Providentia

The Case of Bobby Dunbar (Part Three of Three)

Continued from Part Two

While his lawyers finally managed to get William Cantwell Walters' released from prison after two years of legal wrangling, any possibility of getting the Dunbars to admit their mistake and return Bruce to his mother seemed remote at best.  Even though Julia remained determined to get her child back, her lawyers had largely given up trying since public opinion was so firmly set against them.   In the meantime,  Bobby's new parents continued to parade him in every venue they could find, lingering doubts over Bobby's true identity caused public sentiment to turn against them. Though he seemed frightened of his new parents at first, he soon learned to regurgitate details of his kidnapping ordeal on command and, over time, came to accept those memories were true. 

As for William Walters, his years of incarceration had shattered his health.   He left prison carried on a stretcher and had to be taken to Charity Hospital in New Orleans to recover.   Following his release from hospital, he returned to Mississippi to try picking up his old life, not that he had much left to him.  While Hollis Rawls and his colleagues stood by him, the stigma of being a kidnapper, not to mention that the cost of his defense had completely depleted his life savings, meant that he was in dire need of money.   For a time, he joined a touring company and did shows where he talked about his ordeal and the truth behind his conviction.   Once public interest in his case dried up, his stage career was over and he became a drifter.   Aside from various family legends, nobody seems to have any idea what became of him after 1920.   His death date and his final resting place (assuming it wasn't in some Potter's field somewhere) is not recorded.

Julia Anderson remained in Mississippi and eventually married a cousin of Hollis Rawls.  She would go on to have another eight children though she never gave up hope of being reunited with Bruce, no matter how forlorn that hope seemed to everyone else.  Much like everyone else associated with the case, her later life was shadowed by the strange limbo-like existence that prevented any chance of a reunion.  I haven't been able to find her death date either.

But life wasn't particularly rosy for the Dunbar family either.    In the years following Walters' conviction,  public opinion eventually  turned against them. Maybe people were just tired of the entire spectacle, especially since Percy Dunbar continued to milk the publicity, even to the point of parlaying it into a political career.   Lessie Dunbar, for reasons she chose not to share publicly, soon abandoned the family and moved in California.  After she and Percy divorced following a public scandal relating to one of Percy's many affairs, she later returned to Louisiana, remarried, and had other children.  But she didn't seem to want any relationship with her supposed older son. 

As for Bobby Dunbar himself, the doubt over his identity followed him for years afterward.  Due to the notoriety surrounding the entire case, Percy shipped both his sons off to live with his grandparents and Bobby was enrolled in a military academy.  Whenever the story resurfaced (as it did on occasion), Bobby would continue to insist that he was a Dunbar.  In one news story from 1948, he  publicly expressed the wish to meet William Cantwell Walters to learn more about the story of his kidnapping (though Walters was likely dead by this time).  He even traveled to Mississippi as an adult and met Hollis Rawls  to learn more about the case but what passed between them was never recorded for posterity.   As well, there is no indication that he ever saw his biological mother even though she was living nearby at the time.

Perhaps tellingly, it was Alonzo Dunbar who eventually ended up inheriting his father's estate after Percy died.  All that Bobby apparently received was the expensive education that Percy had arranged.  By all accounts, he was largely estranged from the Dunbar family by the time he reached adulthood, perhaps by mutual agreement.  After becoming a certified electrician, he moved to Houston, Texas, married, and built his own life apart from the Dunbars.   He and his wife, Marjorie, would have four children together and he supported his family by selling electrical supplies.   

Bobby Dunbar died of a massive heart attack on March 8, 1966 at the age of 57.   His obituary mentions that he was survived by his wife, children, and six grandchildren but made no mention at all of the long-ago mystery that once riveted the nation. 

And, there it might have remained except for a later development made possible by genetic testing.   Due to lingering interest in the case,  Bobby Dunbar's granddaughter, Margaret Cutright, began researching the case in 1999.  After meeting with members of Hollis Rawls' family and several of Julia Anderson Rawls' surviving descendants,  she soon became convince  that Walters' had been wrongly convicted and that Bobby Dunbar was actually Bruce Anderson.  Despite objections from other members of the family reluctant to stir up old wounds, Robert Dunbar Junior, son of Bobby (and Margaret's father), agreed to provide a DNA sample for testing at a prominent laboratory.  That sample was then compared to a sample provided by one of Alonzo Dunbar's surviving sons.    

There was no match.  The boy who grew up as Bobby Dunbar was not genetically related to Alonzo Dunbar.  The results, which were presented at a new conference held by the Walters' family, provided a long-delayed vindication for William Cantwell Walters.  Also vindicated were Julia Anderson's other descendants who had always insisted they had been right all along in saying that Bruce had been kidnapped by the Dunbars,  B

But the revelation came as a shock for Bobby Dunbar's own descendants, many of whom expressed anger at Robert Dunbar Junior and Margaret Cutright.   "My intent was to prove that we were Dunbars," said Robert Dunbar Junior in a 2004 new story.  "The results didn't turn out that way and I have had to do some readjusting to my thinking.  But I would do it again."   Not surprisingly, newspapers across the country carried the story though there were still far too many unanswered questions surrounding the case, including what became of the real Bobby Dunbar.

