Providentia

The Problem with Infectious Laughter

When the first episode if what would be called the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic occurred on January 30, 1962 at boarding school in Kashasha, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), no one suspected that what they were seeing would eventually affect over one thousand people.  The first three victims were teenage girls though the laughing quickly spread to the rest of the school with 95 of the nearly 200 students at the school being affected.   None of the teachers were affected.   Symptoms usually faded after a few hours though some of the affected students were prone to relapses.  While the school was shut down for two months as a reaction to the outbreak, new cases developed almost immediately after the school was reopened.  From Kashasha, new cases soon broke out in other villages in the area as news of the strange outbreak got out.  In one memorable episode, over two hundred people from the same village fell ill within a matter of days which completely overwhelmed local health agencies.   Medical doctors admitted to being stymied by the strange epidemic which locals dubbed "endwara yokusheka" (the laughing sickness) as well as "Akujanja" (madness). 

Reporters covering the story seemed as mystified as everybody else about what was happening.   All they could do was report on the progress of the outbreak as it continued to spread.   According to one story published in Newsweek in August, 1963:

"In the steamy, East African bush town of Kashasha, Tanganyika [now known as Tanzania] , a 13-year old girl suddenly began giggling for no reason.  Soon her giggles turned to spasms of violent, uncontrolled laughter.  Within an hour, her laughter had dissolved into equally intense sobs.  By nightfall, 100 of her schoolmates at the Swedish Evangelical Mission school were all laughing and sobbing uncontrollably.  The school was closed, but the girls carried their strange behavior home to their villages.  Some coffee-bean farms lay untended as convulsed - and exhausted - villagers lay sprawled in their thatch-roofed huts."

In a 1963 report published in the Central African Medical Journal, Dr. A.M. Rankin of Uganda's Makerere College and Dr. P.J. Phillip, a Tanganyika medical officer pointed out that virtually all of the reported cases involved schoolchildren and young adults living in villages relatively close to one another.  Though no trace of fever was found in any of the reported cases, medical doctors found that dilated pupils and impaired concentration seemed to be common symptoms.  Some patients even reported "strange things moving around in their heads" though no physical cause could be found.   All that health officials could say for certain was that the disease apparently spread by physical contact as people traveled between villages.   Perhaps more significantly, none of the medical doctors and nurses treating the affected villagers ever developed symptoms. 

Still, while there was no medical explanation for what was happening, other people had no problem finding things to blame the outbreak on.   Along with the usual supernatural explanations, some villagers suggested that the epidemic was caused by atmospheric contamination resulting from nuclear testing (why it would be affecting western Africa in particular was left to the imagination).  The original school where the epidemic began was later sued for allowing children and their parents to spread the disease.   Though the symptoms themselves seemed fairly mild, the prospect of a disease that could strike without warning contributed to the sense of panic many people expedrienced.   

Almost from the beginning, doctors raised the possibility that all of the cases were due to mass hysteria though the symptoms seemed very real to the people involved.   With no cure in sight, new cases would continue to crop up for as long as eighteen months after the first episode.  Eventually however, the epidemic ran its course and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as everything got back to normal.  Despite lingering questions over why the epidemic had happened, local health officials declared the entire matter closed.

While episodes of mass hysteria (now known as mass psychogenic illness) that simulate disease epidemics are fairly common, there are some unique aspects to the Tanganyika case that highlight that set it apart from other outbreaks.  In 2002, forty years after the Tanganyika outbreak began, Christian F. Hemplemann, then a graduate student at Purdue University, presented a paper on the epidemic at the International Society for Humor Studies Conference at Northeastern Illinois University.   In his paper, he a comprehensive overview of the epidemic as well as other cases of mass psychogenic illness that have occurred over the past few decades.    Despite the laughter that was the most commonly reported symptom, Hemplemann argued that it was stress, not humour, that kept the epidemic going.

Now at Texas A&M University, Hemplemann has continued his research on the Tanganyika epidemic and on different mass psychogenic illness outbreaks that have occurred since.   As he pointed out in a 2003 media interview, "One person laughs, then another person laughs, then it spreads like an avalanche. So when parents picked up their children from school, they started laughing. Then it spread to other villages, and so on. And depending on where you read about it, the laughing epidemic lasted for anywhere from six months to a year-and-a-half....Now we call it Mass Psychogenic Illness (MPI). It’s psychogenic, meaning it is all in the minds of the people who showed the symptoms. It’s not caused by an element in the environment, like food poisoning or a toxin. There is an underlying shared stress factor in the population. It usually occurs in a group of people who don’t have a lot of power. MPI is a last resort for people of a low status. It’s an easy way for them to express that something is wrong. That may be why it has come to be associated more often with women.”  

While there is no clear answer for why the epidemic struck when it did, Hemplemann suggests that the political turmoil resulting from Tanganyika's recent independence from Great Britain may have been a factor.  "The young people involved reported that they were feeling stressed by the higher expectations of their teachers and parents. It is a common occurrence and a costly occurrence if it occurs at your workplace because it may have to be closed down. This happened in Lafayette, Ind., a couple of years ago. They'll get someone to spray the area to comfort people who were involved. People will say that there were a bunch of bugs and we were all stung by it. They won't admit that it was hysteria."   

