Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology — John Shaqi
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
After we had known this case for about three years and the truth
about Beula's antecedents had come to light as the result of a
new person stepping in on the scene, the girl's tendency to
falsification seemed quite inexplicable. No one who came to know
the circumstances, even as we previously had been acquainted with
them, felt they could blame Beula much for her attitude of
dissatisfaction and her tendencies to run away. We felt, too,
that the mystery which had always hovered about this girl was
sufficient to have led her to be fanciful and imaginative and
that the fabrications of the self-styled ``mother'' did not form
an atmosphere in which the girl could well achieve respect for
truth. But Beula's almost confusional state concerning the facts
of her family life seemed quite explicable in the light of what
we at last ascertained. Soon after we first saw the girl the
woman had told us a most remarkable tale of how it was she
happened to be the mother of the child, and the attempt was then
made by several to straighten out the apparent doubt in the
girl's mind. But it seems that the clever and tragic tale of the
mother, although well calculated to do so, did not entirely cover
the points remembered by this girl of her earliest childhood.
Evidently for a time Beula tried to correlate the two, but doubt
grew apace. It seemed almost as if her doubt as to who she was
led her to say first one thing and then another. It was
particularly at a period of stress of this kind that she was
figuring in other cities as the ``mystery girl.''
The earlier facts of the case probably never will be known. Of
the many details known by us it is sufficient to say that the
woman adopted Beula as a young child and proceeded by devious
methods to weave a network of lies about the situation of their
relationship. Who Beula's parents really were neither she nor
any one else of whom we have heard, ever knew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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