To Cry, Kill, and Die; To Lie, Hate, and Fear

By Kevin Guilfoile

Hi, I have always been different from most of my peers - extremely quiet, unable to engage in any sort of small talk, somewhat obsessive, intelligent, and somewhat unable to make friends. Many of these qualities I attributed to the fact that I grew up in a house in the middle of nowhere, with no immediate neighbors, and the way that may [sic] parents were rather different than most people in the town that I lived near. (White trash town - my father is a doctor, my mother from France, and not used to many American customs) I was always considered talented and gifted in school, but I struggled socially (many people felt I was mute), and I have never been in a real relationship in my life despite my above average physical attractiveness. I am now 28 years old and recently moved from the United States to an island in the Caribbean.

Recent readers of this site will recognize in those words the troubled voice of Hans Rudolph Peterson, who one month ago confessed to last October's savage murder of Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet.

(If you're new to the case, or if you've been directed here by the recent flurry of Peterson coverage, you can find links to previous reports in our last post related to Peterson's online activity at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum. A version of that post also appears on the op-ed page of today's Chicago Tribune. If you are a regular reader of this site, our usual rotation of contributors will resume on Friday.)

The above introduction was posted to yet another internet discussion, this one at Wrong Planet an "online resource and community for those with Asperger's Syndrome." Peterson registered at the site in July of 2004, but apparently didn't post until February 4, 2007, three months after Dr. Cornbleet's murder. He joined the discussion only twice, but the posts seem to provide one more fold in the map Peterson was trying to follow to the source of his mental illness. As in the Accutane discussions, he is trying to find a concrete reason why he became the person he did. It is also perhaps the most revealing glimpse we've had into Peterson's psyche. In his own words, he provides a vivid picture of just what what Hans sees when he looks into the mirror.

I suppose what I am trying to do here, is determine whether or not I have AS. I have many of the attributes typically attributed to AS:

* Social awkwardness/lack of intuitive understanding of social situations: I have never felt comfortable with small talk, or making friends. It's not that I don't want do, I definitely do. I just find myself pushing people away frequently because I'm generally clueless regarding friendships - and, probably more importantly, I seem very averse to initiating or continuing normal social interaction with people that I have just met.

* Excessively logical rather than emotional thought processes. I'm not the person one would want to come crying to for comfort. My brain just doesn't work that way. I seem to always look at things from a logical rather than emotional perspective. (I have emotions, they just seem more warped and diluted than those of most other people.)

* Above average intelligence. In many (most?) areas of intelligence I am substantially more intelligent than my peers. When it comes to long term memory, or understanding systems, or writing, or most academic subjects I am just a lot better than most of my peers. (I have always done exceptionally well on standardized tests, etc.)

* Lack of organization/attention span. In classes or lectures I have never been able to take notes - not even a single page. For some reason, the whole idea of writing things down repulses me. When I am paying attention, I just try to process what is being said rather than writing anything down. Also, I frequently find myself staring out the window or at a wall with my mind wandering around some subject or idea totally unrelated to the class or lecture. These factors undoubtedly hurt my academic performance. I tried to correct them to some extent, but my success was very limited. Also, I virtually never clean my room or even use a garbage can - as a result most of my rooms/apartments are not very pleasant places in which to hang out.

* At points in my life, I have been rather lazy about my hygiene as well. Just not shaving or wearing the same clothes frequently because I become bored with the process of picking out different clothes to wear. (This has not always been the case, there have been stretches in my life where I have been rather hygienic.

* Obsessive interests: Generally I am either very interested in a subject, or not interested in it at all. This has resulted in quite varied performance in school and work. Also, I suppose, when I was a child, I would have very specific interests that I would obsess over at the expense of everything else (such as dinosaurs or geography). I have generally grown out of that pattern, however, the all or nothing interest that I have in subjects largely remains.

However, i do not have some of the common AS attributes: (at least I'm not aware of having these)

* Panic attacks: I can't even comprehend what it feel like to have one.

* Lack of coordination: I'm not especially coordinated, but nor am I especially uncoordinated.

* Stimming: I may have this, I'm not sure, I certainly don't do the over the top full body convulsion type of thing, but I do fidget a fair amount, and I almost always bounce one of my legs up and down when sitting.

