Providentia

Fake Psychologist Given 11-year Sentence

 A woman who posed as a psychologist, including providing treatment for hundreds of patients - including children, as well as testifying as a medical expert in custody hearings, has been given an 11-year sentence by a Virginia judge.  Sharonda Avery, 44, was first hired at a private pediatric clinic in 2012 by claiming to be a licensed psychologist with degrees from several different universities.   Over the course of the next six years,  she continued to assess children and families as well as providing courts with clinical testimony concerning parental fitness and other legal issues.   

After being fired by the clinic in 2018, the Stafford County Sheriff's office received numerous complaints from people who questioned whether "Dr. Avery" was a licensed psychologist.  During the course of an investigation that took months,  a detective from the Sheriff's office interviewed many of Avery's former patients and their families as well as looking into her credentials.  He then determined that all of the degrees listed on her resume were fraudulent and that she had never received a license to practice as a psychologist.  It was only in February of this year that she finally admitted to being a fraud and she was charged in May with obtaining money by false pretenses, passing a forged document, perjury and practicing psychology without a license.   The private clinic that hired Avery has since been closed though her employer has not been charged with any crime.

According to Amanda Vicinanzo, a spokesperson for the Stafford County Sheriff's Office,  the full extent of the damage Avery inflicted on her former patients may never be known.  "Some of her patients believed that they had been misdiagnosed or that their children had been misdiagnosed while under her care and they couldn’t find a licensing number for her...this is egregious for the victims in this case and we know there's more out there. And we just hope they'll contact us so we can complete a full investigation."  

During the course of Avery's trial, family after family testified about the damage her fraudulent behaviour had on them.  This included making illegal diagnoses and recommending medication for many of the children who were seen.  Some parents described the sense of betrayal experienced by them and their children as a result of Avery's actions.  When asked to speak in her own defense, Avery did not apologize to her victims but only asked for their grace and mercy.

After completing her sentence, Avery will serve 35 years of supervised probation.   She is also on a lifetime ban from providing counseling or therapy services.

For more information

 

The Rise and Fall of the "Clearing House of Cupid" (Part One of Two)

By all accounts, the large old-fashioned white building standing on an 80-acre estate on Syosset Road, near Cold Harbor, Long Island wasn't a particularly scenic place.   It's main claim to fame was that it was the site of the Eugenics Record Office (informally known as the "Clearing House of Cupid").   Between 1910 and 1939, the office served as the center for eugenics research across the United States and its influence over public policy, not to mention the lives of countless thousands of men and women, would be profound.

Though the eugenics movement of the early 20th century got its start in the United Kingdom, largely spurred by the writings of such notables as Francis Galton,  it was in the United States that the movement would truly take root.   In an era of rising racial tensions as well as the perceived threat of the thousands of immigrants entering the country through Ellis Island, applying the "scientific" principles of eugenics to "weed out" undesirable genetic traits and encourage the development of a race of improved humans was irresistible to many.   Since "anti-miscegenation" laws banning marriages between people of different racial groups were already in place in many states, the appeal of expanding these laws to limit marriage to people with "positive" genes, or at least providing prospective couples with the genetic counseling to make such choices seemed eminently sensible.

Or so, Charles Benedict Davenport thought.

An eminent biologist with an aristocratic bearing, Davenport became one of the true leaders of the American Eugenics Movement and the director of the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory.  It was there that he founded the Eugenics Record Office in 1910 and, for many years, he remained the public face for eugenics across the United States.   Through various public appearances, lectures, and newspaper articles, Davenport continued to champion the need for more stringent laws governing marriage as well as the establishment of "State Eugenics Boards" to determine who was fit for marriage (and who wasn't).   While the Eugenics Record Office he ran didn't have that kind of power, he still encouraged young men and woman across the United States to send in data concerning any marriage they were contemplating so that he and his team could determine the suitability of these matches.  

To make these applications even easier, Davenport even had a special blank form that could be sent out to anyone who asked for it.    With the lofty title of "index to germ plasm: a parallel record of innate traits for prospective marriage", the form needed to be filled out by both parties to determine the presence of positive and negative traits that could affect marital success.   Once the form was received, Davenport's office then provided a "scientific" determination of whether the match would be for the eugenic good of the race.   

