I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott

I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott
Author: Leslie Lambert Rounds
Publisher: True Crime History
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9781606354094

How the forgotten case of murder while sleepwalking changed history After creeping out of bed on a frigid January night in 1832, teenage farmhand Abraham Prescott took up an ax and thrashed his sleeping employers to the brink of death. He later explained that he'd attacked Sally and Chauncey Cochran in his sleep. The Cochrans eventually recovered but--to the astonishment of their neighbors--kept Prescott on, somehow accepting his strange story. This decision would come back to haunt them. While picking strawberries with Sally in an isolated field the following summer, Prescott used a fence post to violently kill the young mother. His explanation was again the same; he told Chauncey he'd fallen asleep and the next thing he knew, Sally was dead. Prescott's attorneys would use both a sleepwalking claim and an insanity plea in his defense, despite the historically dismal success rates of these arguments. In the two murder trials that followed, Prescott was convicted and sentenced to death both times. Prescott's crime has landmark significance, however, notably because many believed the boy was mentally ill and should never have been executed. The case also highlights the discriminatory role class plays in the American justice system. Using contemporaneous accounts as well as information from other insanity and sleepwalking defenses, author Leslie Lambert Rounds reconstructs the crime and raises important questions about privilege, societal discrimination against the mentally ill and the disadvantaged, and the unfortunate secondary role of women in history.

Unsolved Murders

Unsolved Murders
Author: Amber Hunt
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0241449618

Ever wondered who murdered JonBenét Ramsey, or who terrorized San Francisco as the Zodiac Killer? Puzzled over the notorious Black Dahlia murder, or the shootings of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls? This true crime anthology collects together some of the most intriguing unsolved murders in the world-cases that have baffled investigators for decade after decade. Sorting the facts from the speculation, Unsolved Murders: True Crime Cases Uncovered concisely explores each case, detailing essential evidence, profiles of suspects, and the twists and turns of police investigations. From domestic tragedies to sadistic serial killers, this book will have you returning to these cases again and again. Examine the evidence and decide for yourself: Who could have done it?

Gone Shopping

Gone Shopping
Author: Lorraine Gamman
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1448209714

Voted one of The Guardian's top 10 best crime books of all time and one of the best true crime books ever written according to Stylist Shirley Pitts, the eldest of six children was born upside down on 24 November 1934. Her 'career' began by thieving bread off doorsteps and coal from coal carts. Her father's bungled attempts at black marketeering and her dipsomaniac mother's inadequacies made Shirley resolve not only to be a first-class thief but also the best mother her six children could wish for. Before she died Shirley told her story to Lorraine - the story of a generous, brave and beautiful woman with a huge sense of fun and a love of life.

A Cry from the Far Middle

A Cry from the Far Middle
Author: P. J. O'Rourke
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0802157750

In a time of chaos, the #1 New York Times–bestselling political humorist asks his fellow Americans to take it down a notch. Is there an upside to being woke (and unable to get back to sleep)? If we license dentists, why don’t we license politicians? Is your juicer sending fake news to your FitBit about what’s in your refrigerator? The legendary P. J. O’Rourke addresses these questions and more in this hilarious new collection of essays about our nation’s propensity for anger and perplexity, which includes such gems as “An Inaugural Address I’d Like to Hear” (Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how I can get the hell out of here) and “Sympathy vs. Empathy,” which contemplates whether it’s better to hold people’s hands or bust into their heads. Also included is a handy quiz to find out where you stand on the Coastals-vs.-Heartlanders spectrum. From the author of Parliament of Whores, None of My Business, and other modern classics, this is a smart look at the current state of these United States, and a plea to everyone to take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy a few good laughs. “To say that P. J. O’Rourke is funny is like saying the Rocky Mountains are scenic—accurate but insufficient.” —Chicago Tribune “The funniest writer in America.” —The Wall Street Journal

College

College
Author: Andrew Delbanco
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2023-04-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0691246386

The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.

The Right to Remain Silent

The Right to Remain Silent
Author: Charles Brandt
Publisher: Steerforth
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1586422642

Page-turning detective fiction from the author of I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES / THE IRISHMAN who was himself a homicide investigator and prosecutor. Wisecracking cop Lou Razzi’s zeal, dedication and talent for extracting information from suspects make him destined to rise quickly through the ranks . . . until a frame-up sends him to jail for two years. He loses his career, his marriage, and his baby daughter, and following his release from prison, he leaves the country for a sort of self-imposed exile in Brazil. Fifteen years later, an exonerated, more hardened Razzi comes back to serve a single day on the force and claim his pension. But that one day becomes a continuing education when Razzi is drawn onto a conspiracy and finds his old police tools fruitless in the wake of the Miranda decision. Forced to learn, like a rookie, from his mistakes, he starts to find his way with the help of assistant district attorney Honey Gold. . . and is able to combat the powers that framed him then and thrive now in the new era of police procedure. When The Right to Remain Silent was first published, then-President Ronald Reagan wrote Brandt an unsolicited fan letter: “I commend your novel…for your forthright stand on improving protection of law-abiding citizens.” "The Right to Remain Silent is a novel written and to be read for entertainment, but it also encourages study of the art of interrogation and contains the line that 'confession is one of the necessities of life, like food and shelter.'" -- Charles Brandt from the Preface

The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights

The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights
Author: William Louis Tabac
Publisher: True Crime History
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781606353523

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.

Weyward Macbeth

Weyward Macbeth
Author: S. Newstok
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2016-04-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0230102166

Weyward Macbeth, a volume of entirely new essays, provides innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to the various ways Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' has been adapted and appropriated within the context of American racial constructions. Comprehensive in its scope, this collection addresses the enduringly fraught history of 'Macbeth' in the United States, from its appearance as the first Shakespearean play documented in the American colonies to a proposed Hollywood film version with a black diasporic cast. Over two dozen contributions explore 'Macbeth's' haunting presence in American drama, poetry, film, music, history, politics, acting, and directing — all through the intersections of race and performance.