Despite its unique features, what happened in Tanganyika in 1963 shares many of the common factors identified in similar outbreaks.  These factors include:

• Symptoms with no known organic basis
• Symptoms with rapid onset and recovery
• Symptoms that are typically transient in nature
• Occurring in a specific group
• Extreme anxiety
• Symptoms are spread by word of mouth or through popular media
• Spreading down the age scale from older to younger victims
• Predominantly female victims

Symptoms linked to mass psychogenic illness can include nausea, headaches, abdominal cramps or pain, fainting, chest pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and anxiety attacks.   According to British psychologist, Simon Wessely, MPI can manifest itself as either “mass anxiety hysteria” with episodes of acute anxiety (primarily in schoolchildren), or as “mass motor hysteria” involving abnormal motor behaviour.    

Still, the infectious laughter manifested by its victims has given the Tanganyika outbreak a place in medical history along with the dancing epidemic seen in the 13th century, possessed nuns in France, demonic possessions, and even the Salem witch hysteria of the 17th century.   Only time will tell what new bizarre symptoms will appear next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understanding the "Batman Killer"

Can a psychiatrist reliably predict whether someone will go on a shooting rampage?   The question has come into renewed focus due to the recent release of the clinical notes written by a psychiatrist on James Holmes, a.k.a. "The Batman Killer."

On July 12, 2012, 25-year-old James Holmes pulled out four guns in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado.  It was a late-night premiere screening of The Dark Night Rises during which he slipped out after the first few minutes of the showing and left the emergency door propped open.  Soon afterward, he returned wearing full commando gear, including a bulletproof vest and set off a series of gas canisters.  Holmes then opened fire on the movie audience, later going outside to shoot at terrified patrons as they tried to flee.   In all, he killed twelve people and wounded another seventy.  According to witnesses, Holmes was "calm and detached" after he finished his shooting rampage and police soon found him standing outside his car which was parked behind the theatre.  His hair had been dyed bright orange and he referred to himself as "The Joker", the central villain of the previous Batman movie.  Despite Holmes being heavily armed, police managed to arrest him without incident.  He then told officers that he had booby-trapped his apartment with explosive devices.  The devices were later disarmed by a bomb squad.   

In the investigation that followed, police would later determine that Holmes (dubbed the "Batman Killer" by the press) had a long history of mental health problems, including being assessed by Dr. Lynn Fenton, a University of Colorado psychiatrist, who had seen Holmes while he was still a student there.   In fact, Holmes had mailed a notebook to the psychiatrist just hours before the shooting.   The notebook described the homicidal thoughts that he was experiencing in the weeks leading up to the shooting as well as his violent plans though the notebook would not be discovered until days afterward.   While the notebook had originally been addressed to Holmes' parents, he apparently reconsidered and sent it to Dr. Fenton instead.   He also reportedly called a crisis help line minutes before the shooting, apparently in the hope that someone would talk him out of what he had been planning.

While Holmes managed to avoid the death penalty in the subsequent trial (the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision), he would later be convicted on twenty-four counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder before being sentenced to life in prison without parole.  During the course of his trial, he was seen by two other psychiatrists who both concluded that he was legally sane at the time of the shooting despite evidence of mental illness.  All that remained was the question of what had motivated him to carry out the shooting and whether Dr. Fenton or other mental health professionals who had dealt with him might have prevented the killings.  As a result,  her clinical notes on Fenton would be carefully examined during the course of his criminal trial.   Though she acknowledged that Holmes had admitted homicidal thoughts during their sessions together, she stated that he refused to provide specific details saying that she would "lock him up"  if she knew the truth.   

As part of her background check on Holmes, she determined that he had no weapons permits and no significant history of violence on his student record.  Despite her findings, she was concerned enough to consult a second psychiatrist about the case as well as notifying the campus threat assessment team and Holmes' mother.   Her final conclusion was that Holmes "does not currently meet criteria for a mental health hold...He is not gravely disabled and has no evidence of suicidal ideation. Longstanding homicidal ideation but denies any specific targets and there is no current evidence he is angry at the grad school (or anyone else)."  

What she didn't know was that, even as he was attending sessions with her, he was also buying a small arsenal of assault weapons and practicing daily at a nearby gun range.   He also started the notebook that would list his deadly plans.   The shooting rampage occurred just two months later.

While Dr. Fenton would later be sued over her failure to place him on a mental health hold which might have prevented the shooting, the case was later dismissed.   

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The Case of the Greenbrier Ghost

Could a ghost give testimony in a murder trial?   

As it happens, there is a fairly well-known murder case from the 1890s in which the alleged ghostly accusations of a young murder victim helped convict her husband of the crime.  Unfortunately, while the story of the "Greenbrier Ghost" has become a local legend in West Virginia where the case occurred, the actual facts tend to be a bit more, well, mundane.

