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Mental illness in crime research paper topics
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Growing up in a small town you would never expect for a family to get murdered. Many people have the perception that in a small-town things, never happen. Well I’m sure that’s what Herbert and Bonnie Clutter thought to until the night of their death. Herbert and Bonnie Clutter lived in Holcomb, Kansas with their two kids Nancy and Kenyon on their family farm. The Clutter family was very respected within the community and in Garden City. Herbert was also a very respected employer. The Clutter family lived a very disciplined but still enjoyable and well provided for.
The morning of November 15th, two of Nancy’s friends went to visit her and they found Nancy dead upstairs from being shot in the head. Law enforcement was called and they found
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Dick and Perry, who were former employees of Herbert Clutters. Perry confessed to killing Mr. Clutter with the knife and the shooting of the rest of the family. Dick confessed that he couldn’t bring himself to do the killing.
Both men went to trial in Garden City. These men went through a psychiatric evaluation, which showed signs of mental illness and emotional dysfunction. Perry was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Dick had brain damage from a car accident as a young adult. Perry finally admitted to all four murders. The doctors stated that this was unconscious retribution for all the bad luck and dissatisfactions from his childhood.
By the end of the investigation, Dick and Perry were convicted of four counts of murder in the first degree. They were sentenced to death with the intent of hanging them. Lowell Lee Andrews, Ronnie York and James Latham joined Perry and Dick after 5 years on death row. April 14th, 1965, all these men were hung except for Dick in front of a crowd of witnesses. There was many appeals and allegations to mistrial with Dick that’s how he got off without being hung.
Lesson from this, don’t ever think crime happens in small towns, and the bad things seem to always happen to the families that mind their own business and stay out of
The first suspect is Edward “Bennie” Bedwell. Bedwell was a local dishwasher who was questioned at a local motel for three days (Sigona). What supported Bedwell as a suspect is that he actually confessed to the murder (Sigona). There were multiple problems with Bedwell’s confession, however. The first problem with his confession is, “Bedwell couldn’t read or write, so it would be nearly impossible for him to understand what he was confessing to” (Sigona). The second problem with his confession is “After a time, everyone realized Bedwell’s story didn’t add up. There were inconsistencies, including the fact that Bedwell said he was with the girls for a month before they died” (Sigona). Finally, the main problem with his confession is that the girls were dead within four hours of leaving home (Sigona). The other suspect in the case of the murder of Barbara and Patricia Grimes is Max Fleig. Max Fleig was a young man in his teens when the Grimes sisters were murdered (MacGowan). Max offered to take a lie detector test, which he failed (MacGowan). The reason Fleig was released even after failing the test is “The police began to focus on him as a prime suspect until they were told that it was illegal to polygraph someone underage. The police released him, many of the authorities thinking he was their man” (MacGowan). Another example that supports Fleig as a suspect is that he was imprisoned later in his life
day of the murder to the court case prosecuting the two murderers, Dick and Perry.
How can it be that four members of a family, such as the Clutters, could have been murdered in cold blood? Who would want to commit such a horrible crime? What could the killer’s motivation be? These are key points and questions for the book “In Cold Blood”.
The novel by Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, certainly offered a unique detailing of some of the “normal” aspects that revolve around murder cases. In a way, in his creative nonfiction piece he granted the audience a behind the scenes look on the Clutter family, as well as the criminals. Capote was able to twist the words on a page to vividly express whatever dynamic he desired. One could even stretch to state that Capote was almost trying to elicit a measure of sympathy from the readers. Empathy for the criminals Dick and Perry. In either case, there was just no telling what one might uncover as they dwell deeper into the minds of the convicted criminals.
Clutter were tied down and shot in their own beds, Mr. Clutter was tied down in the furnace room, his neck was slit, and he was shot in the head. Kenyon was tied down to a couch in the basement and shot. Bobby Rupp is a suspect until he passes a lie detector test. KBI think it may have been someone close to the family.
Dick seems to be mellow about the situation and not effected however he is. Dick is exhibiting his insecure nature by continually reassuring Perry that nothing had strayed from the perfection of his plan, while stuffing his face with food. Perry on the other hand is nervous, and as he reads about the killing in the paper his anxiety shoots up. Perry's eating habits also show his inability to eat as an effect of his
On the early morning hours of May 12th, 2007 Maggie Haines woke up to noises. She didn’t know what was going on so she went into her parents where she found her mother slightly sitting on the edge of her bed. Her mom told Maggie that she needed to go get help. Maggie ran to a neighbors house and they called the police. When they arrived the went to the neighbors house first to ask Maggie what was going on but she couldn’t give them an exact answer. Her father had recently been in the hospital and she thought that there was a possibility that there was a complication with that. After multiple knocks on the Haines’ family home with no response the two responding officers went in and started a sweep of the home. They found sixteen year old Kevin Haines laying facedown in a pool of blood just outside his bedroom door. Inside his bedroom there was blood splattered all across the walls. Down the hall in Tom and Lisa Haines’ room they were also deceased on arrival but the scene in their bedroom wasn’t as bad. Since the majority of the attack was on Kevin Haines it seemed that he was the primary target. No one could think of anyone who would want to do this to the Haines family. The only real person of interest in the beginning was Maggie Haines. She had just come home from college, she was the only survivor, and her demeanor after the murders was odd. Although, she was later cleared of any wrong doing. The Haines family were from Mainheim Township, Pennsylvania and lived on a beautiful quiet street Peach Lane. Tom Haines was married to Lisa Ann Haines and they had two children Maggie and Kevin Haines. Tom Haines was a fifty year old salesman at Motion Industries. Lisa Ann Haines was a forty-seven year old preschool tea...