Along with pronouncements on the likelihood of such traits as hair and eye color being passed on to any children of the proposed marriage, Davenport's team also looked for evidence of prospective insanity or vulnerability to diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis (never mind that genetic testing was almost completely nonexistent at the time).   During the summer months,  Davenport and Eugenics Record Office Superintendent Harry H. Laughlin also operated a  training school for eugenicists where applicants with the necessary college degree could learn to become eugenics field workers 

Though Davenport himself claimed to be "unusually liberal" when it came to heredity, the records maintained at Cold Springs still represented an encyclopedic database for would-be eugenicists to consult free of charge.  This also included thousands of "surname trait cards" that could be searched to determine how many people with the same surname had adverse genetic traits.  For example, anyone searching for people with the surname of "Brown" or "Smith" who shared some common trait such as a hare-lip or depression, could receive the information free of charge.   

With funding from fervid eugenicist John D. Rockefeller as well as Mrs. E.H. Harriman (who also donated the building and the land on which the Office was situated), Davenport and Laughlin oversaw a staff of 34 field workers who were in charge of collecting and maintaining the archives as well as handling all information requests and conducting research on various topics related to eugenics.   This included family studies looking at the effects of inbreeding in some communities as well as geographic-based studies (basically a look at the :"good and bad blood" in a given community).   They also collected family "pedigrees" relating to musical or mathematic talent, vulnerability to tuberculosis, and hundreds of other positive and negative traits.

It was Harry Laughlin who provided reporters with what he felt was the ultimate purpose of the "Clearing House of Cupid":

"Eugenics is a long-time investment.  Fundamentally, it has two purposes - the first to supply some means of cutting off the supply of degenerate and defective social misfits;  the second to increase the fecundity of eugenically desirable families.  The first we call negative eugenics; the second, constructive eugenics... We know from the great superiority of the cultivated plant and the domesticated animal what splendid results may result from intelligent mating.  It is one of the functions of this office to promote such intelligent mating and to study how to cut off the supply of defectives."

Though Davenport and Laughlin denied being more preoccupied with defective rather than superior genes,  there is no disputing that he Eugenics Record Office had its greatest success when it came to "negative eugenics"    Field workers from the Office crisscrossed the country to find examples of genetic "defectives" and, almost inevitably, championed the passage of laws to sterilize different populations deemed to be unfit, including patients in psychiatric hospitals, people with substance abuse problems, and career criminals.  This also meant administering "intelligence tests" to would-be immigrants to weed out anyone deemed not to "measure up" to societal standards of mental ability.   That a disproportionate number of these "defectives" happened to belong to racial and ethnic minorities was hardly acknowledged (though it was often used to justify blatantly racist policies across the United States).  

With the still-controversial Buck vs. Bell Supreme Court decision in 1927, eugenics sterilization statutes were passed in were passed across the United States.   It was Harry Laughlin who first advocated what he termed a "Model Eugenical Sterilization Law" calling for the sterilization of anyone who "because of degenerate or defective hereditary qualities are potential parents of socially inadequate offspring, regardless of whether such persons be in the population at large or inmates of custodial institutions, regardless also of the personality, sex, age, marital condition, race, or possessions of such person. Standards established and terms defined by the statute."   

Along with being a model for U.S. states to follow (often replacing relatively toothless laws already in place), Laughlin's Model Law also helped inspired Adolf Hitler's his Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring which was enacted in 1933.    In fact, Hitler and his fellow Nazi eugenicists held Laughlin in such high regard that he was offered an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University in 1936.   Unfortunately, for all the popularity that eugenics had enjoyed up until then, news stories about what was happening in Nazi Germany and other parts of occupied Europe would soon redefine how people viewed eugenics.

To be continued next week

 

 

 

Raiding The Molly-House

It was on a Sunday night in February, 1726 when constables descended on a notorious establishment in Holborn to raid what was then one of the most infamous "molly-houses" in London. Approximately forty patrons were taken into custody. Given the very real dangers that homosexuals of that period faced (including the death penalty if prosecuted), the existence of safe houses where they could meet secretly was a vital part of the underground network that existed at the time. There tends not to be much reliable information about these secret meeting places (known as molly-houses after the common slang term for homosexuals) aside from various satirical tracts and court documents. One tract published in 1729 estimated that there were as many as thirty of these houses operating in London (including back-rooms of taverns, inns and private houses).

