Not Just Evil: Murder, Hollywood, and California's First Insanity Plea

by David Wilson

  Crime costs the U.S. much money and many lives each year. Crime threatens society. Crime hinders efficient government. Crime disturbs the peace, property rights, lives, welfare, even the destiny of the American people. Crime is increasing in the U.S. Crime has become astounding in the U.S. Crime must be studied more carefully and checked. If this U.S. wants to continue, if the American people want a satisfactory solution to this grave situation, they must reason most thoroughly with young criminals.

  I want to appeal to your complete justice, to your soundest reason to every feeling and sense that you possess. I want to do a great good for you. I want this case solved with the greatest and most beneficial results to society. I love the American people. I respect the people of California. I forgive the members of the prosecution and admit that they have a good cause to prosecute me. I want to help in a way that no one else has ever helped you. A great Providence is urging me to do this. Don’t look at Edward Hickman and think only E. H. Don’t look at murder and say only death. Don’t look at crime and say only terrible. Think first of the welfare of your homes, your community, your city, your state, your nation. Think of peace and prosperity. Think of adjustment. Think of understanding. Think of your future and your city’s future, your success and your city’s success. Think of destiny and forget fate. Believe in yourself and your fellow citizens for good. Consider society.

  I want Los Angeles, California and the United States to benefit from this case. I want society to see my example and derive a great benefit. In me has originated the tendency towards crime and there is a possibility in me for adjustment. Crime has been generated in me. Young criminality has been demonstrated in me. Now which is better, that I hang by the neck until dead and let public opinion gradually go back to normalcy until the next disastrous atrocity or would it be more fitting to place me on a shelf for life in a penitentiary adding me to the list of Loebs and Leopolds? I say that either of these courses is very inconsistent with the proper reaction to the case. What does my life matter to the American people? What does my death matter to the American people? Can’t you see that it only confuses the average mind to try to discern in this matter.

  If I hang some people will be gratified and some disappointed. If I receive life imprisonment some people will protest while some will agree. In case would the proper solution be found. Would the law be completely fulfilled: have modern criminal methods been sufficient then in making your lives and properties more secure and in diminishing crime? Crime will not stop with my trial. This case is not the finis of crime. Loeb and Leopold were sentenced to life imprisonment. Snyder and Gray were sentenced to death for killing of Gray’s husband. Remus was sentenced to the asylum. Has there been a noticeable reaction for the prevention and demolition of crime throughout the U.S. as a result of these notable cases? They represent each important phase of the modern system of court justice and criminal law procedure. Are they separately of collectively sufficient to the modern demands for the protection and security of human rights and properties? Are homes, families, cities and states any safer or less involved in crime? To be frank and honest with you in my own belief, I think not so.

  You do want to save your own lives, do you not? You do want your own rights and your own liberties to be secured and safeguarded, do you not? You do want to check crime, I know you do. Well, if you kill me, you will not be doing any more than has already been done while crime will keep up just the same as before. If you sentence me to life imprisonment, you will not be doing any more than has already been done while your rights and lives will be in the same and increasing danger as before. If you send me to the asylum for life, you will be following an example hitherto tried but which has not benefited you while crime continue just the same as before and is even increasing and even threatening you more and more as each day passes by.

  I am not being selfish when I beg and plead with you to save your own lives and properties do you think I am? I am not being prompted by personal insight when I try to bring about a great public benefit to you and the whole of American society. If you think so and if you do not think so, let me make at this time, a complete and open statement to the court.

  It matters not, as far as I am concerned, whether I live or die, only as it regards your own welfare. I have already pleaded guilty to the crime, but before I die I want to do a great good for my country and for humanity. I give myself completely over to the jurisdiction of this court and to the judgment of your jurymen. I ask that you will allow me to explain the great calling of Providence, a great Providence which I profoundly believe has brought me into this world which has guided and directed my ever action throughout my entire life and which will take me away from this life at the appointed time.

  Allow me to stand here like a man and explain the whole truth and honesty of my life and to offer you the plea which this great Providence has given me to utter. From the time of my youth, I have felt the presence of a great guiding power. This power has manifested itself in me and has made me feel that I would become great. It has made me feel that I would become widely known and that my name would live in history. It has made me feel that I would live to an old age and accomplish a great good for my fellow countrymen and the world. This great presence and you may call it God if you wish, but I shall call Providence, which has been with me since the age of twelve. I have felt it and known all these great secrets from this early age, and I can prove to you that it is real and that there is a likelihood of this fulfillment of this great work, if you will listen and hear my explanation.

