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

by David Wilson

  For your consideration, and to your interest, may this message and plea be dedicated. I trust that you will bear me out so that the great power over me can exert itself for great good for the American people and humanity.

  William Edward Hickman

  The statement was read by the clerk. Once again the defense attorneys noticed the lack of interest on the faces of the jury. Their client’s reaction did not help. During each day of the trial, Hickman’s overall demeanor remained subdued almost to the point of disinterest.

  Following the introduction of this statement a reporter named Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a long article in response to the insanity defense. In the article he referred to psychiatrists as alienists, which was the preferred term at the time. It is a reference to doctors who studied patients who were alienated from their true nature. The reporter is also known for his creation of the Tarzan books, which he was developing for MGM so that they could be made into movies. There is no evidence that he wrote the article under pressure from Louis B. Mayer, but it is clear the article reflects the perspective of many in Hollywood who were concerned about the impact of the trial on their chosen profession.

  Burroughs completed his reporting duties with the flare of a fiction writer, presenting his opinion interwoven with facts. The following is an excerpt from his article printed on February 4, 1928, for the Los Angeles Examiner.

  Hickman did not leap from his cradle, seize a butcher knife and dismember an innocent little girl, and yet Hickman was a born murderer. If nothing had thwarted his ambition, if no obstacles had intervened to render the winning of an honorable goal difficult, Hickman would never have committed a murder, nor any other crime. To the instinctive criminal of his type, crime is merely a means to an end. It is not in itself the chief consideration, as it doubtless is in the diseased minds of the criminally insane.

  Hickman’s case is analogous in many respects to that of a very famous English criminal case of the early part of the Nineteenth Century, Thomas Wainewright, well known in his time as an essayist, a man with a brilliant future, started on a career of forgery and murder for the sole purpose of obtaining funds to satisfy his cravings for a life of ease and luxury. This was his ambition. In another it might have been an ambition to go to college. What difference does that make?

  He murdered relatives who had befriended him in order that he might obtain their property. One was a beautiful and very healthy girl he had insured for ninety thousand dollars. Her he poisoned. He was a man of super-refinement who hated all vulgarities and sordid instincts. Yes, he was very much like Hickman and a commentator says of him: “Wainewright presents to us a perfect picture of instinctive criminal in his most highly developed shape.” But nowhere, in all that has been written of Wainewright, have I discovered any suggestion whatever that he did not know the difference between right and wrong.

  The defense will show that Hickman is not normal. Of course he is not normal in the sense that you and I are normal, or think we are; but in another sense, he is normal, he is a normal instinctive criminal and as such he is a very real and terrible menace to all of us and should be destroyed, as all his kind should be destroyed with dignity, for ourselves, and dispatch for them—especially dispatch.

  If our criminal laws are remodeled to harmonize with our blatant claims to rationality a considerable mass of presently admissible testimony which now wastes a great deal of our time and money will, happily, go into the discard. What in heck do we care if the accused has two gold teeth and sore tonsils, or cirrus meningitis, or dementia praecox or that he is a paranoid who is suffering with megalomania? Mussolini may, conceivably be suffering with a megalomania, but I doubt that he would consider it entirely social to cut up our baby sisters, nor, if he did, that we should agree with him. These alienists ought to get together if they want us to have a lot of confidence in them. One of them writes a book in which he tells about epilepsy, while his brother alienist, testifying for the same side, describes epilepsy as an archaic, discarded term born of ignorance.

  These alienists are the comedy relief of an otherwise full drama and if they accomplish anything else in criminal trials it is to fix definitely in our minds, as a conviction, a suspicion of long standing, that the estimate of the value of a gored ox depends solely upon whose ox it is…. If I were not aware of the high standing and unimpeachable characters of many alienists I should be inclined to ascribe motives to their sworn testimony that might make me the defendant in a libel suit, but I really do believe them sincere, most of them; and so I am moved to ascribe, what otherwise might fall into the category of idiocy or knavery, to the fact that psychiatry is as far from being an exact science as is alchemy or astrology and as such, it has no place in jurisprudence under our existing criminal court procedure. Briefly, I believe that it can only tend to befuddle the minds of the jury and becloud the real issue.

  Chapter 5

  “The subject matter is too distasteful to be put on a screen designed to entertain a family.”

  John Wayne

  The factual question facing the jury in the Hickman trial was not whether or not Mr. Hickman had committed the crime. The issue was whether or not he had been mentally competent during the planning and execution of the kidnapping and murder. In simple terms, the jury needed to determine if Mr. Hickman had known the difference between right and wrong when he committed each act.

  Over the course of the trial the defense lawyers asked hundreds of questions of their doctors to solicit favorable answers. The prosecution asked their doctors to give evidence which seemed to support their position that Mr. Hickman knew what he was doing when he murdered Marion Parker. During the trial the conflict of perspectives led to heated verbal exchanges between the attorneys. But under cross-examinations many successful agreements fell apart and came back to counter the effectiveness of the original question. The following questions and answers began when Hickman’s lawyer, Mr. Walsh, asked Dr. R. O. Shelton a simple question:

  Q. Did you as a result of these examinations and observations that you made, come to any opinion with reference to his [Hickman’s] mental condition?