Of all these establishments, there are none more famous than the molly-house run by Margaret ("Mother") Clap which, based on available testimony, was far more than just a place for sexual meetings. Most homosexuals of the time tended to be simple working-men who enjoyed coming together for gossip, friendship, and having fun in comfortable surroundings. The ever-present threat of exposure and disgrace made places like Mother Clap's house a necessary source of emotional support. Despite allegations that arose in the trial that followed the mass raid, non-sexual entertainments played an important part in attracting customers. Sundays were an extremely popular night and it was not uncommon for as many as forty patrons to visit.

The case against Margaret Clap and her customers was largely based on the testimony of Constable Samuel Stevens who had posed as a customer several months before the raid.   In his testimony, he reported that "Sometimes they would sit in one another's laps, kissing in a lewd manner and using their hands indecently. Then they would get up, dance and make curtsies, and mimic the voices of women, O, Fie, Sir!—Pray, Sir—Dear, Sir—Lord, how can you serve me so?—I swear I'll cry out. —You're a wicked Devil—and you're a bold face—Eh! ye little dear Toad! Come, buss!—Then they'd hug, and play, and toy, and go out by couples into another room on the same floor, to be married, as they called it."

Other testimony was just as damning and the outcome of the trial was never in doubt. Margaret Clap was sentenced to spend time in the stocks where she was frequently assaulted by angry citizens as they passed. She would die that same year, possibly as a result of injuries that she sustained as a result of her sentence. Of the men arrested with her, at least three were executed at Tyburn later that year and the rest would have their lives thoroughly ruined over the disgrace visited on them by their conviction.

Laws against homosexual acts (typically referred to as "sodomy" at the time) were harshly enforced and public executions for "crimes against nature" were far from uncommon.  In the Netherlands alone, a sodomy scare in the 18th century led to the execution of 276 men during one three-year period.   Well into the 19th century, sodomy would continue to be a capital offense in most countries (although Pennsylvania would be the first U.S. state to abolish the death penalty for sodomy in 1786).  

It would not be until 1861 that England would formally abolish the death penalty for homosexuals (although long prison sentences were still the norm).   Canada actually lagged other countries in not removing sodomy from the list of capital crimes until 1869. While it is easy to be complacent about our present tolerance for sexual minorities, the progress that has been made is still sadly fragile. "Crimes against nature" statutes remain on the books in many U.S. states and consensual homosexual acts are still illegal in many parts of the world. Executions are certainly still occurring and are likely to continue to occur for the foreseeable future.

In 2001, the National Theatre premiered a new musical titled "Mother Clap's Molly-House" described as a "black comedy with songs, a celebration of the diversity of human sexuality, an exploration of our need to form families, and a fascinating insight into a hidden chapter in London's history". Margaret Clap would have enjoyed it.

Stress and cancer. Part I: Mechanisms mediating the effect of stressors on cancer.

Observations indicating a link between psychosocial stress and cancer can be traced back almost 2 millennia. However, the pathways and mechanisms interconnecting them has only been elucidated in more detail since the end of the 20th century. Importantly, recently accumulated evidences have confirmed the ability of stress to promote the induction and progression of cancer. The main aim of this review article published in the Journal of Neuroimmunology is to describe the pathways and mechanisms mediating the stimulatory effects of the neuroendocrine stress response on the induction of cancer, potentiation of cancer growth, and the development of metastases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, 

For the abstract

UK Mental Health Experts Cal for More COVID-Bereaved Grief Services

"It was absolutely terrible, the feeling of being completely helpless and powerless to do anything. I couldn’t go to see him in the hospital. We just had to sit at home and wait for a call once a day. I barely slept for those days...When my mother came out and told me that they were going to withdraw the life support, we couldn’t hug each other or anything, we just had to sit two metres apart on these two camping chairs outside where all the world could see.”   When psychotherapist Kathryn de Prudhoe lost her father to COVID-19 in April of this year, she became one of countless family members around the world dealing with the death of a loved one during a pandemic that shows no signs of abating. 

