Q. You know it is wrong to take that which you cannot give, and you knew at the time that you were doing wrong, and you knew that when you went over there to get guns?
A. I didn’t take it very serious then like now.
Q. Did you ever drink liquor to the extent of getting drunk?
A. No.
When this confession was read to the jury, Tronson leaned over and asked the clergyman, “Well, what do you think of it?” When the verdict of the jury was given, he did not understand what it meant and asked to be told. When he was answered, he showed no appreciation of its significance, but remarked that there wasn’t so much of a crowd out as at the trial.
This is the third case in which the Binet tests have been admitted in evidence and the findings in accordance with these tests practically accepted. No one seems to have denied that Tronson is an imbecile. He is of lower grade than the other two that we have discussed, and enough lower so that his defectiveness was much more apparent and easily admitted by all of the judges. As will be noted, there was no reasonable motive for the crime. In his own words: “She wouldn’t marry me. That’s why I killed her—so that no one else could have her.” In the case of Gianini we are possibly dealing with the sex impulse, perhaps hardly recognized even by the criminal himself. In Tronson’s case we have that impulse definitely recognized and asserting itself and, being uncontrolled, leading to an action of the crudest and most savage kind. Under other conditions, it would very likely have shown itself in a different way. If Tronson could have gotten the girl off by herself, it is very probable that he would have committed violence in the gratification of his sex impulse. But since she refused to marry him and kept out of his reach, he shot her down in order that “no one else could have her.”
It is unnecessary to discuss the case further. We need nothing more to convince us that the diagnosis of imbecility was correct. It remains only to point out two facts. First, that this man has been an imbecile at least since he was twelve years of age, that he could have been recognized as an imbecile and cared for, and thus this atrocious murder prevented. Second, that there are hundreds of just such persons, now in their youth, who are potential criminals. Unless their mental condition is recognized and they are cared for in such a way as to make crime impossible, many of them will repeat the career of Tronson.
Fred Tronson is in prison for life. He will in all probability never be pardoned. He will never have an opportunity to commit another murder. But that does not restore the life of Emma Ulrich and it is small comfort to her friends and relatives. It does not in the least remove the blot upon society, which has allowed such a murder to be committed. Society should have taken him in hand twelve years ago. It should be further noted that Tronson had been before the Court at least once before he committed this crime. At that time had the Judge realized that he was dealing with an imbecile he might have sent the boy to an institution for the feeble-minded instead of simply ordering him to leave the town. Shall we learn the lesson and take care of the other Fred Tronsons who are now in our public schools and on our streets?