Psychological Aspect of the Laros Case, on the Trial Op Allen C
Laros, at Easton, Pennsylvania. U.S.A., For the Murder of His Father, Martin Laros, by Poison, the De- Fence Being Based Upon the Allegation Of Epileptic Insanity
222 Art. IV.?
- Author:
Dr Edward C. Mann, Superintendent Sunnyside Medical Retreat for Mental and
Nervous Diseases, Fort Washington, New York City, The history of this very interesting case is as follows, and was obtained from my distinguished friend, Henry W. Scott, Esq., of the Pennsylvania Bar, to whom I am indebted for the material for this paper:?
The Laros family lived at Mineral Spring, situated on the Delaware River, in Northampton County, four miles above Easton, Pa. The little hamlet consists of a tavern, and the homes of seven or eight families, near together, along the river road. Martin Laros, the father of the family, was fifty-seven years old, and his wife was fifty-one. They had lived at Mineral Spring for thirty years. He taught school during the winter months, worked his farm in the summer, and at the same time was em- ployed as undertaker and cabinet-maker. He was quiet, unob- trusive, and respected in his neighbourhood. Mrs. Laros was a woman of domestic habits and lively temperament. They have had seventeen children, thirteen of whom are now living. Seve- ral of them have been school teachers. Some are living in the neighbourhood, and others have removed to a distance. At the time of the poisoning, the family consisted of the father and mother, Allen (the prisoner), Erwin, Alvin, Clara, Alice, and a very young grandchild. Moses Schug, also a member of the household, was a bachelor, sixty-two years of age. He assisted Martin Laros on the farm and in the shop. One evening, while the family were at the supper-table, they were one by one taken violently ill. Neighbours came in to do what they could for the sick, and physicians were summoned. Allen also assisted in caring for the sick; he was taken ill later in the evening. Mrs. Laros died at seven o’clock the next morning. Mr. Laros also died on the same day about noon, and Moses Schug at three o’clock on the following afternoon. The other members of the family recovered in about a week. The fatal supper was par- taken of on Wednesday. The coroner’s inquest was begun on
Thursday afternoon, and on Saturday the following verdict was rendered: ” That tlie said Martin Laros, Mary Ann Laros, and Moses Schug came to their deaths from the effects of arsenic poison, administered in coffee on Wednesday evening, May 31, 1876, and that we believe the same was administered by Allen C. Laros.” A warrant was issued at once, young Laros was arrested as he lay sick in his bed, and taken to the county prison at Easton, Pennsylvania. The prisoner was about 26 years of age, a little under the medium height, and slightly built. He had received an ordinary common school education, and was fairly intelligent. He was temperate, industrious, and moral, and was a church member. He was always disposed to be somewhat reticent, and spent much of his time alone. He was of respect- able parentage, of healthful surroundings, of good moral and in- tellectual training, a teacher of the young in one of the public schools in his own township. He was, however, an epileptic, the epilepsy having first manifested itself more than four years before the poisoning took place, and had continued by succes- sive steps of longer or shorter duration until the time of the poisoning. For three weeks before this time almost daily he was so afflicted with epileptic convulsions as?so counsel for de- fence claimed?to dethrone his reason, and destroy the powers of his mind. It was claimed and proved that on the Saturday previous to the crime he was afflicted with convulsions ; that he had them on Sunday, on Monday, Tuesday (the day the common- wealth claimed he bought the poison), on Wednesday?the day of the poisoning?and on Thursday and Friday, immediately after it. After his confinement in prison he was similarly affected by these convulsions, varying in duration from a few minutes to several hours. During the continuance of the con- vulsions he was totally unconscious. Before and since his con- finement, for a period of several hours after these convulsions had passed away, his mind was clouded and confused, and his conversation and acts not responsible. My own opinion has alwavs been, that in the event of a criminal act by an epileptic, we should suspect’ mental disorder, and, that in the absence of any strong personal motive, there should be immunity of pun- ishment to epileptics for acts committed within three days before or after an attack, such insane acts being to me the evi- dence of an insane mind. Such persons are, 1 think, able to conduct their business and perform their duties and continue their pursuits in all respects like other people, except at the time of seizure.
