THE CASE OF ROLAND PENNINGTON

On November 7th, 1913, Lewis S. Pinkerton, the manager of a certain farm in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, suddenly disappeared. As it seemed probable that he was the victim of foul play the detectives set to work and in due time arrested George March, the dairyman on the farm, and Roland Pennington, a farm laborer. Suspicion was directed to these two men largely through the testimony of the woman who was supposed to be the so-called common-law wife of March. At his trial it was shown that he had another wife living, and consequently she did not even have that as a claim upon him. This woman had heard groanings from the direction of the barn, and later when March came into the house, had noticed blood on the towel and on his clothing.

The body of the lost man could not be found. After being taken to prison March accused Pennington of the crime, admitting that after the deed was done he assisted young Pennington in disposing of the body, because, as he said, he was afraid that he himself would be accused of the crime. Having made this admission, he took the officers to a wood some miles away where the body had been buried in a rude, shallow grave.

Roland Pennington.
(By permission of “Alienist and Neurologist.”)

When Pennington was confronted with March’s accusation, he too made a confession, which, however, implicated March quite as much as himself.

March was tried in Delaware County, and convicted of murder in the first degree. The defense was, in accordance with the above statement, “that he had nothing to do with the crime itself, merely assisted in disposing of the body.”

Pennington’s trial occurred in June, 1914, when he also was convicted of murder in the first degree. The defense in this case was imbecility and irresponsibility. Although the jury did not accept this view, the case is a most interesting one from the standpoint of criminal imbecility.

The story of the crime is probably best given in Pennington’s own words, since his confession has all the marks of truthfulness and was evidently accepted by the jury in the March case. It was almost exclusively on the strength of this testimony that March was convicted.

Here again is a crime so abhorrent in its details that it is unbelievable. There is no excuse for it, no adequate motive, no justification whatever so far as the boy, Pennington, is concerned.

For March, it is easy to believe, as the jury evidently did believe, that he was actuated by what might be called an insane jealousy of the woman with whom he was living. We are familiar with the lengths to which such jealousy can lead a man. But why Pennington allowed himself to be made the dupe of this jealous man cannot be explained; it is absolutely incomprehensible on any theory that assumes that he is a normal boy of nineteen years.

It was in accordance with this feeling that some one raised the inquiry as to whether the boy was possibly a mental defective. This question having arisen, the writer was asked to examine him and give an opinion as to whether or not he was normal.

Accordingly the examination was made in the Delaware County jail in Media; this showed that the boy had a mentality of about eleven years according to the Binet Scale. He could not do any of the tests for age twelve and failed on some of those in ten and eleven. This indicated an intelligence scarcely up to eleven.

Further examination by other methods, the circumstances of his life, his appearance, and his school history, all tended to corroborate this view. The boy was nineteen years old when he committed the crime; two years before he had left Westtown Boarding School, after an attendance there of two and a half years. When he entered the school, the teachers graded him as of a capacity equivalent to the fifth grade in public school; he, therefore, began sixth-grade work. He never got out of that grade. For two and a half years he studied and tried to pass. He was absolutely unable to do sixth-grade work. Sixth-grade work, it will be remembered, is about the grade for a twelve-year-old normal boy; thus we have a striking agreement between his school experience and his Binet tests. By the Binet test he is eleven; in school he cannot do twelve-year work!

Asked what he had done since he left the school, he said he had done “a good many things.” Asked where he had worked, he said he did not remember all of the places. As a matter of fact, he had had exactly the career that the high-grade imbecile usually has out in the world. He either gets discharged from his positions because of incompetency or he leaves because of his nomadic tendencies. The imbecile rarely stays long in a place if free to move.

In addition to the above, the reader will see many evidences of childishness in his confession. He talks like a child; he alludes to George March as a child would; he says, “He has charge over me”—“He was kind and good to me; he used to take me to Gradyville,” etc. Even Pinkerton gave the money to March to buy shoes for Pennington. Again Pennington says, “George said he was going West and he would take me with him.” One cannot imagine a nineteen-year-old youth, or even a fifteen-year-old, talking in this way. By the time a boy reaches the latter age, he is in his own mind the equal of anybody. He would not say, “George took me.” He would say, “We went.” He would say, “I got along all right with George,” or some other expression whereby he would assert his own manhood and not take the rÔle of a child.