Spurred by her experience dealing with grief and the difficulty she faced in getting counseling, Prudhoe joined Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, an all-volunteer organization of COVID-bereaved family members seeking greater government accountability in combating the pandemic. As part of their mandate,  Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice is calling for a public inquiry into how the UK government's COVID-19 response and to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in future.    But along with other organisations such as the  British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Bereavement Partnership, the group is also calling for additional treatment funding to help people dealing with traumatic grief.   

As part of the submission she helped prepare for the U.K. Treasury's ongoing review of government spending, Prudhoe and her co-authors talk about the sharp rise in cases of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) caused by unexpected COVID-19 deaths as well as the chilling effect that lockdown measures have had on the grieving process, including the lack of public funerals.  "The majority of people are floundering and don’t really know where to go or what to access,” she said in a recent media interview “There is the constant reminder of the virus, the anxiety that people have that they’re going to fall ill, or that another family member is going to die. If we don’t act now, in six months’ time we’re going to have a mental health crisis on our hands as well as well as a viral one.”  

As part of the recommendations outlined in their submission, Prudhoe and her co-authors are calling for the establishment of helplines, "culturally specific" group and individual counseling programs, and trauma-informed psychotherapy for those in greatest need.    They are also calling for better and more detailed trauma and bereavement training for mental health professionals, teachers, and other essential workers, as well as volunteers dealing with bereaved family members.   With 42,000 COVID-19 fatalities in the U.K. alone,  experts argue that there may 200,000 or more individuals in need of some form of trauma or grief counseling, a figure that will certainly rise in future.  

For now, the submission calls for £65 million in funding, a figure they regard as reasonable given the pressure that already existing demand for services is placing on primary care physicians who are ill-equipped to meet that demand.  "Providing everyone who needs mental health support with access to it also has economic benefits,"  says Hadyn Williams, BACP’s chief executive officer, "Unless the government acts now, hundreds of thousands of people will be less productive at work, or may have prolonged absences. This country can afford to support people bereaved by the pandemic. It’s in everyone’s interests that we do so.”

For now,  it is still unclear whether the requested funds will be made available considering delays in releasing the planned Autumn budget.

 

 

 

Their Father's Last Request

Robert Baldwin is a familiar name to Canadian schoolchildren.

He continues to be remembered as a bold political reformer and one of the architects of the first responsible government in Canadian history. Despite his prominence in Canadian political history, Baldwin's private life and some of the peculiarities surrounding his death in 1858 are not so well-known. His marriage to his first cousin, Augusta Elizabeth Sullivan, in 1827 was reluctantly permitted by their parents/  They still had considerable misgivings about Eliza's chronic poor health and the potential risks of such a close genetic relationship to their children.

As Baldwin's political career flourished, their family grew and they would have four children in all. Eliza's health took a turn for the worse following the caesarean birth of her last child in 1834 and she would die two years later. Robert was devastated by her death and would never be the same afterward. His strong religious beliefs and obsession with the perfection of his life with Eliza kept him from ever marrying again. He also made yearly rituals out of the anniversaries of their marriage and her death. After spending the rest of his life in and out of politics, he ended his career in 1851 having been driven out by the very reformers he had championed.  During the last years of his life, Robert devoted his time tending to his estate in Toronto, writing letters, and brooding over the loss of his wife.

He also became preoccupied with health problems which seemed primarily due to chronic depression. His eldest daughter, Maria, was his main caregiver during his last years. She had never married (probably because her father chased off every potential suitor she ever had) and became an embittered spinster who was devoted to her father. Caring for him became increasingly difficult due to his chronic headaches, memory problems and frequent "harassing and perplexing dreams" that disrupted his sleep. Still, it was only after his death on December 9, 1858 due to lung problems that things really took a bizarre turn.

Before his death, Baldwin left a remarkable document with Maria that showed the full extent of his preoccupation with Eliza. The document contained nine requests concerning how he wanted to be buried. Not only did he ask that certain prized possessions and her letters be buried with him, he also insisted that their coffins be chained together. The most memorable request however was that "an incision be made into the cavity of the abdomen extending through the two upper thirds of the linea alba". In other words, he wanted to have an incision made on his body to match the caesarean scar that had been made on Eliza's body.

