You never know how the Jury will go...

Apparently a forgone conclusion was NOT reached today in Florida. There are two ways to take a trial like this; either justice prevails or the prosecution was a bunch of nincompoops. I find the defense's tactic interesting but altogether necessary and not the first time it has been done. Casey Anthony's defense team referred to their client as a "lying, no-good slut" taking away the ammo of the prosecution and choosing not to try and defend the "indefensible" acts of a mother who many thought should have been behaving less like a Girls Gone Wild stereotype and more like a parent desperate to find her daughter. During the 1917 trial of Rev. Lyn Kelly, Kelly's defense argued their client was crazy. They pointed out his "confession" to sinking the Lusitania and his antics inside the courtroom did nothing to dissuade the jury of his outhouse rat personality. While the prosecution relied on his confession for the Moore-Stillinger murders they also made a point of drawing attention to how crazy the minister was. The defense knew they couldn't just stand up and say "Reverend Kelly's just really unique," and get away with it so they doubled down and went with the "hell yeah he's crazy, but he's not a murderer."

With this acquittal it isn't likely Caylee Anthony will ever have justice. I cannot say for certain that Casey Anthony was the murderer of her daughter but her actions indicate she certainly knew more about the case then she let on. I'll leave it to blowhards like Nancy Grace to scream about miscarriages of justice on this one. For now perhaps we can all move on and those who wish to can mourn the senseless loss a beautiful little girl. But I am getting out the popcorn in anticipation of the number of people who will try to capitalize on this verdict, from Casey herself to juror numbers five and twelve and alternates three and six.

Gearing up

As some of you may have heard, the beginning of the end did NOT occur this past Saturday. In preparation for a return to posting I'm stretching my legs a bit with this story. Since everyone else in the blog-world is writing about it I figure I might as well join in. What does Harold Camping have to do with the Midwest Axe Murders? You have to humor me to get there.

When a good speaker believes what he's saying strongly enough, it's quite easy to convince others of the truth of their words. For the most part, we hear only of those who use their conviction and voice for bad things, like starting World War II. Indeed the term "Drinking the Kool-Aid" derives from one such infamous event carried out at the behest of a charismatic madman. Now Mr. Camping doesn't deserve the same condemnation as the two examples above, but he clearly believed in his own words and those words led to bad decisions being made by others, as well as significant windfalls to his organization. James N. Wilkerson was such a fellow as well. He was a firm believer in conspiracies and weaved together a story of business rivalry, lust and money so compelling it divides a town nearly 100 years later. All the major players in the drama have long since been buried but the arguments persist. Wilkerson condemned one innocent man in the court of Public Opinion and derailed a promising political career. At the same time he may have helped exonerate a guilty man and allowed a serial mass murderer to go free; or maybe allowed the exoneration of an innocent man being railroaded by investigators desperate for a conviction. Who knows?

My apologies...

Things are crazy at work right now so I've been too busy to write much.  Maybe this weekend I can get my post up about the Lyn Kelley's confession.  Go and read Dr. Epperly's post about Kelley's time South Dakota.  He was a twisted little dude...

No wait! I took the Lindbergh baby…

I am a terrible liar. A few years back I participated in a Psychological study on the efficacy of polygraph machines during criminal interrogations. It was a double blind study in which I was instructed either to sneak into a room and steal an object or leave the building altogether without stealing anything. Ten minutes later I was to return and take a polygraph. I got to steal the fake money and ten minutes later, even though the money was phony and I knew there would be no repercussions for lying to the polygraphologist (!) I completely melted down. After the exam results were compiled the professor in charge of the study said “Inspector, you are a terrible liar.”  

So why bring this up? Turns out this study was in conjunction with The Innocence Project looking at the prevalence of “false positives” in the use of polygraphs. The psychology of false confessions isn’t new. In 1908 Harvard psychology professor Hugo Munsterberg published a series of essays on psychology and crime. He dedicated one essay to “Untrue Confessions” and tried to explain the psychology behind these. He asked; why would a psychologically healthy individual freely confess to a crime they did not commit? Aside from the obvious physical and mental duress caused by investigators there are many instances of confessions being secured without outside influence. Munsterberg mentioned the case of the Boorne brothers who confessed to murdering their brother-in-law, going so far as to describe how they got rid of the body. Trouble was the “murdered” man was very much alive. It is said as many as two hundred people confessed to kidnapping Charles Lindbergh, Jr. from his crib in 1932 and who can forget John Mark Karr’s “confession?”

