GUILTY, BUT INSANE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18173, 19 August 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

GUILTY, BUT INSANE.

I" . ~ ■:■■ :-:;-■ • .-:> ■ ■ ;■;■ .■-■■■■'-• • ■■ LONDON MURDER VERDICT. YOUNG FOOTMAN'S CRIME. Before Mr. Justice Roche, at the Old Bailey, London, Ernest Albert Walker, 17, a footman, who' pleaded not guilty, was indicted for the murder of Raymond Charles DaviSj a district messenger boy, at Lownda* Square, W. At the end of the trial the jury found that the prisoner, ■was guiltyi but insane, and he was ordered to be detained during His Majesty's pleasure. Mr. Percival Clarke, who, with Mr. Roland Oliver, appeared for the Crown, told the story of the crime, a letter which the prisoner had written to the butler, headed, " A fatal day." In this the prisoner said, "Since my mother died I have made up my mind to die also." The letter continued: "I brought' the boy to the pantry and hit him on the head with a coal-hammer. -So simpte. Then I tied, him up and killed him. . . I am as sane as ever I was, only I cannot live without my mother." Counsel added that from a document Walker had written he apparently intended to take his own, life by turning on the gas. This document, a sort of programme, set but in 14 items what he was going to do. So far as any question of sanity cr insanity was concerned, he apparently showed no indication of insanity to any of those persona with whom he was associated in the last 18 months, for not a soul at the houae had any reason to suspect he was anything other than a perfectly sane and sensible person. After he gave himself up he had apparently shown no indication of any lack of mental power at all. Evidence was then called, and Inspector Hedley, in reply to Mr. St. John Hutchinson, who defended, said inquiries had been made into prisoner's family history. His great-mncle died in Cane Hill Asylum in 1893 from organic disease of the brain, epilepsy and exhaustion. Another relative had been in the county asylum suffering from, melancholia. On his mother's side, his great-aunt died in an asylum. Two otheir relatives had also been ia asylums.' Mr. Hutchinson, for the defence, said prisoner's letters were frankly those of a madman. He should call evidence to prove that at the time prisoner committed the murder he was under the influence of an epileptic seizure. As a child he suffered from epileptio fits. His schoolmaster would say he had always looked upon him aa. a very abnormal boy. He played games in a strange manner, and had attacks of vacancy. Ho was born with a bruise on his head, showirig he had received some injury at birth. Mental Specialist's Evidence. One of the witnesses for the defence was Dr. Macnamara, a mental specialist,' of Harley Street, who said that prisoner's •symptoms, which had been described, were those which commonly occurred in epilepsy. "I think that at the time of the occurrence," said Dr. Macnamara, "he had passed into a condition of epileptic automatism or psychic .equivalent: These are states occurring in epileptics in which a, patient sometimes does complicated actions over a long peripd of time, and sometimes of .a •-criminal character, without any realisation that he is doing them, and without any subsequent recollection, or only a partial recollection of. having done them.' Mir. Justice Roche, in the course of his summing up, said it might be there had: been too strong a'" tendency in some circles to say people were insane when they were not in the definition laid down by the House of Lords. There had no doubt been a good deal of Uninformed criticism f of public officials and public bodies, who • were only desirous of doing what was | right. It would ■be highly undesirable, i because there had been recent discussion, I that the jury should be in any way snj fluenced in not finding aJperaon insane when they should do so. Their best way was to dismiss the discussion from ■j theit minds, and simply concentrate on the. case before them. After an absence of only five minutes, the jury found the prisoner guilty, but insane, and the Judge ordered him to be detained ai a criminal lunatic during His Majesty's pleasure.