Instead the three murdered Betty Devine’s twin and Betty then disappeared to start a new life out West. After the whole story is told, Curtis Knight then leaves to head over to the train station then Sally murders Rick. After Sally kills Rick, Walt brings out his gun then the two end up in a gun fight around the house. After that all of the neighbors come out of bed then the cops and fire department show up and Sally walks out the door and claims that the three cops killed Micky and are trying to kill her until Walt comes out of the house and tells the whole truth. Chief then questions Sally and asks if its all true. Sally then drops her gun and as you think she is going to turn herself in, she grabs the chief’s gun and shoot him in the foot then Connie in the knee. Right when you think she is going to kill Walt, Walt ends up shooting first which then leads to Sally’s death.
Dick Hickock was the twisted individual who planned the invasion into the Clutter’s home and pushed for the gruesome policy of “no witnesses.” Unlike his partner in crime, Perry, Capote wrote Dick as an utterly unlikeable man with seemingly no redeeming qualities, no glimpse of humanity, and, above all, no feelings of regret. A court psychiatrist surmises that Dick suffers from “ a severe character disorder” which causes him to “seems obviously uninfluenced by [his moral standards] in his actions, [have] a pathological inability to form and hold enduring personal attachments”, “cannot tolerate feelings of frustration as a more normal person can”, have “a very low self-esteem”, and makes Hickock “feel inferior to others and sexually inadequate…these
According to chapter two, the effects of the murder on the town of Holcomb are a shock to the citizens of Holcomb because this is the first time they experience such a horror event. This posts a dangerous threat to a part of Kansas and especially the Clutter’s neighborhood. Consequently, this event threaten their peaceful way of living. The author states in In Cold Blood: “Another reason, the simplest, the ugliest, was that this hitherto peaceful congregation of neighbors and old friends has suddenly to endure the unique experience of distrusting each other” (page 88). Many feeling has risen in the citizen of Holcomb: doubt, fear, suspicion, and unsafe.
This murder was one of the biggest cases upstate has ever seen. The gangland style killing of the Egan family rattled the police force in Watertown, New York for many years even after the case was closed. The murder victims were brothers Peter and Gerald Egan and Peters wife Barbra Egan. The triple murder happened on New Year’s Eve 1964. The only life left was a dog found in the car with the bodies of the Egan’s. The only man who was ever tried for the case was acquitted in 1970.
Richard Strout was married to Mary Ann, who was most likely fed up with his hot temperedness that always seemed to get him into fist fights. She separated from her husband and while they were going through the process of divorce, she began a new relationship with Frank Fowler, killing all hope of reconciling her marriage with Strout. In return Strout became enraged not only in losing his wife, but their sons, who now spent their days with this new man who was taking on the father role in their life. Whether it was his love for his wife and children or pride, it drove him to the only solution he could find, and that was to kill Frank. “Richard Strout shot Frank in front of the boys…Strout came in the front door and shot Frank twice in the chest and once in the face with a 9mm automatic(100).”
Admitting to only befriending Perry because “he had beaten a colored man to death” (Capote 109) is evidence of the perverted mind of Dick, which discredits any notion of having good intentions behind any of his actions. Capote included this confession because if his judgment of character is based solely off of the ability to commit heinous crimes then there is not a whole lot of good light being shed upon his own character. Furthermore, Dick goes on to attack Perry in his mind thinking there’s “something wrong with Little Perry” (108). Since Capote has already attempted to establish a general liking and sympathy towards Perry, he hopes the reader will be close-minded towards Dick and dislike him more for being so rude.
The school's undercover narcotics officer, Randy, was killed in the faculty parking lot. A car pulled up, and a black tinted window rolled down. The passenger in the back seat shot him once in the head with a handgun, then the car sped away. Randy was killed instantly, and the people in the car were never caught.
The killer broke into the home, and then proceeded to cut the couple's throats with a straight razor. After he cut their throats he bashed their heads with an axe. After the killer left I waited a few minutes then I left because I didn’t think that either one of them had survived. I was new to New Orleans so I didn’t know where I was going so I got lost. After I found my way back to the house I noticed his brothers Jake and Andrew