It all began on January 21, 1897 in Greenbriar County, West Virginia when the body of Zona Heaster-Shue was found on the floor of the house she shared with her new husband, Edward Stribbling Shue (better known as "Trout").   The body was discovered by an errand boy, Anderson Jones.  It was Jones who later reported that the dead woman had been lying face-down at the foot of the stairs with one arm tucked under her chest and the other arm extended.   Since Jones immediately notified her husband,  Trout Shue arrived home before the police could investigate.  In fact, he had moved the body to her bed before the coroner arrived.   Even while  the coroner, Dr. George Knapp, made his investigation, Trout was loudly wailing over Zona's dead body and the doctor, as a sign of respect, stopped his examination and signed the death certificate.   The official cause of death was given as "heart failure" which had led her to fall down the stairs.

After the legalities had been taken of, all that remained was Zona's wake during which Trout gave another histrionic display of grief which, among other things, kept other mourners away from the body.  But Zona's burial went ahead as scheduled and everyone was satisfied that the verdict of accidental death was correct.   Except, of course, for Zona's mother,  Mary Jane Heaster.  As she would insist later, she had never trusted Trout Shue and had been unswervingly opposed to him marrying her daughter.    As soon as news of Zona's death came, she immediately suspected that her new son-in-law was responsible.   Still, nobody really believed her protests about Zona's death and simply assumed that the grieving mother refused to face reality.     

Following weeks of praying for the truth to come out, Mary Jane was reportedly visited by her daughter's ghost on four separate nights.  During these visits, the spirit would appear at the foot of her bed and describe how Trout had frequently beaten her and, after a violent argument, strangled her.  To provide additional detail, the ghost then described how Trout had crushed her windpipe and broke her neck "at the first joint."   She reportedly demonstrated this injury by rotating her head almost completely around.  After sharing her story with her brother-in-law, both he and Mary Jane decided to share their suspicions with Lewisburg prosecutor, John Preston.

Though Preston, was understandably dubious on hearing the story, her repeated pleading made him agree to investigate.   This meant looking into Trout Shue's background before he had come to Greenbriar country.  Preston then learned that Trout had a history of convictions for assaults in another state.  He had also been married twice before and one of those wives had died under suspicious circumstances. Finally, he also questioned Doctor Knapp who admitted that he hadn't had a chance to do a complete examination before signing Zona's death certificate.   In the meantime, more people were becoming suspicious due to Trout's odd behaviour when he was supposed to be grieving for his dead wife.   Someone even reported hearing him say that "nobody could ever prove that I killed Zona"  and that he would "eventually marry seven women."  As more people shared their suspicions with Preston, he arranged for Zona's body to be exhumed so that a proper examination  could be done.

Despite Trout Shue's protests, the autopsy was carried out on February 22, 1897.   To make sure there would be no mistakes this time, Preston arranged for three medical doctors to examine the body.   What they found was clear evidence of fingermarks on Zona's neck along with contusions to her esophagus and fractures to her first and second vertebrae, almost exactly as her mother described.   The three doctors then concluded that Zona Shue had died from a broken neck and manual strangulation.  During the inquest that followed, Trout Shue was mercilessly grilled about his whereabouts at the time of Zona's death.  Though he denied being responsible, Zona's death was ruled a homicide and Trout was charged with murder.   

The trial was held in June, 1897 and took eight days.  For his defense, Trout hired William Reekler and James Gardner to defend him.   Gardner was an intriguing choice since he was the first African-American to practice in a circuit court in West Virginia.    Knowing full well what people could make of Mary Jane Heaster's strange story, John Preston deliberately avoided calling her to testify in the murder trial that began on June 22.   Instead, he focused exclusively on the physical evidence, including testimony from Trout Shue himself.   This included focusing on his behaviour before and after Zona's death including his ill-considered boast that he would eventually have seven wives (Zona was only his third).

As for Reekler and Gardner, they knew that their client would be executed if he were convicted of first degree murder so they decided to focus on Mary Jane Heaster and her claims of seeing her daughter's ghost.   They had likely hoped that her bizarre testimony would discredit the entire case against his client.   Unfortunately, she was a more compelling witness than they had anticipated.  During the course of her testimony, Mary Jane was emphatic that Zona's ghost had appeared to her four times and described in detail how her husband had killed her.  She also testified about the burial sheet which had been under Zona's head during her wake.  While Trout had given it to Mary Jane as a keepsake after the funeral, she insisted that the sheet had turned red after she attempted to wash it some weeks later.   The sheet was duly shown to the jury and it did have a pinkish colour.   Despite there being no actual forensic evidence to prove that the red colouring was due to bloodstains, it still added to Zona's credibility with the jurors.  

At the summation of the eight-day trial, the judge cautioned the jury that the evidence against Trout was circumstantial.  Still, they apparently disagreed since it only took them an hour to find Trout Shue guilty as charged though with a recommendation for mercy.  As a result, the judge sentenced Trout to life imprisonment.  

But the drama didn't end there.  Soon after Trout's sentencing, a lynch mob tried to converge on the jail to "take care" of Trout themselves.   After being tipped off about their plans, the Sheriff managed to defuse tensions by convincing members of the mob to let justice take its course.   He was then taken to Moundsville Prison (now the West Virginia State Penitentiary).   Presumably, life there was grim since Trout Shue died after only eight years and without ever marrying four more times as he had originally planned.   

