Speaker 1: Hey, who is ready for a classic Stuffy missed in
Speaker 1: History Class episode? In case you have not noticed or
Speaker 1: are very new to the show, these episodes that are
Speaker 1: showing up in your feet on Saturday's are ones from
Speaker 1: our back catalog that we are sharing so newer listeners
Speaker 1: can get a taste of some of the shows from
Speaker 1: years gone by. And since we're soon to be in
Speaker 1: the Halloween season, which is my absolute favorite where we
Speaker 1: would normally share some creepy history, it seems like maybe
Speaker 1: a good time to give you a little warm up
Speaker 1: with a story about a sleepwalking killer named Albert Terrell.
Speaker 1: This episode is really a story of the first time
Speaker 1: that sleepwalking was used as a legal defense, and you
Speaker 1: will find out how that worked out for Terrell in
Speaker 1: this episode. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class
Speaker 1: from stuff works dot com. Hello, and welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And uh,
Speaker 1: have you ever had about of sleepwalking? I have never
Speaker 1: had about of sleepwalking. My brother used to when he
Speaker 1: was very small. My parents had to put a lock
Speaker 1: on his door so that they could get in in
Speaker 1: an emergency, but that he could not get out. And
Speaker 1: injure himself, which is germane to our podcast today, It
Speaker 1: totally is. The sleepwalking defense in criminal trials is not
Speaker 1: entirely uncommon in modern modern trials. Medical and legal experts
Speaker 1: are continuing to study the validity of such claims. And
Speaker 1: did you know sleepwalking crime is actually on the rise.
Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me. It's one of those things where
Speaker 1: as as people become more aware of sleep disorders and
Speaker 1: sleep walking disorders both there's both the getting diagnosed increase
Speaker 1: and the use as a defense, whether accurate or not increase. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we also don't um know if there is a
Speaker 1: cultural or social trigger. Some uh experts in the field
Speaker 1: have posited that because we live in a sort of
Speaker 1: a more nervous, anxiety laden culture, it's actually triggering more
Speaker 1: people to have sleepwalking disorders and sleep disorders in general.
Speaker 1: So we don't know the exact route of why those
Speaker 1: are on the rise. Those three things are all factors.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen forty six, it was completely unheard of
Speaker 1: to claim sleepwalking as a defense. No no one had
Speaker 1: used that ever until Albert J. Terrell, who was on
Speaker 1: trial and his lawyer Rufus Choke, who took a really
Speaker 1: unorthodox approach to defending his client, and it for the time,
Speaker 1: it was so out of left field that it was
Speaker 1: almost like that it wasn't me, Like, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: saw me do it, but that was not me. But
Speaker 1: nobody did see him do it, which comes up in
Speaker 1: the trial. So the crime took place on October eighteen
Speaker 1: forty five and Mrs Mary and Bickford's body was found
Speaker 1: in a CD boarding house in Beacon Hill and Boston.
Speaker 1: She was only twenty one, and her body was found
Speaker 1: on the bed, partially on the bed, partially on the floor. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are different illustrations you can see online that kind
Speaker 1: of um put her in slightly different places, and there's
Speaker 1: an account that comes up in the trial where they
Speaker 1: described part of her body being on the floor. She
Speaker 1: was in a nightgown and she had a wound to
Speaker 1: the neck that had nearly decapitated her. Uh. The bed
Speaker 1: had been set on fire, as well as two other
Speaker 1: places in the room, and Bickford's hair and skin were
Speaker 1: singed and burnt. Uh. An earring was missing from one
Speaker 1: of her ears, which was split open as though it
Speaker 1: had been pulled out, and there was a straight raisor
Speaker 1: at the foot of the bed, which is a pretty
Speaker 1: grizzly scene. It is pretty grizzly and and a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on there. Albert Terrell had been
Speaker 1: seen with her earlier that evening, and a witness account
Speaker 1: also described him to speak speaking with a stable keeper
Speaker 1: to try to get transport away from the city. Now,
Speaker 1: to give a little bit of background on these two,
Speaker 1: because this was not appairing that was unknown already, that
Speaker 1: was not her first encounter with Terrell by any means,
Speaker 1: so they were actually known to be engaged in an affair.
