Providentia

"I Don't Like Mondays"

While the song, "I Don't Like Mondays" released by the Boomtown Rats in 1979 has become part of  popular culture (including being seen scrawled as graffiti in the movie, The Breakfast Club), the real-life shooting that inspired it still haunts survivors today.

It was on January 29, 1979 at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California and a group of children were waiting outside for the principal, Burton Wagg, to open the gates and let them enter.  The 53-year-old Wagg had just arrived on the scene when someone began shooting at the school from a nearby house.    Eight children were injured and Burton Wagg was killed as he tried to get the children to safety.    The school custodian, 56-year-old Michael Suchar was killed as he tried to pull Wagg out of harm's way.  

Police quickly arrived but the shooting continued and Constable Robert Robb was shot in the neck.    By this time, police had surrounded the family home where the shooter was barricaded but the standoff lasted for seven hours.   During this time, some of the remarkable details about the shooter became readily apparent, including the fact that the police were dealing with a 16-year-old girl named Brenda Ann Spencer.

In what appeared to be an attempt at generating some publicity for herself, Spencer spent part of the seven hours barricaded inside the house speaking on the telephone to a journalist covering the story.   The journalist had randomly called houses in the neighbourhood trying to get information when he found Spencer who freely admitted that she was doing the shooting.  When asked by the journalist why the shooting had occurred, she uttered the soon-to-be-famous line "I don't like Mondays."   She also told police negotiators that her victims had been "easy targets" and that she would "come out shooting" if they attempted to break into the house to arrest her.  

During the seven-hour negotiation, she made numerous other statements about the shooting that received widespread publicity including, ""There was no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun."   She also referred to the children she had nearly killed as "[the children ] looked like a herd of cows standing around, it was really easy pickings."   Despite her threats, Spencer eventually surrendered without further violence and was taken into custody.   But the question remained:  who was Brenda Ann Spencer and what would be done with her?

Born in San Diego on April 3, 1962, she had a longstanding history of behaviour problems which led to being placed in a facility for problem students by the time she became an adolescent.   Neighbours would later report that she was frequently truant from school and was known to be involved in drug abuse and petty theft.  A poor student, Spencer reportedly had little interest in education and few friends.   At 5 ft, 2 in. and unusually thin, at least one classmate would described her as "pretty crummy looking."   When questioned afterward, fellow students and teachers all described her as moody and introverted.   Teachers often asked her if she was sleeping during class while other students described her as sullen and antisocial.

After her parents separated, Brenda Spencer chose to live with her father although he had difficulty supporting the two of them.   Not only did they sleep together on a thin mattress on the floor, but the house would later be found to contain numerous empty bottles of alcohol lying around.  Though she had formerly accused her father of physically and sexually abusing her while he had been drinking, she continued to live with him up until the time of the shooting.

By early 1978, she was in a special facility for problem pupils where she was described by staff as being suicidal.   That same summer, Spencer was arrested for shooting out the windows of the nearby Cleveland Elementary School with a BB gun as well as for petty theft.    Placed on probation, her case worker arranged a psychiatric evaluation which recommended that she be placed in a hospital due to her depression but her father refused to allow it.   

In the months leading up to the shooting, she became even more antisocial.    Students who knew Spencer would later describe her hatred of police officers and that she had talked about "doing something big to get on TV."    She had also made a number of other statements such as , "one of these mornings, you're gonna look for me" and "you don't have to wait very long to see what is going on with me."    Nobody would pay attention to these threats until afterward.

In Christmas of that same year, her father gave her a Ruger semiautomatic .22 caliber rifle with five hundred rounds of ammunition.   Spencer would later state, "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun."    Whatever her father's intention, she interpreted his gift as a tacit endorsement of her committing suicide.    The shooting would occur a month later.

After being taken into custody, Spencer was found to test positive for drugs although there was no indication that she had been drunk or unusually high at the time of the shooting.  A psychiatric assessment ruled out the possibility of an insanity defense and she was tried as an adult despite her age.  Pleading guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of twenty-five years and sent to the California Institution for Women in Chino, California. 

Since her incarceration began, Spencer has made numerous applications for parole which have all been denied.  Her most recent application was in 2009 and she will not be eligible again until 2019.   Over the years, she has repeatedly minimized her own responsibility for the shootings by stressing her history of childhood abuse.   She has also insisted that she was on PCP and alcohol when she opened fire and that her attorney and the state conspired to hide her drug test results.    Her attorney and the prosecutor have both publicly denied these allegations. 

Now in her fifties, Spencer has been largely forgotten due to more recent school shootings that have received far greater media attention.  As some commentators have noted, the Cleveland Elementary School shooting is rarely included in timelines of mass school shootings.     Whether this is due to the sheer rarity of female school shooters or the comparatively small number of fatalities involved, the parallels between Spencer and other disaffected youths such as Adam Lanza and Elliot Rodger are too obvious to ignore.  

More and more, the deadly consequences of combining psychological disturbance and easy access to high-powered weapons are becoming readily apparent.   Whether the political fallout of incidents such as these will lead to real change or not depends on political will and a determination not to allow school shootings and similar tragedies to be simply forgotten.

In 1983, San Diego's Cleveland Elementary School was closed due to declining enrolment and a new school was opened on the site.   Just a few years later, a second school shooting occurred at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California and many survivors of Brenda Spencer's rampage reported feeling a renewed sense of trauma over the similarities to what they experienced.   

As school shootings continue, this is a trauma that far more victims and their families will undergo with time.   

