Insane (?)
Figures in
History
Who is this person?
• Responsible for the
death of at least 17
men
• Performed acts of
cannibalism
• necrophilia,
• Makeshift lobotomies
on living people by
drilling into brain
Jeffery Dahmer
• Started with animal torture as a
boy, neighbors found dog’s head
on a stick
• In his apartment they found the
following:
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Human head on fridge shelf
Skulls in closet
Body parts packed in a barrel
Decomposed hands in a lobsterpot
Assorted bones in boxes
Freezer full of viscera, such as:
• Lungs, liver, intestines and kidneys
• He had polaroids of everything he did
Is he insane?
Historical Figures with Insane
Tendencies
Nebuchadnezzar II
• Responsible for the
hanging gardens of
Babylon
• Suffered severe
mental derangement
at end of reign
Nebuchadnezzar II (cont’d)
• Imagined he was a
goat and ate grass
with the cattle
Caligula
• The ancient sources are
practically unanimous as to the
cause of Gaius's downfall: he
was insane
• Outlandish stories cluster
about the raving emperor,
illustrating his
– excessive cruelty,
– immoral sexual escapades,
– or disrespect toward
tradition and the Senate.
– incestuous relations with
his sisters,
– laughable military
campaigns in the north,
– the building of a pontoon
bridge across the Bay at
Baiae,
– plan to make his horse a
consul.
• In April 1392 Charles
suffered from a
mysterious illness which
caused his hair and nails
to fall out.
• On a hot day in August
Charles rode at the head
of a group of knights, a
page accidentally
dropped a lance.
Suddenly Charles rushed
forward with a drawn
sword and killed 4 of his
own men before he could
be overpowered.
Charles VI
• Lifted from his horse, Charles
lay flat and speechless on the
ground, his eyes rolling wildly
from side to side.
• For two days Charles was in a
coma.
• A surgeon drilled some holes
in Charles' skull, hoping to
relieve pressure on his brain.
Although Charles felt some
momentary relief after the
operation, he suffered a
relapse in 1395.
• In 1397 Charles became
aware that his brain was
clouding again and requested
to have his dagger removed.
• During the attacks Charles had
delusions, claiming that his
name was Georges, denying
that he was the King or had a
wife or any children.
Charles VI (cont’d)
• He ran from room to room until
he collapsed from exhaustion,
wailing that his enemies were
upon him.
• Later, when he was kept in
dark and closely shuttered
apartments, he attacked with
maniacal fury any servants or
doctors who attempted to
enter.
• He smashed the furniture and
urinated in his clothes. In their
own apartments, Charles'
youngest daughters could hear
their father's wailing and
screaming.
• Later, Charles went through a
stage of believing that he was
made of glass and that if
people came too near him he
would break. Thus he insisted
that iron rods should be
inserted into his clothing to
prevent him from breaking.
Charles VI (cont’d)
Gain Gastone
•
he bought the entire stock of a
peasant selling brooms and ordered
them to be delivered to the municipal
offices "for future use". The eccentric,
but witty Gian Gastone probably
thought that it would be a good thing to
clean-up the corrupt city
administration.
Gian Gastone was a prematurely
aged, fat drunkard, who looked at the
world through a more or less
permanent haze of intoxication. Once
he went to a reception given by his
brother's widow, Violante of Bavaria
(1673-1731), and became so drunk
that he uttered all kinds of obscenities
and was pushed vomiting into his
coach, wiping his mouth with his wig.
In contrast to his father's religious
fanatism, Gian Gastone's contempt for
the Church became notorious.
• Hired many young male lovers
• In 1730 Gian Gastone sprained
his ankle and took to his bed and
from then on he left it only on
some very rare occasions.
•
His bed became the centre of his
existence. He lunched in bed
around 5 o'clock in the evening
and had supper in it around 2 in
the morning. The dogs slept with
him in bed and it stank of tobacco,
drink, vomit and excrement.
• He let his fingernails, toenails and
beard grow. Gradually he became
senile. In June 1737 he became
seriously ill, suffering from a large
stone in the bladder. He died
within a month.
Gastone (cont’d)
• This soldier fought along side
Joan of Arc and served as the
equivalent of France’s military
chief of staff, and was one of
the wealthiest men in France.