While Trout Shue was likely guilty given the weight of the physical evidence against him, it was the macabre story of Zona's ghost accusing him from beyond the grave that makes this case so memorable.   Books have been written about the "Greenbrier ghost" case, fiction and non-fiction alike, and it still remains the only case in U.S. history in which a ghost's testimony has been admitted as evidence in a murder trial.   Along with the case being a part of local lore, there is even a marker along U.S. 60 calling attention to Zona's nearby burial site and how her ghostly testimony helped solve her murder.   

Such is fame.

The Nazi Who Hid in Plain Sight

The Doctors' Trial that ended on August 20, 1947 led to the conviction of sixteen medical doctors who had been involved in Nazi medical experiments and mass murder. While seven defendants were sentenced to death and nine others received prison sentences, not all of the medical doctors who had been part of the Nazi war machine had gone on trial. It is concerning one of these doctors in particular and how he eventually came to justice to which we now turn.

By all accounts, Werner Heyde's early life gave no indication of what was to come later. Born in 1902, he enlisted at the age of sixteen to fight in World War One. After the war ended, Heyde completed medical training and became a psychiatrist. Despite serving in different hospitals and clinics, his career was completely ordinary until joining the Nazi party in 1933. He found his new political affiliation very helpful in his career and used these connections to become a full professor at Wurzburg.

Heyde's chief mentor among the Nazis was Theodor Eicke, a former patient who had convinced him to join the party. Heyde rose quickly in party ranks and joined the SS in 1936. Being a trained psychiatrist, Heyde was the natural choice to form a neuropsychiatric unit in the SS and to become consulting psychiatrist for the Gestapo. His greatest contribution to the Nazi cause was the role that he played in Aktion T4.

As head of the SS medical department, Heyde played a leading role in the planning and implementation of a national register of mental patients and "defective" children and adults. Over the course of World War 2, more than 275,000 "defectives" were killed across occupied Europe and, until 1941, Heyde acted as the chief "expert" who made the final decision concerning executions. Despite being later replaced by Paul Nitsche, Heyde continued to administrate killing programs in concentration camps.

Under Aktion 14F13, the criteria for death were expanded to include all inmates who were deemed unfit due to disease. Heyde helped draft the criteria and trained the medical doctors to recognize these "signs" (usually based on an inability to work or being an "enemy of National Socialism"). His enthusiasm for his duties made him extremely popular with the Nazi hierarchy and he rose in the ranks quickly. By 1945, he had become a full colonel.

And then the war ended...

In May of 1945, Werner Heyde was arrested by British troops and transferred to a prison in Frankfurt to be held for trial in Nuremberg. He somehow managed to escape custody on July 24, 1947. Purchasing new identity papers for himself under the name of Fritz Sawade, Heyde eventually gained a position as a sports physician in a school near Kiel, Germany.

Although family members and some colleagues later admitted to knowing his true identity, "Fritz Sawade" had a highly successful practice for years. He even gave testimony as an expert witness in numerous forensic cases (including psychiatric testimony) which provided him with a very comfortable income. By 1959, Sawade's true identity had become an open secret to many local psychiatrists, government officials and judges. It was his flamboyant lifestyle and involvement in high profile trials that led to Heyde's undoing in the end.

During the war, Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt had been an active opponent of the Nazi regime. As an eminent neurologist, he managed to save many of his patients from Aktion T4. His wife spent four years in prison for making "spiteful and malicious remarks" about Hitler and Creutzfeldt's home and clinic were destroyed by Allied bombings. After the war, he served as chancellor at the university in Kiel until he was dismissed by British authorities (they considered him too liberal) and he relocated to Munich.

While acting as an expert witness, he was outraged by one of Fritz Sawade's forensic opinions and decided to investigate. It must have been a shock to him when he recognized Sawade as the fugitive Werner Heyde. Realizing that Heyde had the quiet support of many local doctors and judicial authorities was likely an even bigger shock.  Despite opposition, Creutzfeldt and his two sons managed to be heard.

Werner Heyde was arrested in 1959 and held in custody for two years. In 1961, just days before his trial was set to begin, Heyde was found dead in his cell of an apparent suicide. There was widespread suspicion that Heyde's death had been "encouraged" by medical doctors and authorities fearing what would have come out during the trial. With Heyde's death, the case was officially closed and the matter was regarded as settled. The question of how a fugitive Nazi could live for years as a successful medical doctor and expert witness was never answered.

Hans Creutzfeldt died in 1964. Despite his eminence in neurology, his humanitarian efforts during the war, and his role in exposing Werner Heyde, Creutzfeldt was largely forgotten for decades after his death. In 1995, researchers reported on the existence of a new variant of a disease that Creutzfeldt had co-discovered with his colleague Alfons Jakob back in 1921. Through its link with "Mad Cow disease" and dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease became one of the most talked-about medical conditions in the world and Hans Creutzfeldt finally achieved an odd sort of immortality.

Such is life.

Do Fateful Life Events Lead to Brain Aging?