Speaker 1: Both of them were married. Bickford, who also went by
Speaker 1: Maria and some other pseudonyms at different times, had gotten
Speaker 1: a taste for city life when she was visiting relatives,
Speaker 1: and she actually left her husband, who was in Maine,
Speaker 1: to stay in the city permanently. And she had even
Speaker 1: written him a letter and said, you can come and
Speaker 1: live in the city, but I'm and we'll be husband
Speaker 1: and wife, but I'm going to need my freedom, kind
Speaker 1: of saying like I will play the part of wife,
Speaker 1: but I'm not really married to you in my heart.
Speaker 1: Uh So, at one point, her husband, James, actually traveled
Speaker 1: to Boston to look for her, discovered her working in
Speaker 1: a brothel and headed back to Maine by himself. And
Speaker 1: in corporateceedings, the prosecution stated at one point that she
Speaker 1: had actually moved to Boston with a paramore that she
Speaker 1: had presumably met on that first visit to the city
Speaker 1: that was obviously not her husband. Uh And then that
Speaker 1: man deserted her, which is what led her to prostitution.
Speaker 1: So Mary had met Albert Terrell while working and the
Speaker 1: two of them had started a very intense relationship. People
Speaker 1: described it as both passionate and volatile. They traveled together
Speaker 1: as a married couple, even though she was already married
Speaker 1: and he also was married and had a wife and
Speaker 1: a family. Uh. And on September forty five, which was
Speaker 1: one month before the murder, Terrell had actually been charged
Speaker 1: with adultery. His trial was delayed for half a year
Speaker 1: for six months after friends and relatives and even his
Speaker 1: wife actually petitioned the court to delay the proceedings because
Speaker 1: they wanted to all work together to help Albert reform
Speaker 1: his ways. And they thought, if he could, you know,
Speaker 1: prove he was a good citizen for six months and
Speaker 1: then go back on the adultery charge, even if he
Speaker 1: Um was found guilty of it, they would be a
Speaker 1: little more lenient because he was clearly trying to mend
Speaker 1: his ways, and the delay was granted, and then Albert
Speaker 1: was released after you know, posting bond and he went
Speaker 1: right back to Marian Big first. Yes, so that's sort
Speaker 1: of the history of of them as a couple. When
Speaker 1: Terrell ran from Boston after the murder happened, he went
Speaker 1: to hide with relatives in Weymouth. Then he went north
Speaker 1: to Canada to get passage aboard a ship to go
Speaker 1: to Liverpool. That voyage had to turn back because of
Speaker 1: bad weather, and he got on a second ship in
Speaker 1: New York to go to New Orleans. On December five,
Speaker 1: he was arrested after a Louisian authorities got a tip
Speaker 1: that he was a board a vessel in the Gulf.
Speaker 1: So at that point he's in custody and he was
Speaker 1: transported back to Boston for the trial, and he hired Terrell,
Speaker 1: we should note was not a poor man. He had
Speaker 1: some wealth. His family was well established in the shoe
Speaker 1: manufactured trade, and he hired Rufus Choke, who was a
Speaker 1: protege of Daniel Webster, as his defense and Chow was
Speaker 1: already a very high profile figure with both a political
Speaker 1: and legal career. He had served on the Massachusetts State
Speaker 1: House of Representatives and the state Senate. He had been
Speaker 1: a member of the twenty and twenty three Congress. He
Speaker 1: was well respected in legal circles. Uh So it was
Speaker 1: really like the equivalent of hiring a pretty heavy hitter lawyer. Today,
Speaker 1: everybody would have known who he was. And Chow conceived
Speaker 1: of this novel defense for his client, claiming that in fact,
Speaker 1: Albert was a somnambulist and that he performed the entire
Speaker 1: murder in a sleepwalking trance. Now, that wasn't his only defense.
Speaker 1: He also tried to discredit the possibility that he had
Speaker 1: even committed the murder. But that was sort of one
Speaker 1: of the new and novel ways that he defended his
Speaker 1: client right that the proceedings started on March eighty six,
Speaker 1: and according to court records, the judges were judges Wild, Hubbard,
Speaker 1: and Dewey. A Judge Shaw was also scheduled to be there,
Speaker 1: but he was outsick. Representing the Commonwealth was Samuel D.