History tells us that Gilles hid
a dark and sinister side for
many years, during which he
kidnapped, tortured and
murdered hundreds of
peasant children (mostly
young boys) while working
with alchemists who used
black magic in their attempts
to turn base metal into gold.
• Gilles confessed (under
threat of torture) to being a
pedophile and homosexual in
a time when either of these
two activities could result in
the forfeiture of life and
property.
Gilles de Rais
Gilles de Rais (cont’d)
• De Rais and his servants
confessed that he had
sodomized many of the
youngsters before cutting off
their heads, which usually
excited him to further sexual
degredations on the lifeless
bodies.
• It is unknown how many may
have died at De Rais' hands,
though some speculations put
the number at over 800. No
matter the number of his total
kills, the child slayer was
executed in Nantes in 1440.
Elizabeth Bathory
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Also called the Blood Countess
Born 1560 in Hungary
Learned some torture techniques
from her husband, Ferenc
Nadasdy
Began by sticking needles into
servant girls’ flesh and pins under
their fingernails.
Put red-hot coins and keys into
servants’ hands, or she used an
iron to scald the faces af lazy
servants
She had other girls hurled out into
the snow , where cold water was
poured on them until they froze to
death
Bathory (cont’d)
•
Covered one naked servant girl in
honey and made her stand
outside for 24 hours to be bitten
by flies, bees and other insects
•
Also set the pubic hair of one
servant on fire and pulled a
servant girl’s mouth until it split at
the corners
•
Rose up from her sick bed one
time to bite the cheek and breast
of a servant girl, ripping off flesh.
•
Called blood countess because
she bathed in the blood of servant
girls. Responsible for death of
over 650 girls. Recorded every
death in a diary
Vlad Tepes
• Otherwise known as
Dracula (which means
son of Dracul—a title
given to his father as a
defender of the church by
the pope)
• Enjoyed torturing
thousands of people in
his short reign
• Aside from impaling his
victims, he
– Cut off noses, ears, sexual
organs, limbs
Dracula (cont’d)
• Hacked victims to pieces
• Ate bread dipped in blood
of victims
• Burned, boiled, roasted,
skinned, nailed, and
buried them alive
• Compelled others to eat
human flesh
• Smeared salt on the
soles of prisoners’ feet
and allowed animals to
lick it off, chewing on feet.
Dracula (cont’d)
•
Throughout various sagas of
Dracula, one notes a sadistic
sexuality:
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The ritual and manner of
impalement
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A husband’s forced cannibalism of
his wife’s breasts
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Had nipples cut from women’s
breasts, or a red-hot stake shoved
through the vagina until the
instrument emerged from the
mouth
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The sexual organs cut out of an
unfaithful woman
– Had her skinned alive and
displayed her in public with her
skin hanging separately in the
middle of the marketplace
• A qualified surgeon who toured
Europe upon retiring from
Union army due to ill health.
• Settled in seedy part of London
because of easy access to
women (had a prodigious
sexual appetite)
• Charged out of room claiming
someone just broken into his
room. He shot George Merret,
a poor man trying to support
his wife and 6 kids (with
another on the way). Incident
is called “Lambeth Tragedy”
• Found guilty of murder by
reason of insanity
W.C. Minor
W.C. Minor (cont’d)
•
Had gonorrhea on
arrest, tried to cure it by
injecting white rhine
wine into urethra
•
Quite paranoid, always
afraid someone
(particularly Irish) were
trying to break in and
rape him
•
Complained being
molested in his sleep
•
Always scrambled
under bed to find
“invaders”
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Worked on OED while
in asylum.
•
Cut off offending
member of body with a
penknife
Serial Killers—are they insane?
Peter Kurten
• “Monster or Vampire of
Dusseldorf”
• Drank blood of his victims
• Only caught because he let
one of his victims go while
attempting to rape her
• Grew up in single room with 10
people, described as “hotbed
of depravity”
• Father forced himself on wife
in front of children and raped
13 year old daughter
• Kurten, too, forced to have sex
with sisters, but his favorite sex
was bestiality
The Vampire of Dusseldorf (cont’d)
• Between 13 and 15,
committed countless acts
of bestiality with pigs,
sheep, and goats. He
derived particular
pleasure from stabbing
animal to death while
having intercourse with it
• Cut neck of swan and
guzzled blood,
experiencing a sexual
climax
• Herman Mudgett, also
known as “Saucy Jack”
• Same time as Jack the
Ripper, only in America
• America’s first
documented serial killer
• Born in New Hampshire
in Gilmanton Academy
• Liked experimenting
when young on living
animals
• Scammed insurance
companies by procuring
recently dead bodies
Dr. H.H. Holmes
Saucy Jack (cont’d)
• Through these scams, he
constructed “The Castle”
shown here.