While a 2008 radio documentary on the case attempted to solve the mystery by speculating that Bobby had drowned in a nearby lake and had his body eaten by an alligator, any evidence that might have proven it has long since been lost.   Since that time, various books on the case have been published, including the book co written by Margaret Cutright as well as one written by members of the Rawls family. 

But the final word on the case may have been provided in a letter written by William Cantwell Walters while sitting in a Mississippi jail cell waiting for extradition to Louisiana.  The letter, which was read at the same Walters family reunion that presented the results of the DNA analysis, included the following : 

"It seems that now I must suffer now for an imaginary sin or crime that has never been committed.  Dying, I can look up through the ethereal blue of Heaven, thank God, and say my conscience is clear;  the heart strings of weeping mothers bind not my withering limbs, and the crime of kidnapping stains not my humble threshold door."

Though justice came decades too late for Walters, his vindication seems complete.

 

 

 

 

The Keeley Cure

You might  call it the "gold standard" for alcohol treatment...

At the dawn of the 20th century, treating alcoholism was one of the main cash cows for medical clinics across North America.  Actual statistics remain scarce though lectures on the destructive power of "Demon Rum" helped sustain the Temperance movement.  The drive to ban alcohol would eventually foster enough political momentum to pass the 18th Amendment and begin Prohibition in 1919 but that still lay in the future. 

With minimal government oversight, clinics offering "miracle cures" to treat chronic alcoholics became fairly common during the last years of the 19th century and early  20th.  Addiction was already regarded as a major social problems with "inebriates" and "dope fiends" desperate to "take the cure"  (or else forced into it by courts or family members).  Along with Charles B. Towns and his "belladonna cure",  there were other attempts at treatment using equally dubious methods.  

Which brings us to Leslie Keeley...

After serving in the U.S. Civil War as a surgeon, Keeley moved to Dwight, Illinois where he set up a private practice and eventually established his own sanatorium in 1880.  The clinic quickly became established as one of the leading facilities for treating alcoholics and opium addicts as well as the town's main source of employment.   Keeley frequently boasted that alcoholism was a disease and he had the cure for it.  

The "Keeley Cure", as it would be commonly known, was a  closely-held trade secret though he hinted that his central remedy contained "bichlorate of gold" among other ingredients.   While later chemical analysis would prove that Keeley's cure actually contained ingredients such as ammonium chloride, strychnine, atropine, and and cinchona with no gold at all, it was still marketed as the "gold cure" to hopeful patients.   In his own words, Keeley described his treatmentas:

"a reconstructive Nerve Tonic having the Double Chloride of Gold and Sodium for its basis, which will in every case, without exception, forever relieve the nervous system of the acquired necessity for Alcohol, Opium, Morphine, or any other stimulant or narcotic."

Almost immediately, Keeley battled with the American Medical Association which flatly refused to endorse any treatment with unknown ingredients.   While Keeley and his defenders insisted that secrecy was necessary to protect his business and prevent bootleg copies of his cure, he also played on public suspicion of doctors.  "If I should throw open my formula to the world it would not cheapen the cure to the patient one cent," he said in 1891. "Reputable physicians would charge their regular rates, disreputable physicians would charge less in money, but by their dishonest practices would rob the poor drinking man of the thing dearest to him in this world --the chance of complete reform."

Keeley's respected medical credentials and his claim that the cure was 95% effective in treating alcoholism ensured a steady stream of customers.   He also insisted that his treatment represented a complete cure from alcoholism and that his patients could even drink voluntarily afterward since their alcohol use was no longer habitual.  Perhaps the greatest boost for his claims to curing alcoholism came in 1879 when Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune decided to challenge Keeley in a novel way.  Medill found six of the most hopeless alcoholics in Chicago and anonymously sent them to Keeley's clinic for treatment.    After the former alcoholics returned to Chicago, Medill publicly ackowledged that Keeley had succeeded.  "The change for the better was so great that I scarcely recognized them,"  Medill wrote.  "They went away sots - and returned gentlemen." 

With Medill's endorsement, Keeley's clinic became so popular that he and his associates,  J.B. Oughton and Major Curtis J. Judd, found themselves at a loss over how to invest the profits from their clinic.  From the one clinic in Dwight, Illinois, Keeley would eventually sell franchises that ranged across the United States, Canada and Mexico (200 Keeley centres in all).    Along with his clinics and numerous patients, Keeley was also a popular writer whose books and pamphlets on alcholism and dug addiction helped boost his public reputation.   Temperance societies praised Keeley's cure and frequently referred new patients to his clinics.  The demand for Keeley's services was so great that his Dwight clinic alone handled over 700 patients a day at the peak of his popularity.  Along with the patients who came in person to Keeley's clinics to "seek the cure", Keeley and his partners also operated a prosperous mail-order business where patients could send away for bottles of his patented cure which they could take in the privacy of their own homes.  

