The punishments Kallinger endured included kneeling on jagged rocks, being locked inside closets, consuming excrement, committing self-injury, being burned with irons, being whipped with belts, and being starved.
He dreamed of becoming a playwright, and had played the part of Ebenezer Scrooge in the local YWCA's performance of A Christmas Carol in the ninth grade.
Kallinger was hospitalized at St. Mary's on September 4, 1957, with severe headaches and loss of appetite, doctors believed was a result of stress from his divorce.
[3] Throughout the next decade, Kallinger spent time in and out of mental institutions due to amnesia, attempted suicide and committing arson.
While in jail, he had scored 82 on an IQ test and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and state psychiatrists recommended that he be supervised with his family.
[5]: 6 Two years later, one of his children, Joseph Jr., was found dead in an abandoned construction building[1] two weeks after Kallinger took out a large life insurance policy on his sons.
[7] Over the next six weeks, they robbed, assaulted, and sexually abused four families, gaining entrance to each house by pretending to be salesmen.
By the time they arrived the Kallingers had fled, using the city bus as their getaway vehicle and dumping their weapons and a bloody shirt along the way.
They soon found out about Kallinger's history of domestic violence, Joseph Jr.'s unsolved death, and a series of arsons targeted against buildings he owned.
Kallinger was eventually charged with three counts of murder for his son Joseph Jr, Maria Fasching, and a neighborhood boy.