Speaker 1: Parker and for Terrell rufus Choate and and us An
Speaker 1: A by Meryl Esquire jurors were very quickly selected that morning.
Speaker 1: If you read the Boston Daily Times account, it seems
Speaker 1: like they really whipped through like wardiar and additional questioning
Speaker 1: really really quickly. It took about half an hour, according
Speaker 1: to that reporter's account of it, to select the entire jury,
Speaker 1: which if you have ever done jury duty, it never
Speaker 1: takes just half an hour to get everybody settled, So
Speaker 1: that was pretty expedient. And then Parker's opening arguments UH
Speaker 1: included a plea to the jurors to disregard any bias
Speaker 1: that they might have as a result of hearing rumors
Speaker 1: about the deceased Bickford's profession as a woman of the
Speaker 1: night was not really helping the case, but he openly
Speaker 1: acknowledged what he called quote her depraved character. But he
Speaker 1: reminded the jurors present the the law protects even the
Speaker 1: wicked as well as the good when it comes to murder.
Speaker 1: Parker also asserted that Terrell, who was the son of
Speaker 1: a really successful shoe manufacturer, had had to get married
Speaker 1: very young at the age of eighteen because he had
Speaker 1: probably gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He stated the cause of
Speaker 1: so early a marriage in his minority I need not
Speaker 1: state that's part of an overall scheme to kind of
Speaker 1: chip away at Terrell's moral image, showing that he was
Speaker 1: impetuous and given to impulsive and wanton behavior. Parker further
Speaker 1: claimed that Bickford had actually been afraid of Terrell after
Speaker 1: his adultery arrest because she was scared that he would
Speaker 1: be angry that their relationship had gotten him into such
Speaker 1: trouble because at that point it was very public what
Speaker 1: was going on, and again there many many people petitioning
Speaker 1: the courts, so everyone knew his business at that point.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also painted a picture of the events leading
Speaker 1: up to the discovery of Bickford's body. Uh. First, it
Speaker 1: mentioned the pair being seen together in the days and
Speaker 1: on the night leading up to the murder. Two UH
Speaker 1: describes a faint shriek coming from Bickford's room early in
Speaker 1: the morning. Three the sound of something falling to the
Speaker 1: floor for a person running then tumbling down the stairs,
Speaker 1: then being heard leaving the house. Five was a groan
Speaker 1: or scream of fire, and residence in a nearby room
Speaker 1: seeing smoke come under their door. And then six Mrs Lawrence,
Speaker 1: who Uh was of the family living below those rooms,
Speaker 1: coming up the stairs to find burning bedclothes piled at
Speaker 1: the top of the stairs and against the door of
Speaker 1: the other boarder's room, and then seven help arriving in
Speaker 1: the room of Mrs Bickford being extinguished because it was
Speaker 1: on fire, and then the realization that an item that
Speaker 1: had been stumbled over in the rush to put out
Speaker 1: the fires there was a fire in the closet, on
Speaker 1: the bed and in a clothing trunk, was in fact
Speaker 1: the body of Mary Bickford. So at first they didn't
Speaker 1: realize there had been a murder. They just knew there
Speaker 1: was a fire which they were putting out, and then
Speaker 1: they realized this person has been gruesomely killed. There was
Speaker 1: additional evidence also there was no fire in the fireplace,
Speaker 1: so it could not be explained as an accident, an
Speaker 1: accident of the fire used in the room getting out
Speaker 1: of control. A man's apparel which consisted of a vest, drawers, socks,
Speaker 1: and a cane were found in the room. The razor
Speaker 1: that was found near the body didn't belong to anyone
Speaker 1: who was in the house. Uh. And then there was
Speaker 1: the interchange at the stable that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: Terrell Terrell was reported to have told the man that
Speaker 1: he was quote in a scrape about a girl. And
Speaker 1: then after that opening on Parker's part, witnesses were called
Speaker 1: for the prosecution, and there were many called. We won't
Speaker 1: list all of them, but some of the really German
Speaker 1: points that sort of brought in new information or corroborated
Speaker 1: specific elements of information that are important to the sleepwalking angle.