Leslie Keeley still had more than his fair share of skeptics though.  He had a forceful personality and insisted on absolute control over his clinic as well as ensuring that his name was prominently displayed on all advertising.  According to Frederick Hargreaves, a former supporter who later became one of Keeley's fiercest critics, "he was a man of strong personality. He dominated everybody, or ruled everybody, and made them do as he wanted to do, and if they would not do it, he would make them do it, or have nothing to do with them at all. That was Keeley's character."   Another former associate described Keeley as a "born autocrat."   Still, he was also generous with his time and often took on patients who were too poor to pay his regular fees.  Not that this was too much of a hardship for him given his tremendous success.    During the last years of his life, he slowly withdrew from the regular daily operation of his clinics  and devoted more time to semi-retirement at the large house he had built in Los Angeles.  By the time of his death from heart failure on February 21, 1900, he was already a millionaire.

Despite the loss of their founder, the Keeley clinics continued to operate for decades in many places though things slowly went downhill after his death.  In the years that followed, the routine for Keeley's patients would be largely unchanged at his different clinics.   According to a 1939 news story published in Time magazine, "Unvarying is the traditional Keeley routine. An incoming inebriate pays $160, plus room and board, must stay for 31 days. His weekly whiskey ration is gradually tapered off: eight ounces the first day, six ounces the second, four ounces the third, none from there on. Four times a day he gets gold chloride injections; every two hours he takes a tonic."   Between 1900 and 1939 alone, more than 100,000 patients were treated at the Keeley clinics although medical doctors became increasingly skeptical of the actual value of Keeley's "cure".   The rise of Alcoholics Anonymous and other self-help organizations also meant a drop in patients as other treatment options became available and more questions were raised about the Keeley method's actual validity.

As the demand for the Keeley clinics slowly faded (and skeptics kept raising pesky questions about the "secret" ingredients in the Keeley cure), branch clinics eventually began going out of business.   The last remaining Keeley clinic which, fittingly enough was the flagship treatment facility in Dwight, Illinois, finally closed its doors in 1966.   While the Keeley building that housed the clinic is still standing, there are few other traces left of the industry that had once made Dwight, Illinois famous.  But many of the town's older residents can still recall the clinic's glory days.

Was Leslie Keeley a quack?   While his "gold cure" likely worked purely through the placebo effect, he was still a pioneer in the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse.    As one of the first medical doctors to regard alcoholism as a disease rather than a moral problem, he gave alcohol treatment the respectability it never really had before.   His mysterious cure and his autocratic manner may have generated fierce criticism,  but Leslie Keeley still offered hope to thousands of people desperate for a cure and, in many cases, actually succeeded. Though he behaved much the same way that modern day purveyors of alternative medicine do, there is no denying the positive benefits of his cure.  

Sometimes, even a "gold cure" is better than no cure at all.

Psychology and the War on Terror

A new paper published in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences presents a historical analysis of the genesis, context, and function of “Operative Psychology,” a little‐known branch of applied psychology developed by employees of the Ministry of State Security in the German Democratic Republic. For 25 years, theories and practices of Operative Psychology were taught to elite agents at the Juridical Academy in Potsdam, introducing them to various “silent” psychological techniques of persuasion, interrogation, and repression. After highlighting the economic and political context that increased the need for “silent” techniques of observation and repression, an overview of the topics that were taught and researched at the chair for Operative Psychology is given. Examples of how these techniques were put into practice are provided and the consequences for the victims of Operative Psychology are discussed. Furthermore, commonalities and differences between Operative Psychology and the use of psychological torture by the CIA during the “war on terror” are discussed and questions regarding the relation between methodological and moral strategies of justification are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

 

"Power Harassment" Blamed in Suicide of Japanese Worker

When 20-year-old Maeda Hayato committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train at the JR Settsu-Motoyama train station in Kobe, Japan on June 24, 2016, it didn't take long for police to determine why.   Hayato had recently started a new job at Goncharoff Chocolate, a popular local confectionery company with a sales outlet located right in the train station.   Whatever his initial expectations had been, Hayato quickly found working conditions to be intolerable.   Not only was he subjected to regular verbal harassment by his boss, but his scheduled work hours quickly soared to the point of spending 109 hours of overtime each month.   Any objections that he made to the overtime were either ignored or led to even more verbal harassment.  His suicide occurred soon after.

