The Criminal Imbecile: An Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder CasesGoddard, Henry Herbert
Science
The Criminal Imbecile: An Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder Cases
Goddard, Henry Herbert
Crime -- Case studies; Murder -- Case studies; Offenders with mental disabilities -- Case studies
After we got started George said we would bury the body in
Lauterback's woods. When we reached the road that he said led up to
that woods, he said it was too near home and kept on driving. After
driving for a long time we came to a pair of bars. He pulled up there
and said, "That wood over there looks pretty good." Then he drove on a
little piece further. Then he said we better go back to that woods.
Then we turned around and went back to the bars. George got out there,
handed me the lines, and he took down the bars. I drove in, he put in
the bars, and led the way, and I drove on across a field, till we came
to another pair of bars. He took them out and then led the way across
the fields to the woods. When we got there, George picked out a place;
said he thought it would be an all right place. Then we dug the grave.
Then we went back to the wagon, got the body, put it in the grave, and
covered it up. Then we returned home.
That night George suggested that we clean up the marks in the morning.
The next morning we got up early and cleaned up the marks on the floor
and washed the walls. George said to make sure there would be no marks
on the wall it would be better to whitewash it. He said he would do
that and for me to go to other work, so I started to haul stone.
George also said to take my clothes to the milk house and burn them. I
did take them there on Saturday morning. George was there and I gave
them to him. He said he would burn them. On Saturday, George came to
me and gave me seven dollars and a watch and a ring which he got off
of Lew when he searched him. He told me he had only gotten fourteen
dollars and five cents and to pawn the watch and chuck the ring. I
threw the ring away and took the watch to Philadelphia and pawned it
at Carver Reeds on Market Street near Fifteenth Street for four
dollars. When I saw George the next morning, Sunday, I gave him the
pawn ticket and said I would give him two dollars when I got the
change. He said never mind that.
(_Signed_) ROLAND PENNINGTON.
Here again is a crime so abhorrent in its details that it is unbelievable.
There is no excuse for it, no adequate motive, no justification whatever
so far as the boy, Pennington, is concerned.
For March, it is easy to believe, as the jury evidently did believe, that
he was actuated by what might be called an insane jealousy of the woman
with whom he was living. We are familiar with the lengths to which such
jealousy can lead a man. But why Pennington allowed himself to be made the
dupe of this jealous man cannot be explained; it is absolutely
incomprehensible on any theory that assumes that he is a normal boy of
nineteen years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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