Evening star., 1938-04-02

Some years ago there was an extraor-
dinary prisoner at the District Jail.
Sentenced for a petty theft, he one
day asked to see the warden and con-
fessed to couple OF exceptionally brutal
murders in a neighboring city. The
victims had been missing for some
months and their fate unknown. Their
skeletons were found where the man
said he had placed them. Absolutely
no suspicion had been attached to him
hitherto.
This was not conscience confession.
The murderer was not brooding over his
crimes. He had not got religion" He
expressed no regret whatsoever for his
actions. He was described at the time
as the most brutal, calloused criminal
ever to pass through the local JAIL which
has known some very hard characters
in its day.
The District gave the man up to the
neighboring city. There he confessed
some more murders. He was given up
again and finally found himself in the
Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth,
Kans. There he confessed total of %
murders. He finally murdered a guard.
For this he was finally hanged in the
face of great deal of opposition, be-
cause Kansas has no capital punish
ment. The delays irritated the fellow
extremely because "he wanted to be
hanged"
He didn't want to be hanged because
he was sorry for his crimes and thought
hanging would be his just punishment.
He was not conscience-stricken any
more than he had been when he con-
fessed his killings to the warden of the
District Jail He just wanted to be
hanged-that was all. He was an uned-
ucated man, but well read and with a
superior intelligence. He. was 38 years
old. He had spent % of these years in
jails, reform schools and prisons.
Perhaps there are good many crim-
inalS who want to be hanged or electro
cuted-Who actually commit their crimes
with this end subconSciouSly in view. 1t
is one way of committing suicide. Few
of them, however. are of sufficient in
telligence to analyZe their own motives.
This man could and did.
At least it is to be presumed that this
is the man-for no other individual in
recent history fits the picture-whom DR..
Karl A. Menninger calls lone of the
most extraordinary individuals, sane or
insane, criminal or non-criminal, that
have ever met" He describes the
Kansas climax Of the case in his study
of suicide, Man Against Himself" which
has just been published. The suicide
study was partly endowed by grant
received through the late DR.. William A..
White, former superintendent of st.
Elizabeth's Hospital.
The man once outlined to DR.. Men
ninger "a by no means absurd plan" for
wiping out the entire human race. II
despise, detest and hate every human
being on earth, including my own SELF"
he wrote. And yet, paradoxically
enough, he was interested in bettering
the world and childlike affection for
the one man, prison Official who ever
had treated him kindly. When he
finally achieved his long-sought end on
the gallows, writes DR.. Menninger, "he
ran forward eagerly, climbed to the gall
lows with alacrity, urging his execution
ers to hurry the thing up and get it over
with. It was remarked by every one how
eager he was to die. His execution was,
IN essence, a suicide, direct accom-
plishment of what he had indirectly
sought for all his 38 years"
1t had all started, as DR.. Menninger
reconstructs the story from the mans
own manuscript, in an unhappy child
mood with intensely strict and religious