Pathology of Lying [42]
influences: Extremely bad, including excessive lying. Bad companions. Heredity (?). Delinquencies: Mentality: Much stealing. (Shop lifting, etc.) Fair ability. Excessive lying. False accusations. Sex immorality. ---------------------------------------------------------------
CASE 5
Summary: A young woman of 20, bright mentally, strong physically, ``confessed'' to a professor of a university where she was studying that she had shot and killed a man. The facts were known to only three or four people and she was terribly worried about it all. Upon her information the affair was taken up by a group of professional men, one of them a lawyer of large practical experience. She aided in an investigation which attempted to uncover the ``white slave'' feature of the case. The data of verification proved most elusive. Later, the young woman implicated herself in a burglary, and altogether an elaborate story of her life was evolved. It was found that from early years she had been a great fabricator.
While a first year student at a university Marie M. begged for an interview with one of her instructors at his home and there, with him and others, she told a detailed story of how some months previously she had escaped a difficult situation by killing a man.
The exceedingly long account which was given at intervals to several professional men and enlarged upon in response to inquiry, or as the occasion otherwise demanded, we are not justified in taking space to retell. This case figures, as a whole, in somewhat anecdotal fashion among our others, we freely confess; it is cited to show the extent to which apparently purposeless fabrication can go. It has been found impossible to gain a satisfactory idea of the genesis of this young woman's tendency, quite in contrast to the other cases we have cited. It forms the only instance where we have drawn from our experience with merely partially studied cases.
Marie's story involved many items of her life since she was about 12 years of age. A distant relative who had come to know her whereabouts (she was an orphan living with friends) figured extensively in her narrative. This relative had hounded her in an effort to get her to engage in an evil life. His attentions varied greatly; sometimes for months she was not bothered with him. Once when she was on her way to Milwaukee a gray haired man approached her on the train, said he knew her relatives, they were rather a bad lot of people, and he wanted to protect her from them. Then came a long account of being driven in a carriage, changing her clothes in a hotel, having her picture taken in an immodest costume, signing a paper at police headquarters, and, at last, safely returning home, all guided by the mysterious gray haired man. Another trip led to an encounter with a man who took her in an automobile under the promise of meeting a friend. Entering a building where men carried revolvers and girls were given hypodermic injections, just as she was about to receive the needle in her arm, she reached the man's revolver and shot him in the back. Events follow swiftly in her tale, but all is thoroughly coherent, and a number of facts are included which could be substantiated. The professional men could not help being impressed and spent much valuable time before they felt convinced that it was a fabrication. The exact locations could not be discovered, but then Marie was a stranger in the city.
When we saw her the whole story was reiterated with but few changes, which, however, from the standpoint of testimony were most important. We soon found we could get direct testimony on physical features which were provably untrue. For instance, the description of a certain hallway in a building where she had gone with one of the men interested in the events was totally unlike anything that existed there. Then, too, certain embellishments, which
CASE 5
Summary: A young woman of 20, bright mentally, strong physically, ``confessed'' to a professor of a university where she was studying that she had shot and killed a man. The facts were known to only three or four people and she was terribly worried about it all. Upon her information the affair was taken up by a group of professional men, one of them a lawyer of large practical experience. She aided in an investigation which attempted to uncover the ``white slave'' feature of the case. The data of verification proved most elusive. Later, the young woman implicated herself in a burglary, and altogether an elaborate story of her life was evolved. It was found that from early years she had been a great fabricator.
While a first year student at a university Marie M. begged for an interview with one of her instructors at his home and there, with him and others, she told a detailed story of how some months previously she had escaped a difficult situation by killing a man.
The exceedingly long account which was given at intervals to several professional men and enlarged upon in response to inquiry, or as the occasion otherwise demanded, we are not justified in taking space to retell. This case figures, as a whole, in somewhat anecdotal fashion among our others, we freely confess; it is cited to show the extent to which apparently purposeless fabrication can go. It has been found impossible to gain a satisfactory idea of the genesis of this young woman's tendency, quite in contrast to the other cases we have cited. It forms the only instance where we have drawn from our experience with merely partially studied cases.
Marie's story involved many items of her life since she was about 12 years of age. A distant relative who had come to know her whereabouts (she was an orphan living with friends) figured extensively in her narrative. This relative had hounded her in an effort to get her to engage in an evil life. His attentions varied greatly; sometimes for months she was not bothered with him. Once when she was on her way to Milwaukee a gray haired man approached her on the train, said he knew her relatives, they were rather a bad lot of people, and he wanted to protect her from them. Then came a long account of being driven in a carriage, changing her clothes in a hotel, having her picture taken in an immodest costume, signing a paper at police headquarters, and, at last, safely returning home, all guided by the mysterious gray haired man. Another trip led to an encounter with a man who took her in an automobile under the promise of meeting a friend. Entering a building where men carried revolvers and girls were given hypodermic injections, just as she was about to receive the needle in her arm, she reached the man's revolver and shot him in the back. Events follow swiftly in her tale, but all is thoroughly coherent, and a number of facts are included which could be substantiated. The professional men could not help being impressed and spent much valuable time before they felt convinced that it was a fabrication. The exact locations could not be discovered, but then Marie was a stranger in the city.
When we saw her the whole story was reiterated with but few changes, which, however, from the standpoint of testimony were most important. We soon found we could get direct testimony on physical features which were provably untrue. For instance, the description of a certain hallway in a building where she had gone with one of the men interested in the events was totally unlike anything that existed there. Then, too, certain embellishments, which