Chapter 4

HYPNOSIS

Witness   Steve  Rine,   an  employee   of  Ohio’s Environmental  Protection  Agency  testified  that between 5 and 6:30 p.m., he saw a gray-haired man, whom  he identified  as  Johnston,  get out  of an orange-colored  sports-like  car   on  West  Front Street, grab  the teenagers and tell  them to “get in the goddamn car.”

Previously, his testimony had  been the subject of      a   marathon   session    between   the   defense,      prosecution   and  judges—to   determine  whether      audio taped   statements,   made   by   Rine  under hypnosis, would be admissible as evidence. Present  for the  defense during  the closed-door session  was  Dr.   Bruce  Goldsmith,  a  Columbus clinical psychologist. “Its potential benefits are phenomenal,” Goldsmith said, adding there has been      evidence  showing   the  technique  can   alter  a      person’s   perception  of   events.  Although  its primary  benefit has  been in  the area  of memory recall, hypnotized people have  been shown to lie, imagine things or arrive at false conclusions.

Johnston’s  attorney accused  Rine of  lying about what  he saw  and giving  false statements  to the police. He  contended Rine wasn’t  able to provide specific  statements  because  he  wasn’t  able to describe  the person  who got  out of  the car  or whether the  vehicle was a  car, van or  truck. In fact, Tyack  said, Rine wasn’t even  sure what day this all happened on.

Rine insisted he could distinguish between what he had remembered  before and what  he had remembered after hypnosis.  Mong instructed Rine  to restrict his answers  only to what he  remembered before he was hypnotized by the police.

It was  only after he  passed the car,  Rine said, that he identified the teenagers inside as Annette Cooper  Johnston and  Todd Schultz,  adding he saw Annette get into the car.

Rine  said  his girlfriend—a distant relative of Todd’s, had introduced him to Todd and Annette a week before.  He  also  said  he recognized  the gray-haired  man as  Dale Johnston because a  photograph of him  had appeared in  the newspaper after the torsos had been found.

The witness described the second person in the car as having blonde hair and  a fleshy face, and said a third  person was possibly also  in the car with Johnston.

Cross-examination   established   Rine’s  previous      testimony   was  of   events  recalled   prior  to hypnosis. The  court said he could  now testify to events recalled resulting from hypnosis.

Tyack  strongly inquired:  “At that  time you were unable to give a description of the person who got out of the car.”

Rine  replied,   “I  believe  I   gave  a  general description.”

“Haven’t  you  described  an  individual with long brown hair and a  mustache...as getting out of the car?” Tyack asked.

After continued defense questioning, Rine admitted that he said the brown-haired man “possibly” could have been outside the car.  When asked to be shown the  word  “possibly”  in  his  statement  to  the police, Rine  said the word had  been crossed out. “I said  ‘I believe the one  outside had shoulder-length  hair.’”  Under  further  questioning  Rine admitted, at  the time he wrote  the statement, he believed it to be true.

When  asked whether  he had  lied to  the deputies questioning him,  Rine replied, “I  guess you can take it like that.”

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