Romeo Vitelli's Blog, page 4

The Mad Bomber

On November 16, 1940, a crude pipe bomb was found by police in Consolidated Edison's office building in Manhattan.  Although the bomb hadn't exploded, a note attached to the bomb threatened further attacks against the company.  The second pipe bomb was found nearly a year later.   Police received a note signed "F.P" (meaning "Fair Play") announcing that the bomber was planning to suspend the bombing campaign due to "patriotic feelings" for the "duration of the war."   Sure enough, the next bomb wasn't found until March 29, 1950, at Grand Central Station.  Between 1940 and 1956, a total of 33 bombs were planted in different sites across New York City, although no actual injuries would occur until 1953. 

The most devastating explosion was on December 2, 1956, when a bomb went off in a movie theatre in Brooklyn, injuring six people.  The bomb had apparently been planted inside one of the seats after the bomber cut open the upholstery.  With the escalating violence of the blasts and the taunting letters sent by "the Mad  Bomber" (the name that the media had for him), police were desperate to solve the case.  Inspector Howard Finney of the New York crime then decided to follow the advice of a fellow police officer and consulted Dr. James Brussel.

As New York state's assistant commissioner of mental hygiene and a prominent forensic psychiatrist, Brussel had modest success in solving previous cases but had never been consulted in a major case before.  Forensic profiling was still a largely experimental approach to solving crimes, and police were reluctant to consider it.  Brussel examined photographs of the various crime scenes and the bomber's notes.  In one of the first uses of offender profiling,  he concluded that they were seeking a "rather ordinary-looking man, quiet, polite, proper, and well-dressed." He added that the bomber would be "between 40 and 50 years old, foreign born—probably central European (possibly Slavic)—a Roman Catholic, and fairly well educated, sexually abnormal, probably single, living with his mother or maiden sister in Westchester County or Connecticut and, when police found him, he would be wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned".   Brussel persuaded the police to release the profile to the media in the hope that it would draw the bomber's attention.

The rationale behind the profile that Dr. Brussel developed on the Mad Bomber was straightforward enough.  He diagnosed the unknown offender based on his own clinical experience with similar offenders and also on prevailing theories relating to mental illness and physical build.  Since the bomber was likely suffering from paranoia, Brussel estimated that he would be around age 50 based on the year of the first bombing and the lifetime incidence of paranoid symptoms.  Brussel also stressed the "phallic" nature of the bombs and the likelihood that the bomber was suffering from an Oedipal Complex (the police were not too impressed with this conclusion).  His idea of publicizing the profile came from the bomber's eagerness for publicity, but police knew that most of the leads that the profile turned up would be false (still a common problem with profiling).

In an unanticipated development, the bomber phoned Dr. Brussel directly and warned him to "keep out of this, or you'll be sorry."  He then hung up before the call could be traced.  After numerous false confessions and poor leads, Consolidated Edison searched its own records and turned up a name that appeared to fit the profile.   George Metesky was a 52-year-old bachelor who had worked for Consolidated Edison for several years before developing tuberculosis.  Metesky had apparently blamed his health problems on the company and had written several threatening letters after being denied a disability pension.  Those letters were still on file, and they were quickly matched to the notes by "F.P."  When the police came to his Waterbury, Connecticut home, he confessed immediately (while he was wearing a bathrobe at the time, he did change into a double-breasted jacket before going to the police station)  

After Metesky's arrest, neighbors reported that he was a quiet man who lived with his sisters and had no visible means of support.  They noticed that he became friendlier and more animated after the Brussels profile came out, but nobody suspected him of being The Mad Bomber.  Police found a complete workshop in his garage where he had built his bombs, and he talked about his plans for an even bigger bomb that he would detonate in the New York Coliseum.   He would later claim that he had deliberately planned the blasts to avoid any fatalities.

Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Metesky was declared legally insane and committed to Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Beacon, New York.  He would never respond to treatment but was a model patient otherwise.  After being released in 1973, he lived quietly in his family home until his death in 1994. 

James Brussel's role in capturing the "Mad Bomber" propelled him to national fame and gave offender profiling new respect that it never had before.  Brussel was frequently consulted in later cases but was best known for his role in the Boston Strangler investigation.  While he is still viewed as the "father of psychological profiling," his inferential approach to offender profiling has not held up over time.  Later critics have pointed out that only one of his profiles was ever validated and largely relied on his clinical experience and assumptions that were frequently incorrect.  His success in the Metesky case (and his presumed success with the Boston Strangler case) represents his most notable achievements despite being consulted in numerous other cases. 

Modern offender profiling, as practiced by most law enforcement agencies, has a multi-disciplinary focus combining medico-legal death investigation, criminalistics, and psychology.  While commonly accepted standards have been adopted, changing demographics and increased publicity surrounding police procedures (including popular television shows) have made the profiler's task more difficult.  To this day, it remains an open question whether profiling is more of an art than a science.

                   Related StoriesThe Case of the Pimlico PoisonerShooting Teddy RooseveltCyberbullying victimization among adolescencts: Results of the international self-report delinquency study 3. 

Cyberbullying victimization among adolescencts: Results of the international self-report delinquency study 3.

A paper recently published in the International Journal of Adolescence and Youth further explores a wide international research study, the International Self-Report Delinquency Study 3 (ISRD-3), with the aim of understanding if there is a relationship between having lived traumatic intrafamily experiences and potentially being a victim of cyberbullying. The data have been collected by a questionnaire ISRD-3 administered to a 20 European country sample of 57.463 students from 7th to 9th grade. Results show a statistically significant relationship between traumatic intrafamilial experiences such as a serious illness of one of the parents, episodes of violence suffered and assisted, separation or divorce of the parents, and being victimized in adolescence of cyberbullying. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract (open access)

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The Case of the Pimlico Poisoner

When Adelaide Bartlett discovered the body of her husband in their stylish residence in the heart of London on the morning of January 1, 1886, she immediately dispatched the maid to fetch the doctor.    On hearing the news of  Thomas Edwin Bartlett's death, Adelaide's father-in-law immediately suspected foul play.  Not only was the dead man only 41 years old, but he had recently passed an insurance examination with flying colors and had been insured for the then-princely sum of four hundred pounds.  Though he had been complaining of fatigue in the final weeks of 1885, there was nothing to suggest any cause of death.  The first thing Edwin Bartlett Senior did when he came to examine the body was to smell his son's breath to see if he could detect any poisons.   The second thing he did was to ask authorities to look into what happened, especially considering his suspicions concerning Adelaide.

In the subsequent autopsy conducted on Thomas Bartlett's body, his stomach was found to contain a lethal quantity of chloroform.   Thomas had been suffering from various chronic illnesses, including rotting teeth, and was reportedly a fan of fad health remedies (such as animal magnetism) which he hoped would cure him once and for all.    Though he had visited his dentist on the day before his death, the question of how such a large dose of chloroform should have been in his stomach immediately raised suspicions.   His doctor, Alfred Leach, had admitted to prescribing chloroform for his patient but only in regulated doses.   Which still raised the question of how he came to be poisoned.   While police weren't prepared to rule out suicide, it was Adelaide's scandalous relationship with her tutor, the Reverend George Dyson, that led to an inquest returning a verdict of wilful murder. Adelaide and Dyson were both promptly arrested.  And so began what would become known as the Pimlico Poisoning Mystery.  

