Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights

L. Tabac William

Description

They have no witnesses. They have no case. With this blunt observation, Mariann Colby-an attractive, church-going Shaker Heights, Ohio, mother and housewife-bet a defense psychiatrist that she would not be convicted of murder. A lack of witnesses was not the only problem that would confront the State of Ohio in 1966, which would seek to prosecute her for shooting to death Cremer Young Jr., her son's nine-year-old playmate: Colby had deftly cleaned up after herself by hiding the child's body miles from her home and concealing the weapon.Thus, this "highly intelligent" woman, as she would be described at her trial, had hedged a little on her wager. Not only were there no witnesses to the crime, but there was not a shred of physical evidence to pin the slaying on her. Under the usual forensic standards, her wager was spot on; the probabilities were that she would get away with it. But as the Shaker Heights police found themselves stymied by an investigation that was going nowhere, Mariann Colby upped the ante a bit. Under intense questioning, she broke down, claiming the gun had accidentally discharged. The state thought it had its capital murder case, but Mariann Colby's bet against it would be right on the money.As her trial unfolds in the book, the imprecision of her insanity defense confounds the judges, and psychiatrists disagree about her diagnosis. To make matters worse, the panel of judges that initially tried Colby was so confused by what they'd heard that they did not reach a decision consistent with the law of the state. This led to a second trial and more conflicting psychiatric opinions, another controversial judgment, and clashing trial outcomes.After reading The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights, readers-and the many childhood friends of the slain boy whose painful reminiscences are set forth in the book-will contemplate whether Mariann Colby did indeed get away with murder. In addition, those interested in legal history will find much of value in Tabac's discussions of the case and its use of an insanity defense strategy.

Sujets

• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631013331
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights
TRUE CRIME HISTORY
Twilight of Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts · James Jessen Badal
Tracks to Murder · Jonathan Goodman
Terrorism for Self-Glorification: The Herostratos Syndrome · Albert Borowitz
Ripperology: A Study of the World’s First Serial Killer and a Literary Phenomenon · Robin Odell
The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America’s First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair · Diana Britt Franklin
Murder on Several Occasions · Jonathan Goodman
The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories · Elizabeth A. De Wolfe
Lethal Witness: Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Honorary Pathologist · Andrew Rose
Murder of a Journalist: The True Story of the Death of Donald Ring Mellett · Thomas Crowl
Musical Mysteries: From Mozart to John Lennon · Albert Borowitz
The Adventuress: Murder, Blackmail, and Confidence Games in the Gilded Age · Virginia A. McConnell
Queen Victoria’s Stalker: The Strange Case of the Boy Jones · Jan Bondeson
Born to Lose: Stanley B. Hoss and the Crime Spree That Gripped a Nation · James G. Hollock
Murder and Martial Justice: Spying, “Terrorism,” and Retribution in Wartime America · Meredith Lentz Adams
The Christmas Murders: Classic Stories of True Crime · Jonathan Goodman
The Supernatural Murders: Classic Stories of True Crime · Jonathan Goodman
Guilty by Popular Demand: A True Story of Small-Town Injustice · Bill Osinski
Nameless Indignities: Unraveling the Mystery of One of Illinois’s Most Infamous and Intriguing Crimes · Susan Elmore
Hauptmann’s Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping · Richard T. Cahill Jr.
The Lincoln Assassination Riddle: Revisiting the Crime of the Nineteenth Century · Edited by Frank J. Williams and Michael Burkhimer
Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee · Ann Marie Ackermann
The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights: Examining the Trial of Mariann Colby · William L. Tabac
The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights
Examining the Trial of Mariann Colby
William L. Tabac
The Kent State University Press Kent, Ohio
© 2018 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-352-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
22  21  20  19  18       5  4  3  2  1
To Joe
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 August 24, 1965: Almost Tenderly
2 An Unfortunate Remark
3 Mr. K
4 The Valley of God’s Pleasure
5 Wicked Witch
6 September 1, 1965: A Child Forsaken
7 January 2, 1925: First Dates
8 September 7, 1965: The Boy at the Morgue
9 1844: Free to Forbear
10 August 1965: Caught Butterflies with Their Hands
11 Strike a Deal
12 “They Have No Witnesses. They Have No Case.”
13 March 14, 1966: A Crime Scene Visit
14 Two Scottie Dogs
15 A “D” for the Class
16 March 26, 1966: “We Leave You to Heaven”
17 The Whole Neighborhood Knew
18 April 1971: A Startling Conclusion
19 World War II Airplanes
20 November 1971–March 26, 2007: A Sliver for Dane
Epilogue
A Note on Sources
Index
Preface

