Netflix has shared the trailer for its upcoming true crime documentary series, Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan.
Directed by Olivier Megaton, Monsters Inside explores the first-of-its-kind case of Billy Milligan, who was arrested in 1977 for three rapes on the Ohio State University campus. The trial piqued the interest of the nation as he was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and his lawyers pled insanity, claiming that two out of his 24 personalities committed the crimes without Mulligan knowing:
In 1977, a serial rapist struck Ohio State University. Overwhelming evidence quickly led investigators to Billy Milligan, an aimless young man with a traumatic childhood and a criminal record. Yet upon his arrest, Billy had no memory of the assaults, and his mannerisms seemed to change on the spot. A parade of psychiatrists diagnosed him with multiple personality disorder (now known as dissociative identity disorder), eventually determining that as many as 24 distinct “multiples” existed within his mind. In a case that captivated the nation, their analysis anchored a first-of-its-kind legal defense strategy, and Billy was found innocent by reason of insanity. His trials, however, were far from over.
Director Olivier Megaton (Taken 2) brings his feature film sensibility to this gripping investigative series, setting up cinematic interviews with the Milligan family, as well as friends, doctors, and the law enforcement professionals who’ve tried to untangle the truth. Over 40 years since the landmark verdict, nearly everyone is still asking questions: Were Billy’s multiple personalities indeed controlling his actions, or were they a convenient cover for a brilliant narcissistic sociopath? To what extent should charismatic criminals benefit from their notoriety? And were Billy’s most violent crimes still to come?
Mulligan was acquitted and spent a decade in mental hospitals and was released in 1988, then discharged from the Ohio mental health system and Ohio courts in 1991. He lived in California as of 1996 and was supposedly making a short film, and his location after that was unknown until his death in a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio in 2014.
Watch the full trailer above. Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan premieres September 22.
Elsewhere in entertainment, watch the first official trailer of Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