Thomas Bartlett had been a wealthy grocer and part of a very proper and close-knit  English family.  His marriage in 1875 to Adelaide Blanche de la Tremoile, who was both French and considerably younger than he was, caught everyone by surprise.    Adelaide's father, who was never publicly named but rumored to be an English nobleman,  had arranged the marriage to Thomas, apparently after only a single meeting.   Since Adelaide was illegitimate, her father was desperate to arrange a good marriage for her.   Not only would the marriage provide her with a legitimate name, but it would also ensure a respectable place in English society.  As part of the agreement, the father gave Thomas a rather sizeable dowry (which was promptly invested in Thomas' grocery business).   The arrangement also had Thomas agree to assume all responsibility for his young wife, including controlling her behavior, a major concern in Victorian times.

Thomas' father detested Adelaide from the beginning and often accused her of affairs, including one with Thomas' younger brother.  Which seems ironic considering that Adelaide would later insist that her marriage to Thomas had been "platonic" from the very beginning.    The accusations of infidelity and general animosity Adelaide received from her father-in-law caused her to run away from her home on several occasions  (Edwin would then accuse her of running off with other men).   Thomas eventually forced his father to apologize to Adelaide in writing, something Edwin would later claim he had only done to make peace with his son. 

Though the accusations of infidelity stopped (at least for a while), Adelaide and Edwin continued to despise one another.  When Adelaide became pregnant in 1881 (apparently after repeating begging Thomas for a child),  things became even more nightmarish.   The pregnancy was a difficult one from the beginning, especially since Thomas refused to allow anyone but female midwives to tend to his wife.   Even when one of Adelaide's nurses pleaded with him to allow a male doctor to treat her, Thomas flatly refused to allow any man to "interfere with her."   When the baby was stillborn, Adelaide was devastated.   She would never become pregnant again, and they went back to their old "platonic" relationship.

Most of the details surrounding the later married life of Thomas and Adelaide would only come out in open court after his death.   Edwin Bartlett would reluctantly testify that his son once told him that a man should have "two wives, one for companionship and one for work."    Other people who knew Thomas would often hear him say the same thing, albeit more crudely.  Another of Thomas' quirks was his reluctance to allow Adelaide to have any female friends or acquaintances visiting.  Instead, oddly enough, he insisted on surrounding her with male acquaintances and often encouraging her to become physically intimate with them. 

One particular favorite was Wesleyan minister George Dyson.    Not only was Dyson a frequent visitor to the Bartlett home, but he was also hired to tutor Adelaide and act as a spiritual counselor to the couple.   Thomas had so much confidence in Dyson that he even asked him to be the executor of the new will he had drawn up.  The exact nature of the relationship that Adelaide, George, and Thomas actually had would become the fodder for lurid gossip during the criminal trial.  According to witnesses, George Dyson often arrived as early in the morning after Thomas left for work and would stay for the rest of the day.  He even kept his own coat and slippers at the house.     Thomas also paid for George to accompany them when they went on vacation.

Though Thomas' father had no trouble accusing Adelaide and George of conspiring to poison his son, the testimony Adelaide would provide was much more lurid.  Among other things, she testified that Thomas had openly encouraged George to become intimate with her and even asked them to kiss in his presence.  "He seemed to enjoy it," she said.   George Dyson was much more nervous testifying about his relationship with Adelaide.   He admitted confessing to Thomas about his growing fondness for her.   Thomas, for his part, seemed quite pleased and suggested that George and Adelaide write letters to each other.  The letters themselves were never entered into evidence (assuming they hadn't already been burned) though Thomas did change his will shortly before his death.  

This new will, with George Dyson as executor, was much the same as the previous one except for removing the sticky clause insisting that Adelaide not be allowed to remarry after his death.   But there were far more lurid revelations to come in a murder trial that would have Londoners crowding into the courtroom and eagerly reading their evening paper for the latest details.

When the trial of Adelaide Bartlett and George Dyson opened on April 12, 1886, it was an immediate media sensation considering the lurid details.   Not only was Adelaide accused of poisoning her husband with a fatal dose of chloroform, but the (ahem) unconventional aspects of her married life with Thomas Edwin Bartlett would become prime fodder for gossip on both sides of the Atlantic.   Along with the titillating details of adultery, there was also the forensic evidence provided by the prosecution experts, which focused on one single question:  how did Adelaide do it? 