Also, my line of work doesn't seem typical for someone with AS. I am a professional poker player and a key part of that is thinking from the perspective of one's opponents. However, in the setting of poker, this can be done in a very logical and systematic manner, so maybe it isn't that hard for someone with AS.

I have a variety of mental issues: depression, extreme shyness, and some shades of OCD.

So, do you think I have AS? (I took the online test, it said I was very likely an aspie.) If I am, what difference does it make? AS isn't a disease, right?. It does not have a known cause, or 'cure' for that matter. As a syndrome, is it just a group of attributes which seem to be rather correlated? I dislike some of my attributes, such as the social awkwardness. Does the idea that these things may be part of a greater syndrome make it easier to deal with? I don't know yet. I guess one good thing is that I now know that there are others that have the same peculiarities as me.

It's not clear that Hans ever concludes that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but three days later he joins a music discussion at the same site.

Although I doubt it was written with AS in mind, Tool "46&2" describes my mental state fairly well. In particular the obsessive tendencies, introspection, desire to analyze, and desire to change.

(From what I read it may have been written about some sort of Jungian psychology or the next step in the evolution of the human species, but the lyrics are vague enough to cover a wide variety of topics, including AS.)

These are the words to the song Forty Six & 2 by the band Tool, the lyrics which allegedly described Hans Peterson's mental state "fairly well" just three months after he bound, gagged, tortured, and stabbed David Cornbleet more than twenty times:

My shadow's
Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again.
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.

See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me.

A likely irrelevant but nevertheless creepy coda to Hans's brief foray into the Asperger's site is provided by another poster who calls himself Flagg. Like several other members of the online Asperger community, Flagg tries to welcome Hans and encourage him to post further.

"Welcome to the unending battlefield of Outer Planet," Flagg writes. "I'm the unofficial host of the slaughter, Liquid Ocelot."


DIPLOMATIC UPDATE: "U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging her to consider, in light of the State Department's support for France's extradition request for Manuel Noriega, to publicly request that the Government of France extradite Hans Peterson, an American citizen who reportedly confessed to the 2006 murder of Dr. David Cornbleet in Chicago."

MEDIA UPDATE: The syndicated television program Inside Edition will be featuring the murder of Dr. Cornbleet today (Thursday, September 13). In Chicago, that show airs at 3PM on WLS-TV channel 7.

'Cause Sorrow Is Just All The Rage

By Kevin Guilfoile

"Justice will not be found through the legal system...Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same."

That comment was made by Hans Peterson on July 2, 2007, nine months after he savagely murdered Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet. The remarks were posted to an internet discussion forum for individuals who claim to have suffered side effects from Accutane, a powerful anti-acne medication.


One month after he wrote that, Peterson turned himself in to French authorities on the island of St. Martin. According to reports, he told police that he murdered Dr. Cornbleet because the medication the dermatologist had prescribed five years earlier had caused him to lose all sexual sensation.

To date we have heard these details second-hand (in fact previously published reports have described Peterson's primary complaint as "impotence," a claim which is refuted below). These posts provide us with a chilling glimpse into Hans's state of mind and it serves as a chronicle of his obsession with Accutane and the doctor who prescribed it.

Peterson registered at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum as "hansp" on May 12, 2002, just weeks after he allegedly visited Dr. Cornbleet's office for the first time. (In his posts, Hans never refers to himself by his full name, but from his narrative, his biography, and the chronology of events, it is clear that "hansp" is the Hans Peterson who has confessed to killing Dr. Cornbleet.) On June 16 of that year he posted his first comment.

"In late April, I went to see a dermatologist for my very mild, but persistent acne. He was an unethical old man who suggested accutane. He said that it was a very safe and popular drug with no serious side effects. I was never given a blood test. He never showed me the consent forms that he is required by law to make me sign. I was started on 80 mg per day. (I weigh around 190) He said that I could take the entire day's dose at once. When I picked up my prescription, the pharmacist conveniently forgot to give me the FDA required medication guide. When I picked up the medication, I was under the impression that accutane was an extremely safe drug.

"I took it for 2 days. Then I got a bad headache and read about the side effects. I stopped right away. I thought that I was safe having only taken a few pills. However, about 5 days later, I got really depressed and couldn't sleep. My ears started to ring around this time, and a lot of hair around my hairline began to fall out. (The roots of these follicles were black, normally they're white.) My appetite went away around this time as well. A couple of days after this, my libido vanished and I lost virtually all sexual sensation...It has been over a month and a half since my very brief experience with accutane and most of these effects have not improved at all. (I sleep a little better as I am starting to get used to the ear ringing, but that is about it.)

