“Justice will not be found through the legal system. … Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same.”
That comment was made by Hans Peterson on July 2, 2007, nine months after he allegedly murdered Chicago dermatologist David Cornbleet. While researching the case for The Outfit, a Web log I share with six other suspense writers, I found the remarks posted on an Internet forum for individuals who claim to have suffered side effects from Accutane, a powerful anti-acne medication.
One month after he wrote that, Peterson turned himself in to French authorities on the French-controlled side of the island of St. Martin. According to reports, he told police he murdered Cornbleet because the medication the dermatologist had prescribed five years earlier had caused him to lose all sexual sensation.
Until this week there has been remarkably little information available about Peterson. We’ve had only the most skeletal of facts — he’s a 29-year-old “professional Internet gambler” from New York.
Secrets of a life
So who is he? What is he like? How could he commit such a crime? His Internet postings start to fill in some of the answers. They provide a chilling glimpse into Peterson’s state of mind and chronicle his obsession with Accutane and the doctor who prescribed it.
Peterson registered at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum as “hansp” on May 12, 2002, just weeks after he visited Cornbleet’s office for the first time. (In his posts, Peterson never refers to himself by his full name, but from his narrative, his biography and the chronology of events it is clear that hansp is the Hans Peterson who allegedly confessed to killing Cornbleet.)
On June 16 of that year he posted his first comment.
“In late April, I went to see a dermatologist for my very mild, but persistent acne. He was an unethical old man who suggested accutane. He said that it was a very safe and popular drug with no serious side effects. I was never given a blood test. He never showed me the consent forms that he is required by law to make me sign. I was started on 80 mg per day. (I weigh around 190) He said that I could take the entire day’s dose at once. When I picked up my prescription, the pharmacist conveniently forgot to give me the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] required medication guide. When I picked up the medication, I was under the impression that accutane was an extremely safe drug.
“I took it for 2 days. Then I got a bad headache and read about the side effects. I stopped right away. I thought that I was safe having only taken a few pills. However, about 5 days later, I got really depressed and couldn’t sleep. My ears started to ring around this time, and a lot of hair around my hairline began to fall out. (The roots of these follicles were black, normally they’re white.) My appetite went away around this time as well. A couple of days after this, my libido vanished and I lost virtually all sexual sensation. … It has been over a month and a half since my very brief experience with accutane and most of these effects have not improved at all. (I sleep a little better as I am starting to get used to the ear ringing, but that is about it.)
“Am I permanently affected from taking an acne medicine for 2 days?”
More than 60 posts from Peterson follow over the next five years. They show a man becoming increasingly obsessed with the effects he believed Accutane was having on his body and mind. He attributes a series of ailments, including depression, to the medication, but the two that he claims most haunt him are a constant ringing in his ears and a loss of sexual sensation.
On Nov. 15, 2002, Peterson wrote:
“Since taking a relatively high dose of accutane for a very short period of time 7 months ago, I have been experiencing persistent sexual problems. I would describe it as a loss of libido and sexual sensation. I have lost virtually all interest in sex. When I do engage in sex or masturbation, the act is no longer pleasurable. I can get an erection and otherwise function normally. The pleasurable sensation is just gone.”
As the years passed, Peterson tried to become more familiar with both the science and any unsubstantiated claims made about Accutane. He consults with other doctors, who are not able to prove a link between his ailments and the drug he took briefly years before.
On Feb. 6, 2003, he wrote:
“I have just begun law school, and tasks like paying attention or concentrating are not as easy as they were before I took Accutane. Perhaps I can use whatever legal knowledge I gain to take my revenge. … I have nothing else to live for.”
A rationale for murder?
Accutane’s manufacturer, Roche Pharmaceuticals, says no studies have found “any cause-and-effect relationship between Accutane and psychiatric events,” and that reports of violence or aggressive behavior in patients who have taken it are “extremely rare.” Roche also says there is no evidence of a relationship between the drug and impotence.
In a few of Peterson’s posts, he seems to be formulating his rationalization for murder. Cornbleet is a villain who “deceived” him by knowingly prescribing a dangerous drug without providing any warning of the harmful effects associated with it. Peterson also suggests a possible motive for this: greed. On Oct. 9, 2002, he speculated that Cornbleet was “desperate for patients, and, if I were to go on accutane, I would have to see him every two weeks for a check up.”
These two claims would seem to be inconsistent, however. Presumably Cornbleet did not tell him that Accutane was an “extremely safe” and “popular drug with no serious side effects” that nevertheless required an intense schedule of bimonthly monitoring visits. And yet, especially compared to the standards of Internet discussion forums, Peterson’s writing is frequently clear and concise. After a period of frequent activity in the spring and summer of 2004, Peterson disappeared from the forum for two years, returning Sept. 20, 2006, just four weeks before he would travel from New York to Chicago. On that day he posted two links — one to a depression study reported on the BBC Web site and another to a video on YouTube. On Oct. 10, he posted the complete text of an article about dopamine.
On Feb. 4, 2007, more than three months after Cornbleet’s murder, an individual with a strikingly similar biographical profile to Peterson who called himself “hans_rp” signed in to another Internet forum, this one a support group for individuals with certain brain development disorders. He claimed to be undiagnosed but compiled a long and revealing list of characteristics he observed in himself — socially awkward, excessively logical and unemotional, above-average intelligence, disorganized, unhygienic, obsessive, unable to maintain a relationship “despite my above-average physical attractiveness.”
Three days later, he returned to the Accutane forum:
“I was deceived by my doctor almost 5 years ago into taking this drug (no consent form, no med guide, no warnings whatsoever). I took a rather high dose for two days. TWO DAYS!!! (albeit an 80 mg undivided dose) Life altering, presumably neurological, problems which I never experienced before have plagued me ever since.
“I will never know again what it is like to pleasure a woman because I no longer have any sexual sensation — I will never again experience what silence is due to the constant ringing in my ears — I will never know who I would have become because of what this [expletive] drug has done to my mind. A drug which I should have never been prescribed. “
He posted four more times before he turned himself in to St. Martin police in August. On July 2, his second-to-last post, he wrote:
“Justice will not be found through the legal system. There is no way to objectively verify Accutane-induced permanent neurological problems. Even if there were, it would be near impossible to legally prove causation. Even then, statutes of limitation would have run. … If and when the [expletive] does hit the fan they will just point out how strenuously they claimed their ignorance about permanent problems.
“Would legal justice even be justice, anyway? The people who have profitted from Roche’s deception won’t be personally brought to justice — they will be shielded from personal liability …
“There is no foreseeable retributive action in the legal system which would make their fraud regarding Accutane a mistake. … Their decisions were economically rational and they know it. Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same.
“If you seek real justice, it will not come through the legal system — they know this, that’s why they continue to deceive and play ignorant. It is the financially rational thing to do. …”
Whether the side effects Hans Peterson claimed to experience were real or perceived, or whether they were attributable to some drug he had briefly taken years before, the picture that emerges seems to be one in which Peterson was suffering from some form of mental illness and Accutane became the focus of his obsession.
And in the months following the murder, even Peterson seemed to be asking himself the same question I did when I first became interested in this case. What kind of person could commit such a horrible crime?
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Kevin Guilfoile is the author of the novel “Cast of Shadows.”