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist
These psychiatrists, they tell you different things. —George Moscarino, assistant prosecutor, Cuyahoga County, Ohio
In 1965, Mariann Colby, an intelligent, attractive Shaker Heights housewife and mother, shot a nine-year-old neighbor boy to death. Colby’s plea to the charge of premeditated murder was insanity. To be acquitted on that ground in Ohio back then, the defense had to prove either that the accused was so ill that she did not know the difference between right and wrong or, if she did, that she lacked the capacity to control herself.
The textbook example of being oblivious to the moral implications of one’s actions is an accused who is so delusional that she believes she is slicing a chunk of cheese as she is stabbing someone to death. But Mariann Colby did know the difference: she not only took steps to conceal the crime, but she tried to blame it on someone else. That meant her lawyer had to persuade the judges who heard her case that she was so ill she was unable to control herself.
Under the insanity rules that existed in the sixties, psychiatrists were invited to offer their opinions on that critical issue. Yet, as Mariann Colby’s case made its way through the Ohio legal system, the judges and the psychiatrists would sharply disagree over it.
“He knew how to use psychiatric testimony,” Arthur Rosenbaum, a prominent psychoanalyst, explained about the defense lawyer who had used him as an expert witness in the trial. I had asked Rosenbaum about his role in the case because, a decade later, I was teaching a course in criminal responsibility at the Cleveland State Law School.
Rosenbaum’s response intrigued me, for no matter how good the psychiatrists were, and no matter how skilled Colby’s lawyer was, psychiatrists can only offer an opinion, and when they do, they often disagree. The best person to explain whether Mariann Colby was unable to prevent herself from murdering the neighbor boy might very well have been Mariann Colby herself. But she was not confronted with that question because her lawyer did not put her on the stand, and because of her right not to incriminate herself, the prosecutors were unable to interrogate her.
Was it malice or madness that drove Mariann Colby to murder the child? In taking up that challenging question, this book tells the story of the murder and its aftermath, of its far-reaching effects on the childhood friends of the victim, and of a legal system that was unable to reach a consensus about whether Mariann Colby should be punished or hospitalized for her crime.
William L. Tabac
January 22, 2017
Parkman, Ohio
Acknowledgments
Along with the individuals mentioned in the bibliography, Dick Feagler was extremely helpful as was Thurston Cosner. My thanks and appreciation also go to the following individuals who provided me with records and documents: The Shaker Heights Historical Society; Becky Hill, head librarian, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center; Barbara Ellis, Montgomery County, Ohio, Records Center; R. Kramer, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas; Jay Ferguson, Ferguson Funeral Home, Hilliard, Ohio; and Halle M. Malcomb, Ohio State Bar Association.
Jess and Lara, my daughters, commented on early drafts of the manuscript and my son, Damon, suggested sources. My wife, Cathy, who faithfully stood by my side through another trying endeavor, wielded a sharp editor’s pencil.
A special thanks to my friend, Arnold Rheingold, and the late Theron Raines, for their support.
Chapter 1 August 24, 1965 Almost Tenderly
Six miles east of Shaker Heights, Ohio, where the murder took place, lies the village of Gates Mills, a sparsely populated, wealthy community of lavish homes on large, undulating lots. At 11 A.M. on a balmy day, August 24, 1965, the morning of the murder, David Griesinger, a Harvard College student, arrived back at his home in the village from Cambridge. At 11:45 A.M. , he rounded up his dogs, two labrador retrievers, for a walk along Gates Mills Boulevard.
Griesinger liked going through forests and woods with his two labs, so he headed off into the woods that bordered the street, never imagining—because it was simply impossible for anyone to imagine it—the grisly scene that awaited him there. Two boys, who happened to spot him when he discovered the child’s body at 11:50 A.M. , reported that Griesinger ran away from the scene. Fifteen minutes later, he called the police from his home.

Woods in Gates Mills, Ohio, where Cremer Young Jr.’s body was found (The Cleveland Press Collection, Cleveland State University)
Fred Fenohr, the village’s police chief, who also doubled as the fire chief, was in the middle of lunch when the call came in. He drove over to Gates Mills Boulevard, a short distance away from the New England–style town hall where his office was located.
The boulevard was divided by a rather large, oval-shaped median bisected by a cinder drive. The body was lying face down in tall grass, in a wooded area 175 feet from the drive. The spot, which was shielded from the road by trees and heavy brush, held a baseball diamond. Children played Little League baseball on it and residents rode horses there.
Fenohr was puzzled by the body’s appearance. “As neat as a pin,” he would report to his Shaker Heights counterpart. “His hands and fingernails were not dirty nor his clothes disheveled.” Fenohr was struck by another thought, an oddly sentimental one given what he had encountered. “It looked as though he was placed almost tenderly on the grass between two trees.”
The Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office, where the body was transported, was located on the campus of Western Reserve University. Trained as both a physician and lawyer, Sam Gerber, a dapper, gray-haired man of sixty-five, was about to enter his third decade as the county’s coroner, a career that would span a half century. With impeccable credentials, he was celebrated by his colleagues, once having been honored by them as “North American Coroner of the Year.”
A forceful personality who basked in the limelight, he commanded and commandeered center stage. The tragic event that would make the AP and UPI wire services hum certainly had all the makings. Sam Sheppard’s case, which had gripped the city of Cleveland a decade earlier, was about to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The handsome, Bay Village osteopath—convicted of bludgeoning his pregnant wife to death in their bedroom—had convinced the court to hear out his claim that a media circus in the courtroom had undermined his right to a fair trial. Gerber had played a key role, a pivotal one