Ironically, while George and Adelaide went to trial together, the prosecution's only real interest was in building up their case against Adelaide.   For that reason, the acting prosecutor in the case, Attorney General Sir Charles Russell, immediately asked that all charges be dropped against George Dyson, and he was promptly acquitted.  This paved the way for George to be called as a prosecution witness (as a defendant, he wouldn't have been able to testify for himself).   It was Adelaide alone who went on trial for murder (and faced a possible death sentence if convicted).  

Defending Adelaide was prominent trial lawyer Sir George Clarke who, according to rumor, had been hired by her still-unnamed father.   While Clarke would insist that Thomas had actually taken the chloroform to commit suicide, the defense and prosecution were both left with the problem of explaining exactly how the chloroform had entered the dead man's system.   One major stumbling block for the prosecution's case was that there were no tell-tale traces of the chemical burns, which would certainly have been found in Thomas' mouth and esophagus if Adelaide had poisoned him.   On the other hand, George Clarke argued that the lack of burns suggested he had gulped the chloroform down rather than drinking it unknowingly the way the prosecutor claimed.

Despite the mystery of how the chloroform had entered Thomas' system, the fact that Adelaide had several bottles of chloroform in her possession, which George Dyson had purchased for her,  was certainly damning.  What made things even more suspicious was Dyson's curious decision to purchase the chloroform in small amounts at different shops rather than in one large bottle (under British law at the time, purchasing large amounts of medical poison meant having to sign one's name in special register pharmacies were required to keep).   George Dyson insisted that he had purchased the chloroform at Adelaide's request though he claimed not to have realized until later how suspicious his different purchases would have seemed to police.  

As for Adelaide, her reason for purchasing the chloroform helped add to the sense of scandal surrounding the case.   Since Adelaide was prevented by law from testifying on her own behalf, it was left up to her family doctor, George Dyson, and Thomas' father to share the bizarre details of the case.  According to Dr. Leach, Adelaide had told him that she purchased the chloroform to curb her husband's "sexual passion."   While she and Thomas had apparently decided to refrain from sex following the stillbirth of her only child, Adelaide was disturbed to discover that her husband "manifested some desire to renew sexual intercourse with her."   Since she and George Dyson were already involved, she decided to purchase the chloroform so that she could wave it under Thomas' nose, "lulling him into a kind of stupor, and so prevent him giving effect to his sexual passion."  

But this was only one of the lurid revelations that came out during the trial.   People in attendance audibly gasped at hearing that no less than six condoms were found in Thomas Bartlett's pocket.   Also, known as "French letters," condoms were fairly crude affairs in those days, but the fact that Thomas Bartlett had them at all was considered horrifying.   Then there was the discovery of a "marriage manual" in the Bartletts' apartment.  Though  tame by modern standards,  any book containing explicit references to sexuality and birth control was deemed pornographic in Victorian times, and the presiding judge, Sir Alfred Wills, devoted considerable time during his final summation about the dangers of such a book for women (he described it as "reading which helped to unsex them.")  Judge Wills also insisted that the jury would have to pity Adelaide considering her husband "could throw such literature her way and encourage her to read it"  and that "One has learned to-day what is the natural and to be expected consequence of indulgence in literature of that kind."  

Since Thomas Bartlett was, like all Victorian gentlemen, expected to protect his wife from corrupting influences, the presence of the book, as well as the condoms in his pocket, cast serious doubt on Adelaide's description of her "platonic" marriage.   Abandoning any claim to being objective, the judge seemed determined to sway the jury to find Adelaide Bartlett guilty.   He ended his summation by stating:  "When a young wife and a younger male friend get discussing, in or out of the presence of the husband, the possibilities of his decease within measurable time and of the friend succeeding to the husband's place, according to all experience of human life, the life of the husband was one that an insurance office would not like to take."