With regard to the Midwest Murders, in 1917 a preacher from Oklahoma arrived in Red Oak, Iowa with the story of a dying man he couldn’t remember the name of confessing to the Villisca murders four years prior. In 1932 a prisoner in Detroit confessed to killing the Moore family but knew nothing of the Stillinger girls. Another man would confess in 1951 but the most important confession would come from the Rev. Lyn Kelley. My personal opinion, as I’ve said before, is Kelley didn’t do it. I’ve addressed this opinion here.  Aside from confessing to the Villisca murders three times, Rev. Lyn Kelley also confessed to sinking the Lusitania. I do not believe Lyn Kelley was physically coerced into to confessing. I believe he fell into the category of Coerced-Internalized False Confessions, in which a weak minded suspect, usually exhausted by long interrogations, is actually convinced by the interrogator they are guilty of the crime. Munsterberg also suggested that a false confession my come from a person who feels guilty about something else, often entirely unrelated to the crime they are accused of. This certainly would have fit Lyn Kelley who was accused of all kinds of perverted behaviors. I believe if Lyn Kelley were given a polygraph today he would fail miserably on any subject asked of him. This makes it very hard to take any confession seriously, whether it was accurate or not. I do believe his confession was his own. In other words, the interrogators didn’t write something down and have him sign it. It is just my opinion the confession was false. Why I believe this I will discuss in my next post.

A question to get me back on track…

John asks: What is the deal with covering victims and mirrors with bedclothes?

Admittedly I have gone slightly off track with the original intent of the blog. Perhaps comparing other axe murders of the time to those I consider part of the Midwest Axeman’s reign interests me more than readers. So let me get back on track by addressing John’s question.

I’ll give my usual caveat: I am not a criminal profiler. The opinions expressed are mine.
The crime scenes in which at least one victim was covered with bed sheets or clothing were: both of the crime scenes in Colorado Springs, Monmouth, Ellsworth, Mount Pleasant, Paola and Villisca. Only one crime scene had the mirrors covered, Villisca, but at Ellsworth the phone was covered. Let me address the covering of the bodies first. In some post somewhere I said this usually indicates some amount of remorse on the part of the killer, an attempt to “take it back” if you will. Psychopaths don’t care about their victims so remorse was less likely to be a reason. More likely this was a compulsion or something the killer felt he had to do. It is important to note the killer only attacked the heads of the victims, usually obliterating their facial features. This was not only a means to an end (the end being the death of the victim) but a way to depersonalize the victim. Covering the victim further insured they did not have to “see” them... or perhaps for the victim to “see” the killer.

Why cover the mirrors? Contrary to what was written at the time, covering mirrors in a house after someone has just died was common place in the United States. It was speculated the reason was due to an East European superstition about the dead seeing their reflection and becoming trapped in the house. However it has long been a Jewish tradition while sitting Shiva to have mirrors covered as well. It was also common place among the “lower” classes of England to cover mirrors and windows after a person died. I don’t think we’re looking at a simple superstition here but a psychological need being fulfilled. Investigators in Ellsworth speculated the killer covered the phone in order to muffle the sound of it ringing. This seems fairly ridiculous unless the killer had a reasonable expectation the phone might ring at one in the morning. I believe the phone was covered for the same reason the mirrors and victims were covered (dramatic pause); the eyes. 

The "eyes" of a Western Electric #317 - ca. 1909

The killer either didn’t like to be watched or didn’t want to be looked at, maybe due to a perceived (or real) physical scar or defect (since I think the killer worked for the railroad perhaps it was due to a train accident). After the killer had murdered the victims he covered windows in order to block the view of any pain in the neck witnesses then proceeded to carry out his rituals, in complete anonymity, safe from the eyes of his victims and himself.

“My name is Ida Keller. I am 30 years old.”

It’s been a while since I posted so look here for a recap of the Keller murders.
As neighbors and doctors began to show up at the Keller home during the early morning hours of June 10, 1913, Ida began to act strangely. In spite of her story of an intruder attempting to kill her entire family, Ida showed no emotion. She was found quietly bathing her daughter’s head with water. Now in my opinion, initial emotional responses to a shocking event are not enough to raise suspicions. Everyone reacts to intense emotional events differently and shock can register in many ways. However Ida would soon pull out the first red flag of the day when she asked a witness about the chances of her husband’s life insurance, through the Modern Woodmen, being paid out. Arthur would be dead before sun rise and Margaret would die later that evening.

More questions arose at the coroner’s inquest that night. How was Ida able to discern the color of the intruder’s socks if he was backlit by a burning paper sack? On a key ring filled with multiple keys, how had the killer known which key to use to lock the door while making his escape? Ida testified at the inquest that after fighting off the murderer she pulled her revolver out of a drawer. This revolver was found in the drawer when neighbors entered the house and she did not have it when she asked the neighbors to use their phone. Why did she put it back before leaving the house for help? Ida stuck with her story while on the stand and never wavered in her explanations.
On June 12, 1913, a detective from Kansas City named Harry Arthur arrived in Harrisonville at the request of Cass County Sheriff Jim Prater. By this time Ida was under observation but not arrest. On the day of his arrival he requested a private meeting with Ida May. Before supper time that night Detective Arthur had a signed confession from Ida Keller which was given in front of three witnesses. Later in the evening Sheriff Prater’s daughter saw Ida May quietly rocking in a chair in her cell and lightly humming. Some time that night, Ida May began shouting and demanding to see the sheriff. When Prater arrived Ida May recanted the entire confession.

Ida May Keller was sentenced to prison for the natural term of her life and she lost an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court in 1915 and disappeared from the public record.