Early Life
Born in the Upstate New York village of Dannemora, Garrow grew up in a poor family of farmers. Garrow later said that his parents were severe, violent disciplinarians who regularly physically abused their children with whatever was handy, even bricks. (His accounts have been confirmed by his siblings.) The police were called several times throughout the years to break up violent fights between Garrow and his alcoholic father; after a particularly brutal episode when Garrow was 15, he was sent to a farm to work. He joined the Air Force upon his release, but was court-martialed a year later for stealing money from a superior officer and spent six months in a military prison in Florida. After a failed escape attempt, he spent a year in another stockade in Georgia.
Garrow also later reported a long history of sexual dysfunction and paraphilias; he committed several acts of bestiality with the farm animals he worked with throughout childhood and adolescence, and would often perform sadomasochistic masturbation with milking machines.
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