  A. I did.

  Q. Will you kindly state to the jury, Doctor, what that opinion is?

  A. He is suffering from dementia praecox, one of the worst types of insanity. He has one of the worst forms of this type. It is the paranoia type with delusions of grandeur. It is technically known as megalomania. He is a megalomaniac.

  In the cross-examination of Dr. Shelton, the district attorney turned this mostly positive presentation into a disaster with one short series of questions and answers. The Los Angeles Times called the aggressive cross-examination a classic example of destroying an expert witness by his own words. The exchange started when Mr. Keyes asked:

  Q. He [Hickman] is incurable?

  A. Incurable. No chance of getting well, only deterioration now.

  Q. Do you think, Doctor, if this boy had appeared before you and you were sitting on a lunacy board, that you would have diagnosed his case as you have before this jury and recommended that he be confined in an institution?

  A. I would have sent him up in the first thirty minutes.

  Q. Isn’t it true that all cases of dementia praecox the patient is rather silly and childish?

  A. No, it is not true.

  Q. You were in the jail there and talked with the defendant for the purpose of trying to help him out of his trouble, weren’t you?

  A. No, sir, I went in the jail to make a diagnosis, and I aided the doctor or tried to aid your alienist. I got them in and introduced them, or one of them. No, sir.

  Q. Isn’t it true you stated a moment ago that in your opinion, this defendant developed his form of insanity when he was about twelve years of age?

  A. That was the beginning of it. I don’t know whether he was actually insane. That was the beginning of that autochthonous idea.

  Q. What do you mean, Doctor, by the term “malingering”? How do you define the term?


  A. Malingering?

  Q. Yes.

  A. Pretending.

  Q. Pretending?

  A. Simulation.

  Q. Do you think that a patient who was malingering could deceive you?

  A. Well, I do not believe a case of dementia praecox could. I would not say that I am infallible. I do not want…. We are all fallible. I don’t know that I am in this court, but I believe I am here.

  Q. You do not know you are here?

  A. No, I believe I am in this courtroom, but I may be mistaken.

  Q. Well, that is somewhat of a delusion, isn’t it?

  A. It might be.

  Q. You have delusions yourself?

  A. It might be that is a delusion.

  Q. Don’t you believe, Doctor, that you might have had some delusions with reference to your statement that this man has dementia praecox?

  A. I do not believe so, but that is my opinion. That is my honest opinion after a close, careful examination.

  Q. In line with your reasoning, you might be mistaken about that. You believe it, but it might not be true?

  A. I might be mistaken about anything.

  Q. What?

  A. I might be mistaken about anything.

  Q. Oh, I suppose, Doctor, I might question you here for two or three days, which I am not going to do, and you would still hold the same opinion that you believe the defendant to be suffering from dementia praecox. That is true isn’t it?

  A. Well, that is my opinion now. I don’t know what it would be three days from now.

  Q. You don’t know what your opinion will be three days from now?

  A. No.

  Q. Well I guess that is all.

  Later in the trial, the issue of Hickman’s sex drive was discussed in several questions put to Dr. Skoog by Mr. Walsh. In this series the defense team managed to present their view unscathed:

  Q. Doctor, in your psychiatric examination, did you question this defendant on the matter of sex?

  A. Yes, Mr. Walsh, I did.

  Q. Has sex any relevance in diagnosis of schizophrenia?

  A. Yes, it does. The absence of sex drive is a condition that most of authorities on the subject of schizophrenia have mentioned as present in their male patients. It is recognized symptom of the disease. Schizophrenia in the male also ordinarily diminishes the subject’s fertility.

  Q. Doctor, is the defendant Hickman, in your opinion, lacking in sex drive?

  A. In my considered opinion, he is.

  Q. Will you state your reason or reasons for your opinion?

  A. I first will allude to Hickman’s written statement introduced by the witness, Police Inspector Longuevan. This was prepared by the defendant for the avowed purpose of explaining his motives for his killing of the girl. [Dr. Skoog read from his notes] “I have never been in any corrupt conduct with the female sex.” This statement of Edward’s, made voluntarily to the police inspector and others, seemed entirely out of place and indicated to me that the matter of sex, in some way, was preying upon his mind. You may also remember that in the same statement, he laid great stress on the fact that he “had not taken advantage of the little girl’s femininity”, to use the boy’s own words. This was also an unsolicited statement. The authorities had not challenged or charged him with sexually violating the girl. My experience as a psychiatrist has taught me that it is characteristic of the male schizophrenic to seek credit for his virginal state, which is due entirely to an innate lack of sex drive. It is a defensive mental mechanism as I interpret it. They will not face reality and admit the lack of sex drive is a shortcoming. The schizophrenic patient insists on transforming this deficiency into an attribute. With this in mind, I questioned the defendant on the subject.

