Book Review: (A "heads-up:" this is a long review, but will be well worth your reading. My intent is to tell the story as it should be told. Students of alcoholism may wish to compare the behavioral clues with those in the on-line Thorburn Substance Addiction Recognition Indicator or in the new Indicator in the appendix of How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics. I'll make up for it with far shorter reviews, probably of movies, for the next three months, since I'll be very busy during tax season.)

While true-crime writer Ann Rule has written numerous biographical accounts of murder, after reading an article by her ("Killer Connection" in the October, 2004 "Reader's Digest") I wondered if she had a clue to the role that alcoholism plays in determining the course of her subjects' lives. Not once in the article, which included brief vignettes of alcoholic serial murderer Ted Bundy and "Green River" killer Gary Ridgway among others, was alcohol or other drug addiction even mentioned. Because of a recent spate of celebrity-status murder cases (Scott Peterson, music producer Phil Spector and Blake, the first of whom I strongly suspect is alcoholic and the latter two who are confirmed alcoholics), I decided to pick up one of her books. I figured she might share a deeper understanding of addiction than found in a brief article. I selected Every Breath You Take, in which she recounts in great detail the story of the brutal murder-for-hire of Sheila Blackthorne Bellush by her ex-husband, Allen Van Houte Blackthorne.

Rule suggests by her title that many killers can be obsessed and seek revenge for no apparent reason, just as B.D. Hyman felt her actress-mother Bette Davis (whose story I recount in depth in my first book, Drunks, Drugs & Debits) had a "need to win" for its own sake. While some truly evil people can be obsessed with revenge and winning at any cost, these are few and far between. The motivation of alcoholics is to wield power over others, accounting for observable power-seeking misbehaviors. The cause of this need is the action of alcohol and other psychotropic drugs on the brain of the addict, resulting in a god-like sense of self. Recovering alcoholics admit to having numerous "resentments" and "obsessions." Doubt should be resolved in favor of the probabilities: if there are observable resentments and obsessions destructive of others, alcoholism is usually the underlying cause.

Rule chronicles the convoluted life of Blackthorne, the 1997 murder of Bellush and the 2000 trial in Texas. There are numerous genetic and behavioral clues to alcoholism in Blackthorne. They begin with his obvious alcoholic father Guy Van Houte (who likely got sober before his third of four marriages) and even more obviously alcoholic mother, Karen (who probably never found sobriety). Yet Rule, from the start, displays a lack of understanding of the role that alcoholism plays in determining behaviors by failing to identify either of them as alcoholic, which is crucial to predicting that Allen was at great risk for inheriting the disease. Instead, Rule claims that Allen was the catalyst that set Karen off on violent temper tantrums, and that her life "vacillated between her indomitable spirit and Job-like bad luck," ignoring the role that alcoholism played in her violence and "bad luck" even while recounting her heavy drinking. She reports without question Allen's attribution of "his mother's behavior to the fact that she was often suicidal." Yes, alcoholics in the "down" phase of what appears to be bipolar disorder (manic-depression) often appear depressed and suicidal. How then, with this backdrop, could we expect Rule to identify less obvious alcoholism, as in the case of Allen Blackthorne, or even to ask questions that might resolve such a crucial issue?

Being the product of such a household could have turned Allen Blackthorne into a pathological liar, manipulative charmer, sexual exhibitionist and sadist. Without alcoholism, however, such misbehaviors usually dissipate over time. Yet, as an adult, Allen was a charming suitor with a maniacal temper who often committed domestic violence among his "always-insecure" women, from whom he managed to hide his numerous prior arrests. A skilled driver, he once deliberately smashed into a motorcyclist, killing him instantly, and got his wife Sheila to lie about the incident. (Alcoholics are masters at such conniving.) All along, he betrayed family and friends and was described as affecting others in hurricane-like fashion (more accurately described as "tornado-like"). He made false accusations of infidelity while cheating on his wives and talking down to them. He viewed himself as a heroic opportunist on par with James Clavell's hero in Shogun, Englishman John Blackthorne, after whom he liked to think he patterned himself, even changing his name to Allen Blackthorne. Grandiosity is common among alcoholics.

While he was a profligate spender, Allen begrudged everything his wife Sheila spent on herself and their children. He claimed to be indigent and declared bankruptcy while hiding assets. He had showy houses and sports cars, but did everything he could to avoid paying ex-wives and children anything, shoplifted for the fun of it and, while a resident of Texas, licensed his vehicles in Oregon to save a few dollars in taxes even after becoming a mega-millionaire. While a compulsive gambler with extreme sexual compulsions, including molesting one of his daughters, he falsely accused his ex-wife Sheila, whom he had tried to drown and run over and against whom he committed serial adultery, of mentally and physically abusing their daughters. Rarely paying his numerous legal bills, he inspired his fourth (and final) wife to file a false sexual harassment lawsuit against her former employer. He never seemed to sleep, especially when gambling, chain-smoking the whole time. A seeming paradox, he was a handsome, impeccably dressed millionaire who was considered eccentric and annoying, but not dangerous by neighbors. He never played by the rules, cheating even at golf. He engaged in telephonitis, keeping others on the phone for five or six hours at a time often until 3am, while maintaining at least six phone lines in retirement. He had a sense of invincibility fueled by the fact that he never experienced proper consequences for misbehaviors.


