The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-12-06

Killers at Large.

Washington, D. c., Dec. 5.-One
evening about eight o'clock, three
women sat chatting in the parlor OF
a house in Springfield, Mass, when
a man entered the room by a rear
window and, without any prelim-
inaries, demanded money. He wore
a black SLOUGH hat, a black hand
kerchief over the lower part of his
face and a revolver in holster
at his side
The terrified women screamed.
He told them to be quiet or he
would kill them. One of them
screamed again, whereupon he shot
her through the heart, killing her
instantly. Then, after some more
flourishing of his weapon. and
without having taken any booty,
he went away.
This astonishing crime led, after
a long search, to the arrest of ona
Bertram G. Spencer, who confessed
not only to this murder but also to
long series of mysterious burg
laries which had terrified Spring
field. They were most peculiar
burgiaries. They were commit
ted usually early in the evening
when detection would seem almost
certain In some cases nothing was
taken and in most cases only art
icles of little or no value.
Spencer was tried, and after a
long wrangle among specialists rs
to whether he was sane, he was
cond emned to death and electro
cuted.
One man at least was not salts
fed with this trial. He is L. Yer
non Briggs, a well known special
ist in mental diseases. He was
convinced, by what he had seen of
Spencer and what he had heard at
the trial, that Spencer was a de-
fective. He further believed that
Spencer had been a defective all
of his life, that any competent spe-
cialist in mental disease could have
diagnosed him as a man who was
dangerous at large. Furthermore,
he realized that this country must
contain many thousands of men
like Spencer who are defective,
who are a menace to other per-
sons and to themselves, and yet are
allowed to run at large. In these
opinions he has the support of
many other psychiatrists.
Life Story of a Killer.
In order to prove his case, DR..
Briggs made an elaborate study of
the life history of Spencer, and also
of those of two Nother convicted
murderers--of Czolgosz, the man
who murdered President Mckinley,
and of one Richeson. These three
studies he has embodied in a book
entitled THE Manner of Man That
Kills" This book, and especial
ly the part of it that deals with
Spencer, is an absolutely convin-
cling demonstration of the doctors
theory that most men who kill are
defective men, that if studied by
specialists when in school, they
could nearly all be recognized as
detectives and handled in such a
way that they would not be a men
ace to society and to themselves,
and that a large part of the enorm-
GUS expense of our courts, police
systems and penal institutions
could thus be saved in addition to
the great saving in life and prop
erty.
DR.. Briggs shows that Spencer
was defective in intelligence from
childhood, that almost all of his
immediate relations on both sides
showed some signs of mental de-
feet, many of them having been
insane. He further
shows that Spencer was long
known to many of his daily associ-
ates as queer" man, and that it
was well recognized by them that
he was subject to outbursts OF
temper almost without cause in
which he could not control himself.
In one of these outbursts he al
most killed a boy with a hammer.