While "karoshi" or death from overwork has been a common complaint in Japan for the past four decades, cases like Maeda Hayato have also highlighted a new trend in Japanese workplaces:  "power harassment".   Also known as "pawa hara", power harassment refers to the frequent use of verbal intimidation and harassment, scheduling work at odd hours, and forcing workers to put in overtime with little or no pay.   Given the popularity of authoritarian management styles, as well as cultural expectations concerning how workers should treat authority figures, the use of verbal intimidation and active harassment, even crossing into physical violence, is far from uncommon in managers.   

Despite labor laws to limit work hours and improve working conditions, employers often bypass these laws by forcing workers to put in unpaid hours.   Many employers also rely on "kireru" (literally "to blow one's top" in Japanese), emotional rants aimed at bullying and intimidating workers to undermine work conditions and reduce their support from other workers.   Until recently, such practices have been widely accepted as the price of working in Japanese industry though workers' rights groups are slowly fighting back.

While public scrutiny resulting from the estimated 200 karoshi deaths in Japan each year has led to calls to work reform, labour shortages and loss of productivity has put greater pressure on the Abe government to allow longer work hours.   And thus, little real change is expected in work conditions, at least in the short run.

In the meantime, Maeda Hayato's family is calling for compensation for the role that Goncharoff Chocolate played in the young worker's death.  As Goncharoff awaits a decision from the local labour bureau, Maeda Hazumi has become an outspoken advocate for reform in preventing other tragedies such as the one that took her son's life.  As more cases like this one arise, her voice will likely be joined by others.

For more information.

 

 

The Case of Bobby Dunbar (Part Two of Three)

Continued from Part One

Even as he was fighting extradition for his client, Hollis Rawls was also trying to do what he could to ensure a fair trial.   Which wasn't easy considering the dozens of newspaper stories coming out of Louisiana, all featuring photographs of Bobby with his loving parents.   That the boy on the photographs didn't seem particularly enthused about being with his supposed family hardly seemed to matter to the public.   Having the Dunbars claim him as their son proved to the public that William Cantwell Walters was guilty as charged and nothing that his defenders said or did seemed able to change that.  

In the meantime, the entire case became a political hot potato with Louisiana's governor leaning on Governor Earl Hall of Mississippi to agree to Walters' extradition.   Hall even took the remarkable step of hiring a private detective agency in Louisiana to look into the whole matter and they agreed that the Dunbars were mistaken.   But Percy Dunbar was determined to settle any question about Bobby's identity and even arranged for the family physician to examine Bobby and write a letter to bolster his case for extradition. He also did his best to discredit Julia Anderson, the woman who was claiming to be the mother of the boy in question.   

Unfortunately, many aspects of the woman's personal life raised red flags as far as her critics were concerned.  Not only was she a single mother trying to raise her children in extreme poverty, but gossip concerning extramarital affairs seemed to follow her wherever she lived.   She came to know William Cantwell Walters as a live-in domestic caring for his elderly parents.  It likely didn't help that Julia wasn't entirely certain who Bruce's father was (the most likely candidate was William's brother, Bunt, who had skipped town on learning that she was pregnant).   She went on to have several more pregnancies, including the birth of her daughter, Bernice (whose paternity was, again, unknown).  Realizing that she couldn't care for her children on her own, she arranged for her youngest child, Bernice, to be adopted and entrusted Bruce to William since they had already become close.  

On learning that William had been arrested and that Bruce had been effectively kidnapped, Julia then traveled to Louisiana hoping to settle the entire matter.   The trip had been paid for by one of the newspapers covering the story though they warned her to keep a low profile when she arrived due to the animosity raised by the case.   Percy Dunbar, after hearing that Julia was on her way, did everything in his power to keep Bruce/Bobby from being taken.  What followed was a bizarre "test" arranged by Percy Dunbar in which Julia was expected to choose which of three similar-looking boys was her son.  He also made certain that Bobby was not in room and that the room was kept deliberately dark. 

As well, Julia hadn't seen her son in over a year and was likely apprehensive about how he would respond on seeing her.  When faced with three unfamiliar children in a darkened room, she announced that none of the boys was her son.  Percy then triumphantly announced that she had failed the test.   Even when Julia finally managed to see Bruce and identify him as her son, she was publicly dismissed as a fraud.  While the county officials who had been assured that they would conduct the test objected, they were overruled.  Finally, facing threats of being arrested for her role in Bobby Dunbar's kidnapping, Julia Anderson left for New Orleans.

Despite the continuing controversy over how the identification had been conducted, the last barrier to William Cantwell Walters' extradition was out of the way.   He was finally transferred to Louisiana to stand trial for kidnapping and the public animosity in the Dunbars' home town made this a nightmarish experience for him.  To cover the costs of his legal defense, he was forced to put up his share of the family farm as collateral and also borrowed heavily to get the rest.  