Seemingly unconnected to his horrible conduct, he would "sometimes" get into "alcohol or drugs;" at other times, he'd turn into a "pothead." Those who knew him argued over the extent of his drinking. His father Guy, who when obviously sober admitted to have drunk "a lot," felt his son never drank to excess because he would have lost control, and "he was a total control freak." Yet his uncle, Tom Oliver, "saw Allen drunk on many occasions," including once when he heard two drunks arguing at a bar while watching a basketball game, before realizing one of them was Allen. It turns out, he was arguing with a business associate. A bit later, Allen was too drunk to stand up. Rule commented that, apparently, "Allen was able to turn any excessive drinking on and off." That's called "bingeing," the style of drinking the former Soviet ruler Josef Stalin engaged in. And Stalin, who was very much in control when he needed to be, remained in power for decades.


Delighting in telling off-color jokes and tales of sexual conquests while married, we are to believe that Allen "never drank much," even while he often invited his coworkers to drinks after work. Yet, some of them wondered if he "might be high on drugs when he came to work," and another said he was "was using Demerol," an opiate. It doesn't take much alcohol in combination with other drugs to produce a euphoric "I am God" high. As part of a school program in which he employed a teenager, Allen told a teacher during a required evaluation meeting that if he were seventeen he'd be "high on Demerol" and chasing girls all day long rather than doing job training. Allen, by that time CEO of a company that sold a muscle stimulating device (RS Medical), had hired an obvious alcoholic as president, while firing his chief of finance, a man of impeccable ethics, falsely accusing him of heavy drinking. Accusing non-alcoholics of alcoholism is a common tactic, even while cavorting with other alcoholics. And, Allen was drinking heavily when he first broached the idea to one of his collaborators of having his ex-wife killed.

A clue as to why Allen may have been a periodic drunk who used other drugs can be found in the fact that he suffered liver damage from infectious hepatitis as a child, a result of his mother ignoring his needs during a period of heavy drinking. At the time, she was reported as being "with a different man every time" her half-sister saw her.

By the time the murder plot was orchestrated, it's possible that Allen Blackthorne was a dry drunk, abstinent but with a still massively inflated sense of self-importance, along with a sense of invincibility earned from long experience. The plot was, in a sense, brilliant. In its most basic form, he hired three different people with various backgrounds, but all likely addicts (the actual murderer was a cocaine addict), to carry out the murder. The killer left a trail of evidence, and the rationale concocted by Allen as to why the perpetrator would murder Sheila was so carefully constructed that most people would think a clear mind for the set-up was mandatory - but the creation of such a conspiracy is not beyond the practicing alcoholic. After the murder he told Peter Van Sant on "48 Hours" that he had nothing to do with Sheila's murder (in a similar act of journalistic enabling, Scott Peterson was given an opportunity to lie to millions of viewers). It took over two years to accumulate enough evidence to charge Allen with the murder. On the stand, he "appeared" to be on tranquilizers. One "veteran" reporter commented that, although many had expected Allen to explode on the stand while telling carefully concocted lies in his own defense, "he was so tranquilized he was right next door to a zombie." Yet, the clues to addiction - and to the pathological behaviors that were a likely consequence of that addiction - were on display for everyone to see long before, along with a certainty that tragedy, in a life of unimpeded alcoholism, would inevitably occur.

While an index and flowcharts connecting the various actors in the story would have been helpful, the book is one of the best ever at chronicling the behavior patterns of a very likely alcoholic in great detail, even though he wasn't identified as such.

Dear Doug,

I have been married for three years to an admired member of the community who appears to others to be the consummate gentleman. While the compliments and attention are unending in public, he is abusive to my five children and me in private. He yells at the kids over nothing, monitors my phone calls, hides tape recorders in my car, hacks into my email and harasses me constantly to come inside when talking with my (female) neighbors.

When I finally got him to go for counseling, he smoothly told the counselor exactly what he wanted to hear. After filing a protective order against him for assault and battery, my children and I moved out. I don't want to create trouble for him, but I tire of hearing people say that someone whom they think a saint has been unjustly accused. What should I say to them?

Signed, Harassed and Abused

. . . . . .

Dear Harassed and Abused,

Other columnists might suggest you say nothing because it's not anyone else's business and the truth will eventually surface. They would not even mention the possibility that alcoholism, which exists in 85% of cases of domestic violence, is the probable source of both verbal and physical abuse. While others might add that you could jeopardize yourself and your children if he learned you were publicizing his abuse, the truth of the matter is you are at risk regardless.

Allen Van Houte Blackthorne also was a respected member of the community. Like your husband, he put up a front that few penetrated. His former wife, Sheila Bellush, was trying to escape from his clutches when, in 1997, years after their divorce, she was brutally murdered for hire. As with Allen Blackthorne, alcohol and other drug addiction suggests there may be far worse behaviors than you have observed.

This suggests that the violence could escalate unpredictably. Everything possible needs to be done to "out" his secrets and impose consequences. In my opinion, you should consider taking extreme measures to protect you and your children.

Alcoholism and its symptomatic behaviors are everyone's business. All-too-often, the truth surfaces after tragedy has occurred. Alcoholics are the world's greatest salesmen and frequently make innocent people appear guilty. Talk to the police, dig into his past to see whether he can be held accountable for prior crimes and, while avoiding contact, record every conversation with him that you can.


(Source for story idea: Annie's Mailbox, December 18, 2004.)

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