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
The history of heredity and development shows many points of
importance. The mother died when Nellie was a very little girl.
She was terribly abused by a husband who was excessively
alcoholic and in general a tremendous brute. They lived in a
roadhouse where drunken fights were not uncommon. Nellie has
been brought up since her mother's death by other relatives.
Outside of alcoholism on the father's side there is said to be no
family peculiarities. The mother came from a very reputable
family. Nellie suffered early from several severe illnesses.
When only six weeks old she is said to have been in a comatose
condition with scarlet fever and diphtheria. Later she had
measles, whooping cough and other mild ailments, and at one time
suffered extremely from constipation. Walked and talked early.
No convulsions. Menstruated first several months ago. Sometimes
complains of severe headaches. One observer reported that the
girl had been subject to slight melancholia within the last year.
Choreic movements have been present off and on for about a year,
but have not been marked until a little while previous to the
incident which brought her to us. The diagnosis had been made
that it was a case of mild St. Vitus dance. During all the year
Nellie had been regarded as in general unreliable, but nothing of
importance had happened prior to the above episode.
Nellie's story as told to us seemed coherent enough. Apparently
she had entire memory of her past actions and, in general, of
what she had said. Her own statements convinced us as much as
anything else of her unreliability at times. It seems she had
run away and gone to a picture show and had fallen asleep there.
When she got out it was very late, but it was election night and
people were about on the street. She finally was accosted by a
woman who took her home. After her story of being led off by a
man the police were called into the case and she gave them her
remarkable statement. Nellie told us of picking up with a man,
too, who lured her to a theatre, but who left her there. There
was no way of corroborating this. She fully acknowledged to us
the lies which had created so much trouble. ``Well, I was
telling the first lies and then when I was going to tell him that
I knew that I was telling wrong he acted so cranky and said such
things to me. He said he knew somebody had done bad things to me
and so I thought I had to give the name of somebody and so I gave
those names.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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