But the jury was less impressed by the available evidence than the judge and prosecutor had hoped.   It only took them two hours of deliberation to find Adelaide not guilty.   On hearing the verdict, the people in the courtroom and the corridors outside promptly started cheering, something that Judge Wills, who was likely disappointed at the trial's outcome, regarded as an "outrage."   Still, Adelaide was free to go.

Despite the evidence presented during the trial, public sympathy had largely turned against Thomas Bartlett, who was regarded as the chief villain in the case.  As the husband, it had been his responsibility to protect his wife from corrupting influences and to maintain a normal household, children and all.    Though the prosecution tried to present Adelaide as a scheming adulteress who had poisoned her husband to be with her lover,  Adelaide's lawyer convinced the jury (and the public) that his client was incapable of murder.   Simply by saying nothing (she never gave any statement regarding her guilt or innocence), Adelaide's meek appearance helped win the sympathy of everyone associated with the case.

There were still a few people convinced that Adelaide had gotten away with murder, however.   One skeptic, famous surgeon Sir James Paget, greeted the verdict with his now famous quip:  "Now that she has been acquitted for murder and cannot be tried again, she should tell us in the interest of science how she did it!"  

But Adelaide continued to stay silent about the case and her life with Thomas.   After her acquittal, she managed to disappear from public notice completely (probably with her father's help), and nothing was ever heard about her again.   As for George Dyson, the notoriety surrounding the case and his unconventional relationship with Adelaide forced him to leave Great Britain.   Despite conflicting stories over whether he had emigrated to Australia or the United States, nothing more was really heard about him either.

But the case of the Pimlico Poisoning would continue to fascinate true crime buffs well into the present day.   Transcripts of the case are still available online, and there have been various attempts at solving the mystery of Thomas' death once and for all.  Along with books and radio programs describing the case, there were at least two notable attempts to bring the story to life on the silver screen.   Alfred Hitchcock once stated that he had planned to make a movie about the case but had ultimately decided against it.    The 1986 movie My Letter to George, starring Jodie Foster, was loosely based on Adelaide Bartlett's story.

So, did Adelaide Bartlett kill her husband?  You be the judge.

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Internet-delivered therapy for family carers of people with dementia (iACT4CARERS)

A new paper in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being examined the impact of internet-delivered, therapist-guided, self-help Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for family carers of people with dementia (iACT4CARERS).  A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews was employed with family carers (N = 23) taking part in a feasibility study of iACT4CARERS. The interviews were audiorecorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Results showed that four overarching themes were identified: 1) usefulness and relevance of the content of the sessions, 2) sense of connectedness, 3) the impact of the intervention on participants and 4) acceptability of the online delivery. Positive carer experiences and intervention acceptability were facilitated by learning helpful ACT skills, perceiving the content of the session as relatable to the carers’ needs, feeling connected to other carers and the therapist during the intervention, noticing the benefits of the intervention and the user-friendliness of the online platform. Recommendations for a full-scale trial were identified, such as the inclusion of some “face-to-face” interactions (e.g., via video call) between carers and therapists to facilitate a bidirectional interaction and the provision of an additional aide-memoire to improve the learning experiences. Conclusion: Overall, the intervention was acceptable to the family carers. The proposed recommendations should be considered in a full-scale trial.

For the abstract (open access)

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New Book on Its Way

The next book in my series True Crime Stories You Won't Believe will likely be out in a little while since the first draft is pretty much done.  It will contain many more true crime stories covered in this blog, suitably revised and updated.   I hope those who have read and enjoyed the first book will also enjoy this one.   I'll be posting details for any of you who would like to be beta readers or reviewers when it gets closer to the planned publication date (probably in the early fall).   

Here is the Amazon link for those of you looking to read the first book.

                    

LGBTQ+ conversion therapy and applied behavior analysis: A call to action.