Can New Technologies Help Treat PTSD?

New technologies may profoundly change our way of understanding psychiatric disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Imaging and biomarkers, along with technological and medical informatics developments, might provide an answer regarding at-risk patient’s identification. Recent advances in the concept of ‘digital phenotype’, which refers to the capture of characteristics of a psychiatric disorder by computerized measurement tools, is one paradigmatic example. : The impact of the new technologies on health professionals practice in PTSD care remains to be determined. The recent evolutions could disrupt the clinical practices and practitioners in their beliefs, ethics and representations, going as far as questioning their professional culture. A new paper published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology presents the results of an extensive search to highlight the articles which reflect the potential of these new technologies. The authors conducted an overview by querying PubMed database with the terms [PTSD] [Posttraumatic stress disorder] AND [Computer] OR [Computerized] OR [Mobile] OR [Automatic] OR [Automated] OR [Machine learning] OR [Sensor] OR [Heart rate variability] OR [HRV] OR [actigraphy] OR [actimetry] OR [digital] OR [motion] OR [temperature] OR [virtual reality]. The results are summarized  in two categories: prediction and assessment (including diagnostic, screening and monitoring). Two independent reviewers screened, extracted data and quality appraised the sources. Results were synthesized narratively. This overview shows that many studies are underway allowing researchers to start building a PTSD digital phenotype using passive data obtained by biometric sensors. Active data obtained from Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) could allow clinicians to assess PTSD patients. The place of connected objects, Artificial Intelligence and remote monitoring of patients with psychiatric pathology remains to be defined. These tools must be explained and adapted to the different profiles of physicians and patients. The involvement of patients, caregivers and health professionals is essential to the design and evaluation of these new tools. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Off To Cambodia

Regular blog posts will be disrupted for a little while while I am off in Cambodia for ten days.   I am looking forward to the trip and hope to come back with some new stories and other details to share.   See you soon.

Killing the Wasp Woman

It was on the night of December 10, 1986 when emergency services received the call.

The voice on the phone, who identified himself as the son of actress Susan Cabot, breathlessly reported that a burglar had entered his mother's Encino, California home.  Within minutes, a team of paramedics arrived at the hilltop home that the 49-year-old actress shared with her 23-year old son, Timothy Scott Roman.  While her film career had ended years before,  Cabot's colourful life, including several marriages and a one-time romantic relationship with Jordan's King Hussein, allowed her to own a magnificent house in one of Encino's most expensive neighbourhoods, complete with a magnificent view of greater Los Angeles.   Though somewhat dilapidated compared to the other expensive homes nearby, she and her son managed to live there quietly enough with only the occasional media interview to disturb their privacy.   

On entering the house, the paramedics found a scene of utter chaos.  Not only did the once-palatial home appear to have been ransacked, but it looked like a hoarder's paradise with trash bags, newspapers, and rotting food scattered everywhere.  Furniture had been overturned and contents of drawers had been haphazardly spilled everywhere they looked.   To top it off, Timothy Roman's four pet dogs were frantically barking and, to protect the paramedics from being attacked, needed to be retrieved and locked into a smaller room by their master.  Despite his purported concern for his mother, not to mention his own claim to have been attacked by the intruder, Timothy seemed strangely calm as he led the paramedics to his mother's upstairs bedroom.

But even the experienced paramedics weren't prepared for the sight that waited for them there.  Susan Cabot's dead body, dressed only in a nightgown, was lying on the bed and it was evident enough that she had been bludgeoned to death.  Bloodstains could be found on all the walls in the room and her face was virtually unrecognizable.   Oddly enough, the killer had apparently covered her with a blanket before beating her to death though the fragments of her shattered skull, along with brain matter smeared on the bed, provided ample evidence of the violence with which she had been assaulted.  

Police were quickly called and, while they searched the entire house, no trace of forced entry was found anywhere.   As for Timothy, he claimed that he had been awakened at 9:30 in the evening after hearing the attack in his mother's bedroom.   On searching the house, he found the burglar, whom he described as  a tall, Latino man wearing "Ninja robes."   Despite his supposed martial arts prowess, Roman had been quickly overcome by the burglar who managed to knock him unconscious.   He also insisted that the burglar had stolen $70,000 in cash which had been concealed in the house.

Almost from the beginning, police had difficulty believing this story.   Not only did Timothy's story tend to change details with each retelling, but the paramedics who examined him found no trace of any real injuries aside from some superficial lacerations.  They certainly didn't find any evidence of a head injury severe enough to leave him unconscious.   It likely didn't help that his physical appearance was distinctly odd, a legacy of the experimental hormone treatment he had undergone as a child to correct his physical dwarfism.   Despite being twenty-two years old, he still resembled a teenager in many ways, albeit with a strangely wizened face.   It was likely his self-consciousness concerning his height and appearance that led him to become a martial arts enthusiast, complete with weightlifting equipment scattered throughout the house and a framed picture of Bruce Lee in his bedroom.  

Timothy was brought down to the West Valley police station where he grilled for hours.  Along with questions about the murder, police also tried to learn more about the relationship he had with his mother.  which he described as "very close." Finally, after hours of questioning, Timothy Scott Roman was formally charged with his mother's murder.  Taking the news of his arrest in stride, he asked to be taken back to the house to collect his medication and personal effects,  While there, he then led police to the room where the dogs had been kept (they had finally been removed by Animal Control) and there, hidden in a laundry hamper, was the murder weapon:  one of the many barbells he used for weightlifting, still covered in his mother's blood as well his fingerprints.  Though he still denied killing his mother (at first), he insisted he had only hidden the barbell because he didn't think anyone would believe his story.   