Negative fateful life events (FLEs) such as interpersonal conflict, death in the family, financial hardship, and serious medical emergencies can act as allostatic stressors that accelerate biological aging. However, the relationship between FLEs and neuroanatomical aging is not well understood. A new study published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging examines 359 men (mean age 62 years) participating in the Vietnam Era twin study of aging (VETSA) to determine whether negative midlife FLEs are associated with advanced brain aging after controlling for physical, psychological, and lifestyle factors. At two different time points, participants were assessed for negative FLEs, health and well-being, general cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, depression, and ethnicity. Participants underwent a magnetic resonance imaging examination, and T1-weighted images were processed with FreeSurfer. Subsequent neuroanatomical measurements were entered into the Brain-Age Regression Analysis and Computation Utility software (BARACUS) to predict brain age. Having more midlife FLEs, particularly relating to interpersonal relationships, was associated with advanced predicted brain aging (i.e., higher predicted brain age relative to chronological age). This association remained after controlling for the significant covariates of alcohol consumption, cardiovascular risk, adult socioeconomic status, and ethnicity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

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"Shared Psychosis" Presumed Cause of Mass Suicide in Delhi

Just days after the bizarre discovery of eleven bodies belonging to the same New Delhi family, police are still struggling to understand the underlying cause of the deaths.   Though initially suspected to be murder, an autopsy report determined that the eleven members of the Chundawat family all died due to hanging, apparently self-inflicted.   Ten of the bodies were found hanging from iron mesh that had been secured to the ceiling while the eleventh body, that of 77-year-old Naryan Devi, was found lying on the floor in another room of the house.   Though the autopsy determined that she had died of hanging as well, it remains unclear whether she had died before or after the others.   One of the deceased, a 33-year-old IT company employee, was to have been married later in the year.  

Police also recovered documents at the scene including instructions on how to carry out the hanging as well as a letter suggesting that the family had been in contact with a nearby "godman" who may have been involved.  While police have interviewed the religious leader, he denied any contact with the Chundawat family.  While all of the bodies were found with their hands tied with rope, three of the bodies had their hands tied loosely in front of them leading police to suspect that they had either tied up the others or tried to free themselves.   

In conducting the psychological autopsy of the deaths, police and medical examiners reviewed diaries of some of the deceased which were also recovered at the scene.  Police also interviewed other members of the same family, some of whom were devastated over the deaths and reluctant to share details.   According to what has been pieced together, the entire family was extremely religious and had apparently been influenced by what they believed to be spiritual messages from the Naryan Devi's deceased husband.   These messages, which were documented by family members in one of the diaries recovered at the scene, provided instructions for a religious ritual in which the family would kill themselves.    The reason for the suicide is still unclear given that the family was extremely well-off with no sign of financial problems.      

While mental health professionals linked to the police have speculated that the deaths may have been due to a "shared psychosis",  a psychological autopsy is already underway.   The bodies have since been cremated in according with religious custom.  Still, even as police continue to try unraveling what led to the deaths, news of another family suicide, this time in the province of Jharkand, has raised fears of a new suicide cluster inspired by the Burari deaths.  In this new incident,  six bodies were were found of whom three were adults and the rest where children.  In the three suicide notes left behind, the parents had apparently killed their children and then killed themselves due to being deeply in debt.   A similar incident occurred earlier in July with a family attempting suicide by poisoning though no fatalities occurred.

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The Carolina Kissing Case

It all began on November 1, 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina when two boys, aged eight and nine, were walking seven-year-old Sissy Marcus home from school.   Though what happened next seemed innocent enough, it was only after Sissy got home and told her mother that she had kissed the two boys on their cheeks that all hell broke loose. Sissy's father, along with some of his friends, picked up shotguns and went in search of the two boys and their parents.  

The fact that the two boys in question, nine-year-old James "Hannover" Thompson and seven-year-old David "Fuzzy" Simpson were African American and that the kiss took place in racially segregated North Carolina was enough to embroil both children in one of the most bizarre miscarriages of justice in U.S.  history.    During the late 1950s, the growing controversy over desegregation and fears surrounding "racial miscegenation" had already fueled racist tensions to an all-time high.   Only three years earlier, 14-year-old Emmett Till had been lynched by a Mississippi mob for the "crime" of allegedly whistling at a white woman.  

As for James Thompson and David Simpson, both boys were arrested immediately after the kissing incident took place.  They were held in the local jail and not allowed see their parents or legal counsel for over a week.   They were also subjected to beatings to try forcing a confession out of them.  Though they were finally granted access to legal counsel,   they were still held in jail for  months during which time they were subjected to repeated harassments.   On Halloween night, for example, a contingent of Klansmen visited their jail cell to intimidate them.  This so terrified the two boys that they tried climbing the cell walls to get away.   Finally, after three months in jail,  they were finally charged and convicted of molestation following a brief trial during which their defense counsel was not allowed to be present.  Juvenile Judge Hampton Price sentenced both boys to indeterminate terms at the Morrison training school for Negro Boys.   In defending his decision, Price reported commented that, "since they just stood silent and didn't say nothin', I knew that was a confession of guilt."   Monroe's mayor,  Fred Wilson, also defended the decision stating that "such acts are not tolerated here whether involving white or colored at any age."   