The term conversion therapy refers to any practices intended to alter a person's sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, or any combination thereof. The present‐day scientific consensus is that such practices are not only ineffective, but highly harmful and fundamentally unethical. However, historical connections exist between applied behavior analysis and the design and dissemination of conversion therapy practices.  A new paper in the  Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis highlights these connections and to call for further attention and action from contemporary behavior analysts on this matter. Specifically, we call for continued discussion and review of previously published conversion therapy papers according to present‐day guidelines for ethical research, position statements from professional organizations, additional ethics guidelines for behavior‐analytic practice, and future behavior‐analytic research and practice efforts that support LGBTQ+ people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

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Shooting Teddy Roosevelt

1912 was a very unusual election year.

Although William Howard Taft was running for reelection, the Republican party had been badly split between the conservative faction backing Taft and the reform faction that had supported former president Theodore Roosevelt.  After an acrimonious Republican Convention, Taft was renominated and Roosevelt completely broke away from his party.  Leading a large contingent of disgruntled Republicans, Roosevelt launched the Progressive Party (more popularly nicknamed the "Bullmoose Party") and announced that he would run for an unprecedented third term as President.   While Taft and his supporters denounced Teddy Roosevelt as being power-hungry,  the presidential campaign quickly became a three-way race between Taft, Roosevelt, and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.   

Despite tensions running high, nobody was expecting what happened on October 14, 1912 while Theodore Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  

After attending a dinner at Milwaukee's Gilpatrick Hotel, President Roosevelt prepared to leave for a speech to be given at the Milwaukee Auditorium.  Just as he was entering his car, however, a nondescript man approached and shot Roosevelt at close range.  Fortunately, the bullet's momentum was slowed by passing through Roosevelt's spectacles case and all fifty pages of the prepared speech in his jacket pocket (long speeches can be useful).   While the bullet lodged in his chest, Roosevelt decided that he wasn't that seriously injured since he could still breathe normally (although he was clearly bleeding).  Turning down suggestions that he go to the hospital, he insisted on giving his speech as planned.   The shooter, a 36-year-old Bavarian immigrant named John Flammang Schrank, was taken into custody. 

Roosevelt still refused to go to hospital even though his aides noticed that blood was pooling around his feet in the car as they were driving to the auditorium.   Ever the showman, Roosevelt worked the shooting into his speech by showing the audience his bloody shirt and the bullet hole in his speech.  He also quipped that "it takes more than that to kill a Bullmoose".  Ben Hecht was covering the speech for the Chicago Journal and later described it in his autobiography A Child of the Century:

Surgical bandages wrapped the thick torso under his short cut-away coat.  Teddy's voice was fainter and squeakier than I had ever heard it.  He held up his hand for silence...and we gave him the auditorium.  He looked as if he might topple over, if he kept standing too long.

The audience was completely riveted by the speech and Roosevelt's bravery.  After the speech, he was rushed to hospital where doctors determined that he wasn't seriously wounded.  The position of the bullet in his chest was considered too dangerous to remove by surgery and the doctors decided just to leave it in place.  He would carry the bullet for the rest of his life.

As for John Flammang Schrank, the doctors examining him were left to learn about him and his reasons for shooting Theodore Roosevelt.  They learned that he was born in Bavaria (now part of Germany) in 1876 and emigrated to the United States with his family when he was nine years old.  Largely raised by his aunt and uncle,  he inherited an estate worth approximately $25,000 after their deaths.  While not a fortune even in those days, it was enough to make him comfortable.   After their deaths and the death of his fiancee, he sold off all of his property and drifted around the East Coast working odd jobs as a bartender and reading the Bible.  He developed a local reputation for hanging around bars and public parks and mainly stayed out of trouble.   As to his reason for the shooting, Schrank would admit that he had no personal animosity towards his intended victim.