Maria arranged for the other conditions to be met but balked at that last request and, believing that she had the only copy of her father's document, made no mention of it to the rest of the family. The funeral drew one of the largest crowds Upper Canada had ever known as  Robert Baldwin was laid to rest. Life went on afterward until one month later when Maria's elder brother, William, came across a second copy of the document while sorting through his father's clothes. Robert Baldwin had been in dread of dying away from home and had carried an abbreviated copy to ensure that all of his final requests be met. Being a dutiful son (and with perhaps a few harsh words to Maria), William made the necessary arrangements.

It was on a cold January day in 1859 when William, along with several family members and friends (including Dr. James Henry Richardson), entered the vault where Baldwin's body was kept to make the requested incision (as it was still winter, the body could not be buried until the ground thawed in the spring). It was definitely a grave undertaking (sorry, couldn't resist) and marked a strange end to a remarkable political life. Robert and Eliza Baldwin are now buried in St. James Cemetery in Toronto (still chained together) and their joint grave marker represents a silent testament to a story of love and grief.

Click here for more information.

Before his death, Baldwin left a remarkable document with Maria that showed the full extent of his preoccupation with Eliza. The document contained nine requests concerning how he wanted to be buried. Not only did he ask that certain prized possessions and her letters be buried with him, he also insisted that their coffins be chained together. The most memorable request however was that "an incision be made into the cavity of the abdomen extending through the two upper thirds of the linea alba". In other words, he wanted to have an incision made on his body to match the caesarean scar that had been made on Eliza's body.

Maria arranged for the other conditions to be met but balked at that last request and, believing that she had the only copy of her father's document, made no mention of it to the rest of the family. The funeral drew one of the largest crowds Upper Canada had ever known as  Robert Baldwin was laid to rest. Life went on afterward until one month later when Maria's elder brother, William, came across a second copy of the document while sorting through his father's clothes. Robert Baldwin had been in dread of dying away from home and had carried an abbreviated copy to ensure that all of his final requests be met. Being a dutiful son (and with perhaps a few harsh words to Maria), William made the necessary arrangements.

It was on a cold January day in 1859 when William, along with several family members and friends (including Dr. James Henry Richardson), entered the vault where Baldwin's body was kept to make the requested incision (as it was still winter, the body could not be buried until the ground thawed in the spring). It was definitely a grave undertaking (sorry, couldn't resist) and marked a strange end to a remarkable political life. Robert and Eliza Baldwin are now buried in St. James Cemetery in Toronto (still chained together) and their joint grave marker represents a silent testament to a story of love and grief.

Click here for more information.

Impaired cerebral blood flow regulation in chronic traumatic brain injury.

Baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) and cerebral autoregulation (CA) play an important role in maintaining constant cerebral blood flow (CBF) during systemic changes in blood pressure (BP). Impaired BRS and CA have been reported in acute traumatic brain injury (TBI) which may also contribute to secondary injury and poorer recovery after acute TBI; however, their status during chronic stages remains elusive. Thus, the goal of a new study published in the journal Brain Research is to determine whether cardiac BRS and dynamic CA (dCA) were impaired during the chronic stage in patients with single TBI and persistent neurological symptoms. Twenty-two subjects with blunt head TBI ≥ 6 months prior to the study (13 mild and 9 moderate to severe TBI) and persistent symptoms on Rivermead Post-Concussion Symptoms Questionnaire at enrollment were compared to 22 age/sex/fitness level-matched healthy control subjects. Beat-to-beat changes in heart rate, BP, and CBF velocity were measured at rest and during a repeated sit-stand maneuver. Hemodynamic variability, dCA, and cardiac BRS were calculated using spectral and transfer function analyses. We found dCA phase in low frequency (LF) range of 0.07–0.20 Hz was lower in subjects with TBI than in control subjects (0.51 ± 0.19 vs. 0.63 ± 0.26, p = 0.043) during the resting condition. Among subjects with TBI, the lower dCA phase in LF was correlated with poorer performance on measures of cognitive function (all p < 0.05). These findings suggested that subjects with chronic TBI showed impaired dCA which may contribute to persistent cognitive impairment. Cerebrovascular measures may provide a physiological measure to evaluate interventions for chronic TBI and accompanying functional deficits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Treating the Chicken Woman

Clinical zoanthropy, or the delusional belief of becoming an animal, has a long and colourful history. 