The case became a rallying point both for white supremacist groups and the NAACP.  Almost immediately after their conviction, Robert F. Williams, local head of the NAACP, sent an impassioned telegram to President Eisenhower pleading from him to intervene.  As Williams pointed out in the telegram, both boys had been denied proper legal counsel or the chance to face their accuser in court.  "Please tell me, Mr. President,"  he telegram read, "when Negroes may expect your Justice Department to introduce the 14th Amendment to the U.S. constitution to this social jungle called Dixie."   Though then-Press Secretary acknowledged that the telegram had been received, nothing further came of it. Once the boys began serving their sentence, public interest in the case quickly died down. 

When newspapers covered the story at all, it was often to defend the sentence (one memorable editorial suggested that the boys were better off in reform school where they could count on better treatment than they received at home.)    The newspapers also accused both boys of being incorrigible troublemakers who fully deserved their sentence.   All of which heightened the local animosity against the families of both accused.   Not only were their parents and siblings subjected to verbal taunting but both of their mothers were fired from their jobs as domestics.  Even more alarmingly, members of the KKK riddled their houses with bullets on numerous occasions as well as burning crosses on their lawns, something the local police did little to prevent.   

It was only when famed civil rights lawyer Conrad Lynn was asked by the NAACP to take on the case that things began to change.   Lynn had already made a name for himself by defending numerous unpopular cases as well as his unswerving support for African-American civil rights.   This included participating in the first Journey of Reconciliation in 1948, a historic attempt to overturn Jim Crow laws that would see him arrested for being caught sitting in a "whites only" section of an interstate bus.   Once released on bail, he quickly resumed his bus journey.   

But acting as an attorney for James Thompson and David Simpson proved to be a frustrating experience for Lynn.   As he would later relate in a 1994 newspaper interview, many black churches flatly refused to help finance the appeal he was trying to launch and he was even branded an outsider by some of his opponents.  "They had no guts,"  Lynn said in the interview.  "They accepted the children as racists.  The blacks were more than willing to accept the stereotype of black men as rapists.  And they also considered me a communist.  That, and the fact that the kids were charged with rape, that was enough for them."   

He had more success visiting synagogues and liberal churches and finally managed to secure a new hearing in Wadesboro, North Carolina.  Meanwhile, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt took a personal interest in the case and petitioned North Carolina's governor, Lester Hodges, to intervene.  Instead, Hodges and his hand-picked attorney general Malcolm Seawall came to Wadesboro to ensure that the conviction not be overturned.   Despite Lynn's defense, Seawall managed to sway the judge in the case with an impassioned tirade about the need to uphold "traditional values."   

Not only did the two boys stay in jail but their mothers were kept from seeing them for weeks.   It took the efforts of a U.K. reporter, Joyce Egginton, to turn the case into an international scandal for North Carolina.   Covering the trial for the London Observer, she secured permission to visit the boys in jail and managed to bring their mothers in as well.  By smuggling in a camera, she was able to take a picture of the mothers embracing their children as well as visual proof that James and David had been beaten while in custody. 

The story Egginton wrote, along with the incriminating photograph, was reprinted across Europe and Asia.    The London Observer ran the photograph under the one-word headline, "WHY?" and the resulting international outrage put even more pressure on North Carolina's governor to overturn the conviction.   This included demonstrations in numerous European cities, including a riot in Rotterdam that led to rocks being thrown at the U.S. embassy there.   

While North Carolina officials offered a deal to the mothers of the two boys which would have required them to admit to being guilty, the mothers refused and their incarceration dragged on into 1959.   Finally, after receiving a petition with over 15,000 names, Eleanor Roosevelt personally phoned President Dwight Eisenhower and asked him to intervene.   The president in turn phoned Governor Hodges and pressured him into releasing the two boys immediately.   

After three months of detention, James Thompson and David Simpson were finally released and their criminal records were expunged.  Unfortunately, that was all the consideration they would ever receive.  Not only were they never compensated for their ordeal but no official apology was ever given either.  As for Governor Hodges, he was openly embarrassed about the negative publicity over the case but he also refused to make any apologies for what had happened.

As for James Thompson and David Simpson, they never really recovered from their ordeal.   While David Simpson largely disappeared from the public record,  James Thompson went on to have numerous scrapes with the law (which local newspapers declared to be "proof" that the original sentence had been deserved).    In a 2011 interview, he speculated on how his life might have been if that long-ago ordeal had never happened.  "Could I have been a doctor? Could I have went off to some college, or some great school? It just destroyed our life."    In that same interview, other family members also shared their own bitterness about James' experience.   According to his sister, Brenda, having him home again after his time in jail  "was like seeing somebody different, that you didn't even know. He never talked about what he went through there. But ever since then, his mind just hadn't been the same."    

She also shared her bitterness over his treatment by police and the courts.  "My brother and his friend had to suffer on account of that,"  she said.  "And I mean, they suffered. From one kiss. I've thought about that. It all started with a kiss."  