According to Schrank, he had been visited one night by the ghost of assassinated President William McKinley who had told him that Theodore Roosevelt (his vice-president at the time) had masterminded the assassination.    Schrank claimed that McKinley's ghost had visited him more than once and, on the most recent haunting, had told him to stop Roosevelt from winning his third term.  Schrank then bought a gun and began following Roosevelt on his presidential tour.   Among Schrank's papers was a journal that he had kept which described his obsession with Roosevelt.  After passing up another opportunity in New Orleans, Schrank followed Roosevelt to Minneapolis and shot him after hearing that he was at the Gilpatrick Hotel.   When he was arraigned in court in Milwaukee on November 12, 1912, he pled guilty to the shooting stating that "I did not mean to kill a citizen, Judge.  I shot Roosevelt because he was a menace to the country.  He should not have a third term.  I did not want him to have one.  I shot him as a warning that men must not try to have more than two terms as President".   The court appointed a committee of five doctors to examine Schrank and they concluded that he was certifiably insane and suffering from "insane delusions, grandiose in character". 

While Theodore Roosevelt was recovering from his gunshot wound, his two opponents actually halted their own campaigns to give him a chance to recover (modern American politicians could take a lesson from that).   Although he was able to make two more speeches, Theodore Roosevelt's campaign was effectively over.  In the election that followed,  Woodrow Wilson won with 6,293,000 votes and 435 electoral college votes.   Roosevelt came in second with 4,200,000 votes and 88 electoral college votes.  Taft received 3,485,000 votes and only 8 electoral college votes.  We'll likely never know how Schrank's assassination attempt influenced the election and its outcome.   Although Theodore Roosevelt's public life essentially ended after the election, he took the shooting in stride stating that "I did not care a rap for being shot.  It is a trade risk which every prominent public man ought to accept as a matter of course.  For eleven years, I have been prepared any day to be shot". 

In 1914, John Flammang Schrank was sentenced to the Central State Mental Hospital in Waupun, Wisconsin where he would remain until his death in 1943.  He continued to insist that he had no animosity towards the "citizen Roosevelt" and seemed genuinely moved to hear of his death in 1919.   According to his obituary, Schrank had been diagnosed with "dementia praecox paranoia" and had been a model prisoner during his time in the hospital despite not associating with the other inmates.  He had no visitors during his entire 31-year hospital stay and no living relatives at the time of his death.  After Schrank died of bronchial pneumonia on September 16, 1943, his body was donated to Marquette University Medical School for dissection.  Many of the letters that he wrote to his doctor at the hospital are still part of the permanent collection at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

It seems fitting perhaps that Schrank should have the final word in describing his motives for the shooting.  According to one story, the guards assigned to transfer Schrank to Central State Hospital commented that the surrounding countryside was good for hunting and fishing.   After one of them asked Schrank if he ever hunted, his simple reply was:  "I only hunt Bull Moose". 

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PTSD in First Responders

Approximately 10% of first responders report posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although reports within first responders suggest that they have distinct symptom presentations, there is a need to understand how the clinical profiles of first responders may differ from others seeking treatment for PTSD.  A new study published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology compared the PTSD symptom profiles of first responder and civilians seeking treatment for PTSD. Participants self-referred to the Traumatic Stress Clinic (University of New South Wales, Sydney) were recruited  for enrolment in out-patient treatment trials for PTSD. Participants comprised people of mean age 41.72 years (SD = 10.71) who met DSM-IV criteria for PTSD. The sample was composed of 128 first responders and 182 civilians. Clinician-administered interviews of PTSD (Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale) and depression were conducted, as well as measures of self-report measures of depression, alcohol use, posttraumatic appraisals, and anger. Results showed that first responders reported greater rates of dysphoric cluster of symptoms, including diminished interest, emotional numbing, and social detachment, and less psychological reactivity and avoidance of situations, than civilians with PTSD. Beyond PTSD symptoms, first responders also reported more severe levels of depression and suppressed anger. These findings indicate that treatment-seeking first responders present with a distinct clinical profile that is characterized by dysphoric symptoms. These symptoms can predict poor treatment response and require specific attention in treating PTSD in first responders.

