The Criminal Imbecile: An Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder Cases

by Henry Herbert Goddard

We have already given all that is known of the circumstances except certain details which Jean claimed in his confession, and certain acts and utterances which were testified to by local witnesses.

We may now examine these testimonies, reserving his confession for a later discussion. So far as the crime itself is concerned but little testimony was brought forward; so little, in fact, that without the boy’s confession he probably could never have been convicted of the deed.

On the evening of the tragedy Jean was seen by several people walking up the street toward his home in company with his victim. Two days before this he had been heard to ask her when she was coming to see his father about his returning to school; to this she had replied, that she “did not know”; and he had answered, “Aw, I don’t believe you intend to come at all, you will wait until summer time, and go home and then it will be too late.” On the following evening he again asked her to go up to his house. She said she could not go then, as she was going to prayer meeting, but she would go the next night. He had also inquired of certain persons whether she went to the Post Office in the evening. On one occasion he had been seen with an old rusty wrench in his pocket and when asked what he was doing with it, he had replied, “I have use for it.” This was the wrench with which he struck his victim the death-blow, according to his confession.

Previous to the tragedy he had told certain persons that he meant to get even with Miss Beecher. The wrongs for which he claimed to have desired revenge had occurred more than a year before the tragedy. For over a year he had been out of school and had been working a part of that time. For some months he had been an inmate of St. Vincent’s School, to which institution he was committed by a Justice of the Peace at the instigation of his father because of his propensity to jump freight trains.

The evidence was strongly against the idea that Miss Beecher had ever done anything to injure him or anything which would reasonably cause resentment in his mind. He had not gotten along well in his studies after going into her room, had been more or less disorderly, and she, at the suggestion of the principal, had seated him facing the wall with his back to the rest of the school. She had occasionally sent him up to the principal, who had sometimes flogged him.

On the night of the deed Jean was seen walking up the street with Miss Beecher at something after seven o’clock in the evening; before eight o’clock he was at home in his father’s house; there he was given an errand to do and went down the street, returning shortly; spent some time in reading and then went to bed. The next morning he was at his place of work as already mentioned. The wrench which had been seen in his pocket was found near the scene of the murder. These are the only known facts bearing upon the case, previous to his own confession. For further items of evidence see the hypothetical questions propounded by the prosecution and by the defense—Appendix, pp. 109-138.

The fact that he was the last person seen with her, that the monkey wrench at one time seen in his pocket was found at the scene of the deed, that he left his place of work and went down the railroad track toward Newport, was sufficient to arouse suspicion. It is more than doubtful whether the evidence could have resulted in an indictment by a grand jury, and practically certain it never could have resulted in a conviction. The absence of any real motive for the act would have been fatal to such an attempt. The absence of evidence of a prearranged plan is also a serious lack. It is true that, when we have the confession and the later explanations, the presence of the monkey wrench in his pocket and his words that he “had use for it” sound like a prearranged plan, and yet there is no real evidence here. He might have had the monkey wrench for a dozen purposes and have given the same answer. Perhaps his threat to get even with her, his remark “that if he had a revolver he would shoot her,” may be considered more serious, but certainly no jury could convict him merely on the basis of such statements.

It is reasonably certain then that, had he not confessed, he never would have been convicted even if he had been indicted. Let us now examine the confession.

Gianini’s Confession: Jean Gianini, being duly sworn, deposes and says he resides in the village of Poland and is sixteen years old; deponent further says, “I went to school to Lida Beecher and had trouble with her and wanted to get revenge.

“I met her above the hotel and walked up the street with her up beyond the stone quarry; she had been a coming to see my folks about school and was a coming up to see them last night and I told her they lived up the hill, and when we got up there on the left side of the road, I hit her with a monkey wrench that I got out of my father’s barn. I had the wrench in my pocket when I went up.