For March, it is easy to believe, as the jury evidently did believe, that he was actuated by what might be called an insane jealousy of the woman with whom he was living. We are familiar with the lengths to which such jealousy can lead a man. But why Pennington allowed himself to be made the dupe of this jealous man cannot be explained; it is absolutely incomprehensible on any theory that assumes that he is a normal boy of nineteen years.
It was in accordance with this feeling that some one raised the inquiry as to whether the boy was possibly a mental defective. This question having arisen, the writer was asked to examine him and give an opinion as to whether or not he was normal.
Accordingly the examination was made in the Delaware County jail in Media; this showed that the boy had a mentality of about eleven years according to the Binet Scale. He could not do any of the tests for age twelve and failed on some of those in ten and eleven. This indicated an intelligence scarcely up to eleven.
Further examination by other methods, the circumstances of his life, his appearance, and his school history, all tended to corroborate this view. The boy was nineteen years old when he committed the crime; two years before he had left Westtown Boarding School, after an attendance there of two and a half years. When he entered the school, the teachers graded him as of a capacity equivalent to the fifth grade in public school; he, therefore, began sixth-grade work. He never got out of that grade. For two and a half years he studied and tried to pass. He was absolutely unable to do sixth-grade work. Sixth-grade work, it will be remembered, is about the grade for a twelve-year-old normal boy; thus we have a striking agreement between his school experience and his Binet tests. By the Binet test he is eleven; in school he cannot do twelve-year work!
Asked what he had done since he left the school, he said he had done “a good many things.” Asked where he had worked, he said he did not remember all of the places. As a matter of fact, he had had exactly the career that the high-grade imbecile usually has out in the world. He either gets discharged from his positions because of incompetency or he leaves because of his nomadic tendencies. The imbecile rarely stays long in a place if free to move.
In addition to the above, the reader will see many evidences of childishness in his confession. He talks like a child; he alludes to George March as a child would; he says, “He has charge over me”—“He was kind and good to me; he used to take me to Gradyville,” etc. Even Pinkerton gave the money to March to buy shoes for Pennington. Again Pennington says, “George said he was going West and he would take me with him.” One cannot imagine a nineteen-year-old youth, or even a fifteen-year-old, talking in this way. By the time a boy reaches the latter age, he is in his own mind the equal of anybody. He would not say, “George took me.” He would say, “We went.” He would say, “I got along all right with George,” or some other expression whereby he would assert his own manhood and not take the rôle of a child.
While in jail he showed no realization of the seriousness of his situation; showed no remorse for his deed; took no interest in his case. For example, he was told by his lawyer not to allow himself to be examined by any doctors without sending for his counsel; in spite of this warning he allowed himself to be examined by four physicians at one time and by two at another, and never mentioned the matter to his counsel even after it was done.
In the confession made to the prosecuting attorney one notices, as in the one we have quoted, that he appears simple and innocent; answers the questions often in terms of the questioner instead of by a simple “Yes” or “No,” which would be natural for a normal young man; he is uncertain and hesitates; he says, “I think,” in a great many cases where it was strongly to his advantage to speak positively.
After the deed was committed he took no care to remove the evidence; everything that was done in that connection was done at the suggestion of George March. All the way through this part of the confession it reads—“He led, I followed,” “I did as he told me.”
Having satisfied ourselves that Roland Pennington is a high-grade imbecile, the next question is, even as an imbecile, why did he do this deed.