He was right. 

Even as the forensic evidence against him was steadily piling up, media stories about Susan Cabot and her son were carried across the country.  Most of them centered on the actress herself, including her film career during the 1950s that allowed her to star against luminaries such as Humphrey Bogart and Lee Marvin.   After her film career in Hollywood, she managed to get a few Broadway parts before growing too old for the usual temptress roles that had made her famous.  By the end of the 1950s, she was relegated to appearing in Roger Corman movies, culminating in her final starring role in the 1959  horror film, The Wasp Woman.   She quit acting soon afterward.

As for her son, e was even more of a mystery.  Aside from being Susan Cabot's only child, little was really known about him aside from the medical treatment he had received as a child.  Even the identity of his father was never really confirmed by Cabot (virtually every man she had ever been with was named as the possible father at some point, including King Hussein).  According to some of the very rare visitors to their home on Charmian Lane, Timothy and Susan had a strange relationship with frequent arguments and a shared hoarder mentality that caused them to accumulate a breathtaking amount of junk in their otherwise expensive home.

After learning about the acrimonious relationship that Cabot and her son had, police wasted no time in breaking down his claims of innocence and finally getting him to confess to his mother's murder.  But their problems hardly ended there.   By the time his case came to trial in May, 1989, his defense attorney, Chester Leo Smith, had changed his plea to guilty by reason of insanity.  In making this claim, Smith insisted that Timothy's mental derangement had been caused by the hormonal treatment he had received as a child.  

Timothy's hormonal treatments had begun in 1958 while he was part of an experimental program run by the National Institute of Health.  As one of the 700 children being treated for dwarfism, Timothy was injected with pituitary gland extract exracted from thousands of human cadavers.   Over the eight years in which he received the treatments, Timothy showed no medical problems though he only attained a modest height increase and an oddly wizened appearance.   Unfortunately, many of the other participants in the study wouldn't be quite so lucky.   While Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD) was relatively unknown at the time, a disproportionately high number of cases would be diagnosed in the years that followed the end of the study.  More commonly known as "Mad Cow disease" these days, CJD is a rare and incurable disease often identified by mental deterioration, behavioural changes, and eventually, fatal dementia.  

While there was no evidence that Timothy had developed CJD, the lack of an accepted diagnostic test, not to mention reports of bizarre behaviour in other test subjects, was enough for his lawyer.  As part of Timothy's insanity plea, Smith stressed that the incubation period for CJD could be more than twenty years in many cases and that he could well have developed symptoms without anyone realizing it.   Referring to his client as a "human experiment gone wrong", Smith went to extreme lengths to paint him as nothing more than a victim of his mother's attempt to make her son look normal.

Which went well with his attempts to prove diminished responsibility by portraying Susan Cabot as a disturbed Hollywood has-been  incapable of accepting that she had lost her looks.  It was also revealed that Cabot had helped herself to Timothy's medication in the mistaken belief that it would help her keep her youthful appearance (not unlike the character she played in her final movie, The Wasp Woman).  By representing the dead woman as a bizarre shut-in who had managed to drive her son insane, Smith hoped to bolster his defense and win a shortened sentence for their clients.  And the reporters covering the trial ate it up.   

Even Cabot's past relationship with King Hussein came under scrutiny.   Though Timothy's real father was still a mystery, Smith presented evidence that  Susan Cabot “received a regular sum of $1,500 a month from the Keeper of the King’s Purse, Amman, Jordan. There is written indication in the handwriting of Susan Roman that this money is from a trust. … For better or worse, it looks like child support," he added (the Jordanian government wisely stayed out of the whole matter).  

What was being conveniently overlooked was that many of the people who actually knew Cabot were scandalized by how she was being portrayed.  Still, it was hardly a secret that Susan Cabot had been under a psychologist's care during the final months of her life and that she suffered from severe depression.   Despite her frequent quarrels with her son, she also describe him as her only reason for living.   It was also no secret that she had been slowly deteriorating in her final months and the images showing bizarre state of her house were used to demonstrate just how ill she had become.

For whatever reason, Timothy became confident enough about the case his lawyers had built up to change his plea to not guilty.   Shortly afterward, he took the stand for the first time in his own trial and insisted that it was his mother who had attacked him with the barbell forcing him to beat her to death in self-defense.   Though this directly contradicted the confession he had already made, his testimony was allowed to stand.  

On October 10, 1989, Timothy was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and, having already served two and a half years in jail awaiting trial, he received only three years probation.   In handing down her decision, Judge Darlene Schempp stressed her belief that Timothy "loved his mother very much" and that there was no malice or premeditation in his actions.   He largely vanished into obscurity afterward though some sources hint that he later developed a brain disease (possibly CJD) which led to his death in 2003.   While his mother had been buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, Timothy's ashes were reportedly scattered at sea.  As for the fatal house where the murder had taken place,  it has long since been demolished and a new, more lavish house stands on the spot.   All physical evidence of that long-ago murder and what really happened has been obliterated. 

But a bizarre postscript emerged in 2018 when declassified  documents were published showing that the Central Intelligence Agency had deliberately set then-Prince Hussein up with Susan Cabot to ensure Jordan's continuing cooperation with United States interests.   If Timothy really was Hussein's son, it remained a secret on all sides.  Hussein died in 1999 and his official biography makes no mention or either Susan Cabot or the son they supposedly had together.

