From: cary@jove.Colorado.EDU (John R. Cary)
Newsgroups: soc.men,alt.dads-rights
Subject: Dr. Lenore Walker and men controlling women's minds
Date: 12 Apr 92 16:59:03 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado

Subject: Dr. Lenore Walker and men controlling women's minds

Some time ago there was a post to this group asking for information
on Dr. Lenore Walker.  I had responded to the poster by e-mail on
how Dr. Walker had appeared in a recent trial here in Colorado.
I was reluctant to say more at the time, as I had already thrown
away those portions of the newspaper, and so I was unable to refer
to them.  Recently another newspaper article appeared, so I can
now provide quotes from the article in the Rocky Mountain News of
Sunday, April 12, 1992 on page 8.

Let me first give a bit of history.  Dr. Walker was called as a witness
for the defense in a bizarre murder case.  Jennifer Reali and Brian Hood
were apparently lovers.  Brian Hood's wife,
Dianne, was shot by Jennifer Reali in Brian Hood's presence.  Brian Hood
was convicted first as a co-conspirator to the murder.  Then came 
Jennifer Reali's trial - during the last week of March, I believe.

Jennifer Reali had confessed to the murder (after first giving many
contradictory statements).  The defense decided to argue that Jennifer 
Reali's mind was controlled by first her husband and then her lover.
This is where Dr. Walker came in - as a hired gun, it seemed from the
newspaper accounts - to testify to the control of Jennifer by the men in
her life.

What I recall from the newspaper accounts was that Dr. Walker was zealous 
in proving her theories of mind control of women by men to the point where
she ended up being caught in many contradictions on cross examination.  In
contrast, Jennifer Reali's husband, who testified on their relationship,
came across as straightforward and believable.  He refuted Dr. Walker's
statements that he, through sexual and other forms of abuse, had warped
the mind of Jennifer Reali.

The jury ultimately rejected the statements of Dr. Walker in convicting
Jennifer Reali of first-degree murder.  The newspaper article of April
12 is on the trial aftermath, and it is primarily about Dr. Walker's
fears that Reali will turn suicidal.

So finally, let me give you a few quotes from the paper so that you can
get some idea of the character of Dr. Lenore Walker.

"On four pivotal days at the end of Reali's sensational trial, Walker
testified that the 29-year-old defendant was sexually and physically
abused by her ex-husband, Benjamin, then brainwashed by her lover, Brian
Hood. ...

"But in the end, the six-man, six-woman panel found Reali guilty of
first-degree murder in the September, 1990 shooting of Hood's wife,
Dianne.

"'It is very difficult to teach psychological constructs to both lay
people in the jury and to the press,' Walker said wearily.

"In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Walker also made the
startling admission that, despite her central role in the defense
strategy, she never believed Reali should be acquitted.

"Speaking from Portland, Ore., where she is testifying in another trial,
Walker said of the Reali verdict:'My own preference would have been
second-degree murder.'

"Though Reali had already confessed to the shooting, she pleaded not guilty
by reason of mental impairment, a plea supposedly bolstered by Walker's
diagnosis of 'battered women syndrome' - which she reached after nearly
15 hours of evaluating Reali.

"But Walker said finding Reali not guilty would have meant sending her to
the state hospital in Pueblo - where doctors are 'hostile' to her claims
of abuse and brainwashing.

"'If the jury had sent her down there ... (RM News ellipsis) she would have
gotten very, very ineffective treatment,' Walker said. 'I haven't seen any
patient get well from the state hospital.'

"Dr. Elissa Ball, the state hospital's chief of psychiatry, testified 
against Reali as the prosecution's final witness.  Called specifically
to rebut Walker, Ball suggested strongly that Reali was lying about
past psychiatric problems because of present legal woes."

The article then proceeds with Lenore Walker essentially saying that the
chief of psychiatry, Elissa Ball, "should know better," and then
Ball commenting on Walker's statements: "That's absurd. ... That
strikes me as unprofessional of her."  Ball then goes on to note
that Walker has had no exposure to the state hospital for many years.

The article closes with more statements by Walker:

"Besides Ball, Walker also heaped scorn on Reali's prosecutors and the press.
Both, she said, greeted her appearance on the witness stand with
skepticism.

"Walker went so far as to compare prosecutors Bill Aspinwall and Robert
Harward to Reali's convicted co-conspirator in the murder, Brian Hood.

"'They were as guilty of using and abusing this woman as were her
husband and boyfriend,' Walker said."


The article indicates that Dr. Walker is now testifying in a case in
Oregon, so perhaps participants there could tell us what this case is
about.

The vibes I pick up are that Dr. Walker is misanthropic (in the narrow
sense, i.e., only males of the species) and willing to say anything
to further her theories of the evil of men manifest by their acts
of abuse of and mind control of women.  This I picked up from her
contradictory statements made on the witness stand to further her theories.
(Unfortunately I cannot provide direct quotes, without going to
the library for back issues.)  Then, when Dr. Walkers's theories
are rejected by 12 citizens, she says they are difficult to teach,
and that those (the prosecutors) who presented the prevailing view
are women abusers.

But what I believe is worse is that she is so willing to insult women
as to testify that their minds are so easily controlled by men.  She
should give women more credit.  Neither the evil they do nor the good
is a result of mind control by men.

If anyone else has information on this, it would be good to post.

-- 
John R. Cary                                  cary@boulder.colorado.edu