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
Marie's story involved many items of her life since she was about
12 years of age. A distant relative who had come to know her
whereabouts (she was an orphan living with friends) figured
extensively in her narrative. This relative had hounded her in
an effort to get her to engage in an evil life. His attentions
varied greatly; sometimes for months she was not bothered with
him. Once when she was on her way to Milwaukee a gray haired man
approached her on the train, said he knew her relatives, they
were rather a bad lot of people, and he wanted to protect her
from them. Then came a long account of being driven in a
carriage, changing her clothes in a hotel, having her picture
taken in an immodest costume, signing a paper at police
headquarters, and, at last, safely returning home, all guided by
the mysterious gray haired man. Another trip led to an encounter
with a man who took her in an automobile under the promise of
meeting a friend. Entering a building where men carried
revolvers and girls were given hypodermic injections, just as she
was about to receive the needle in her arm, she reached the man's
revolver and shot him in the back. Events follow swiftly in her
tale, but all is thoroughly coherent, and a number of facts are
included which could be substantiated. The professional men
could not help being impressed and spent much valuable time
before they felt convinced that it was a fabrication. The exact
locations could not be discovered, but then Marie was a stranger
in the city.
When we saw her the whole story was reiterated with but few
changes, which, however, from the standpoint of testimony were
most important. We soon found we could get direct testimony on
physical features which were provably untrue. For instance, the
description of a certain hallway in a building where she had gone
with one of the men interested in the events was totally unlike
anything that existed there. Then, too, certain embellishments,
which by this time included the payment of a large check to her
as hush money, a check which she as easily gave away again,
seemed altogether improbable. Marie by this time was implicating
herself in a burglary with this relative, and some other curious
incidents were given. In all of these, as we later found, there
was a central event about which her statements MIGHT have been
true. There was such a burglary; she had said in previous years
that she was hounded by a man, and so on. We, too, were struck
by the uselessness and lack of purpose in the lying--for we soon
felt assured that it was such.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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