Doomsday Deferred

The history of religious movements seems filled with examples of religious figures proudly proclaiming the imminent coming of God, along with redemption for the faithful and punishment for unbelievers.   Many of these religious figures even  give a specific date so their followers could wrap up their affairs and get ready.  And, based on these confident prognostications,  far too many followers ended up doing  just that, even to the point of quitting jobs or selling their houses to await the promised day.   That this day of judgment has yet to materialize hardly seems to matter to the believers, all of which makes stories such as this sound so incredible.

And so we come to Wibur Glenn Voliva.  

Born in 1870 and raised in Illinois, Voliva's improbably career began, like so many others, as an acolyte to the charismatic John Alexander Dowie.   It was Dowie who founded the city of Zion, Illinois in 1901 as a religious community and the hub of his Christian Catholic Apostolic Church.    Having joined Dowie's church in 1898, Voliva became one of his chief lieutenants and even traveled to Australia in 1901 to oversee the church's Australian branch.

As an evangelist and faith healer, Dowie had already gained fame at the 1893 World's Fair holding "big tent" meetings and relying on tricks that seem little different from faith healers today.   With thousands of followers, he founded the city of Zion only a short distance from Chicago.   But Dowie was also shrewd financially.   Before announcing the move to Zion, he secretly bought up as much of the real estate in Zion as he could.   Along with making a fortune in real estate, he also forced his followers to put all their money in the Zion bank (which he owned).   As Dowie proudly proclaimed, his church would control every aspect of life in the new town.  "Our motto," he said, "is the unalterable and unassailable truth that where God rules, man prospers . . . our object, the establishment of the rule of God in every department of the government."   With the hold he had on the town, and the fortune he made from selling stock in various businesses in the town, Dowie quickly made himself one of the wealthiest men in America.

What ultimately doomed Dowie, and gave Wilbur Glenn Voliva the chance to overthrow his rule over the church, was a stroke that he had in 1905.  With Dowie still recovering, Voliva arranged for an audit which determined that millions of dollars were missing from the accounts of the church.    Despite fighting back through litigation, Dowie was forced to step down and live on a pension until his death in 1907.   From that point on, it was Wilbur Voliva who was in control of Zion and the town flourished like never before.  

Not only did Voliva diversify the town's industries, including selling chocolates, lace, and other products, but the church stayed under his solid control.   As a one-company town, the people of Zion had no choice but to accept the wages that Voliva allowed, which were well below the standard set in other towns.  Instead of owning their homes outright, the people of Zion also had to pay for 1100-year leases  held by the Bank of Zion.   And it worked, at least economically.   Though Dowie's mismanagement had left the town bankrupt by the time of his death, Voliva created an economic boom in Zion.   Though he certainly had his share of critics,  many of whom tried to have him charged with  perjury and conspiracy, Voliva proved himself untouchable.

But that would change in time...

Along with being the main employer in town, Voliva also established stern guidelines for the kind of behaviour allowed in the town.  That meant banning alcohol, tobacco, playing cards, oysters, pork, and shellfish, among other things.  By pressuring the state legislature, Voliva even arranged for trains not to stop in Zion on Sundays.   But Voliva had more grandiose plans.  As a national advocate or the flat earth movement, he famously offered $5000 to anyone who could disprove the flat earth theory and also made the teaching of a flat earth and creationism mandatory in Zion schools.  His radio broadcasts preaching against modern astronomy and biology made him one of the most famous religious pundits of his time.   Referring to evolution, modern astronomy, and higher criticism as the "trinity of evils", Voliva's diatribes did little to change public opinion in the rest of the country, but he was still widely quoted.   Even after Richard Byrd's historic flight  over the Antarctic in 1928, newspapers were quick to publish Voliva's stern pronouncement that Byrd's flight did nothing to prove that the world was round.

What really led to his undoing was his frequent pronouncements on the impending end of the world.   Coupled with boasting about the "wonders and miracles the the Lord would work in Zion", Voliva based his doomsday predictions on calculations of key passages from the Book of Daniel.   As the Kingdom of Judah ended on October 6, 586 (how Voliva got the precise date was left up to speculation) then the world would come to a final end on that same day in 1943.   But the signs of the impending end of the world would begin long before then, Voliva predicted.   Prior to the world's ending, Benito Mussolini and "ten kings" would become absolute rulers of the Earth by 1936 and "you would not be able to buy or sell a cent's worth of anything unless you have his sign on your forehead."  But the faithful would have nothing to fear since "the Divine Ruler will appear above the Earth and draw His own up to Him."    He set various dates for when the Rapture would take place which newspapers dutifully reported.  But it was their gleeful reporting on the failure of Voliva's various prophecies that really sold newspapers.  On one promised date, September 10, 1934, Voliva and his followers gathered at Shiloh temple in Zion though they didn't seem to make any real preparation for the Rapture.   When nothing happened, Voliva simply argued that the true date of the Rapture would be on September 10, 1942 instead.   

Meanwhile however, the town and the companies that he had been controlling for so long were suffering from the effects of the Great Depression and all of Voliva's religious sermons failed to keep the townspeople from noticing. Residents in Zion began demanding changes to Voliva's autocratic rule, including the right to own their own property. 