The trial began almost immediately and the newspaper coverage dominated headlines.   Despite the evidence being presented by Walters and his defense team, public support was very much against them.   The Dunbar family had invested considerable time and resources into hiring private detectives to follow up on every aspect of Walters's life and to discredit him and his alibi.   More importantly, they kept up the public relations battle as well with Bobby being put on display at regular intervals.  There was also the fact that the Dunbars came from a much higher social class than Walters and Julia Anderson (who was largely viewed as "tainted").   To add to the confusion, Bobby himself had spent weeks with the Dunbar family being treated as their son.   As his memories of his earlier life began to fade, accepting his new name and life with a privileged family became much easier.

During the two weeks of testimony that followed, the prosecutor put forward the unique theory that Walters had somehow exchanged Bruce Anderson for Bobby Dunbar at some point in his travels and had likely had both boys in his possession for a time (what supposedly became of the real Bruce Anderson was never raised in court).  Though witnesses testified that Walters had been in Mississippi when the kidnapping occurred, other witnesses presented by the prosecution confidently declared seeing him in Louisiana.  Many theories were also raised publicly about other members of the Walters family having aided in the kidnapping somehow though nothing came of it.   Julia Anderson tried her best in the courtroom, even going so far as to display her bare foot to show that two of her toes were fused together in the same way as Bobby/Bruce but, again, her status as a "scarlet woman" worked against her (newspapers never failed to refer to Bruce as her "illegitimate child.")

In the end, Walters probably didn't stand a chance of winning.   Following two weeks of testimony, the case went to the jury and, on April 28, 1914, William Cantwell Walters was found guilty of kidnapping.   While the jury's verdict spared him the death penalty, he was still sentenced to life in prison.   Later that same evening, someone managed to enter his cell and beat him severely, likely giving him a foreshadowing about the kind of treatment he could expect in prison.  Even when his lawyers filed for an immediate appeal, the request was rejected.   Julia Anderson, devastated by the verdict and the way she had been treated during the trial, soon collapsed and spent weeks in a New Orleans charity hospital recovering.  

As for Walters, he was sent to a federal penitentiary in New Orleans to serve his sentence.  His lawyers and supporters continued to crusade for his release and Julia Anderson, having been released from hospital, moved to Mississippi to help with the legal effort.  Finally, after two years of legal pressure, Walters' sentence was overturned on a technicality though the stigma of his conviction and the ordeal of his incarceration would mark him for the rest of his life.

Continue to Part Three

The Shocking Dr. Webster (Part 1)

 Doctor John White Webster always wanted to be remembered.  And he succeeded (if not quite the way he planned).

Born into a prominent Boston family, he graduated from Harvard Medical College in 1815.  As one of the founders of the Linnaean Society of New England, Webster served as the cabinet-keeper of the Society's collection of specimens which reinforced his fascination with biology and geology.  After traveling to Europe for further study, with postings in England and the Azores, he returned to the United States and launched himself into private medical practice in Boston.    In 1824, he was appointed as a lecturer in chemistry, mineralogy and geology at Harvard Medical College and earned a full professorship three years later.

Although  Harvard Medical College was already using the corpses of executed criminals for anatomy classes, John Webster decided to try something a little more ambitious.  Since he was already doing research into galvanic stimulation of nerves and muscles, Webster decided to replicate Giovanni Aldini's famous experiment with the corpse of an executed criminal.  With that purpose in mind, Webster took charge of the bodies of Sylvester Colson and Charles Marchant.  Both men had been prosecuted for mutiny, piracy and murder although only Colson had been hanged (Marchant committed suicide in his jail cell).   Ever the showman, Webester arranged for a public demonstration of his electrical experiments with the two corpses, including coverage from the local press. 

According to the newspaper story in the February 3, 1827 edition of the Columbian Centinel, the demonstration was definitely memorable.  Colson's body was attached to a battery with wires connected to hs mouth and urethra.  Once the current was applied, "convulsive motions ensued.  Applied to the eye, the organ opened and rolled wildly".   The reporter covering the demonstration also commmented on the various movements of Colson's legs and toes which jerked and convulsed with each electric shock.   After the graphic demonstration was finished,  Webster declared that it had been "a great success".

Despite his popularity as a medical lecturer and his eminent reputation, John  Webster experienced serious money problems as he grew older.   With four daughters to support and a lavish lifestyle, debt was a continuing problem for him but he still managed to entertain many of New England's most prominent intellectuals and writers.    He also had a reputation for macabre practical jokes.  According to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who attended one of his dinners,  Webster astonished his guests by lowering the lights and fitting a noose around his neck.   Using only a bowl of blazing chemicals for light, Webster then rolled his head forward and stuck out his tongue giving the impression that he had just been hanged.    Whatever the impression that he had on his guests, it was a strange foreshadowing of what would come next

