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
In relating what we now know of the past history of this case we
shall put together that which we have heard from many different
sources. There is no question about all the important
facts--correspondents largely corroborate each other.
Inez came from a family of French extraction, apparently stable
and normal tradespeople. The old mother at 74 years wrote us an
unusually well-thought-out, detailed account of her daughter's
early life. The paternal grandfather was insane and an aunt had
epilepsy. Defective heredity in other respects is denied. We
get no history of convulsions in the immediate family, nor of any
other neurotic manifestation, except that one sister is ``very
excitable.''
Inez came when the mother was unusually advanced in life, and the
brothers and sisters, of whom there were five, had long since
been born. There was a difference of 10 years between Inez and
the next older. In telling the facts, the mother dwells much on
this and the bearing which her chagrin during pregnancy may have
had upon the girl's physical and mental development. She was
born, then, after a troubled pregnancy, a weak and sickly child,
``almost like a skeleton.''
Inez was rather slow at walking, but at one year spoke her first
words. We do not know with accuracy about the earliest factors
in the mental environment. (Inez has told various stories about
early family friction, and even about contracting an infection at
home, much of which seems highly conjectural.) Between the ages
of 7 and 10 several sicknesses, diphtheria, measles with some
cardiac complication, etc., kept her much out of school. Part of
the time she lived in New Orleans, and part of the time in a
country district. She only went to school until she was 14, and
was somewhat retarded on account of changing about and illnesses.
However, it is said she always liked her school and showed fair
aptitude for study. At 14 she returned to New Orleans and,
desiring to be a dressmaker, started in that trade. She worked
in several places, but finally went back to her home.
At the age of 18 Inez met with what, according to her family, was
a decisive event in her life. She was in a trolley car accident;
after being knocked down she was unconscious for some time. No
definite injury was recorded. Her family marked an entire change
of character from that time. They say she then began lying in
the minutest detail about people and seemed to believe in her own
falsifications. Besides this she started the roving tendency
which she has shown ever since.
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