Much like his predecessor, Voliva's lavish lifestyle helped force Zion Industries into bankruptcy.   His plans to revive the town's fortunes by establishing a Passion Play festival much like the one in Oberammergau failed when  a disgruntled employee burned down the theatre in 1937.    Soon afterward, Voliva was forced to declare personal bankruptcy (despite a personal forture once estimated to be around $5 million).

Slowly, his once-absolute control of the town slipped away from him.    Despite blustering statements to the newspapers of being a "two-gun man" surrounded by armed guards, he suffered the humiliation of losing control of Zion Industries and seeing independents winning important political seats in Zion.   Trying to rebuild his financial base with  a series of paid lecture tours, he boasted to journalists that "all that riff-raff (in Zion), will come crawling back to me when I get the colony out of receivership.  Voliva is still on top and will be when prosperity returns to Zion."

When the  people of Zion turned against him, Voliva shifted his base of operations to Florida where he hoped to establish a new religious colony.  This went nowhere and Voliva was forced to live on a pension from his  church in Zion.   Despite his confident predictions, the world never ended and life moved on for everyone but Voliva.   Following his death from cancer in 1942, the church that he had led for so long lost most of its followers.   Though the Christ Community Church stilll exists, it has only a fraction of the adherents it had during the boom years in the early 20th century.   Even the "blue laws" that Voliva had passed in Zion barely survived his death.  The last of them were repealed by 1950.

Today, Zion, Illinois has over 20,000 residents and seems little different than other towns its size.  That it was once the seat of a worldwide church empire, not to mention the home base of one of America's most colourful religious leaders seems to have been largely forgotten.   Still, both Alexander Dowie and Wilbur Glenn Voliva have had a powerful effect on Christian fundamentalism and many of the ideas they once championed live on in the religious crusades of modern evangelists (but mostly without the flat-earth beliefs that made Voliva so eccentric).  

So, the next time you listen to Pat Robertson or once of his fellow evangelists, spare a thought for Wilbur Glenn Voliva, the colourful autocrat who outcrazied them all. 

 

When Social Anxiety Follows a Head Injury

Social anxiety (SA) following traumatic brain injury (TBI) has the potential to affect an individual’s general psychological well-being and social functioning, however little research has explored factors associated with its development. A study published in the journal Neuropsychological Rehabilitation used hierarchical multiple regression to investigate the demographic, clinical and psychological factors associated with SA following TBI. A sample of 85 people who experienced TBI were recruited through social media websites and brain injury services across the North-West of England. The overall combined biopsychosocial model was significant, explaining 52–54.3% of the variance in SA (across five imputations of missing data). The addition of psychological variables (self-esteem, locus of control, self-efficacy) made a significant contribution to the overall model, accounting for an additional 12.2–13% of variance in SA above that explained by demographic and clinical variables. Perceived stigma was the only significant independent predictor of SA (B = .274, p = .005). The findings suggest that psychological variables are important in the development of SA following TBI and must be considered alongside clinical factors. Furthermore, the significant role of stigma highlights the need for intervention at both an individualised and societal level. 

For the abstract

Why Are Suicide Rates Increasing?

Along with the recent suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, media stories about suicide and suicide prevention have become more common than ever.  But a new study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that high-profile suicides like these may well be just the tip of the iceberg.  

As the study graphically demonstrates, suicide appears to be on the increase across the entire United States.  And this is a trend that appears to be occurring for all genders, racial, and ethnic groups.    In tracking suicide rates since 1999, the authors of the report state that nationwide suicide rates have jumped more than 25 percent between 1999 and 2016.    In 2016 alone, nearly 45,000 Americans took their lives with use of firearms accounting for two-thirds of these deaths.

While lead researcher Dr. Deborah Stone stated in a recent media interview that rate of suicide deaths fluctuated across the country, the highest rates appear to be in western and Midwestern regions of the country.   "There were 25 states that had increases of more than 30% - that was a new finding for us,"  she said.

But the reasons behind this increase remains elusive.  While experts have proposed different possible explanations, including the lingering effects of the recent economic downturn, lack of proper mental health care, the easy availability of firearms, and the potential role of media stories relating to suicide in triggering copycat deaths, no one answer seems to fit the available facts.  

As Dr. Stone pointed out, grief, substance abuse, physical health, job and legal problems were all factors that have been cited in suicides though, again, there are no simple answers for this increase.   While mental illness is also commonly cited as a potential factor in suicides, the CDC study points out that 54 percent of all Americans who died by suicide had no known mental health issues.   Even though current statistics may be underestimating the true prevalence of mental illness, experts also point out that most people with known problems do not commit suicide and, while there does appear to be a significant link, focusing on mental illness alone may mean overlooking other causes.

Ultimately, preventing suicide is everybody's responsibility and helping people feel connected and needed may be the best way to curb these deaths.  People who feel at risk can also seek counseling to learn better ways of coping with stress, depression, or loneliness and to disrupt the thought processes that can make suicide possible.

For people considering suicide, there are resources available that can help.   In the United States or Canada, getting help in an emergency is as simple as calling 911.   There is also the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or accessing the Crisis Test Line by texting HOME to 741741.   In Canada, suicide prevention services can be found in all provinces.  Check the Canadian Association For Suicide Prevention website for more information.  For people based in the U.K., help is available through the Samaritans and they maintain a comprehensive website of services.

 

 

 

The Great Billick

What eventually became one of the most bizarre murder cases in Chicago's history began when 22-year-old Mary Vrzal first visited "The Great Billick, Card-Reader and Seer" in 1904.  Within a matter of months, most of her family would be dead and he would eventually be standing trial for their murder.