• It contained dozens of
secret rooms linked by
secret passageways and
stairs
• Rooms were linked to gas
and had chutes to a
dissection lab
• Confessed to 27 murders.
Known as “Holmes, the
Arch Fiend”
• Hanged on May 7, 1896
Albert Fish
• Called “America’s Bogeyman”
• Kidnapped Grace Budd in
1928. She was 12 years old.
• Strangled her, butchered her
body, and carried off several
pounds of flesh
• Back in his lodgings, he turned
her “meat” (as he called it) into
a cannibal stew, complete with
carrots, onions, and bacon
strips.
• He spent the next nine days
locked in his room, savoring
this unholy meal and
compulsively masturbating
• He remained at large for six
years until he wrote a letter to
Grace Budd’s parents
describing what he did to their
daughter.
•
He was a religious maniac (like
many serial killers)
•
He flagellated himself with leather
straps and nail-studded paddles
•
Ate his own excrement
•
Inserted rose stems into his
urethra
•
Shoved sewing needles up his
groin. This x-ray reveals 29
needles lodged around his
bladder.
•
The children he mutilated and
murdered were, in his eyes,
sacrifices to the Lord.
•
He was found insane but jury
believed he should be put to death
anyway.
Albert Fish (cont’d)
John Wayne Gacy
• Considered a man’s man who
dressed up as a clown at
children’s parties
• He was a tormented, selfloathing homosexual who
preyed on young males
• Beneath the crawl space of his
suburban house, 27 corpses
were found. Two other bodies
were buried in his yard and
four were dumped in the river.
37 victims in all
• He would handcuff his victims
and subject them to hours of
torture and rape before
strangling them.
Ed Gein
• The day his mother died, Ed
was thirty-nine years old and
still a bachelor. He stopped
farming and began to live on
federal subsidies and doing
odd jobs for people in town.
Alone in the large house, he
kept his mother's room
untouched and locked, just as
it had been before she died.
He also sealed off most of the
other house, choosing to live
only in a bedroom and the
kitchen.
Ed Gein (cont’d)
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Free of his mother's prying eye, he soon
began to take an interest in the female
anatomy. Ed found medical books, horror
novels, pornographic magazines, and books
on the Nazi medical experiments. Through
this media he was able to thoroughly study
that which his mother had hidden from him
for so long. He fantasized about having his
own woman to study, but his social
inhibitions disallowed him from meeting
women. A desperate Ed took things a little
too far.
Ed went to local cemeteries and began
digging up female corpses to take home. He
would spend hours studying the corpses and
removing parts via dissection. Sometimes,
after removing internal organs and the head,
he would remove the skin and wear it
around the house. He also enjoyed fondling
the removed female genitals, sometimes
putting them into a pair of women's
underwear, which he wore around the
house.
Ed Gein (cont’d)
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After some snooping around, the man found
what would arouse the interest and horror of
the entire nation and set a new standard for
disturbing behavior. Worden's body was
naked and beheaded, hanging upside down
in the barn, with the chest cut open. Inside
of the house, her head and intestines were
found in a box and her heart on a plate.
Other monstrous items included:
Preserved skins from ten human heads
A rolled up skin from a woman's torso
A belt made of excised nipples
A chair covered in human skin
Soup bowls made of the crowns from human
skulls
Lampshades made of stretched human skin
A table with human leg bones as legs
A refrigerator filled with human organs
Bracelets made from human skin
A shoebox filled with female genitalia
The entire skin from a woman's torso,
including the breasts
Ed Gein (cont’d)
• The police estimated that the
remains came from at least
fifteen bodies. Ed only
confessed to murdering
Bernice Worden and claimed
that all of the other items had
come from corpses that he had
dug up from the local
graveyard. Ed was
subsequently arrested and
sent to a mental hospital. After
ten years, he was considered
mentally fit to stand trial and
was found guilty of murder
while criminally insane. He
was put in more mental
hospitals, until he died of heart
failure in 1984.
How do you define someone as
insane?
Is there a foolproof definition?