Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic PsychologyHealy, William
Science
Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology
Healy, William
Criminal psychology; Swindlers and swindling
Summary: An exceedingly important case from a legal standpoint.
A girl of 16 years persistently, but falsely accused her own
mother and her step-father of the murder of the youngest child of
the family. Some apparent physical corroboration was found. The
woman and her spouse were held from the inquest to the grand jury
and later were indicted. They were in jail for four months until
the case was finally tried, when they were discharged.
We studied Libby S. as a delinquent some eight months after her
mother and step-father had been acquitted of murder. These
unfortunate people had been held and tried almost entirely upon
the testimony given by this girl. It goes without saying that
they were very poor and not ordinarily self-assertive, and so did
not obtain competent legal advice. We were naturally interested
in this remarkable affair and were glad to be able to get at the
truth of the matter and bring about forgiveness and
reconciliation within the family circle.
Libby was now under arrest for stealing and for prostitution.
Her statement to us was that she had been immoral and wanted to
be sent away to an institution where she would be kept out of
trouble. She had been working in a factory. Her mother and
step-father were temperate and the latter was always good to her
and to her brother. She told about being extremely nervous when
she got to thinking about different things, and maintained that
she worried so much at times that she did not know what she was
doing. Later we learned from her of her little sister's death,
of the fact that the child was not really her sister, and that
her mother had not been married to her present husband until the
time of the trial, although for long they had been living
together. She added that she had been a witness five times in
court against her mother and step-father. A younger brother had
also testified against them to some minor extent. ``We had to
tell what we saw--we told enough lies as it was.''
Following the latter remark as a clew we went as thoroughly as we
could into the details of the whole case. No report of the court
proceedings being available we obtained what we could from the
newspaper accounts. Obviously, however, much of these was
impressionistic and unreliable. The coroner's physician
testified to many bruises being on the body, and to the bottom of
the feet being blistered. The report of what the police said at
the inquest made anything but conclusive testimony. Even from
that, the murder seemed highly improbable. It was shown that a
physician was called to the child before she died, but did not
respond. Libby testified at the inquest and later against her
mother, stating that the child had been beaten and tortured in
various ways. We also learned from other than newspaper sources
that when Libby was waiting to testify, with her mother suffering
imprisonment in the same building, the girl was nonchalantly
singing ragtime songs in the court-house corridors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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