The Collyer Conundrum

It all began on November 27, 1947 with an anonymous phone tip to the New York Police Department telling that "there's a dead man in 2078 Fifth Avenue."    The house in question was a once-fashionable mansion owned by Homer and Langley Collyer, two elderly recluses who had become the stuff of local legends due to their virtual isolation from New York society.    Though Langley was still seen on occasion, mostly because he was acting as his older brother's caregiver, nobody had seen Homer Collyer in decades.   This was all the more remarkable considering that both brothers belonged to one of  New York's oldest families (their ancestors had come over on the Speedwell, sister ship to the Mayflower) and were apparently affluent despite their isolation.  

In fact, one 1938 newspaper article about Langley Collyer hinted that he owned half of New York's waterfront with much of his wealth being inherited.   The article scarcely mentioned Homer at all but New York Telegram reporter Helen Worden described him as "a slight figure in a ragged overcoat held on with a safety pin and wearing a droopy Lord Dundreary moustache".  Like everyone else, Worden had no idea of what was actually inside the Collyer mansion but Langley told her he had ten pianos which he enjoyed playing.   Even a process server trying to serve a summons relating to his aunt's will had no luck reaching Langley.  

And Langley guarded his privacy jealously.  When the occupants of a neighbouring house disturbed his solitude, he reportedly bought their house and kept it vacant.   One real estate broker, trying to purchase some of his property, practically camped out on the Collyers' front porch and shouted out to them that he wanted to pay them $125,000 for their land.  Nobody responded and the broker went away frustrated.    Even their few remaining family members had no idea of what was happening in the house.  With no other sign of their rejoining society, the Collyer brothers faded into local legend.

While wild rumours flourished about what lay inside the house and the wealth that the Collyers were reputedly afraid to trust to banks, nobody expected what police would actually find there when they investigated that anonymous tip.  After getting no answer from the house, one officer broke into a second-floor bedroom window to find the home filled with cobwebs and literally tons of newspapers and litter that had apparently accumulated over decades.   The stench from the house was so bad that searchers needed to exit the house frequently for fresh air.    It was in a second-floor bedroom that they found the body of 75-year-old Homer Collyer.

Homer, who had once been an admiralty lawyer with multiple degrees from Columbia University, was dressed in a crumbling gray bathrobe and was sitting on his haunches.   A physician determined that he had been dead for about a week, apparently of heart failure and starvation.   As for the house itself, all the police found was tons of trash in unsightly heaps wherever they looked.  There was certainly none of the fabulous antiques and other examples of Collyer wealth that local legends spoke about.  Along with enormous piles of newspaper, searchers found an old automobile seat, a battered radio cabinet, the frame from a baby carriage, etc.  It would take days for the tons of junk found in the house to be cleared away.

What the police couldn't find however, was any trace of Langley Collyer.  Langley also held degrees from Columbia University (his were in mechanical engineering and chemistry) and had been the only brother that neighbours ever saw.   His last real interaction with the world, aside from leaving the house to buy groceries, was in 1942.  This was when the bank holding their mortgage was threatening both brothers with  foreclosure.   The Collyers had been making regular mortgage payments until 1940 when the payments suddenly stopped.  While all utilities, including gas and telephone, had been shut off years before, it was the imminent threat of eviction that finally brought Langley Collyer out of hiding, at least temporarily.

It was around that time that one determined New York Herald-Tribune reporter finally managed to interview Langley by simply sitting on the front steps of the mansion waiting from someone to come out.  The reporter described him as wearing old shoes, rumpled trousers, a boating cap, and a black bow tie.  After being told of the impending eviction, Langley said that he hadn't been aware of any difficulty.  Chatting in a low, cultivated style that reflected his upper-class heritage, Langley said that caring for his brother was his only real concern in the world. 

In an interview conducted while Langley was walking to a local bakery to buy buns for his brother, he described Homer as being blind and in poor health.  "But his health is improving," he said.  "You must remember we are the sons of a doctor.  We have a medical library of 15,000 books in the house.  Homer and I decided we would not call in any doctors.  You see, we know too much about medicine.  Doctors would remove Homer's optic nerve and he would be blind forever and they would treat his rheumatism with drugs that would shorten Homer's life.  No, we decided to do it our own way, by diet and rest."

He added that they weren't bothered by the lack of utilities.  Being a former engineer, Langley was able to build a generator from automobile parts and had also built  a crystal radio so Homer could listen to broadcasts.   Life was simple though he had boarded up the windows of their house after vandals smashed them.  The lack of light didn't bother either of them.  

After the interview ended and being taken home in a taxi, Langley apologized for not inviting the reporter into the house.  He explained that the newspaper and pianos he had around the house made it too difficult to navigate.  He was saving the newspapers for when Homer regained his sight and the pianos were left over from his old piano repair business.   As for the mortgage, Langley paid it off in full using what little money he had  left in his bank accounts (so much for his fabulous wealth).

All of which still left the question of what happened to Langley Collyer.  While police speculated that he had been the one to make the anonymous call that led to Homer's body being found, rumours that he had fled to New Jersey caused police to turn their attention there and, eventually, to a nine-state manhunt.   In the meantime, clearing out the house became a major effort due to all the accumulated junk.   Crowds gathered as they watched the house being gradually cleaned up.  