Due to his money problems, John Webster borrowed $400.00 from his colleague, Dr. George Parkman in 1842.   A member of one of the wealthiest families in Massachusetts, Parkman was a well-known figure in Boston society who owned properties all over Boston and was widely reported to have a net worth of $500,000 (an enormous fortune in those days).   Dr. Parkman could often be seen walking the streets of Boston to collect his rents (he was too thrifty to own a horse).     Webster had trouble paying back the money he had borrowed from Parkman and even managed to borrow more a few years later.  To secure the loan, Webster mortgaged some of his personal property which included his valuable specimen collection.   Although Parkman tried to be lenient with his colleague, he was furious when he learned that Webster had borrowed money from another source with the collateral being the same specimen collection that he had already pledged to Parkman.   After George Parkman arranged with the university for the receipts to Webster's lecture series to be paid to him directly to repay the debt,  John Webster went to the Parkman home on November 23, 1849, and suggested that they meet at the Medical College that same afternoon.   Although Dr. Parkman was seen entering Webster's rooms at the Medical College later that day, he was never seen again.   As for Webster, he attended a dinner soon after Parkman's disappearance with no signs of distress though he went early to his rooms on the following day. 

The disappearance of George Parkman sparked a frantic search by Boston police and the Parkman family.  Thousands of missing posters were placed across the city and Parkman's family offered an enormous reward for information.   John Webster was questioned about Parkman but all that he told them was that the missing man had left his rooms after receiving a partial payment on the loan.   On November 27, Boston police searched Webster's rooms (including the laboratories and dissecting facilities) but no incriminating evidence turned up.   All that they could determine was the presence of  several odd acid stains and signs that the dissecting vaults had been recently cleaned.

Police also questioned Harvard custodian, Ephraim Littlefield.   The custodian, who would later become the star witness in John Webster's trial,  grew apprehensive when he realized that he was a suspect in Parkman's disappearance.   He told police that he had seen George Parkman enter Webster's rooms on the day of his disappearance and also reported that he had later found those same rooms locked from the inside when he had gone to clean them.   While there was no answer when he knocked on Webster's door, he recalled that he had "heard water running" inside. 

Based on John Webster's suspicious behaviour, Littlefield decided to investigate further.

Continue to Part 2

  

 

 

 

 

 

After the 2016 Election

Although Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary R. Clinton in the 2016 United States presidential election came as a surprise, even a shock, to many, the author of a paper recently published in the Journal of Psychohistory predicted that outcome in the summer of 2016. This prediction was based largely on his familiarity with the work of psychologist Hadley Cantril in his 1941 book, The Psychology of Social Movements, and the author’s analysis that socioeconomic conditions in the United States in 2016 were similar in kind, though not in severity, to those which Cantril found in the post Civil War American South, which led to the rise of lynchings of African-Americans, and in post World War I Germany, which led to the rise of Nazism. This social psychological dynamic is referred to as “psychoeconomic disenfranchisement.” Reflecting on the election with a Democratic researcher afterward, the author began to develop a list of psychological and socioeconomic dynamics explaining the outcome, and has been developing it since, with the goal of being as realistic as possible in understanding the process and outcome of the 2016 election. Learning the lessons of the 2016 election is a national task for everyone interested in truth and freedom in the U.S.A. This paper is offered as a contribution to that goal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

The Science of Body Esteem

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.”  Simone de Beauvoir

As children make that awkward transition from adolescence to young adulthood, the sense of identity they develop often depends on how they see themselves in comparison to those around them.   According to Erik Erikson's  theory of psychosocial development, the period from age twelve to eighteen is a critical stage in developing personal identity.  Not only are adolescents learning to become more independent of parental control but they also learn how to  interact with other people their age.   Successfully navigating this stage allows for a healthy development into young adulthood and forming long-term attachments.  

But there is more than psychological development at work during these critical years.   As adolescents pass through puberty. they also need to come to terms with how their bodies are changing.   Along with this sexual maturity, their developing brains also lead to greater cognitive capabilities and the perceived need to take on adult roles as soon as possible.  This means dealing with new pressures and social standards as well.Personal grooming and a need to look as attractive as possible becomes far more important as a way of ensuring that they will be accepted by others.

As a result, adolescents may find their status with others their own age being determined by their sexual development as well as changes in body weight, physical height, and/or muscle development.   It is also during this same period that some adolescents may begin recognizing that their sexual interests don't quite correspond with what others are reporting (eg., same-sex attractions).   While they may look to parents or trusted adults for advice, they are also under pressure to make their own decisions about how to think and behave, as well as how to interact with other people their age.  All of this leads to increasing scrutiny over just about every aspect of an adolescent's life, including physical appearance and sexuality.  Which makes how young people regard their own bodies a vital part of developing healthy self-esteem.   

