Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Help Me’: Pennsylvania Man Allegedly Stabbed, Tortured, and Killed Mother-In-Law

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Starting point is 00:01:48 When officers arrived, they found this man, William Gautier standing outside of his house. His wife and children were standing behind him. Gattier's wife, according to police, mailed the word. help me and said her mother needed help. Police say Gautier became violent with the officers, spit on them, and broke a squad car window. Once inside the home, police say Baez's body was hidden under clothes. There was duct tape around her eyes and she'd been stabbed in the back. Her Achilles tendon was also severed. The wife told police she awoke earlier that morning to the sound of her mother and husband screaming. She said she was told to go outside with the children and that her husband was in the home fixing things with chlorox. Dr. Chloe Carmichael is here with me.

Starting point is 00:02:35 She's a clinical psychologist and also the author of the book, Nervous Energy, harness the power of your anxiety. Dr. Carmichael, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Carmichael, there are a lot of questions that I have about this case. The first being how the wife of William Gautier. Her mother is inside the house with her husband, who she described as going ballistic. And then she goes outside for several hours as things are unfolding in the home. Can you explain to me your analysis of that? I know you haven't examined the wife, but you certainly know things about trauma and things like that. Right. As you said, obviously, I've never examined her. So all I can do is speculate from afar. But I also noticed

Starting point is 00:03:23 in the report that apparently he had told her the night before that he had a plan to kill the mother and to take all of the money. So I was a little puzzled as to why she wouldn't take any kind of action when a threat was made upon the life of her mother. And then when the assault began that she gathered her children apparently according to the reporting and went outside and I believe waited what was the word that was used. I'm not sure who called the police, But it doesn't sound like she went outside with the children, began screaming and trying to get help. So there's a passivity in her role that I think some people might try to attribute to saying, well, perhaps she was a battered woman herself.

Starting point is 00:04:12 And this led to a passivity on her part. But there's actually a lot of conversation in the psychology community around whether that's actually an empowering attitude to take towards victims to suggest that she, for whatever circumstances wouldn't have been able to summon the, you know, personal assertiveness to be able to stand up and, you know, call her call for help if she was able to gather her children and get out of the home. Why wouldn't she go a step further and try to get help for her mother? I don't know. It's a confusing situation. It's very confusing to me. And, you know, the wife is telling police that the husband is basically losing it. I don't know if they suspect maybe that drugs are involved here. Obviously, maybe some mental health issues. But he's

Starting point is 00:05:02 accused of torturing his mother-in-law. I mean, her Achilles tendon was cut. There was duct tape around her eyes. You know, there was salt poured all over her body. She was found underneath piles of clothes. She had been repeatedly stabbed in the back with scissors. The details of this case are absolutely horrifying. I agree. And moreover, he then apparently was there, you know, with Clorox trying to, quote, fix it, which, you know, to me as a psychologist, again, really suggests that he had actually a quite strong awareness of the difference between right and wrong, that that he had an awareness that this was something on some level that he would even attempt to, quote, cover up. Moreover, again, the night before he indicated,

Starting point is 00:05:51 not only a plan, so he has the ability to form a coherent future-oriented thought, but he also indicated a reason, which was to take all of the money, according, again, just two reports. So I think that you can throw the mental health defense around just about anywhere and attribute almost anything to a mental health problem, but again, I actually think that does a disservice to people who have mental health disorders to suggest that having a mental health disorder necessarily equates to this type of behavior, a mentally ill person can also be a really bad person who's quite capable of committing horrible crimes that don't necessarily have anything to do with

Starting point is 00:06:32 a mental illness. So I'm pretty, as you said, disgusted and horrified. And I'm definitely as a psychologist noticing the elements of forethought, motivation, attempt to cover up, all of which suggests a certain level of mental coherency. That's how I often think about it. If you're so mentally ill that you don't know right from wrong, you're probably just going to be like, yeah, I did this and you know, you're just not going to be taking steps to clean it up. I could be wrong about that, but that's kind of how it seems in cases I've covered in the past. One of the things that's so stunning to me, I kind of wonder if the wife was in just sheer terror. The wife and the children are outside. They're kind of just standing there. The wife, though, has the ability to say,

Starting point is 00:07:20 help me or mouth the words help me as the police are there and so she's signaling to them that certainly something is terribly wrong so she she had that ability to do that does that say to you the fact that she's not just saying oh my god help me my husband is losing his mind and going crazy does it show you or tell you that maybe she is so fearful of him that she has to actually mouth the words, help me? Well, that's when he was standing there in her presence, right? So I don't understand if she's able to put her mouth to form the words, help me. Why couldn't she have formed her mouth to say, help me, my mother's inside being murdered when her husband was nowhere near her? Again, I can understand a level of fear if your abuser is a couple of feet away from you. And I can

Starting point is 00:08:19 understand a level of fear at various ongoing points in time, but as to why she was unable or unwilling to overcome that fear and get help, whether again it be the night before when he said that he was going to murder her mother and get money for them or when she was standing outside waiting, again, she had the ability to gather her children and to get out of the house. I don't know if they were in a remote area, but I'm just a little bit perplexed by the lack of help-seeking behaviors as pertains to her mother. It's very confounding. And I don't quite understand it, you know, especially my mother's in the home. You know, yep, correct. So I'm glad that I'm not the only one having these feelings. And I certainly don't want to victim blame because

Starting point is 00:09:11 she is a victim, but we don't, we don't know all of the facts. We do know, as the police officers from the affidavit in this case, as they tried to speak to William's wife, the daughter of Lordess, the victim in this case, that he became violent with the police officers, which is always stunning to me when people do that because police usually show up. They've got the uniform on. They've got the gun. They've got the taser. They've got the flashlight, whatever. And usually they take a pretty, you know, a stance that's pretty intimidating or can be used to convey authority, a sense of authority. What does that tell you? Well, as you said, thank you for pointing out, of course, Lourdes is the ultimate victim here. She is the person who was murdered and who lost

Starting point is 00:09:58 her life in such a horrific way. As for the perpetrator's behavior towards the police, you know, certainly it can suggest a grandiosity, right, that on some level he felt that he didn't even need to submit to the authorities in that particular situation, whether he really believed he was actually going to escape or whether he just wanted to be able to make it as difficult and assert his own power as much as he could. It can also be a way of just acting out a level of anger and frustration of realizing, of course, this plan wasn't going to work and now I'm going to be taken away and put in jail, just feeling angry and acting out upon the people who are doing that to him. Obviously, we know he has a propensity and a capacity for violence. So on a certain

Starting point is 00:10:49 level, I'm actually not that surprised to see that he would act out in that way. Well, William Gattir is in the York County prison. He is charged with murder and other crimes. We will be keeping an eye on this because I think there are still a lot of questions to be answered. It's incredibly disturbing and Lordus Ramos, Baez, the victim in this case, died a horrific death. It's absolutely, absolutely disturbing and we will continue to follow the case. Dr. Chloe Carmichael, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel.

Starting point is 00:11:33 I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time.

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Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Help Me’: Pennsylvania Man Allegedly Stabbed, Tortured, and Killed Mother-In-Law

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