Finally free

Rodney Yoder is a "psychiatric prisoner" no longer. After nearly 15 years of fighting for his freedom by raging against what he calls "forced psychiatry," Yoder was released on bond last week from the Randolph County Jail in Chester, Ill.

And it looks like, barring violent relapses, his freedom is final.

Yoder gained national media attention three years ago when he argued in court that psychiatry was a myth in an attempt to get his release from a mental institution for the criminally insane, where he had been involuntarily held 12 years.

"They almost got away with it," Yoder said. "I was facing extinction in there. When I arrived in Chester 14 years ago, they told me I wasn't getting out of there alive."

Yoder, 46, spent last week doing more mundane things like getting a haircut, learning to use a cell phone, eating at restaurants and studying for his driver's license. On Saturday, he looked at used minivans in St. Louis.

Yoder, who is staying with a friend in Glen Carbon, Ill., has also been bombarded with television and print media requests. A film crew working on a documentary about his plight also has been following him around.

"It's kind of overwhelming," Yoder said. "I've hardly had a second free."

Still, these are no doubt the best of times for Yoder. They're probably the best few days he's seen since the late 1980s.

In 1991, Yoder was committed to the Chester Mental Health Center, the state's only maximum-security hospital, after serving time in prison on a battery conviction for hitting his ex-wife in the head with a table leg, causing her to receive seven stitches.

His treatment-plan reviews from the facility show that Yoder has above-average intelligence, strong competitive drive, but also claimed he was combative and paranoid.

Doctors diagnosed him with delusional disorder and paranoid personality disorder, saying he was a danger to himself and others.

Prison officials argued for his admission to Chester rather than release due to what they said were violent outbursts. While in prison, Yoder also wrote to judges and other high-profile people -- one was Playboy founder Hugh Hefner -- threatening to kill them.

Yoder said he was simply trying to get put back into the criminal system and away from the psychiatric system.

Yoder was held in Chester for years as doctors and the state made the same argument at each commitment hearing. Each time, juries were convinced.

Meanwhile, Yoder learned about the anti-psychiatry movement, shaping an opinion based on countless hours reading books by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Otto Kernberg in the facility's library.

While he thought these writers had something to say about the human condition, he thought it wasn't right to forcefully incarcerate someone based on something as hard to prove as mental illness.

"They even said that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane to stand trial," Yoder said. "It's nonsense, arbitrary nonsense. They can use that label -- mental illness -- any way it suits them."

Then, in 2002, Yoder got national attention, including a Time magazine article, an ABC News report and several stories on National Public Radio, when he argued that he should be released from Chester because there was no such thing as mental illness.

Gaining support from the likes of Patch Adams -- the medical doctor and health-care activist who had a movie made about him starring Robin Williams -- and Church of Scientology followers, Yoder turned his commitment hearing that year into a proceeding that some said put psychiatry on trial.

But again a jury agreed that Yoder should not be released. All the while, Yoder refused psychiatric treatment.

Then in 2003, state mental health officials decided to release Yoder. They said he now had bipolar disorder, but that that wasn't enough to hold him.

"They said I went from mad to moody," Yoder quipped.

Randolph County State's Attorney Michael Burke reacted by charging Yoder with attempted murder and aggravated battery for an alleged attack on a fellow inmate at Chester. Yoder said a conviction could have meant a prison term of 30 years.

Yoder spent the last 19 months in the Randolph County Jail, seemingly unable to get beyond the borders of Chester. While incarcerated, he said, he wrote 1,000 letters urging business owners and residents to not vote for Burke in the recent election.

Burke lost.

Then newly elected State's Attorney Randy Rodewald told a Chester judge on Tuesday that he doubted he could successfully prosecute Yoder and didn't fight bail. Phone calls to Rodewald were not returned Friday.

Circuit Judge Dennis Doyle set bail at $10,000, and Susan Kniffel, a friend of Yoder's from Glen Carbon, posted the required $1,000 to secure his release. Yoder believes Rodewald will drop the charges against him. There is another hearing later this month.

Yoder's attorney, Scientologist Randy Kretchmar of Chicago, said all the credit for his release on bail after 15 years should go to Yoder.

"He has survived with his intelligence and even a sense of humor in the face of horrendous and interminable dehumanization," Kretchmar said. "Now Rodney will shortly take over direct responsibility himself."

Not everyone is convinced that Yoder has put his aggressive tendencies behind him. Around the same time of his 2002 commitment hearing, Yoder married Millie Strom, a Canadian woman who at the time agreed that Yoder was being persecuted.

Strom is the ex-wife of blues legend John Lee Hooker. She divorced Yoder last year.

In an e-mail to the newspaper last week, Strom said she still is afraid of Yoder. She said he persisted in contacting her after the divorce. She said he wanted her to sign onto a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the government. She said he told her there would be "consequences" if she didn't.

Furthermore, Strom believes Yoder is responsible for his own situation.

"Yoder, however, always possessed the ticket to freedom," she said. "A little six-letter word: BEHAVE."

Losing his freedom was not enough to change Yoder's misbehavior in the past, she said. Now he has other things to lose if he gets into more trouble with the law, including his civil lawsuit and his attempts to court Hollywood with his "victimhood story," she said.

"It's good he has these external restraints because he has a sordid history of lack of self-restraint," she said.

But for others, Yoder's story is about problems with psychiatry. Dr. Thomas Szasz is one of the most controversial figures in psychiatry today. He has been a psychiatry professor at the State University of New York in Syracuse for nearly 46 years and has become one of Yoder's biggest defenders. Szasz's most famous book is called "The Myth of Mental Illness."

"This is not just about Rodney," Szasz said. "There are hundreds of thousands of more like him. But I'm happy he's free. Just like I'd be happy if someone escaped Auschwitz."

Yoder only wants to look ahead. He admitted he plans to sue the government for $100 million. He does want to write a book and continue to tell his story. He says he'll keep talking as long as people are being labeled "mentally ill" and being held against their will in psychiatric hospitals. He says he has no intention of hurting anyone.

Friday afternoon, Yoder was in good spirits after taking his driver's test.

"Aced it," he said matter-of-factly.

He found a 1991 Plymouth minivan on Saturday and haggled with the dealer to knock $200 off the price so it wouldn't exceed his limit of $2,000. Today, he hopes to drop Kniffel at the airport, meet with some more press types and then take a road trip.

He got wind that the judge would modify his bond so he can go to Florida, where another friend has promised to put him up. Under his current bond, he's not allowed to leave Illinois.

"Everything's perfect," he said. "Finally."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137