The Criminal Imbecile: An Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder Cases

by Henry Herbert Goddard

In 1911, when the defendant’s father’s stepmother was in Poland, the defendant was overheard to say to her, “Why didn’t you marry my father, I would like you better than this stepmother.”

When the defendant was fifteen years of age, in the month of September, 1913, the defendant’s father had him committed to the St. Vincent’s Industrial School for juvenile delinquency, presided over by Christian Brothers, where he remained for about six months, coming home in February.

A few weeks before the commission of the alleged crime, he was observed to be quarreling on Main Street in Poland with two very small children.

At the age of sixteen years, in the early part of March, 1914, the defendant was noticed playing with a toy railroad car and building some tracks with some little irregular pieces of wood. He was also observed to play tag with children apparently from two to four years younger than himself.

In the early part of 1912, the defendant’s father observed that he was practicing masturbation.

The defendant’s father thereupon slept in the same room with him in order to watch him. The defendant continued this practice until the time he left home in the spring or summer of 1913 and admitted that he did it frequently.

Assuming that on the 25th day of March, 1914, Mrs. Ethel Beecher and the deceased Lida Beecher met the defendant at the Post Office in Poland, and the defendant asked the deceased when she was coming to see his father, and that she replied that she did not know, and the defendant said, speaking impatiently, “Aw, I don’t believe that you intend to come at all; you will wait until the summer time and go home and then it will be too late.” That they spoke about school, and the deceased said to the defendant that it would be better for him to wait until the beginning of another term because he would be behind the other pupils in his work; that on another occasion, on about the middle of February, 1914, the defendant came on an errand to get yeast to the place where the deceased and Mrs. Beecher were boarding and the defendant then said to them that he wanted to get away from Poland, and would rather be in New York in the Great White Way; that he thought he would like to act in moving pictures as he did not like his home and he hated his father, and would not care to be a “sod-buster”; that the deceased asked him whether he would like to return to school, and he said that he would, but that his father would not let him; that he never stole but once in his life and that was twenty-five cents from a lady in New York, and she had given him twenty-five cents to buy some candy and he bought the candy and ate it himself. On the same visit the defendant asked Mrs. Ethel Beecher if there was a state prison in Rochester, and she told him no; he wanted to know if there was not some sort of a reform school there. She said that there used to be, but that the reform school had removed to Industry, and he asked what the reform school was like at Industry and she told him that the boys lived in cottages under the care of a matron, a man and wife generally, and that was as much as she knew about it. The defendant said he would like to be there and asked her about the state prison at Auburn and different prisons, what the sentence was and whether they had an electric chair or whether they hung. The defendant told them that they worked awfully hard at Sing Sing. The defendant also stated on that occasion that his father used to thrash him for stealing apples that other men put him up to stealing.

Assuming at the time Mrs. Ethel Beecher and the deceased and the defendant were talking together, that the deceased told the defendant that she thought he would like to go in the country to work on a farm and asked him why he did not continue his school work another year; and that her tone was kindly and her whole deportment towards him on that occasion was such as to incline one to believe that she desired to help him and to well advise him; and that the defendant’s conversation concerning prisons and industrial schools was such that it caused them to laugh, at the time; and that on other occasions when the defendant was with the deceased her conduct towards him was always kindly and that she was kindly and generously disposed towards the defendant and showed considerable interest in him.

Assuming that on the 27th day of March, 1914, at about quarter after seven the defendant was observed on the street in Poland with some children, with whom he had been seen at different times playing hide and seek and tag and I spy, and that he caught hold of the toque of one of the little girls and pulled it down over her face and that he poked another one of the little girls in the back and that he called a girl by the name of Grace Palmer, “Palmer House,” and said, “Leonard is the proprietor, isn’t he?” and kept calling her Palmer House, and that he was snowballing the girls, and that while he was engaged the deceased passed him on the street and said, “Hello, Jean,” and that he then joined her and shortly afterwards was seen to come back with the deceased, going up the road towards Buck Hill. That later in the same evening, at about ten minutes to eight, he returned home, showing no trace of excitement or nervousness, and that he received some books of wall paper to be delivered to a neighbor and that he took these books and threw them so that they fell with a noise on a neighbor’s veranda and was seen running near the railroad station and later returned home in the vicinity of eight o’clock, showing no trace of any agitation, excitement, or nervousness. That he took off his shoes, put on a pair of slippers, went to bed, and slept quietly all night. That on the following morning he reported for work at Sam Hutchinson’s as usual, worked for about twenty minutes doing his chores, ate his breakfast, and nothing unusual was observed about him.

Assuming further that he was seen going along the railroad track in the direction of Newport; that he met two men, one by the name of Smith, and that he shouted, “Hello, Smithy”; that later he was spoken to by a man named Sweet at Newport on the railroad track about four miles from Poland, and that when Sweet caught up to him and asked him where he was going, he said to Herkimer to see a moving picture show; that he had stolen a dollar from his father; that he accompanied Sweet to Autenrith’s store and while there the murder of the deceased was talked about in his presence and that he ate peanuts and smoked a cigarette and asked where they had found the body and stated that he had gone to school to her; and subsequently was taken back to Poland by one Frank Newman, and thereafter was turned over to the Sheriff of Herkimer County and one of his deputies.