Broadmoor Revealed_ Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum - Mark Stevens [17]
After the end of the civil war, Minor remained in the American army and indeed rose through the ranks. The pressures of his work continued, though without him showing any immediate signs of insanity. The only catalyst presented for the change in his behaviour is hearsay: that he had become engaged, but that the relationship ended. It is the earliest point in Minor’s story that sex enters the narrative, though it seems unlikely that Minor had not already been consumed by sexual thoughts before this point. What is known is that he was discovered frequenting brothels in New York, where he was stationed at the time. Such behaviour might be considered normal for a soldier, even tacitly encouraged, but instead there must have been something about Minor’s behaviour that was not normal. Bearing in mind his subsequent history, the possibility that Minor was engaging in either homosexual or bisexual acts might be one possible conclusion. A deliberate move was organised for Minor to Florida to remove him from a scene of temptation, but this failed when he began to exhibit delusions of persecution by his fellow officers. In 1868, the army diagnosed him as suffering from the mental illness of monomania, or an obsession with one subject, which gave rise to delusions. He was sent to the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington DC (now St Elizabeth’s Hospital).
Despite his obviously continuing illness, Minor was released from St Elizabeth’s in 1871, though now a man in enforced retirement from the army and also in receipt of his pension, which he could add an income from his well-to-do family. He travelled to London at the end of the year, ostensibly to spend time touring Europe. He did not make it any further. It appears that he first took up residence at Radley’s Hotel, in the West End, before moving to Lambeth after Christmas, where it seems likely he felt he would have easier access to the sex trade. It was in Lambeth that he shot and killed a stranger called George Merritt or Merrett on 17th February 1872. Minor had already approached Scotland Yard, reporting that he was being followed and otherwise persecuted by various nameless men. The warning was ignored. One night Minor woke, and saw a figure at the end of the bed which he reckoned to be one of his abusers. He pursued the phantom spirit into the street, where Minor chanced upon Merritt walking to work at a brewery near to Waterloo. Merritt, was married and had six children, with another on the way, and that night he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Minor chased him, pursued him as he ran, and then caught and shot at him several times before fatally wounding him in the neck.
The scene of crime was very central, between Waterloo and Hungerford bridges, and Minor was apprehended on the spot. Minor said it was a case of mistaken identity, that he had thought Merritt was a person who had been breaking into his room. While the mistake was fleeting, the intention was permanent, and the delusion about needing to fight forced entry to both his room and his person would remain with Minor for the rest of his life.
Minor was committed for trial, and this was held at the Surrey Assizes in Kingston upon Thames in April 1872. The nature of Minor’s enduring delusion was laid bare at the trial. A warder at the jail where Minor was on remand was also an employee at Bethlem, and he testified that every morning Minor would wake up and level the accusation that his guards had allowed him to be sexually abused during the night. His abusers hid in the voids of the room – under the bed, or in the walls or rafters. The abusers were always male, but both men and women (and boys and girls) feature in Minor’s later descriptions