While in jail he showed no realization of the seriousness of his situation; showed no remorse for his deed; took no interest in his case. For example, he was told by his lawyer not to allow himself to be examined by any doctors without sending for his counsel; in spite of this warning he allowed himself to be examined by four physicians at one time and by two at another, and never mentioned the matter to his counsel even after it was done.

In the confession made to the prosecuting attorney one notices, as in the one we have quoted, that he appears simple and innocent; answers the questions often in terms of the questioner instead of by a simple “Yes” or “No,” which would be natural for a normal young man; he is uncertain and hesitates; he says, “I think,” in a great many cases where it was strongly to his advantage to speak positively.

After the deed was committed he took no care to remove the evidence; everything that was done in that connection was done at the suggestion of George March. All the way through this part of the confession it reads—“He led, I followed,” “I did as he told me.”

Having satisfied ourselves that Roland Pennington is a high-grade imbecile, the next question is, even as an imbecile, why did he do this deed.

In the case of Jean Gianini we found that it was for revenge of a fancied wrong, that is, according to his own statement. If not that, it may have been a sexual matter. In this case neither motive applies, and we have only two possible theories. The theory of the state was that it was for robbery. Indeed, Roland himself seems to admit that this was the motive. But this again is only a part of his imbecility. He was given a leading question by the prosecution and was weak-minded enough to say, “Yes.”

As a matter of fact one finds it very hard to get any evidence from the whole situation that he really was lead by cupidity. There is no evidence of any elaborate plans in regard to money, either as to getting it or as to what was to be done with it when he got it. March had talked about a thousand-dollar bill, and asked Pennington how he would like to have “that bunch of money.” Pennington says he does not remember saying anything in reply. This does not look as though it aroused any great emotion in him. Later March said—referring to the money Pinkerton was supposed to have “on him”—“Let’s get it.” Pennington asks, “What do you mean?” He is clearly thinking less of the money than of what he begins to dimly understand they are to do. When he understands that they are to kill him, he says distinctly, “No. I won’t kill him.” Never again is the subject of money mentioned. In all March’s urging him to do the deed he never says, “Remember the money,” or alludes to money in any way.Perhaps we are begging the question. If Pennington were really intelligent and shrewd, he would not say anything in his confession that would supply a motive for the crime. Not only does the whole confession give ample evidence that he was not sufficiently intelligent to protect himself in this way, but the conclusion of the matter shows clearly that it was of practically no importance to him. After the deed, March gave him seven dollars! He said, “I thought there was more.” That is all. He did not insist or complain. He accepted it calmly and without protest. He even proposed to give March half of the four dollars received for the pawned watch. Imagine a nineteen-year-old boy with full consciousness and responsibility killing a man for his money and being so complacent over receiving seven dollars! The theory is not convincing. Even the prosecution, whose whole case depended upon showing a motive, never pretended that Pennington made any stir because the amount was so small.

There is not the slightest evidence, external or internal, that the idea of getting money played any part in Pennington’s share of the crime.

Why then did he consent to begin the matter which George was to finish? It is clearly a case of suggestion. A suggestion, it is true, which never would have worked with a normal nineteen-year-old youth. With this weak-minded boy it is easily understandable. As we study the confession we discover that George March, either consciously or more likely unconsciously, used suggestion most adroitly. Undoubtedly he had learned, through association with Roland for six weeks, that this boy was very simple-minded and easily led. Having reasons of his own for desiring to get rid of Lewis Pinkerton, he first suggests the matter of money, hoping to appeal to Roland’s cupidity. It will be noticed that he nowhere uses the word “murder” or “kill”; even the mild expression, “Make away with him,” he uses only once. When Roland at one time almost takes fright and asks, “Do you mean kill him?” and he admits that he does and Roland says he won’t do that, the older man lulls him to sleep by the suggestion, “Well, you begin and I’ll finish it.”

March tells a story about a blackjack; then he brings the blackjack and gives it to Roland, saying nothing except, “You can do it with that.” Roland is so weak-minded that he takes the blackjack and puts it in his pocket. When the right time comes and the opportunity is near at hand, March stations himself at a convenient place where he will see Roland as he goes back and forth at his work, and for some little time he constantly coaxes and dogs him, pouring into his ears a stream of suggestion such as, “You will have a chance pretty soon”; “Don’t forget”; “Don’t lose your nerve”; “Now you can get him”; “Now nail him.”

