Hide Article Text (OCR)
Duane Samples: Vietnam victim or plagued by sexual sadism?SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Duane Samples majored in psychology at Stanford University, was voted president of his fraternity, boxed as an amateur and skied on weekends. That was in 1964.Samples now jogs on a prison track and studies psychology from a cell at the Oregon State Penitentiary where he is serving a life sentence for murder.Between the campus in California and the prison in Oregon, there was Vietnam.Samples says the trauma of a year in combat shaded his life after he came home in April 1967. The decorated veteran drifted through jobs and drugs. Then, in 1975, he acted out what psychologists termed a lurid sexual fantasy by slashing two women with a 10-inch knife. One died.“I know I wouldn’t be here if not for Vietnam, Samples, 39, said in a prison interview. “No one can claim Vietnam takes away their responsibility for what they did, but there were some things in me not strong enough. I reacted poorly to that experience.Samples is now the center of a moral and political tug-of-war involving the Oregon governor, psychiatrists, the woman who survived Samples’ attack, the local district attorney and the inmate’s friends and family.People on one side claim Samples is a rehabilitated man and no longer a threat to society. They attribute the killing to post-Vietnam delayed stress syndrome and say five years of behind-bars private therapy cured Samples.The other side discounts the Vietnam theory and says Samples’ problems date back to adolescence. Diane Ross, the woman who survived, told Gov. Vic Atiyeh she would fear for her life if Samples were released.Atiyeh refused a 1979 request for executive clemency but last year commuted Samples’ sentence to 20 years after learning about the impact of Vietnam on his life.The decision provoked an outcry by Marion County District Attorney Chris Van Dyke and residents of Silverton, the small town near Salem where the murder occurred.On Sept. 3, Atiyeh rescinded the commutation. He said he based his reversal on recent negative psychiatric opinions about Samples’ rehabilitation and additional evidence — including a previously undisclosed report that Samples allegedly beat up a woman in 1971.However, Atiyeh restated his assessment that prior to Vietnam, Samples “was a scholar athlete ... and seemed destined for a successsful life. Yet he returned from the VietDUANE SAMPLESnam war a wholly different person and ultimately committed a vicious murder. He then became a model prisoner and by all appearances returned to his pre-Vietnam personality.But Van Dyke says statements Samples made after the murder referred to pre-Vietnam problems, including shooting himself in the stomach when he was 13. Van Dyke has termed Samples a sexual sadist and says the self-inflicted wound reflects abnormal sexual fantasies.Experts who examined Samples after the murder were divided about whether the shooting was an accident and whether Samples had serious troubles before he went to Vietnam.a m m •Van Dyke has also produced a never-mailed letter Samples wrote to a former girlfriend in May 1970. In it, he outlined a fantasy about slashing stomachs and disemboweling women, acts that resembled the eventual stabbing.The district attorney claims Samples is an intelligent opportunist trying to capitalize on his combat to win commutation. He notes that Samples never raised the Vietnam defense until several years into his imprisonment.But the veteran’s lawyer, Michael Bailey, said: “Duane Samples never attempted to use post-Vietnam delayed stress syndrome to gain sympathy or as an excuse” and, indeed, became aware of it only afteryears of therapy.When Samples and other veteransreturned from Vietnam, Bailey said,“the nation rejected them and accepted no responsibility for their pain and alienation. Duane Samplesstruggled alone with his anguish and it led him to a brutal and dastardlycrime.Bailey says he expects to challenge Atiyeh’s commutation reversal in the Oregon Supreme Court.Samples’ commutation file includes letters from friends who remembered him as a “normal Stanford student. One letter refers to ski trips with classmates, among them Max Baucus, now a U.S. senator from Montana. Baucus wrote in support of Samples, as did Dr. John Wilson of Cleveland State University, who pioneered much of the work on delayed stress and Vietnam veterans.Samples said that after returning from Vietnam he traveled in Europe, held jobs in Oregon and California and helped set up a clinic in Salem to counsel troubled youths.He said he avoided people he knew before Vietnam who had established successful careers. He said he considered suicide and got to the point where he was sticking sharp objects into his abdomen. He said he finally decided he would have to force someone to kill him.He wrote a note he says was meant to be found after his death, saying he had forced Fran Steffans, a casual acquaintance from Silverton, to kill him. Instead, the 22-year-old woman became his victim.Samples pleaded guilty. Today he says he deserved punishment but that he has been rehabilitated. He says he would like a chance to make up to society for his crime.“I’m not going to stop or give up on myself, Samples said. “I know it’s humanly possible to spend the rest of my life here and remain productive. I hope that won’t be the case.
Newspaper Details
Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla, Washington, US
Fri, Sep 11, 1981
Page 12
Full Page
Clipped by
Josh F.
GB 22 Mar 2022
Other Publications Near Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla Washington Statesman
Walla Walla Statesman
Walla Walla Evening Statesman