"Am I permanently affected from taking an acne medicine for 2 days?"

More than 60 posts from Hans follow over the next five years. They show a man becoming increasingly obsessed with the drug Accutane and the effects he believed it was having on his body and his mind. He attributes a series of ailments, including depression, to the medication but the two that he claims most haunt him are a constant ringing in his ears and a loss of sexual sensation.

On November 15, 2002 Hans wrote:

"Since taking a relatively high dose of accutane for a very short period of time 7 months ago, I have been experiencing persistent sexual problems. I would describe it as a loss of libido and sexual sensation. I have lost virtually all interest in sex. When I do engage in sex or masturbation, the act is no longer pleasurable. I can get an erection and otherwise function normally. The pleasurable sensation is just gone."

On April 30, 2004, in a thread specifically about "Erectile Dysfunction," Hans wrote:

"How am I coping with it? Not particularly well. You take a drug in order to increase your chances of getting laid, and end up not being able to enjoy getting laid. (Getting an erection isn't that big of a problem - it's the near complete loss of sensation.) I guess you could try to enjoy pleasing the other person, and all that crap. But, still, this side effect is horrible..."

As the years pass, Hans tries to become more familiar with both the science and the unsubstantiated claims made about Accutane. He consults with other doctors, who are not able to prove a link between his ailments and the drug he took briefly years before.

On February 6, 2003, he wrote:

"I have just begun law school, and tasks like paying attention or concentrating are not as easy as they were before I took Accutane. Perhaps I can use whatever legal knowledge I gain to take my revenge... I have nothing else to live for."

(The list of side-effects that members of this forum attribute to Accutane is so long that it would be difficult to find a response from drugmaker Roche for every single one. In the past Roche has denied a connection between Accutane and the most serious conditions alleged. "It's our conclusion, along with the outside experts and the FDA, that there is no scientific basis that links Accutane with depression or suicide," a spokesperson told Reuters in 2002.)

In a few of these posts, Hans seems to be formulating his rationalization for murder. According to Hans, Dr. Cornbleet is a villain who "deceived" him by knowingly prescribing a dangerous drug without providing any warning of the harmful effects associated with it. Hans also suggests a possible motive for this: Greed. On October 9, 2002 Hans speculated that Dr. Cornbleet was "desperate for patients, and, if I were to go on accutane, I would have to see him every two weeks for a check up."

These two claims would seem to be inconsistent, however. Presumably Dr. Cornbleet did not tell Hans that Accutane was an "extremely safe" and "popular drug with no serious side effects" that nevertheless required an intense schedule of bi-monthly monitoring visits.

And yet, especially compared to the standards of internet discussion forums, Peterson's writing is frequently clear and concise. At times he even grows impatient with his fellow posters, chastising them for throwing out statistics and claims without citations:

"Is there anyone that can tell me where this information is actually published? I admire the effort of the people that run this site, but you should really provide some adequate form of citation, so we know that these figures aren't just pulled out of the air...I don't doubt the truth of these statements, but in order for this website to be taken seriously, there needs to be some way of verifying the claims that are made on it."

After a period of frequent activity in the spring and summer of 2004, Hans disappears from the forum for two years, returning on September 20, 2006, just four weeks before he would travel from New York to Chicago to murder Dr. Cornbleet. On that day he posts two links--one to a depression study reported on the BBC web site and another to a video on YouTube. On October 10, he posts the complete text of an article about Dopamine.

The next post is February 7, 2007, more than three months after the murder:

"I was deceived by my doctor almost 5 years ago into taking this drug (no consent form, no med guide, no warnings whatsoever). I took a rather high dose for two days. TWO DAYS!!! (albeit an 80 mg undivided dose) Life altering, presumably neurological, problems which I never experienced before have plagued me ever since.

"I will never know again what it is like to pleasure a woman because I no longer have any sexual sensation - I will never again experience what silence is due to the constant ringing in my ears - I will never know who I would have become because of what this motherf**king drug has done to my mind. A drug which I should have never been prescribed...In at least some cases, such as mine, this drug just does its damage when its taken, or shortly thereafter, and that's it. No real hope of recovery, doctors are useless, the damage is done.

