Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology

by William Healy; Mary Tenney Healy

We found a strong young man of 19 years; weight 157 lbs., height 5 ft. 5 in. Very broad shouldered and deep chested, but slouchy attitude. Good color. Eyes bright. Varicocele. Somewhat defective vision in one eye. Well-shaped head—circumference 56.5, length 18.5 and breadth 16 cm. Thick, heavy voice. Appears dull and depressed, but energizes under encouragement. Other physical examination negative. Complains merely of headaches in left frontal region, but says he has had these only since last year when he was struck there by a beer bottle. Recently an excessive user of tobacco.

In the mental examination we found much of interest. When first seen he gave every appearance of being a mental defective, but by judicious stimulation he could be waked up to do comparatively good work in several directions. On the Binet tests, 1911 series, he passed all but one of the 12 year set; in that he followed the suggestion offered. On the 15 year old tests he did three out of five. The failures were on the memory span of figures and in the repetition of a sentence of 26 syllables.

By our other tests we also found him defective in verbal memory processes, even when he read the passage to be remembered. In working with our so-called construction tests, where his success depended not only upon planning with concrete material, but even more on the ability to profit by his failures, he did decidedly poorly. In handling the puzzle box, where above everything is required perception of the relationship of one step to another, he succeeded very rapidly. With the cross-line tests, which require mental representation of an easily remembered figure and analysis of its parts, he did very poorly, succeeding only after the third attempt in each of the two simple tests. This is a type of work that is especially easy for the normal person.

In our ``Aussage'' or Testimony Test we got a decidedly poor result. At first enumeration he gave only 8 items, and on cross questioning gave only 6 more. He denied seeing other objects plain in the picture, but contradicted himself somewhat on this. It is interesting that he took only one out of four suggestions, notwithstanding his suggestibility on the Binet test.

On school work he does altogether much better. He writes a good hand, reads fairly well, and promptly does a sum in long division. He claims to have reached the 6th grade. One difficulty in testing him was his prevailing lethargy. We constantly had to fight this by encouragement. Once he insisted he must give up the work because he had not had a smoke for an hour or so. Altogether, including his irregularities, we could not call him lower than poor in ability, possibly subnormal. He did not come within the limits of the feebleminded group. Just where to place him would depend upon what he perhaps could do under other more favorable conditions. So much for the tests of ability.

In studying him for aberrational tendencies there were positive indications. Most significant it was when, in the Binet tests, he came to the word ``justice'' and turned to the examiner, saying feelingly, ``I don't know what that is,'' and then burst into tears. Yet this was from a fellow who had offered to get himself into even worse trouble with the courts. He made much of his worrying about not having any home and not being the child of his so-called parents. His attitude was of sorrow and hopelessness about his whole situation in life. As seen again about two weeks later, still more evidences of aberration were found. He contradicted himself then in regard to his previous stories, in regard to his home life, denied he had made self-accusations, and very clearly did not remember at all accurately what he had previously told me. In fact, he evidently was not quite clear just who I was, although he had before been brought across town under the charge of a couple of officers to see me—an important break in his incarceration. He also told a different story from one he had told before to a certain official who now was present. He seemed rather mixed on a number of points, and this is all the more significant because he had been heartily afraid of being adjudged insane. Our diagnosis at this time was purely tentative as far as exact diagnosis was concerned. We stated that in our opinion he was an aberrational type and the practical point was that he should neither be allowed to go out in the community, nor be sent to a penitentiary, but rather to an institution for observation and perhaps for long detention. The jury found it necessary, as usual in such cases, to declare him insane.

The history of John runs as follows: From an evidently conscientious parent we learn of nothing significant in the family history. At birth he was said to be bright and healthy. He had diphtheria severely at 4 years. At 6 he started to school. He always got along well in his classes, but was very troublesome. At 11 years he began to run away from home. His father spent much time and money in going to various parts of the country for him, and at 13 years of age he was placed in an industrial school. He is the only child. He came home after 2 years, remained there for 3 or 4 months and then ran away once more to California. (His home was in the middle West.) He was returned by the police, sent to the industrial school for another year, and then again returned home. He stayed only 2 weeks before running away to New York. Coming back he got into some trouble and was sent for the third time to the industrial school. There he stayed until 6 months before we saw him. He was released once more on parole, stayed at home a week, and again ran away. It is reported that during his early time at the industrial school he was rather melancholy by spells, and at one time tried to poison himself. His relatives say he has a bad temper. He had typhoid fever at 14, but made a good recovery.

John has been known for years as a great liar, having told miserable stories about his parents, all of which were quite untrue. He has frequently mortified his father and mother by denying his parentage. The last time John was on parole he wrote more than one letter to police authorities in his home State, informing them he had been implicated in a serious crime. An officer at the reformatory institution had a letter from him purporting to be written from a penitentiary, stating he was sentenced there on a charge of robbery. When he was held in our city on a minor charge, he informed the police officials that he was connected with a certain notorious murder of which the papers had been full just previously. He was sent out with a couple of detectives who soon found he knew nothing about the actual facts, and that his alleged accomplices were innocent men.

In jail it is reported that he seems childish. He has to be locked up alone at times and then begs and teases to get out, but in ten minutes or so will repeat the bad behavior. He has stolen little things from others in custody and has attempted to dispose of his own clothes for a few cents. It is definitely reported that he has shown evidences of poor memory. From the institution where he previously had been so long, word comes that he was regarded there as not quite normal. John had been held in another city on a charge of rape, but without much evidence, for he was allowed to go. We could not find out whether he made self-accusations in that case.

In his story to us he complains bitterly about his treatment at the old institution, maintains he was head laundry man there, tells about his excessive smoking of late, denies his parentage, says the only friend he has is a certain church worker, maintains he did not have any home to go to from the industrial school, intimates he will commit suicide if there is any question of his being declared insane, says that he had earlier stolen things from home, tells of having spells when things get black in front of his eyes and can't see for a little while, says he wants to be sent to the penitentiary and wants to start right now serving his term.