There is little known about the early history of the man who called himself Herman Billick.   Born in what was then called Bohemia (later the Czech and Slovak republics) , his original name was Vajicek but he later changed it to Billick on emigrating to the United States (he wanted something easier for Americans to pronounce).    An all-around confidence artist, fortune-teller, and "mystic",  Billick developed a reputation for himself by dispensing fortunes, "messages" from the Great Beyond, and assorted quack nostrums, including love potions.    According to one account, Mary Vrzal visited Billick for a love potion to rekindle a local butcher's affection for her sister, Emma.  

Whatever the original reason for his coming into contact with the Vrzal family, he quickly discovered that the family had money and that was enough for "the Great Billick".  While not as well-educated as Billick, the family patriarch, Martin Vrzal, had built up a prosperous milk business, a comfortable nest egg, and a nice home on West 19th Street in Chicago that he shared with his wife and seven children.   It didn't take long for Herman Billick to ingratiate himself with Martin, his wife, Rosa, and the rest of their children.  

He began by visiting Martin at his milk business one day and suddenly speaking in tongues.   The sight of this well-spoken fellow-Czech proclaiming, "“You have an enemy. He is trying to destroy you” was enough to sway Martin to bringing "the Great Billick" home to meet the rest of his family.   Since Martin was already engaged in a fierce business battle with a rival milk producer, having Herman cast a spell to help his business seemed to make good business sense.   Though Mary Vrzal was already one of Billick's customers, it was Martin's wife, Rosa, who appeared to be his prime target.   Despite being married himself, Herman Billick apparently had no problem seducing Rosa and making her part of his bizarre murder scheme. 

Based on what would come out during Billick's later trial, he reportedly convinced Rosa Vrzal to help him poison his own wife and mother, as well as most of her own family to collect on their insurance policies.   After Billick's wife was dead, he would then be free to marry Rosa.    Exactly how Herman Billick was able to gain such complete control over Rosa Vrzal is still a mystery but members of her family began dropping like flies shortly afterward.   Martin Vrzal was the first to die on March 27, 1905.     The money Martin's insurance policy and the proceeds from selling their house both yielded a tidy $2000 but that was obviously not enough for Rosa and her new betrothed.    Just a few months later, Mary Vrzal died as well while a second daughter, Tilly, would die in December of that same year.   The insurance payout for both daughters was only $1400.    Two more daughters would die in the following year though their insurance payments would only pay out several hundred dollars apiece.

But things were definitely going wrong for Rosa Vrzal.   Not only were the police taking a closer look at the suspicious deaths, but Herman Billick had pocketed all of the insurance money.   To add insult to injury, Billick's wife and mother were still alive since he refused to poison them as he had originally promised Rosa.   That meant that she was left destitute and without the marriage Billick had promised her.

By December, 1906 police issued warrants for the arrest of Herman Billick and Rosa Vrzal.    All six bodies were exhumed and autopsies determined that they had  died of arsenic poisoning.   Though they were able to arrest Billick, Rosa managed to escape them by committing suicide with arsenic before the police could catch up with her.  

The trial of Herman Billick proved to be as bizarre as anyone could imagine.    The oldest Vrzal daughter, Mrs. Emma Nieman, testified that Billick had a "baneful influence" over her and her mother.  She told police that Billick had "drawn" the two of them to meet him in Cleveland, Ohio on one occasion.   He had also cabled the Vrzal family requesting money numerous times.   Demands for money often ran into hundreds of dollars at times and the Vrzal family were forced to borrow from their neighbours to raise the sum needed.    Emma also reported that Billick had personally dosed her father and sister with what he described as medication.   Since Emma's husband had been one of the victims, she came under suspicion as well though police later cleared her of all guilt.

Martin and Rosa's son, Jerry, would testify that he had heard both Billick and Rosa scheming to murder his father in the days before his death.   He said that Billick seemed quite open about his murder scheme.   He also added that Billick said to him that, "...in a few days my father would be dead, and others also.   If I was all right, they would take me with them, he said.  Otherwise he would kill me."   As for Rosa's suicide, Jerry claimed that Billick had "hypnotized" her to kill herself as a way of protecting him from prosecution.

Thanks to Jerry Vrzal's testimony. Herman Billick had no choice but to admit swindling the Vrzal family out of their savings but flatly denied having anything to do with the deaths.  While there was no evidence of his purchasing arsenic, Billick was sentenced to death for the murder of Mary Vrzal (the other charges were set aside).   His lawyer managed to win a stay of execution by appealing the sentence and promptly went to work trying to change public opinion about Billick's guilt.   Along with orchestrating news stories suggesting that Billick should be retried, Jerry Vrzal suddenly repudiated his own testimony, something which damaged the case severely.   Adding to that,  Billick not only denied any part in the poisonings but also to having any "sinful relationships" with Rosa Vrzal. 

Then there was Chicago's large immigrant community to deal with.   A priest, Father P.J. O'Callaghan, and a nun, Sister Rose of the Order of the Sacred Heart, started a petition on Billick's behalf and gathered more than twenty-thousand signatures pleading for clemency in the case.   Even Billick's fellow prisoners got involved with over four hundred convicts in the Cork County Jail falling to their knees to "beg God to spare their popular fellow prisoner."    They then presented floral bouquets to the warden, Father O'Callaghan,  and Sister Rose.