"Doubt my problems and their connection to Accutane all you want - I know I wouldn't believe a word of it if I had never taken the drug and someone told me the story I have told above. The truth is, I'm a rational non-hypochondriac who still can't believe how his life has been changed by this drug."

He posted four more times before he turned himself in to St. Martin police in August. On July 2, his second-to-last post he wrote:

"Justice will not be found through the legal system. There is no way to objectively verify Accutane-induced permanent neurological problems. Even if there were, it would be near impossible to legally prove causation. Even then, statutes of limitation would have run... If and when the **** ever does hit the fan they will just point out how strenuously they claimed their ignorance about permanent problems.

"Would legal justice even be justice, anyway? The people who have profitted from Roche's deception won't be personally brought to justice -- they will be shielded from personal liability... Roche's stock might drop, that's about it, it still would have been rational for those ***holes to deceive regarding Accutane in the first place: its profits over the years have been more than enough. The corrupt FDA, as a gov't institution, can't be held liable....

"There is no foreseeable retributive action in the legal system which would make their fraud regarding Accutane a mistake. Their decisions were economically rational and they know it. Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same.

"If you seek real justice, it will not come through the legal system -- they know this, that's why they continue to deceive and play ignorant. It is the financially rational thing to do..."

Everybody Wants a Thrill

By Kevin Guilfoile

Lots of people have asked me what I thought of The Sopranos finale last night. Many of those people are angry. Like them, I had been expecting something different from the show and so I went to bed not certain how I felt about it. When I woke up this morning (no A3 reference intended) I realized the profound statement Sopranos creator David Chase had just made about storytelling and I was sure that I loved it.

In fiction characters live their lives episodically. We drop in at a particular point and drop out at a particular point and everything that happens in between ties up nicely along the way. Presumably the characters get up the day after the story ends with blank slates. No worries, no debts, no obligations until the next episode starts. It's a manipulation done to satisfy us. Real life, we all know, is a lot messier and a lot weirder.

[BEGIN SOPRANOS SPOILERS]

In the final scene Chase pulls out every manipulative trick in the filmmaker's bag. The two strangers in the restaurant are doing nothing suspicious and there is no reason to think they have designs on Tony except that Chase keeps cutting back to them. Outside Meadow is having trouble parking. Perhaps this happens every time she tries to parallel park but Chase keeps returning to it and suddenly it's ominous. One of the strangers gets up and walks into the bathroom. Anyone who has seen The Godfather knows there's always a gun hidden in the restaurant toilet and we just saw Phil Leotardo killed in front of his wife and grandchildren. The automatic symmetry creator in our heads is already storyboarding the next cut. It's a brilliant scene.

Much has been made about the fact that Journey's Don't Stop Believin' is playing in the restaurant at the time. Some think it's ironic and we're supposed to assume the worst after the screen goes black. Others try to sap meaning from the song's title. But it's obvious why Chase chose it:

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

There is no place to end this story. Endings are arbitrary and artificial. It doesn't matter if Tony is about to be whacked in front of Carm and the kids, or if they will just finish a quiet meal and go home. Either way it's not an end to the story, it's middle. The Sopranos was all middle, riddled since the series premiere with red herrings and slow parts and unresolved storylines. Our lives are all middle, too. We never get many answers, and the real story just goes on and on and on and on.

[END SPOILERS]

It goes on this month in a federal courtroom where "the last big Outfit trial in Chicago history" begins. Among the 14 defendants will be reputed former boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo (not to be confused with fictional New York boss Phil Leotardo). Lombardo is alleged to be a brutal gangster who ordered the killings of even close friends including the father of his own godson. A famous cut-up, Lombardo is employing a bizarre defense, claiming that he was never really a part of the mob and even if he was he voluntarily left that life a long time ago. To bolster that claim, Lombardo's attorneys will show the jury a full page newspaper ad that Lombardo took out in the early nineties daring anyone who saw him associating with mobsters to call his parole officer. Um, yeah, no one took him up on that.

One of the main witnesses for the prosecution is former Outfit hit man Frank Cullotta. Cullotta's been a federal informant for over two decades and unlike Lombardo he flaunts his long ago connections. In one of the most bizarre turns in mob (or mob movie) history, Cullotta actually played himself in Martin Scorcese's film Casino, graphically reenacting his 1979 murder of barber union head Jerry Lisner. (Cullotta was also the inspiration for another character in Casino, Frank Marino. Marino was played by Frank Vincent, who by the way played Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos.)