It is an interesting little point, possibly only a coincidence but nevertheless a perfectly natural imbecilic association, that the one seemingly original thing that the boy did in connection with the matter was to invent a little trick in regard to the nail in the stall. It is quite likely that even this was suggested by George’s previous expression, “Nail him.”

Even the blow itself does not seem to have been given with normal vigor; having every advantage,—the victim bending over, Roland being behind him and with a blackjack which is capable of thoroughly stunning, if not killing at one blow,—he apparently did not strike with force enough to even produce unconsciousness. His victim was able to talk and to struggle for some minutes, until March, the companion in crime, came up and, as he expressed it, “finished him.”

As to motive, then, we conclude that the defendant had none. He was acting upon the suggestion of George March. Even the poor mind that he had, which under other circumstances might possibly have rebelled at such a suggestion, was lulled to sleep by this man of better intelligence for whom he had been working and who he had learned to think was “good and kind” and on whose judgment he thought he could rely.

Since the Pennington case is typical of the way weak minds work under control of normal minds, it will be worth while to analyze somewhat more fully this idea of suggestion.

How does suggestion work? Why does it indicate a weak mind and how does it affect our ideas of responsibility? Let us see.

We have already seen that Roland Pennington was under the control of another mind; we do not mean that he was actually hypnotized—a nonsensical plea that is sometimes brought into court cases. Roland Pennington was a victim of suggestion. An illustration will make this clear.

If I were to take a city man to a third-rail electric road and ask him to stand on one rail and put his hand on the third rail, he would resist the suggestion, because there would immediately come into his mind visions of himself burned to a crisp or instantly killed. But suppose I take a man who has come from the rural districts and who never heard of third rails. He has lived, let us assume, in my house and worked under my direction a month and has come to regard me as a friend. We have worked together and talked together; I take him out and say, “Touch that third rail.” Will he resist the suggestion? Not at all. Why not? What is the difference between the two men? The first has ideas about third rails. His past experience has filled his mind and memory with thoughts and with knowledge which instantly come to consciousness when I suggest touching the third rail. The other man has no such experience. He has known me long enough to have some faith in me. In fact from the very nature of things he is in the habit of doing what I tell him. I tell him to do this, and he does it.

Coming back to the first case, one perhaps can conceive that the city man and I might come upon the third rail under such conditions that he was not thinking of it. Instead of saying “third rail” to him I might say, “My! that rail is hot” and he would almost instinctively put his hand upon it to verify my remark. If he survived and could talk about it afterwards, he would say, “Of course I ought to have known and did know that was the third rail, but I did not think.” That is the way suggestion works.

To illustrate still further, we may speak of hypnotism itself. All of the wonders that are produced under hypnosis are to be explained in exactly this way. The subject is so nearly asleep that nothing gets into his consciousness except the ideas suggested by the operator. Accordingly he is utterly unable to resist any suggestion that is given him.

Now coming nearer to our problem, children are naturally very suggestible because they have not the experiences, the ideas. One may easily believe that an eleven-year-old child could be induced to touch the third rail. Furthermore, authority plays an enormous rÔle with children. I might take my ten-year-old boy out for a walk. He knows all about third rails and would not touch one. But if I were to say to him, “Son, you can put your hand on this, because there is no current on,” he would probably obey without question, because of his implicit trust in me. That confidence in a superior, either in age, intelligence, or position, is one of the characteristics of immature minds and one of the conditions that makes us all suggestible. In the hypnotic terminology again, this is the being en rapport. The hypnotized subject obeys the operator and no one else because it is the operator with whom he is en rapport—in other words, in whom he has confidence.Now let us come to the situation. It is perfectly clear that Roland Pennington was under strong suggestion and that any vague concepts that he might have had of the wrongfulness of murder or of killing a man were very carefully allayed by the man who had the influence over him and who had the motive for this homicide.

The whole statement shows that Roland recognized George as a superior, as one in authority over him and at the same time as a friend, as one on whose word he could absolutely rely. It is a perfect picture of the child following the man.