On June 12, 1908, the day of Billick's scheduled execution date,  thousands of people gathered outside the jail where Billick was being held.    Twenty minutes before the execution, presiding judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis announced that he had found a flaw in the prosecutor's case.   While he was convinced Billick was guilty, he argued that there was ample grounds for an appeal.   "If I had the power to deny the appeal, I would deny it," he stated.  "However, it is not a question of merit, it is a question of right - hI have the right to stand between this man an a reconsideration of his plea.  I cannot find that I have any authority to do that."    

Hearing of Judge Landis' decision, the crowd outside the jail went hysterical.  Prisoners inside the jail staged their own demonstration and guards needed a half-hour to quiet them down.    Though Billick was spared the gallows, he was hardly a free man.    In January 1909, the Governor commuted his sentence to life imprisonment and, after years of serving as a model inmate, Herman Billick was formally pardoned in January, 1917.  Sadly, his story appears to end there., if there was anything more about his later life, I was unable to find it.

Martin and Rosa Vrzal are both buried along with their children in Chicago's Bohemian National Cemetery.   Whatever secrets they had relating to one of the most bizarre murder-for-insurance schemes in Chicago's history died with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sleepwalker on Trial

Even for Boston in the 19th century, it was an unusually brutal murder.

Based on police reports,  the murder occurred on October 27, 1845.   The victim, a 21-year-old prostitute named Maria Ann Bickford, had apparently just finished dealing with a client in the upscale "boarding house" (i.e., brothel) in Boston where she lived and worked.   Not only had she nearly been decapitated and her throat cut from ear to ear, but the killer had set several fires  in the brothel before leaving.   The fires had likely been set to conceal the crime but they were doued before long and Bickford's body was quickly discovered.  A man's vest and cane, covered with blood, were found at the scene. 

Since the landlord insisted that the house had been securely locked to prevent any intruders from getting in, police only had one real suspect in the killing.  Albert Tirrell was a twenty-two year-old paramour of Maria Bickford.    The son of a successful manufacturer and a member of a well-established family, Tirrell been living with his wife and two children in Weymouth, Massachusetts when he apparently grew tired of the domestic life.   Whether he had abandoned his family before or after meeting Maria Bickford in a Boston brothel isn't clear but they certainly became inseparable afterward.

Maria Bickford's history was little different from Tirrell's.   Born and raised in Bangor, Maine, she had married a shoemaker at the age of sixteen and had one child who died in infancy.  Taken by friends to Boston to help her get over her grief, she quickly became fascinated by Boston life and abandoned her husband after only three years of marriage.  Though she took up with a paramour, who then abandoned her, Bickford quickly turned to prostitution to support herself.   Her youthful beauty made her extremely popular and she quickly became established in brothels catering to the wealthy Boston elite.   Certainly, becoming Albert Tirrell's constant companion did nothing to change that. 

Whether Tirrell was just her lover or Maria's pimp as well was never clear though they often traveled together moving from one new address to another.   Despite never marrying (they were both still legally married to other spouses),  Albert and Maria often posed as husband and wife as they stayed in some of the most fashionable hotels along the East Coast.    They also scandalized Boston society and Albert was even tried for adultery at one point (it took an impassioned plea from family members, including his young wife, to save him from prosecution).   He and Maria frequently quarreled but she would claim that she didn't mind because they had "such a good time making up."   Under the name "Maria Welch", she and Tirrell maintained a house on London street for a time.   That the house was basically a front for Maria to entertain clients was hardly a secret (Maria's name was on the front door).   Since prostitution was still technically illegal, despite Maria's exclusive clientele, they rarely stayed at any address for long.

By the time of Maria's murder, she and Tirrell were both living at a thinly-disguised brothel in Boston.   An elderly couple ran the place and advertised it as a boarding-house but the fact that people rented the rooms for one purpose seemed clear enough.    Though Albert supposedly lived elsewhere, he stayed with Maria frequently and was known to have slept there on the night of her death.    Other residents on the house reported hearing loud noises coming from Maria's room early in the morning but nobody investigated until after the body was found.  

When police tried to question Tirrell about the murder, they found that he had disappeared.  Still, he was their only suspect since he had been seen with the victim earlier that night and was likely the last person to see her alive.    The bloody clothes that had been found in Bickford's room were identified as belonging to Tirrell.  Also, one witness had reported seeing Tirrell afterwards arguing with a livery stable keeper about getting a horse.   He had reportedly said that he was "in a scrape" and needed a horse and carriage as fast as possible.

Albert Tirrell disappeared for months until Louisiana police, acting on a tip, arrested him on  a boat in the Gulf of Mexico on December 5.   As Boston police later learned,  Tirrell had driven to the home of some relatives in Weymouth, MA on the day of the murder.   These relatives had supplied him with money which he then used to flee to Canada.   From Montreal, he formed a convoluted plan to sail to Liverpool but bad weather eventually led to his sailing to New Orleans instead.  It was there that he was arrested and returned to Boston where  he was charged with the murder of Maria Bickford.

While nobody could be certain who was responsible, a book titled The Life and Death of Mrs Maria Bickford was released shortly before the trial began.   The book, a largely fictionalized account of Maria Bickford's life up to the time of her murder, portrayed her as a beautiful and tragic figure who had been victimized by all the men in her life.   Though portraying Maria as a victim, the book also highlighted all of the stereotypes associated with prostitutes.   Despite claims of being "true to life", the book was largely fabricated and was obviously meant to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Tirrell's upcoming trial.   There is no evidence that any of the jurors in the trial actually read the book but it likely added to the media circus surrounding what promised to be a high-profile case.