For example, the Book of Daniel in the Bible mentions King Nebuchadnezzar II who was cursed by God for his pride. As a result, he “was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen” for seven years until his sanity was eventually restored. The very word lycanthropy stems from the Greek myth of King Lycaon who was transformed into a wolf by the gods for his crimes. 

Throughout the centuries, there have been numerous examples recorded, usually in the form of myths and legends which may have helped foster the belief in werewolves and shapeshifters around the world.  Still, actual cases of clinical zoanthropy as reported in the medical and psychological literature tend to be much rarer. From 1850 to the present day, for example, there have been less than sixty case histories involving people believing themselves to be or acting like or behaving like, any kind of animal: whether it be a dog, lion, tiger, crocodile, snake, or bee. 

This is what makes a new case history published in the Belgian Journal of Psychiatry (Tijdschrift voor Psychiatrie), so memorable. Written by a team of Belgian psychiatrists at the Universitair Psychiatrisch Centrum in the Belgian city of Leuven, the case history described their patient, a 54-year-old woman who had been admitted to hospital with the bizarre belief that she was, well, a chicken.   

The patient's brother had brought her to the hospital emergency ward after reporting that he found her in their garden showing bizarre behaviour, including flapping her arms and making strange crowing noises. She had no relevant medical history, no history of substance use, and aside from a family history of depression, showed no mental health issues except for being treated for grief following the death of a parent ten years earlier. Though she had been experiencing depression for several months prior to her episode, apparently brought on by problems at work, no real clues could be found about what was responsible for her strange condition.

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

Hanging Margaret "Bill" Allen

On January 13, 1949, 42-year-old Margaret Allen was hanged at Strangeways Prison (now the HM Prison Manchester).   Not only did this make her the first woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom in 19 years, but the very circumstances of her life, as well as the nature of the murder she committed , has given her a unique place in Britain's forensic history.

Born in 1905 as part of a very large family (she was the twentieth of twenty-two children), Margaret apparently knew that she was different from an early age.  Not only did she refuse to do "female chores" preferring more "masculine" tasks such as shoveling coal and doing household repairs, she also hated wearing dresses.  Instead, she insisted  on more masculine clothing instead, same as her brothers.  While this would be much more acceptable today, her odd behaviour made her into a virtual outcast as far as her family was concerned. 

Never having married, she embraced a completely masculine lifestyle including cutting her hair short, wearing men's clothing exclusively, and insisting on being called "Bill" instead of her given name.   She also told friends that she had undergone an operation to change her sex, something that was highly unlikely in that era (though a female-to-male sexual reassignment operation had taken place in the UK just two years earlier). 

Despite being largely estranged from her family, Margaret took her mother's death in 1943 especially hard.  Not only did she begin smoking heavily but she sought medical treatment for depression and anorexia.  To support herself, Margaret/Bill worked as a bus conductor though she eventually lost this job due to her tendency to strike passengers on the back on the head if they weren't seated fast enough.   In any event, by 1948, she was in financial trouble.  Not only couldn't she afford her rent or her electric bill, she apparently couldn't even afford cigarettes (this will become important later).   

All of which brings us to the events of August 29, 1948 when a neighbour, 68-year-old Nancy Ellen Chadwick, came to Margaret's door to borrow a cup of sugar.  Chadwick was a wealthy widow with a reputation for being eccentric but largely harmless.  Unfortunately,  Margaret considered her annoying so they didn't go on particularly well.  For reasons that aren't quite clear, Margaret viciously clubbed Nancy Chadwick to death using a coal hammer.   She then  placed the body in her cellar before going out with her only friend, Annie Cook.   After sharing a couple of drinks together, Margaret returned home to deal with the problem of the body.   First she poured grate ashes on the face of her victim and then dragged the body outside to leave in the street nearby.   She apparently hoped that the soot on Chadwick's face and the injuries to her head would convince police that she had been the victim of a  hit-and-run.

When bus driver Herbert Beaumont found the body at 3 am on the following morning, he immediately called police who launched an investigation.  Another bus driver insisted that he had passed by that same spot fifteen minutes earlier and saw no body at the time.   Since it seemed unlikely that Chadwick had been walking outside at that time of morning, they quickly dismissed the possibility of a hit-and-run.   They also found the woman's purse floating in the nearby River Irwell though all money had been removed. 