Finally, on April , 1947, a workman found the remains of Langley Collyer only ten feet away from where his brother had been found.  The body was buried under tons of junk and had also been half-eaten by rats.   Police later determined that Langley had been crawling through a tunnel he had made in the junk which collapsed on him as he was trying to reach his brother.  In all likelihood, he had accidentally set off one of his own booby-traps (there were a few others in the house).   He died of asphyxiation and Homer apparently died soon afterward.  It was a neighbour who had anonymously called the police, apparently alarmed by the smell of rotting flesh coming from the house.  Both bodies would eventually be buried next to their parents in Brooklyn's Cypress Hills Cemetery.

As for the house itself, police would eventually remove more than 120 tons of junk and debris.  Along with tons of newspapers and possessions inherited from their parents, there were thousands of books, an early x-ray machine  and pickled human organs in jars (likely part of their father's medical practice), the remains of Langley's pianos, eight live cats, thousands of bottles and jars, and a horse's jawbone.    Once it was finally emptied, the house was deemed "unsafe for human habitation" and razed later that same year.   Many of the more unusual items, including the chair Homer died in, were briefly displayed in a local museum before being sold to private collectors.  But there was still some property and assets eventually valued at nearly $100,000.   After years of property squabbling (neither brother had a will), the property went to various distant relatives.   And so ended the local legend of the Collyer brothers.    

While compulsive hoarding has only recently been identified as a mental disorder, Langley and Homer became the unofficial patron saints of hoarders everywhere.   The term "Collyer mansion" is now used by firefighters to describe an extreme hoarding situation that poses a danger to emergency responders as well as occupants.    E.L. Doctorow even wrote a novel, Homer and Langley, speculating on their early lives though he changed many of the details of their story.  

A strange legacy for two aristocratic brothers who literally shut out the world for decades.

The Social Side of Nicotine

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world.  I know because I've done it hundreds of times.  Mark Twain.

Why do people have so much trouble quitting smoking?

It's certainly common knowledge that cigarette use poses one of the greatest known dangers to health.  In fact, health statistics indicate that the number of deaths linked to cigarette use each year is than deaths from HIV, illegal drug and alcohol use, motor vehicle accidents, and violent deaths combined.   Along with increasing the risk of most cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and a whole host of other serious illnesses, tobacco use is also linked to reduced fertility, poorer health overall, greater absenteeism from work, and greater health care costs.   

Unfortunately, despite these health facts being widely known, there is one more detail about tobacco use that needs to be considered:  it is highly addictive.   According to World Health Organization statistics, there are more than a billion smokers worldwide (and about 16 percent of all Americans).   On average, 75 percent of all smokers report wanting to quit though the overwhelming majority end up relapsing eventually.  In trying to understand what makes tobacco so addictive, researchers have explored the effect that nicotine and other chemical ingredients found in tobacco can have on the human brain.  Certainly there is evidence suggesting that chronic tobacco use can lead to physical dependence and withdrawal effects similar to what occurs with other psychoactive substances. 

But is this enough to explain why people are so prone to relapsing?    A new review article published in the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychology argues that it isn't.  Written by Lea M. Martin and Michael A. Sayette of the University of Pittsburgh, the article examines the role that social factors can play in smoking and what this can mean for people trying to quit.  As Martin and Sayette point out in their review, nicotine addiction isn't enough to by itself explain why smokers have trouble quitting.  Even though nicotine replacement therapy is widely available, the actual success rate for helping people quit smoking has been modest at best.   Also, casual smokers often have trouble quitting as well even though they aren't taking in the level of nicotine needed to produce withdrawal effects.

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

Why Does Losing a Spouse Increase Cardiovascular RIsk?

The loss of a spouse is a highly stressful event that puts people at excess risk of mortality. Excess mortality among those who are widowed is highest in the first six months after the death of a spouse and decreases over time. Heart disease accounts for the largest proportion of these deaths. The psychological stress associated with stressful life events can enhance inflammation and lower heart rate variability (HRV). Both lower HRV and higher inflammation are risk factors for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.  In a new study published in the the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, thirty-two recently bereaved individuals (Mean = 89.68 days since death, SD = 17.09) and 33 age-matched comparisons completed a blood draw, EKG, and self-report questionnaires. In both adjusted and unadjusted models, spousal bereavement was associated with enhanced pro-inflammatory cytokine production by in vitro lipolysaccharide-stimulated peripheral blood leukocytes. Moreover, spousal bereavement was associated with lower HRV in comparison to the comparison group. This study is the first to demonstrate that bereavement is associated with a more pronounced ex vivo cytokine production and lower HRV in a population that exclusively consisted of widows and widowers. These findings add to the growing literature revealing the mechanisms that underlie bereavement-related cardiovascular problems. Future longitudinal studies are needed to determine the temporal relation between these risks. Understanding the biological mechanisms that underlie this stressful life event could allow researchers to create therapeutic targets for interventions to reduce or prevent the toll of a “broken heart.”

For the abstract