Despite the scandal that Tirrell brought to his family, they were well-to-do enough to hire Rufus Choate to defend Albert in the lurid trial.   Choate, a prominent lawyer and politician, had already served both in Congress and as a Senator and was legendary for his skill as an orator.  Since virtually everybody in Boston knew about the overwhelming evidence against his client, thanks to the "scandal sheets" that described every detail of the case, Choate was obliged to try a different strategy to save his client.  

First of all, he attacked Maria Bickford's character to make her less sympathetic to the jurors.  Through evidence carefully orchestrated by Choate, Tirrell's cousins portrayed Maria Bickford as a shameless siren who had seduced poor Albert away from his wife and children.   They also claimed that she had a fatal hold on Albert and that she forced him to spend nearly all of his inherited wealth on buying her jewelry and dresses while she continued to throw herself at other men.   Despite this apparent abuse, Choate also insisted that his client would have had to be completely irrational to kill Maria due to his love for her.   As Choate pointed out, she had "for a long time had held him spellbound by her depraved and lascivious arts."   There was also a touch of racism added in as Choate also brought in two witnesses who testified that they had seen Maria with non-white clients (likely meant as proof of her "moral turpitude").  As a "fallen woman", anything Choate could say about Bickford must have seemed plausible enough to members of the jury, all of whom had seen the rise of urban prostitution in their lifetimes. 

To explain away the evidence against his client,  Choate and his defense team would do everything in their power to blacken Maria Bickford's reputation further and even suggesting that the wound to her throat had been self-inflicted.  He also broadly hinted that prostitutes were prone to committing suicide due to their immoral lifestyles.  But Rufus Choate didn't push this argument very far.   Considering that Maria had been nearly decapitated, arguing that she had done it to herself would have been too much for even a sympathetic jury to swalllow.  Not to mention the trifling problem of who had set the fire that nearly consumed her body.

All of which led to his second great defense strategy:  sleepwalking.   Since somnabulism was still considered to be a mysterious phenomenon without a rational explanation, arguing that Choate must have committed the murder while in a trance state was a bold move on Choate's part.     As he stated in the courtroom, "Evidence will be produced to show that it had pleased Almighty God to afflict the prisoner with this species of mental derangement.”   That evidence included anecdotes from history including famous people such as Alexander the Great acting strangely while sleepwalking.    Family members and friends of the defendant also described episodes from Tirrell's life showing that he had been sleepwalking from a young age.     To cap off the testimony on Tirrell's behalf, Walter Channing, dean of Harvard Medical School, testified that it was theoretically possible for a man to commit murder while sleepwalking.

Whether it was the character assassination of the victim or the novel sleepwalking defense, Choate's ploy worked.   Really though, it was his own amazing skill at rhetoric that truly swayed the jury on his client's behalf.  Even the court stenographer recording Choate's arguments during the trial complained that she had difficulty keeping up with him.  "Who can report chain lightning?",  she reportedly said.

It took only two hours for the jurors to hand down a not-guilty verdict.   Spectators applauded and Albert Tirrell burst into tears.   Of course, his legal problems were hardly over.  He still had to stand trial for arson (which was also a capital crime at the time) but Choate got him off on that charge as well.    According to historical record, Tirrell later unsuccessfully tried to get Choate to refund half his legal fees because "his innocence was so obvious."  Not that Tirrell escaped justice completely.   The judge refused to acquit him on the charge of adultery and he eventually spent three years in a state prison.   From what I could find, he vanished into well-deserved obscurity after his release.   Whether he ever went back to his long-suffering family doesn't seem to be recorded.

Afterward, Choate left private practice to return to public office (after being reportedly besieged by defendants hoping he could help them as well).   Despite his reputation as a statesman, Rufus Choate never quite lived down being the one to introduce the sleepwalking defense.   Following his death in 1859,  one lawyer eulogized him by saying that Choate was "the lawyer who made it safe to murder." 

Miscarriage of justice or not?  You be the judge.

 

Advertising, Adolescents, and E-Cigarette Use

Electronic (E-) cigarettes are one of the most popular tobacco products used by adolescents today. A new study in the journal Addictive Behaviors examined whether exposure to advertisements in (1) social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest/Google Plus), (2) traditional media (television/radio, magazines, billboards), or (3) retail stores (convenience stores, mall kiosks, tobacco shops) was associated with subsequent e-cigarette use in a longitudinal cohort of adolescents. Data were drawn from longitudinal surveys conducted in fall 2013 (wave 1) and spring 2014 (wave 2) of a school-based cohort attending 3 high schools and 2 middle schools in Connecticut. Adolescents were asked about tobacco use behaviors and where they had recently seen e-cigarette advertising at wave 1. We used logistic regression to determine whether advertising exposure at wave 1 increased the odds of e-cigarette use by wave 2, controlling for demographics and cigarette smoking status at wave 1.  Among those who have never used e-cigarettes in wave 1 (n = 1742), 9.6% reported e-cigarette use at wave 2. Multivariate logistic regression demonstrated that exposure to e-cigarette advertising on Facebook (OR 2.12 = p < 0.02) at wave 1, but not other venues, significantly increased the odds of subsequent e-cigarette use wave 2. Age, white race, and cigarette smoking at wave 1 also was associated with e-cigarette use at wave 2. This study provides one of the first longitudinal examinations demonstrating that exposure to e-cigarette advertising on social networking sites among youth who had never used e-cigarettes increases the likelihood of subsequent e-cigarette use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract