Dr. Blackman’s Estate – The History

Kingwood Asylum

Throughout the next year, Dr. Blackman became more obsessed with attempting to cure severe mental illness rather than delivering traditional management therapies. He began to run out of time because he too was starting to show signs mild Schizophrenia. Like his mother, he was developing the disorder later than most, but the downward-spiriling exceleration of the disorder was onsetting faster than usual and expected. With his back against the wall, curing this disorder proved to be more important than his original concept of quality patient care. He began conducting radical experiments with a multitude of questionable treatments including:

* Excessive Biomedical Treatment (this involves using almost lethal doses of standalone or coupled medications)
* Extreme Chemical Therapies (uses drugs and/or chemicals that produces unpleasant effects, such as nausea, when combined with the undesirable behavior)
* Electroconvulsive (ECT) and Aversion Therapies (which use variable doses of electricity for a wavering of responses)
* Solitude and/or Isolation Treatments (placing patients in padded rooms, cells, and confinement chambers with various types of restrainment devices)
* Psychological Operations or PSYOPS (this is one of many communication techniques sometimes involving a loudspeaker to influence a patients value and/or belief systems, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior – this technique was commonly used in concentration/POW camps during WWI and WWII)
* Acute/Direct Exposure Therapy or “Flooding” (Forcing a patient to deal with their irrational phobias prematurely without the use of “systematic desensitization”)
* Psychosurgeries (which was performed on a person’s brain to treat severe cases of mental illness)

The three most common surgery techniques he preformed were:
– Prefrontal Leucotomies – (this involved drilling holes in the skull in order to access the brain. Once visible, he would sever the nerves using a pencil-sized tool called a leucotome)
– Prefrontal Lobotomies – (surgical procedure severing the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain)
– Transorbital Lobotomies – (A sharp chisel-like object would be inserted through the eye socket between the upper lid and eye. When the doctor thought he was at about the right spot, he would hit the end of the instrument with a hammer)

Never the less, patients were often offered extremely inaccurate treatments resulting in fatality or outstanding injuries rather than any type of improvement. Some say, to hide these mistakes, Dr. Blackman had the bodies buried adjacent to the home, or placed in 55-gallon drums to be sunk in the nearby reservoir.

In December of 1959, two teenage boys from Humble (Raymond Scroggins and Thane Hutchinson) were deer hunting up near the ridge on the west side of the reservoir (Hunter’s Ridge as the locals called it). When the two boys fired their rifle, it startled and greatly upset one of the patients that was trimming trees with a chainsaw on the easement near the home. Needless to say, both of the boys came up missing. After a 3-week investigation, the local police still had nothing to offer in the case. The following year, there was a break in the case, when another man from the local area came forward and told a story about hunting in the same area and losing his dog to a crazed man with a chainsaw. This ultimately led for reinvestigation of Dr. Blackman’s home.

After a thorough police investigation of the doctor, the retreat home, surgical tools and equipment, unauthorized and illegal chemicals, medical devices and drugs were found; yet no bodies or patients. It became very evident to professionals what the doctor had been doing in the middle of nowhere just 23-miles north of the world-renowned medical center in Houston but there was no actual proof.

The University reprimanded Dr. Blackman for Practicing Medicine in an unauthorized location, he was charged with possession of questionable chemicals and drugs and the use of unethical medical practices. At the time, none of these crimes were considered criminal, although the university asked for his resignation, and the State of Texas revoked his license to practice medicine.

10-years later, during the development of Kingwood, the thought-to-be-abandoned home was left standing by the development company. Presently, the vast majority of the Kingwood community has been built around the home. It is said that the doctor still practices medicine without a license at the Kingwood Asylum, but no evidence has ever been found.