A new research study published in the journal Developmental Psychology explores the role of body image in the development of personal identity through adolescence and young adulthood.  Sara C. Nelson of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a team of co-researchers used data from a large Swedish longitudinal study to identify how perceptions of body image evolves between the ages of 10 and 24.   The longitudinal study began in the year 2000 with 967 Swedish children ten years of age and continued every three years until they had reached the age of 24.  Females made up 53 to 57 percent of the sample at each time point.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

Insanity Defense Under Attack in New York Murder Trial

A Dominican nanny charged in the brutal murder of two small children in her care reportedly told her psychiatrist that Satan had ordered her to kill people.  In the ongoing trial of 55-year-old Yoselyn Ortega, her psychiatrist testified about her interviews with Ortega while she was shackled in hospital days soon after the killings.   She had fatally stabbed six-year-old Lulu Krim and her two-year-old brother Leo in October, 2012 while their mother was out of the luxury apartment where the Krim family was living.   She then slashed her own throat when Marina Krim returned though she managed to survive.

While her defense attorney has entered an insanity plea based on the testimony of Ortega's psychiatrist, prosecutors have cited many of the actions the defendant took prior to the killings, including arranging for her own son to stay with relatives, as proof of premeditation.   In her own testimony, psychiatrist Karen Robinson talked about Ortega's mental state after the killings and how she claimed that the devil was possessing her.  'She finally told me, several interviews in, that the voices told her to kill people, that they told her to kill herself, and eventually that they told her to kill the children," Doctor Robinson testified.  The feeling of being possessed reportedly became stronger in the days leading up to the killings and she made preparations such as securing her personal documents and giving them to her sister as well as making arrangements for her son.   

According to family testimony, Ortega first began experiencing mental health problems in 1978 when she was 16.  Though she reportedly began experiencing auditory hallucinations during that first episode, she was still able to complete her education and move to New York.   Despite working in a number of jobs, she had no real experience as a nanny until being hired by the Krims.   Members of her extended family admitted providing the references that Marina Krim requested before hiring Ortega.    

Though her family admitted knowing Ortega to be mentally ill, they did not provide any warning to the Krims or acknowledge what was happening until long after her arrest.   Her sister Delsy expressed her own incredulity that she could have been a danger.  "Who would have thought something like this—” She trailed off. “Nobody. Never, ever. Nobody thought nothing like this …”  The final trigger for her unraveling mental state was apparently when her son Jesus joined her in New York after years of separation.   She seemed poorly equipped for dealing with her son's care and prosecutors questioned whether she should have been trusted with two small children at all.  Prosecutors also accused family members of lying under oath about Ortega's mental illness issues as well as well as their failure to warn the Krims prior to the killings.  

Since the killings occurred, her son Jesus took back his father's name and completed his own education.  He is also in the process of applying to medical school but has yet to hear back.  During his own testimony, he related some anecdotes of his mother's paranoid behaviour as well as how she acted in the days leading up to the killings though he couldn't provide any real insight either into whether she was insane at the time.    He also refused to look at his mother in the courtroom even when she tried to catch his eye.  Neither did any of her other relatives.

Though her family, psychiatrist, and defense counsel all portrayed Ortega as a "ticking time bomb",  the prosecutor detailed all of the signs of premeditation that she showed prior to killing the children.  This included providing for her son's care and the keepsakes she delivered into her sister's possession on the day of the killing.   Her sister also found a sealed envelope containing all of Ortega's legal documents and bank information, something which the prosecutor described as a "suicide note."

If convicted, Ortega faces life in prison while her defense attorney is calling for treatment in a locked psychiatric ward.  While the Krims remain adamant that their children's killer deserves to be in prison, both families agree that their lives will never be the same.

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The Case of Bobby Dunbar (Part One of Three)

The saga began on April 23, 1912, when four-year-old Bobby Dunbar disappeared while on a fishing trip with his family near Swayze Lake in Louisiana.   After a frantic search by Bobby's mother Lessie and other members of the Dunbar family , authorities were notified and numerous volunteers joined in the search.   Even the lake was dredged up for traces of the boy and alligators were killed to see if any traces could be found in their stomachs.  But nothing was found and authorities began to assume the worst.  Percy Dunbar, who had been away on business at the time, immediately rejoined his wife and to help with the search.

Since the Dunbars were a fairly prosperous family, his parents held out the hope that Bobby had been kidnapped for ransom and newspapers began promoting the kidnapping theory.  Pictures of little Bobby, along with his grieving parents and two-year-old brother Alonzo,  were run in papers in New Orleans and beyond.  Given the $6000.00 reward that was offered for the boy's safe return,  police received numerous tips about potential sightings from people hoping to cash in.   While members of the Dunbar family personally checked out each of these tips, nothing really came of it. 

That is, until December of that same year when a wandering tinker named William Cantwell Walters was picked up by police.  Walters made a specialty of repairing and tuning pianos and organs so his services were often in demand by local farm families. The fact that he was traveling with a four-year-old boy hardly escaped attention and police grilled Walters about the boy's identity.   

