Palko was born in
Würzburg,
Germany to American parents. His father, Bill Murray, was stationed on a West German military base as a member of the
military police.
[1] Palko lived there until the age of four when Murray was dishonorably discharged for selling and using
heroin, and the family was sent back to the United States where they lived in
Middletown, New York. Murray would often force Palko to pull homemade
tourniquets around his arm as he injected heroin. At the age of eight, Palko's father was arrested during a standoff with state troopers after threatening his family with a
shotgun.
[2][3] By the time Palko was kicked out of high school, his mother had remarried twice, and he was beaten by his stepfather. Palko began using
LSD,
mescaline,
cannabis and
alcohol, and was sent to live with his uncle on a German military base, where he was beaten and sent home after a year.
Palko was arrested several times for drug possession and fighting in the streets. When he faced jail time for violating probation, his mother convinced the judge that he was mentally unstable, and he was sent to the Stony Lodge psychiatric hospital for a two week evaluation. He eventually ended up staying in the hospital for eighteen months, where he was a part of a small group used to test
fluoxetine.
[3][4] After being misdiagnosed and placed on the drug, he became suicidal and made several attempts to kill himself, including hanging himself with his shoelaces and saving his
lithium dose for a month before ingesting all of them at once.
[2][3] He was illegally restrained over twenty times for periods of up to thirteen hours at a time by
straitjacket and ten point bed restraints.
[1][3]