent home for further evaluation near the end of 1966, by which point he was experiencing delusional symptoms.

Aware of many institutions’ reputation for brutality and still hopeful that Donald’s tentative diagnosis of schizophrenia was wrong, Don and Mimi sought help from the Air Force Academy hospital. Unaware of the more worrying elements of Donald’s case, this new psychiatrist recommended that he once again resume classes, blaming his breakdown on a series of fluke circumstances.

Donald returned to college in the spring of 1967 and began dating a woman named Jean. The couple quickly became engaged despite the reservations of Donald’s parents: “Even beyond [Donald’s] personal problems […] [t]hose who knew them warned Donald that Jean was very clear about not wanting children” (67). Meanwhile, Donald continued to attend therapy, at one point sitting for a Rorschach test in which he described several violent scenes.

Jim

After a year of community college, Jim began attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. He met a woman named Kathy, and, when she became pregnant, he married her, dropped out of school, and took a bartending job in Colorado Springs.

Jim and Kathy’s marriage was tumultuous from the start; he cheated on her repeatedly and abused her. Kathy was reluctant to leave out of concern for Jim, who had begun complaining of insomnia, auditory hallucinations, and paranoid delusions.

In 1969, Jim was briefly admitted to a hospital after experiencing a psychotic break. Don and Mimi brushed Kathy’s concerns aside, but Kathy managed to persuade Jim to commit himself to a mental hospital. A few months later, Jim was stable enough for release, although his abusive behavior continued.  

1964, National Institute of Mental Health, Washington, D.C.

In 1955, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) began studying four young women: identical quadruplets who had all developed schizophrenia over the course of a single year. The sisters—referred to as Nora, Iris, Myra, and Hester Genain for reasons of privacy—went on to become the subject of an influential study spearheaded by psychologist David Rosenthal.

Rosenthal was a strong proponent of the genetic theory of schizophrenia, which the sisters’ shared DNA lent credence to. He discovered a possible history of mental illness in the family: the women’s paternal grandmother had once experienced schizophrenia-like symptoms. On the other hand, the women had also had a highly traumatic upbringing. Their parents were abusive: an adulterous, alcoholic father who molested them, and a mother who arranged female circumcisions after she caught two of them masturbating. Ultimately, Rosenthal’s case study reached the then unpopular conclusion that the women’s condition likely stemmed from a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. 

Donald

By 1970, Jean had secured admission to a doctoral program in Oregon and was considering leaving her emotionally distant husband. Upset, Donald visited a psychiatrist, who concluded that Donald’s manner seemed secretive and “rehearsed” but not psychotic (79).

Before Donald could return to the psychiatrist with Jean for couple’s therapy, the pair had a major fight; Donald talked about killing Jean, and Jean reiterated her intention to leave. The next day, Donald took mescaline and devised a plan while under its influence: that night, he attempted to kill both himself and Jean with cyanide capsules dissolved in hydrochloric acid. Jean escaped, and Donald was hospitalized: “Donald […] came off as euphoric, even boastful—an unmasked comic book villain, crowing about how he’d fooled everyone for years. He talked about the time that he killed a cat, but this time […] he was almost gloating” (83).

On his psychiatrist’s recommendation, Donald went to the Colorado State Hospital in Pueblo. Though Donald was by this point insisting his symptoms were entirely the result of drug use, he responded to treatment with an antipsychotic and an antidepressant and was released within a few weeks.

Still hopeful that Donald could turn his life around, Don and Mimi found a job for him, which sent him on a trip to North Dakota. While there, he attempted to visit Jean in Oregon and experienced a relapse. At one point, Donald carried all the furniture out of the house while ranting about religious matters; frightened, his mother locked herself and her daughters in the bedroom until the police arrived to take Donald away.

Margaret

In 1971, the Galvins were still leading an outwardly normal life and traveling frequently in connection with Don’s job. For Margaret, now nine and an aspiring ballet dancer, the time away from home was a welcome relief from her brothers' roughhousing: “As she got older, Margaret became […] more of a target, a sitting duck. […] She would be groped and handled strangely, bullied harshly in a way that some of the boys might have considered innocent and fun” (94). Even the boys’ hobbies—for instance, the hockey-playing that dominated the lives of Peter, Mark, Joe, and Matt—were rowdier than Margaret was comfortable with.

As the second youngest child, Margaret had been coping with Donald’s illness, as well as Mimi’s attempts to gloss over it, from early childhood: "As Mimi doubled down on her perfectionism, the girls became her most trusted deputies. Both girls tried to help their mother […] as if there wasn’t a sick twenty-five-year-old man stalking the yard or writhing on the floor” (97). On one occasion, Donald threatened Mimi with a knife, and Margaret listened, terrified, from another room as Joe and Mark intervened to protect their mother.