For the abstract

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BC Court Told That Actor Killed Mother to Protect Her from Violence He was Planning

When Ryan Grantham shot and killed his mother on March 31, 2020, he meant it as a prelude to the violent rampage he was already planning.  The 24-year-old British Columbia actor had accumulated an arsenal, including guns, ammunition, and Molotov cocktails to be used on his intended target, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but decided to kill his mother to spare her the anguish of his planned murder-suicide.   After rehearsing his mother's killing, and even taking videos describing his intentions, he then shot his 64-year-old mother, Barbara Waite, in the head while she was playing the piano in the Squamish, B.C. townhouse in which they both resided.   

Leaving his mother's body behind to be found later, he packed his arsenal into his car and began driving towards Ottawa.   Given the distance involved, he soon reconsidered his target and began planning a mass murder in a closer public location (such as Simon Fraser University where he had been a student.)   After testing out one of his Molotov cocktails in a remote area, he then turned himself over to police who charged him with his mother's murder.   Since his arrest, Grantham has undergone multiple forensic assessments as mental health professionals attempted to determine his mental state.   

Reports submitted to the court indicated that the defendant had been experiencing intense clinical depression in the months leading up to his mother's murder.   He had also purchased new firearms despite already being a gun owner and member of a local gun club.   In her case for the prosecution, Crown Prosecutor Michaela Donnelly outlined the clear premeditation shown by the defendant before and after his mother's death.   In what she described as a "heartbreaking breach of trust," Donnelly said that  Grantham " was seeking to save his mother from something he was s going to do ... That is something different than altruism,"  She also added that "Barbara Waite loved her son very much, was an excellent parent and in her mind had no reason to fear him."  Grantham has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder which carries an automatic life sentence.   The Crown is also asking that he be ineligible for parole for at least seventeen years.   Court proceedings are expected to wrap up shortly.

Ryan Grantham has been acting since he was nine years old and has appeared in numerous B.C.-based TV shows.   These include Supernatural, Riverdale, and iZombie.  He has also appeared in films such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. 

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Insomnia in survivors 8.5 years after the Utøya Island terrorist attack: Transition from late adolescence to early adulthood-the Utøya study

Insomnia is a global health concern, associated with many mental and physical health conditions. Prevalence of insomnia is reported to increase during adolescence and early adulthood. High levels of insomnia are also reported in adolescents up to 2.5 years after a traumatic event. What is less well understood is the prevalence of insomnia in a trauma exposed population transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. A new study in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology examined insomnia in the survivors in the 2011 Utøya Island terrorist attack, 2.5 years and 8.5 years after the attack when the majority of survivors were transitioning from late adolescence to early adulthood. Participants were 336 survivors of the Utøya Island attack who completed the Utøya Study 2.5 years (T3) and 8.5 years (T4) after the attack. Participants completed a face-to-face interview including the Bergen Insomnia Scale (BIS), which was used to assess insomnia symptoms and prevalence of meeting diagnostic criteria for insomnia. Results showed that insomnia was indicated in 47.7% of survivors 8.5 years after the attack. Insomnia prevalence did not significantly change from 2.5 to 8.5 years after the attack, though insomnia symptoms (BIS sum score) were found to increase. Age was negatively associated with insomnia at T4, with older age being associated with less insomnia. No significant sex difference was found in insomnia prevalence at T4.  Almost a decade after the Utøya Island terrorist attack, nearly a half of the young survivors in our study reported insomnia and typical age- and sex-related differences in sleep were not always seen. This rate is almost double what is reported in the general population (20–30%) indicating a high level of unmet need in this population. The implications of such sleep disruption during a critical time for physical, mental, social and cognitive development are far reaching. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

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