In the case of young Laros there was an inherited tendency to insanity and nervous diseases for several generations, and in many branches of the family of the prisoner?grandfather, grandmother, and maternal aunt?these circumstances all con- tributed to lower the grade of his offence, even if it was not the offspring of decided insanity. While young Laros was in prison awaiting trial, every possible experiment was tried to ascertain if he were conscious while in the convulsions, and every conceivable test applied to see if the prisoner were feign- ing. The prison physician, during the first paroxysm he wit- nessed, suddenly thrust the blade of a sharp knife into the prisoner’s hand, and no sensation was manifested. A heated key was next applied. Then the flame of a lighted lamp was held to the sole of his bare foot, and still not a quiver of sensa- tion followed. Melted sealing-wax was dropped upon the bare skin, so that the sealing-wax burned into the skin, and no indi- cation of pain was shown. Nothing that science could suggest was left untried to detect imposture, if any existed, but all these tests failed to detect any feigning on the part of the prisoner.
At the trial, Dr John M. Junkin, of Easton, Pa., testified that he was called upon to visit Martin Laros on the morning of June 1. Reached there about three o’clock, and concluding from the symptoms that they were all suffering from arsenical poison, gave stimulants and hydrated peroxide of iron. He found his patients vomiting and purging, and gave it as his opinion that the death of Martin Laros was caused by arsenic. . During the progress of the trial various persons testified to having been aware of the prisoner’s infirmity, and the deputy- warden of the county prison testified as to the nature of the attacks while Laros was in prison ; he described finding the prisoner ” struggling in his cell in a fit, with his face very white, eyes partly closed, the hands clenched with the thumbs inside,” and that he heard the prisoner’s teeth gritting. He also described incoherent and apparently insane conversation of the prisoner, and hallucinations of sight. The prison physician also testified that he found him with a weak and feeble pulse, and cool, pale skin, acting in a wild incoherent manner, talking about fishing, seeing water snakes, and other nonsensical insane conversation. Any bright object he would endeavour to get hold of. His pockets were stuffed with bits of paper and such things. He tried to get the warden’s shoe buckles, and the bright tips of the Doctor’s shoe strings. The Doctor also testified that he?-the prisoner?did not appear to have good control over his muscular movements. The Doctor also described various epileptic convulsions which he witnessed, and testified as to the total unconsciousness of the prisoner during the paroxysms. He also testified to seeing the prisoner six to eight hours before an attack, when he appeared dull and gave imperfect answers, and complained of pain in the head. The prisoner’s condition while under observation, coupled with the testimony of his friends as to his previous symptoms and condition, led all unprejudiced observers to believe that he was mentally unsound. Dr John Curwen, the Superintendent of the Pennsylvania State Lunatic Asylum, testified that he considered frothing, swelled veins in the neck, and lividity of face as essential symptoms, and with- out these he would doubt the genuineness of the epilepsy; although on re-examination by counsel for defence he admitted that these signs might possibly be absent in cases even of pure epilepsy. Dr Curwen was expert for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The jury in this case rendered a verdict of murder in the first degree, and the prisoner was duly sentenced to be hung. The death warrant was signed, but a writ of error was sued out in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which operated as a supersedeas, and the Governor recalled the warrant. The counsel for the defence then presented to the court a petition, alleging mental unsoundness, and asked for a commis- sion to inquire into the matter and ascertain whether the prisoner was a proper subject for capital punishment. The commission appointed by the court consisted of Dr William Pepper, of Philadelphia, Dr T. Preston Jones, also of that city, associated with Dr Kirkbride, at his asylum, and Hon. A. Rose, a lawyer of Pennsylvania. The commission spent a month or more in taking testimony and making personal examination of the prisoner. They made a unanimous report to the court that he was an epileptic, and mentally irresponsible; that he should not be visited with capital punishment, and recommended his removal to an asylum. Thereupon the court ordered him to be removed to the State Lunatic Asylum at Harris- burgh, Pennsylvania, of which Dr Curwen was, and is, super- intendent. After confinement for a period of about two years he escaped, and subsequently was captured in Arkansas, or rather he surrendered himself to the authorities, and requested them to send hir6 back to “this country to be hung.” He didn’t want to be returned to the asylum. He was returned to the asylum, and about six months ago he escaped from there the second time, and nothing is now known of his whereabouts, nor has any effort been made to find him. The able efforts in his behalf, and in the cause of humanity, are owing to the exertions of his counsel, Henry W. Scott, Esq., of Easton, Pennsylvania, who is one of the most talented and brilliant lawyers in the State of Pennsylvania. Upon his examination the prisoner declared that his father and mother were both living, and that his father was making a door when he left home. One of the prisoner’s brothers was up to the time of his death a quiet, uncommunicative, and retiring man, and he died by hanging himself, without apparent motive or cause. Young Laros was a person of uniformly mild and tractable dis- position, who was brought up amid the softening and restraining influences of a pious and affectionate family, and away from demoralising surroundings or vicious companions. This out- rageous and enormous crime was very evidently the outcome of mental disorder, which had depraved and eclipsed the moral faculties. Yet the judge and jury deliberately arrived at a verdict which doomed this unhappy creature to the scaffold, and cast an indelible blot on justice by the readiness with which the popular demand for conviction was complied with.