According to Walters, the child in question was named Charlie Bruce Anderson.  Ten month's earlier, the boy's mother had placed her son in the tinker's care due to being unable to support him.  Given the publicity surrounding Bobby's disappearance, police had already questioned Walters several times earlier.  In fact, Bobby Dunbar's own uncle had personally investigated Bruce and concluded that he wasn't his nephew.   Still, the promise  of a hefty reward ensured that various people kept contacting the Dunbar family claiming that Bruce was actually the missing child.  

It likely didn't help that Walters was already viewed as a suspicious character due to his nomadic lifestyle and lower class origins.  That he had a small boy in his care even though he wasn't a relative also raised dark suspicions about the true nature of their relationship.  Photographs of the boy were taken without Walters knowing and, on one occasion, Bruce was repeatedly grilled about his identity while Walters was out of the room.   One farmer would later testify that the boy had admitted to his original name being Bobby but Walters was able to take him away anyone could act on it.

Finally, Percy Dunbar himself decided to come to Hub, Mississippi where Walters and Bruce were staying to see if the child was really his son. Despite the obvious differences in appearance between the boy in question and his missing son (not to mention the absence of a prominent scar on one foot), Percy Dunbar openly concluded that the boy was indeed Bobby.   The difference in hair colour was explained away by Walters using hair bleach while other physical differences were explained away to the rough life he had on the road with the old tinker.  As for Walters' motive in kidnapping Bobby, Percy Dunbar insisted he had taken boy to be used as a shill for begging (despite the fact that Walters was no beggar).   

People who knew Walters personally came to his defense, including some who pointed out that Bruce had been seen with him long before Bobby disappeared,  But Percy Dunbar had money and influence enough to override all the objections and to have Walters arrested for kidnapping.  As for Bruce himself, he was thoroughly frightened about being separated from the only father he ever knew but the townspeople who had hoped to cash in on the reward were jubilant.    Percy never bothered to tell them that the reward offer had expired months earlier though he arranged for his wife to come to Hub to claim her missing son.  As for Lessie Dunbar, it took considerable convincing by her husband before she was willing to acknowledge that "Bobby" was her son.  Finally, the Sheriff received a letter from the Dunbars  formally recognizing the boy as their son and he was released into their custody.     

Which still left the question of what was to be done with his supposed kidnapper, the thoroughly confused William Cantwell Walters.   Not only was he facing charges for kidnapping, but details of the case were being reported in newspapers across the country.   Given the public anger surrounding the supposed kidnapping, the Sheriff had to have a special security detail at the jail where Walters was being kept due to lynching fears.  It likely didn't help that the townspeople who had started the whole thing by accusing Walters began making claims that the boy had been abused while in Walters's care.   

In the meantime, the media storm over Bobby Dunbar continued to grow.  The Hippodrome Theater in New Orleans contacted Percy Dunbar for the right to put the little boy on display, something to which he immediately agreed.   Percy also made a number of public statements during which he announced that "Bobby" had all of the identifying marks needed to prove his identity.  He also drummed up animosity against Walters by announcing that Bobby had recognized his mother (he hadn't) and that the boy had been whipped into submission, something that made the Sheriff beef up security at the jail where Walters was being held.    Many of the townspeople, no doubt still hoping to cash in on the reward, announced that they had seen the tell-tale whip marks as well.

But there were still some troubling questions raised about how Walters, who walked with a visible limp, could have kidnapped Bobby Dunbar in the first place.  Also, many people in Hub knew Walters personally and were willing to speak up for him.   Then there was the fact that Bruce didn' t have the tell-tale scar that Bobby had, not to mention the absence of any real signs that he had been physically abused.  All of which meant that the town was basically split over the entire question of whether or not the boy was really Bobby Dunbar.  There was also the promised reward with just about everyone associated with the case (including the Sheriff) demanding a share.   

In the midst of all this controversy, the Dunbars decided to return home to Louisiana along with their newfound son.  While the Dunbars had initially promised to remove Bobby from the town until the entire matter was settled, they overrode any objections raised by the Sheriff and, away they went.  Their triumphant return to their hometown, along with the promised appearance at the Hippodrome Theater, helped cement public opinion in favour of the Dunbars and "Bobby."  

With the prime witness in the case being removed from his reach, Walters' lawyer, Hollis C. Rawls, collected formal depositions from his client's character witnesses, including a woman who swore that the boy in dispute had been sitting on her lap when she read to him about Bobby Dunbar's disappearance.  Unfortunately, public opinion (helped along by how Percy Dunbar played to the news media) was thoroughly against Rawls' client.  The possibility of a fair trial seemed increasingly remote, which, given the fact that kidnapping was a capital offense in Louisiana, meant that William Cantwell Walters would potentially hanged if convicted.   

And the trial had yet to begin...

Continue to Part Two