Since Margaret Allen seemed to be taking a keen interest in the investigation, police came to question her about the death on September 1.   They quickly discovered blood stains on the inside of her front door as well as  a shopping-bag filled with grate ashes in one of her closets.    As she was being questioned, she confessed to the killing almost immediately but added that she "didn't do it for money, I was in one of my funny moods."  She told them “‘I just happened to look around and saw the hammer in the kitchen. Then, on the spur of the moment I hit her with it. She gave a loud shout and that seemed to start me off more, and so I hit her a few times more, I don’t know how many.”  Margaret later insisted that being unable to smoke had made her especially irritable.  The fact that she was heavily in debt and that she had apparently been hoping to rob her victim seemed a likelier explanation, however.

Though a murder would not ordinarily generate much interest from the press, many of the details of Margaret's life helped ensure that her case would receive international coverage.    Virtually every newspaper played up Margaret's "mannish" appearance, including her refusal to wear female clothing and her previous claims that she had undergone a sex change operation.   The papers also played up her "spinster" status though Margaret largely remained silent throughout the trial.  What was likely even more upsetting to her was that she was kept in a woman's prison despite insisting she was male.   While in prison, she only received one visitor, a woman named Anne Cook though the exact nature of their relationship is still debatable.

As for the trial itself, it was held on December 8, 1948 and only lasted five hours.  Given that Margaret had already confessed to the crime, there really wasn't all that much for the defense to do in her case.  Though her lawyer, William Gormann K.C., tried to argue for the insanity defense, the jury rejected this completely.   They seemed completely swayed by the argument of the prosecutor, E.G. Robey, that Margaret's sole motive for the murder was robbery and it only took fifteen minutes to hand down a verdict of guilty.  Then again, Margaret's wearing a man's suit for the trial (she insisted) probably worked against her as well.   Once the verdict was in, the judge, Mr. Justice Sellars, sentenced her to be hanged.

Despite a last-minute attempt to have the sentence commuted, including a petition with 162 signatures, the Home Secretary denied any reprieve and Margaret's execution date was set for January 12.   Though she had been cheerful at first while still hoping for an appeal, her mood quickly changed when the prison governor told her the execution would go on as scheduled.  At her final meeting with Annie Cook, Margaret told her not to come to the hanging but, instead, to go to the corner where they usually met at 9 am, the hour of execution.   

Irritable to the end, Margaret kicked over her breakfast on the morning of her hanging saying that, "I don’t want it and no one else is going to enjoy it!”   Even worse, the prison refused to allow her to wear men's clothing to the hanging and she was forced to wear a prison dress instead.   She was hanged at 9 am on schedule by Alfred Pierrepoint, assisted by Harvey Kirk.   The only real mourner she apparently had was Annie Cook, who was seen crying at the corner where Margaret had asked her to wait.  

While Margaret/Bill was evidently a pre-operation transgender male, the fact that she lived in an era before such operations  were widely available certainly made her life more difficult than it might have been.   As it happens, the case of Christine Jorgensen only a few years later would help open the floodgates (though it would be twenty years before Sweden became the first country to allow people to legally change their sex).    Despite there being no real indication that Margaret's transgender status played a role in her crime, she may well have been treated more harshly by the court as a result of her "mannish" appearance and general refusal to abide by the accepted sexual stereotypes of the time.  It would take a very long time for these attitudes to change.  

 

Same-Sex Attraction and other "Infamous Crimes"

It began in February 1778 when Ensign Anthony Maxwell faced a court-martial after being charged with "propagating a scandalous report prejudicial to the character"  of  Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin, an officer in General Washington's Continental Army. 

According to Maxwell's report, Lieutenant Enslin had been found in bed with another soldier, John Monhort.  After carefully weighing the evidence, the court concluded that Maxwell was not guilty of the charge and had not acted "no further than the strict line of his duty".  Maxwell was acquitted and Frederick Enslin was then charged with Attempting to Commit Sodomy and committing Perjury in Swearing to False Accounts.   The court then ruled that Enslin was guilty of breaching the "5th. Article 18th. Section of the Articles of War and do sentence him to be dismiss'd the service with Infamy".  In reviewing the court's decision, General Washington wrote that he "approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return; The Drummers and Fifers to attend on the Grand Parade at Guard mounting for that Purpose."