In reviewing this case psychologically we have, as I have said, a mild-mannered boy of previous exemplary behaviour, uniformly kind and affectionate, suddenly developed into an inhuman monster of depravity. For four years he had been afflicted with epilepsy, and we must bear in mind the tendency of epilepsy to generate the insane impulse to crime. We must also bear in mind that there are on record many homicides committed by epileptically insane persons under every circum- stance of apparent motive and design. There was a rapid succession of the spasms shortly before and after the Wednesday night on which the family were taken sick. These attacks had been noticed, more particularly during the few months pre- ceding the tragedy, and they had occurred with startling distinctness and frequency ; and on the very evening of the murder he was unquestionably under the influence which pre- cedes and follows the epileptic paroxysm in epileptic insanity. The experts for the commonwealth in this case adopted the typical case of epilepsy as the unvarying standard by which the disease is to be ascertained, and it was only under the most rigid cross-examination that they would modify, in some degree, this position.
The symptoms of epilepsy, however, I contend, are not in- variable. There may be every variety, from the simply verti- ginous to the most demonstrative muscular and nervous spasms. The epileptic may be pallid or purple-hued; the pupils may contract or dilate; the fingers may be clenched or extended; there may be foaming at the mouth or it may be absent; that some of the symptoms of the most decided and impressive type are not present, is no proof that the disease is not epilepsy. The disorder of the intellect which accompanies epilepsy is similar to that we meet with in chronic insanity, and while, of course, it is not the invariable rule, yet in my own practice, I have, in the great majority of cases, observed enfeeblement of the memory and intellectual powers amounting to insanity in many instances. While an epileptic may be very intelligent, I do not believe that either during the attack or for an in- definite period subsequently, the mental faculties are under the control of the patient. The patient, particularly as the effect of the lighter seizures, becomes very irritable indeed, and there are instinctive impulses, I think, to acts of violence. This state often ceases upon the completion of the act of violence. The confused recollection of what has happened and the unconscious- ness of the gravity of their acts is, I think, diagnostic of the mental state of the epileptic, and should be considered as the essential characteristic of it. The epileptic, in the majority of cases, seems to automatically obey the impulses generated by his disease, and seems utterly powerless to resist them, even though they are impelled to criminal deeds. This constant dis- turbance of the affective and intellectual faculties which is manifest after the paroxysm may last during the greater part of the interval between the fits, and this is a medico-legal point of great importance which should be perfectly understood by the judiciary. There may be abortive epileptiform attacks where there are no convulsions and where there is no complete loss of consciousness, a sort of epileptic vertigo, and yet such persons have committed sudden deeds of violence, and were utterly unable to remember the circumstance afterwards.
Young Laros had an attack on the Saturday preceding the tragedy and also on the following Monday night and Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning the family observed the same staggering walk and the confused manner which he always exhi- bited after the nocturnal attacks. On the Thursday morning following and on Friday he had repeated attacks of renewed power and frequency.
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