  In my life, there has already been a great range of activity. Environments, subjections, manifestations and accomplishments, all of which have been in a definite pursuit of the guidance and protection of this great Providence. My experiences have been such that I have been made susceptible to crime, and who have turned away from society. In plain words life was intended by Providence to exemplify the tendency in modern youth to generate criminality, and the terrible atrocity of my deed with the subsequent wide of this case, are only steps in the plan of Providence to bring me before the world so that I could do the great good which has been confided in me by this same Providence, for the benefit of society and especially the safety and security of human rights and liberties here in the United States of America. Let me explain.

  I was born in Arkansas State and before I was ten years of age my father deserted the family and my mother was placed in the custody of an insane asylum at Little Rock, Arkansas. I had a broken home, so you can see, but before I left the country I tried to accept God, and it then being my twelfth year, I received the first calling and feeling Providence. I came to the city with my remnant family and while there I got discouraged with religion and the church. Religion in the city didn’t seem serious enough and I began to disbelieve in it and God somewhat. I attended high school and graduated with second highest honors and scholarship in Kansas City largest high school. There was always quarreling and fighting in my family. We were poor and I didn’t have money to go to college and I didn’t try hard to get it honestly. I had discouragements and thought I would get a job and work and not go back to school. I tried several jobs and couldn’t remain with any of them. I became dissatisfied. My family could not understand me. I was disgusted and felt hurt unjustly. I met two boys who wanted to leave home and be crooks. I was perfectly willing to do this because no one cared for me. I was disappointed. I wouldn’t work, so I left home and took to crime. I always felt apart from society. I didn’t actually know of one real friend. I even threatened to kill my own mother. I hated my father because he left me and married another woman and had other children. In spite of the circumstances, I always felt the presen of this Providence. I believe I had the making of a genius. My shaken morality always brought me back to the idea of college and preparation for this great thing I felt I was surely intended to do before I die.

  A companion and I came to California in a stolen car and committed burglaries on the way. On Christmas Eve night, 1926, we ente
red a Pharmacy in Los Angeles and in a shooting battle an innocent man was killed. Here I received a positive manifestation of Providence. An officer of the law within three feet of me and with his revolver directly aimed at my conspicuous body fired three shots and touched me not even once. This was a miracle. This great Providence had saved me and proved itself to me. We continued in crime for a while longer and then decided to go straight. I got a job and stayed with it a few months and fell to the lot of forging checks. I was caught but received probation and went back to Kansas City, Missouri. I got another job and tried to go straight again but only stayed with it several weeks and was led back to crime again. This was only the work of Providence. I was only doing what many other boys had done whatever got a right start in life susceptible to crime and unaccountable for their criminal deeds. I thought that the end justified the means. I didn’t recognize right and wrong. I wanted to be alone in my next crimes and get enough money to go back to college. I roamed over the East in stolen cars, and the Providence led me to come to California and Los Angeles in particular on Thanksgiving Day of last year.

  On December 15 last I abducted a little girl by the name of Marion Parker from the Mount Vernon School and held her for a ransom of $1,500, to be used to defray my college expenses at Park College at Parksville, Missouri. Here I thought Providence made a great manifestation to me. From the lips of Marion Parker herself, I received this amazing and positive proof of the presence of a great Providence which was using me for a great work. Marion Parker told me from her lips and with great honesty that I confess my crimes before this court, I speak the true words of little girl. Marion Parker told me that in the very week that preceded her kidnapping that she had dreamed of a strange man coming to the Mount Vernon School and taking her away in a car. Marion Parker further related that in dreams she had many times been kidnapped and that she always felt that some day she would be taken away from her home and family, in this way. Even the little girl freely told me that she believed the whole thing was intended and if there is a God in heaven, I ask that he will strike me down at this instant if I am in the least particular diverging from the absolute truth and honesty not only in this matter but in everything that I say here.

  These matters are of great significance. There is a great Providence prompting me to reach each word of this declaration and this same power brought this declaration from my own mind and I believe it has brought me to live and do all these things.

  The murder of Marion Parker and the horrible, terrible, simply awful mutilation of Marion Parker’s helpless body, a separate deed from the kidnapping of Marion Parker, a distinct crime done in blood with a knife by my own hands on the morning of December 17, 1927, in the bathtub in Apartment No. 315 at the Bellevue Arms Apartment of Los Angeles, California, was not meant by me, Edward Hickman, but through me under the guidance and protection of, and as a duty to this great Providence for the great work which it has been calling me since the age of twelve to perform for the safety and security of human rights and liberties in the United States of American. Please listen to me further.