While there is no other record relating to whether the sentence was carried out or what happened to him afterward, what isn't in dispute is that Frederick Gotthold Enslin has the unwelcome distinction of being the first American soldier to be dishonourably discharged for homosexual conduct.   Harsh penalties for "infamous crimes" such as sodomy were hardly limited to the American military however.  Especially considering that homosexuality and other "crimes against nature" were still punishable by death or long imprisonment in many European countries.  Well into the 20th century, the very suspicion of "sexual impropriety" was enough to destroy military reputations just about everywhere.

That was certainly the case for another prominent 18th century soldier...

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Friedrich Gerhard Augustin von Steuben was a Prussian soldier who served honorably in various German and Prussian campaigns until his career ended in scandal.  In 1776, he was accused of "improper sexual behaviour" with young boys and forced to seek employment elsewhere.  Based on a favourable meeting with the French Minister of War, he was referred to Benjamin Franklin and later, to George Washington.  As a professional Prussian officer, he seemed ideal for the largely untrained Continental Army.   After receiving funds to travel to Boston, von Steuben arrived with his military staff and his Italian greyhound.  He quickly set to work as Inspector General and Major General of the Continental Army.  His contributions to the fledgling American side in their fight with Britain were incalculable.

Not only did Steuben write the Revolutionary War Drill Manual that became the standard drill manual for the United States Army for decades afterward, but he also served in various capacities including being George Washington's chief of staff in the last years of the war.  His accomplishments were all the more remarkable considering his limited English and his need to work through interpreters until his language skills improved.  Whatever rumours there were surrounding von Steuben's sexuality, they didn't seem to affect how he dealt with General Washington and his soldiers.

After the war ended, von Steuben retired from the military and eventually settled in Utica, New York (he had been made a citizen in 1784 by the Pennsylvania legislature).  Although he never married or had children, his later life seemed free of the earlier scandal that had plagued him in Europe.  He did have a very close relationship with several younger men who had served with him in the military but there was no real evidence that he was anything less than discreet.  He left his estate to General Benjamin Walker and Captain William North, two military men with whom he had a long relationship.  While the actual nature of that friendship is open to debate, one historian who examined their surviving correspondence has suggested that "ample evidence shows that the intimacy extended well beyond mere friendship". 

If von Steuben was homosexual, then it would have led to a strange irony concerning the punishment for poor Lieutenant Enslin.  Whether or not von Steuben actually presided over Enslin's expulsion or was simply present, having one accused homosexual being part of the public shaming of another certainly highlighted the very real dangers facing anyone with same-sex leanings in that era.  Those same repressive policies continued in most Western military services until well into the 20th century.   Although many Western countries have belatedly opened up military service to openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals, the United States was one of the most notable exceptions up until very recently.  

Though the same Articles of War that convicted Lieutenant Enslin and others like him remained in force until 1942 when homosexuality was formally recognized as grounds for nonselection or dishonourable discharge from service.  Despite numerous cases of gay and lesbian soldiers serving honourably and a 1957 military report that concluded that there was "no sound basis for the belief that homosexuals posed a security risk",  known or suspected homosexuals were still forced to conceal their sexuality to avoid dishonourable discharge or harassment from fellow soldiers.  While the passage of the " Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) compromise policy in 1993 officially banned harassment of gay and lesbian soldiers, the erratic implementation of the policy and deeply entrenched attitudes towards homosexuals in the military did little to change matters.  Despite the passage of DADT, an estimated 13000 troops have been discharged under the policy since 1993 and cases of suspected homosexuals being killed by fellow soldiers have continued.

Though DADT was eventually abolished and gay and lesbians soldiers are now allowed to serve openly, whether this will be allowed to continue is largely open to debate considering the current antipathy by the current presidential administrtio towards sexual minorities.   Whether or not the policies that doomed Lieutenant Enslin and the countless soldiers that came after him will be reestablished is very much open to debate at this time.   As for other countries, there is still considerable unofficial discrimination even in countries where military service for gay and lesbian soldiers has been legalized though the old attitudes are slowly changing. 

Whether or not simple justice will prevail remains to be seen.