During a Saturday break from the Printers Row Book Fair we were sitting at Kasey's Tavern on Dearborn, just blocks from the skyscraping correctional facility where Lombardo is awaiting trial, and I told Cullotta's story to CJ Box. He shook his head and said, "If you tried to put that in a novel you'd never get away with it."

And David Chase knows it.

Memorial Day -- Chicago Style

by Libby Hellmann


The Chicago Tribune ran a story a couple of weeks ago on “colorful” Chicago characters, most of them elected officials. Included in their “Colorful Servant Hall of Fame” were


Big Bill Thompson, maybe the most corrupt mayor the city has ever known



John D’Arco, a convicted felon, state senator, and self-proclaimed poet

“Bathhouse” John Coughlin, a 1st Ward alderman and another poet .
(come to think of it, what that says about politicians with literary pretensions is probably best left to posterity) who, along his partner/alderman “Hinky Dink” Kenna, were the kings of graft and protection money at the turn of the last century



Betty Lauren-Maltese, Cicero’s town president who eventually went to jail for fraud. Betty, the wife of mob bookie Frank Maltese (for whom she named the town’s police and fire stations), was quoted (among other outrageous things) as saying the US Constitution didn’t apply to the gangs she wanted to kick out of Cicero.


So, on this Memorial Day, I thought it might be fun to remember a few other characters who didn’t make it into the article but have swaggered their way into Chicago history by their cavalier actions, personalities, and sheer chutzpah. Not all of them were elected officials, but all of them are part of the tradition of “bad boys and girls.”


Ed Vrdolyak: Has Fast Eddie finally had his comeuppance? The once powerful
Alderman (known as “Fast Eddie” because of his speed at rushing through legislation) and one-time head of the Chicago City Council was generally a major thorn in the side of the city’s first black mayor, Harold Washington. But he is also known as a mob lawyer, and is known to be the power behind the throne in Cicero (see Betty above). The one time head of the Cook County Democrats made a fast switch into the Republican Party so he could run – unsuccessfully -- against Mayor Daley. Unfortunately, just a few weeks ago, Fast Eddie was indicted for fraud and bribery related to a kickback scheme involving Gold Coast real estate. Shocking.

Jane Byrne: The first female Mayor of Chicago served only one term: from 1979 to 1983.
I like to call her the “Snow Queen” – her election came after a series of bizzards that paralyzed Chicago and made the current mayor, Michael Bilandic, seem incompetent. She was the one who installed Fast Eddie as the head of the Cook County Democrats (he repaid the favor by becoming a Republican), but, in the long run, she wasn’t able to muster the necessary political clout to survive. After Harold Washington won the Democratic primary, she played the spoiler, waging a write-in campaign, which split the white vote (Richie Daley was the other candidate), and made Washington’s election inevitable.

Richard Bailey: He probably couldn’t be elected dog-catcher, but he’s a creepy guy who’s now in jail for his role in the murder of candy heiress Helen Brach. Bailey, a con-artist who specialized in fleecing wealthy older women out of their savings, was connected to the horsey set. Racing, that is. "His favorite prey were women who were wealthy due to having been widowed, women whose thinking was not as straight as it should be because perhaps they were dying, very sick or acutely lonely," said one investigator. He’d con them out of their money by proposing they invest in horses, then skim most of the money for himself. As it happens, I have a personal note about Bailey. My former babysitter, a very attractive young woman, took a job with him and his girlfriend for three weeks and moved into their North side home. She became convinced she was being drugged, and we had to help her get away from him.

OK -- this post is getting a little long, so it’s time to quit. But don’t forget Commander Jon Burge, the former police commander who, for 20 years, tortured suspects to make them confess.

Or George Ryan, the Republican governor who, despite ending the death penalty in Illinois, was convicted of corruption and racketeering last year.

Or – going back in history – .
the famous and enterprising Everleigh sisters, whose Chicago bordello on South Dearborn at the turn of the century was possibly the most luxurious of its time and counted as their patrons politicians, writers, actors, and even royalty.


Clearly, I’ve just skimmed the surface. Who are some of the other Chicago “characters” you remember? And why do Chicago’s scoundrels and criminals seem so much larger than life than other cities? Although that just might be a subject for another blog.