Indian Givers

Morgan insisted that no one from his agency would have authorized the kind of review of patient files that Zuerlein conducted. He did recall having met with the ASU researchers in 1990 to discuss the diabetes project, but said he never heard anything about schizophrenia research.

In January 1991, months after the first blood draws and the late-night file runs by Zuerlein, the ASU human-subjects board finally approved Markow's study proposal.

It was titled "Schizophrenia: A Genetic Model," and was supposed to last three years.

Two months later, the board approved two more Markow projects involving the tribe: "Diabetes in Havasupai" and "Stress Following the Havasu Flood."

John Martin expressed excitement about the so-called "Diabetes Project" in an April 19, 1991, letter to then-tribal chairman Don Watahomigie: "[U.S. Senator John] McCain's office has also learned of this," he wrote, "and he would like to make the ASU/Havasupai project a legislative priority if he can get some PR out of [it]."

Chris Armstrong had an epiphany in the spring of 1989, while attending ASU as a graduate student in molecular genetics.

Armstrong's mother recently had died at the age of 52 after suffering from schizophrenia for years. He says he saw a woman having a psychotic episode on a street corner in Tempe, and flashed on his mother.

After he rendered assistance, Armstrong says he wept in his car, and decided on the spot to change his course of doctoral study to mental illness and genetics.

Some months later, Armstrong's faculty adviser steered him to Teri Markow, who was talking up an upcoming project involving schizophrenia in an Indian tribe.

Says Armstrong, who now works at an epidemiology lab in St. Paul, Minnesota, "She opened up to me about John Martin living with [the Havasupai] and how she was going to work on diabetes and schizophrenia in the tribe. She said Martin had told her that everyone down [in Supai] is crazy, and that she had consent to study schizophrenia. It was a perfect situation for me."

In September 1991, Markow submitted a grant proposal on behalf of Armstrong with the federal Department of Health and Human Services. It listed two research goals, both schizophrenia-related.

Markow wrote in her application of working "closely with the Indian Health Service in dealing with genetics of various disorders in the Havasupai and other Native Americans."

She noted that her research materials would be blood, surveys and "Indian Health Service clinic data" -- she may have been speaking of Dr. Zuerlein's file raids.

Markow also wrote that she and Armstrong wanted to study schizophrenia "in a population with a high incidence of psychosis."

Of Armstrong, Markow wrote, "He takes the initiative on all fronts . . . he has a good sense of what the interesting problems are in science and how to approach them."

Armstrong also was to be responsible for processing the Havasupai blood at the ASU lab. That included growing "cell lines" for eventual extraction of DNA from that blood.

The cell lines, white blood cells, actually, are a source of DNA, and can grow and replicate in laboratory settings outside of a living organism.

Armstrong says he needed specific information on tribal members diagnosed with schizophrenia for his research to work. But he never got enough data to complete what he'd originally envisioned.

Instead, he later used the tribal blood to tackle a more general study of the disease.

Armstrong went to Supai in the summer of 1991, his sole visit to the village. He says Markow instructed him not to say anything about schizophrenia to tribal members on his trip. That bothered him at the time, but he'd gone along with his mentor.

By then, ASU graduate student Dan Benyshek was collecting blood in Supai for the ongoing project. Some tribal members were donating for the second time, others for the first time.

Records indicate that Benyshek collected blood from about 200 Havasupai in Supai from 1991 to 1994. He took so much blood that tribal members dubbed him "Dracula."

Benyshek told attorney Hart that, at the suggestion of tribal members, he'd never asked anyone in Supai to sign a written consent form before giving blood.

To the contrary, Markow said she'd collected dozens of signed consent forms from Benyshek. But when asked to produce the documents, she said she'd lost them while moving to the University of Arizona in the mid-1990s.

On the advice of his attorney, Benyshek -- now an anthropology professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas -- declined to speak with New Times. But logic dictates that he had no motivation to fib about the lack of written consents.

Benyshek did provide Steve Hart with a re-created script of what he allegedly told tribal members in Supai before taking their blood.

The script said the samples would be taken to ASU for testing of blood-sugar levels and to "look inside some of the cells in the blood." On the latter, Benyshek told Hart he was referring to the DNA research on a possible genetic tribal link to diabetes.

Benyshek informed Hart that he'd never mentioned schizophrenia to tribal members because he didn't know anything about that part of the project. He said he'd told the donors that he'd tell them about their diabetes test results, which he did.