  Gentlemen cannot assign any other possible motives for my crimes. I felt it my duty to perform for my Providence and the hideousness of the affair and its widespread publicity were not intended by me for my own benefit or satisfaction, but were the works of the powers of destiny. My escape from California, my positive identification through valuable clues which a criminal seldom leaves behind, my detection and arrest in far off Pendleton, Oregon, and the publicity surrounding my capture were all steps in this mighty plan. They only served to bring the incident before the nation and to foreign nations. The entire U.S. is aroused and interested in this affair. It is meant by Providence for you, the people of this court and the people of Los Angeles City and County to listen and reason with me and act in a way that will satisfy California and America that the best solution of criminal law and punishment in this case will be made possible. The American nation is even beginning to expect that out of this case will arise some great solution. The United States is ready for the example of California. In California’s hands lies the opportunity and right to bring a sufficient verdict in this case. Now, members of this jury and court, and I wish that the entire population of this state and nation could hear me at this time, listen to my greatest reason. Listen to my inspired logic.

  Here I stand before you. You see that I am here and you recognize me as William Edward Hickman, who calls himself the Fox. You hear my speech and in your minds only can you reason for yourself. I am on trial for kidnapping and murder. I have pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. The question for you to decide is whether I am sane or insane. I believe that I am best able to speak for myself and judge my own mind and to say and feel of my own true condition. A human being always reserves the right and ability, I believe, to feel and express the true condition of his soul and mind, and knows his innermost parts better than his coexistat. Your duty is to judge me, concerning a condition, which only I know the true status. Yet, only in your own minds can you judge me for yourself and American society.

  I only say that, if I was insane or am insane at this moment, I believe it not and say that it is a marvelous genius straining to keep itself alive, a mighty genius striving under Providence.

  Whatever I may be, I judge it not of myself alone but from the power in me and over me of this great Providence. Listen to me now for your own cause and feel securely in your own reasoning that my greatest desire is for your good and not of any consideration for my own life or death. The acts of crime which were done by my own hands cannot be held accountable in my own mind but were intended for me by another presence to show that in adverse abnormal American social environments today, there is a tendency for certain unfortunate American youth to become enemies of their own society and to be classified as criminals only because society does not understand them and they do not understand society. These disappointed, dissatisfied, careless young men are the most dangerous faction in the United States today. This army of young criminals is steadily increasing. It is the product of society’s own degeneration and weaknesses and, unless the American people take certain precautions or undertake new preventions, personal rights, liberties and properties here in this country will be greatly endangered. This affair strikes at the very heart of the nation. It is of fundamental importance and should be of your deepest concern.

  The entire nation is looking on and waiting for the outcome of this trial. I am in your hands and you can do with me whatever you wish, I ask it of you to make such a study and observation of me before you kill me which will help in a new definite way to combat the spread of crime in the United States. I plead with you to do this for the benefit it may be to California and America, or even humanity. I ask that you will allow me to cooperate with you fully because I feel destined to help you in this great cause. I am just an example of your own reckless modern youth, but I have the greatest vision that in this example you will be better able to search out the tendency for crime and find a new prevention which be of great value to American society. I have always loved my country and it trills my heart to hear the Star Spangled Banner, or to witness the stars and strips in parade. I have always felt that before I died I would do some great good and Providence tells me that this is about the time.

  I place my body in your hands. You can sentence me to hang if you think it will pacify those who crave blood. Is there not too much blood shed already in this country without having more? Are not the American people beginning to have the same bloodthirsty impulses that the young desperadoes and criminals themselves have? What terrible end will there be to society if these savage tendencies are allowed to continue? Public opinion never has expressed the true sentiments of the American people. The American press is responsible for many grave errors in this case alone. The American press tries to educate the mob in riot and bloodshed. The American people should, and will, resent these dreadful policies.

  Let me make my final plea for the welfare and p
eace of the peoples of California and America. It is eviden to you that your rights and safety are of first importance to you. I ask to help in the preservation and continuance of these rights. Please take me and work with me and let this great Providence work in me for your good. Robberies and murders and public atrocities are steadily increasing, not only here in Los Angeles but everywhere throughout this country. I plead with you to take me and try to discover the means of staying the hands of young American criminals.

  Why America! America! My country and your country will always live. Nothing will bring the downfall of this great republic. There will always be a great mass of the people who understand and keep peace and prosperity among us. Don’t think this plea will be easily forgotten. It concerns the preservation of the very fundamentals of manhood, which are the foundation of our republic. It is inevitable that the people will understand and appreciate this reasoning, because I am not reasoning out of my mind alone but I have been inspired and guided by a great supernatural power in bring this message to you. Because I am not pleading for myself for my life but for the American people and for the protection of their own property and lives. Because, in my own confinement, will the greatest benefit come to my country through me. If I live, everything in me of Providence will be exerted for your good. If I die, I hope that some day my country will hear from another youth who is destined and guided by Providence unto the same great work that I have wished to accomplish.