  At this point Dr. Skoog requested from the judge permission to read from his notes where he questioned Mr. Hickman on the subject of sex desire. After a brief discussion, permission was granted by the court and Dr. Skoog read the following passage.

  Q. Your high school teacher, the assistant principal, Mr. Laughlin, testified that you were very popular with both the girls and boys at the high school. Was that so?

  A. Well I tried to be.

  Q. Did you have a particular girl you went around with?

  A. There was a girl on the school newspaper staff that I used to take to school dances and social affairs at the school.

  Q. Were you in love with her?

  A. No. I was not in love with anybody.

  Q. Didn’t sex mean anything to you?

  A. I was so busy with my public speaking and other school activities, I had no time to think about girls.

  Q. But you must have had a crush on some girl?

  A. No, I didn’t. I knew lots of nice girls.

  Q. But what about the girl from the newspaper staff that you took to parties?

  A. She was a nice girl, very intelligent and well-liked at the school, but I never had a crush on her. I did enjoy her company and I think she enjoyed mine. We often discussed politics. She was bright. I never had my arm around her except on the dance floor.

  Q. Didn’t you ever have a desire to have sexual relations with anyone of the opposite sex?

  A. I was taught that such desires were a sin.

  Q. Have you had any sexual experience at all?

  A. I have had girls try to excite me sexually.

  Q. What did they do?

  A. Once I was working as an usher in a motion picture theater. It was near the end of the last show at night. There were not many people left in the theater. A girl who used to attend the theater very often was sitting in the back row all alone. She called me over and asked me to sit next to her and we could see the last part of the picture. I sat down. She put her hand on my leg very carelessly, like she didn’t know what she was doing, and after a while she moved her hand up my leg.

  Q. Did that excite you?

  A. No, I couldn’t figure out if she was accidentally doing it or on purpose.

  Q. What did you do?

  A. I didn’t do anything. I just sat there, sort of puzzled.

  Q. What did she do?

  A. She put her arm around my neck and pulled my head over and kissed me, and with the other hand she unbuttoned my fly. Then I stood up, and she said, oh, please sit down. I want you. Why do you think I have been coming to the theater all summer? I love you.

  Q. What did you do?

  A. I buttoned my pants and went out in the lobby. She waited for me in front of the theater. I sneaked out a side door after closing time.

  Dr. Skoog looked up from his notes.

  He then graphically told of other sexual experiences. In all of them, the female was the aggressor. His reaction to each was revulsion, which I interpreted as originating in his sexual inadequacy. The boy was very frank in his discussion, as his answers indicated. He did not relish this discussion: there were times when he appeared agitated to the point of anger. The conclusion I reached was considering his age, the lack of sexual drive that is apparent in male schizophrenics was manifest by my examination of this boy. You must keep in mind that at his age, sex impulse reaches it highest peak in the life of a male.

  At the end of Dr. Skoog’s testimony, Mr. Walsh asked the doctor for his prognosis of Hickman overall mental state. He responded:

  To me prognosis means, what I forecast for the future of this patient and what I think of the prospects of his recovery. Basing my answer upon the nature and symptoms of this case, along with my own professional experience and my study of the authorities, I say that the patient can only be headed for a rapid dementia. With this process, his mind will function less and his grandiose delusion, which drove him to great scholastic attainment and then into the commission of a crime, will disappear. He may then slip into a catatonic state, characterized by fixed stupor. Death will rapidly follow.

  Mr. Richard Cantillon asked Dr. Skoog to read part of an interview he had with Mr. Hickman hoping to show the jury the nefarious circumstances by which they could declare Mr. Hickman ins
ane. This interview was read into the record in what many felt was the most dramatic moment in the trial.

  Q. When you severed little Marion’s body, what did you do with the intestines?

  A. When I cut across her stomach they were hanging out, and I cut the ends off and wrapped them in a separate package.

  Q. Did the content leak out?

  A. I think there was a little bit of juice, but I think I washed it out in the tub; not very much came out, no substance.

  Q. Are you aware of what will happen to you if the jury returns an unfavorable verdict?

  A. Yes, the police told me I would be hanged.

  Q. Are you afraid of dying in that manner?

  A. Well, dying isn’t pleasant, but I have no fear of death. Everyone has to die.

  Q. I know everyone has to die, but death by hanging, doesn’t that frighten you?

  A. No, sir. What difference does it make how I die? One way is just as good as another.

  Q. Don’t you believe you are too young to die?

  A. If my Providence decides I should die while I am young that is predestination. There will be some great reason for it.

  Q. Do you consider yourself a Christian?

  A. No, sir.

  Q. What are you then?

  A. I have a power over me that is equal and which is more than God to anybody, but that nobody feels. They have something over them and they are satisfied and I am satisfied.

  Q. I understand you wished to study for the ministry?

  A. I read the Bible. I have a New Testament and I have read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This morning I read some of the Revelations. I do not care to read the Old Testament; I don’t understand it, as it has not much in it for me.