The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-01-23
Who Murdered Marian Mclean?

Charles Bischof, 45year-old degenerate. recently
confessed the murder of an innocent 6year old GIRL
Marian Mclean in Cincinnati. The murder an act
of multiple sex perverson, of the most hor-
rible ones conceivable If there ever was situation
to incte mob violence, this is one Playing alive,
followed by slow burning in oil, would the face of
it seem too good for Bischof.
In his purely human reactions to such an atrocity
as this the professional crimnologist nstinctively
feels much the in the streets. His first i'm
puse is to reach for his can-opener and make for
Bischof. But a crininologist he recognizes that
such an attitude is folly and short-sightedness.
To of Bischoffs perverted personality, such
an act was as natural contribution to the COM
munity chest by law-abding and benevolent citizen
He was impelled to this almost incredibly brutal act
by complex set of forces running all the way through
his defective heredy and his twisted life experience
to the special stimulation abnormal impulses the
day of the murder.
The police records and the court processes will say
officially that Charles Bischoff murdered Marian
Mclean But a more fundamental view of this
atrocty will find guilty not this degenerate but
denquently tardy society-specifcally in this case
the state of Ohio
We mention Ohio only because the crime was COM
mitted within its formal political boundaries Ohio
is not behind most other states in her chronological
theories and practices In this case her police showed
themselves better controlled and more restrained than
those of most sister states
What does it mean when We say that society
murdered Marian Mclean? Nothing more or less
than the plain fact that psychatrists socologists
and criminoogsts for years have been urging upon
society the adoption of methods which would have
made it nearly impossible for such type as Bischo
to be rowing at freedom The conservative and tradi-
tona opposition to such is responsible for
tragic cases such as these.
Bischof's actual arrest and identification as a
degenerate criminal was the work of police detectives
when Bischof nearing the half-century mark
He should have been picked out child by observ-
ant teachers medical examiners and handed over
for proper institutional segregation.
Even a cursory medical examination at puberty
would have indicated that something was wrong and
that trouble might be expected. A mental hygiene
survey by Cincinnati in recent years certainly would
have revealed him potentially dangerous char
acter
Psychology, pSychiatry, mental hygiene, and Grim
inology less developed in Bischofs youth than
they are today We shall be douby culpable if we
allow such types to grow up and move at random
in the coming generation
To be specific in our recommendations we need to
have psychologists and psychiarists cooperate with
teachers in our public schools This will enable us to
detect the problem children in the period of plastic
and impressionabe youth,
Child guidance clinics and juvenile courts should
be right at hand to take these youngsters and apply
to them all the resources of science and common
in the effort to straighten them out before it is
too late.
If their physical defects and mental twists are too
deep-seated to be overcome then let them be segre-
gated where they can do others no harm
Let us not allow degenerates to grow UP I'M
hndered and undetected under very eyes then
demand mob vengeance after they have committed
some horrible act The fundamental guilt is our own
not that of the defective wretch who peers out from
behind prison bars after being apprehended in his
guilt
The murder of Marian Mclean should provoke
thoughtful analysis, not mob hyseria. Unless this
particularly terrible atrocity helps to protect American
society against repetitions of such deeds as these
Marian Mclean will have died in vain whether
Charles BiScho is electrocuted or sent to hospital
for the crirninally insane.