Speaker 1: So first, job As Pratt, who was the coroner, confirmed
Speaker 1: statements from the opening and added that he had also
Speaker 1: found a ring in the room with the inscription a
Speaker 1: J T T M A B presumably Albert H. Terrell
Speaker 1: to Marian Pickford. And Pratt had also found keys in
Speaker 1: the pocket of the vest that was in the room
Speaker 1: which unlocked of allies, and a trunk which were believed
Speaker 1: to have belonged to Terrell. Another witness was Dr Joseph Moriarty,
Speaker 1: and he talked about the wound to Bickford's neck as
Speaker 1: being from ear to ear and separating the laryn x
Speaker 1: and the blood vessels. He also said that it would
Speaker 1: be possible to for a person to perform this at
Speaker 1: one stroke on herself, and he stated he never knew
Speaker 1: a person to commit murder on another person with a razor.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a weird witness for the prosecution,
Speaker 1: it is. And I was looking over the notes of
Speaker 1: the case that were published in the Boston Daily Times,
Speaker 1: and I kept rereading that passage, thinking, did they really
Speaker 1: call awayness that said she could have done it to herself?
Speaker 1: But they really did for a reason, I can't have them,
Speaker 1: although I think their initial plan was just to describe
Speaker 1: the severity of the wound, so he may or may
Speaker 1: not have surprised them with those additional comments. They also
Speaker 1: called a Joel Lawrence who owned the house where Mary
Speaker 1: was killed, and he confirmed confirmed that a cravat that
Speaker 1: was found in the burning room was one that he
Speaker 1: had seen Terrell where previously. There was also James Fulham
Speaker 1: who was the stable keeper, and he said that Terrell
Speaker 1: had told him that somebody had come into the room
Speaker 1: and tried to murder him. So we're establishing a lot
Speaker 1: of incongruent comments on Terrell's part. Additional witnesses were called
Speaker 1: primarily just to corroborate what had been said in the opening,
Speaker 1: like the the list of things that happened leading up
Speaker 1: to the discovery and uh several were called just to
Speaker 1: establish the relationship between the deceased and the accused is
Speaker 1: being romantic and volatile in nature. So there was also
Speaker 1: the testimony of Mrs mary Head, who described an odd
Speaker 1: encounter with Terrell during which he seemed out of sorts
Speaker 1: and almost asleep, and he also made a bizarre sound
Speaker 1: with his throat. Do you know more about that? I do?
Speaker 1: It will come, it will come up. Uh. Just remember
Speaker 1: that the opening argument for the defense had some interesting points,
Speaker 1: and it was delivered not by Mr Choke but by
Speaker 1: his associate, Mr Merrill, and he one of the quotes
Speaker 1: from his opening is it does not follow that because
Speaker 1: a body has been found exhibiting indications of violent death,
Speaker 1: that a murder has therefore been committed. His argument was
Speaker 1: very focused on the beyond reasonable doubt angle of finding guilt,
Speaker 1: and he suggested that the clothing found in the room
Speaker 1: could have belonged to another man, or it could have
Speaker 1: been Terrell's, but because he was known to stay with
Speaker 1: Bickford quite often, it could have been left there at
Speaker 1: any time, not necessarily the night of the murder. He
Speaker 1: also wanted to dispel the idea that that running meant
Speaker 1: that he was guilty, so he asked, are not innocent
Speaker 1: men often being often afraid of being thought guilty. Meryl
Speaker 1: also read a list of cases where men had been
Speaker 1: found guilty and executed entirely on circumstantial evidence. So again
Speaker 1: they're building multiple angles to the case, and one is
Speaker 1: that no one actually saw him do it. He also
Speaker 1: asserted that if Terrell had wanted to kill Bickford, he
Speaker 1: had ample opportunity in their travels together before this particular night.
Speaker 1: There was also a little bit of a character assassination
Speaker 1: going on against Bickford. She was characterized by Maryland the
Speaker 1: opening as something of a beguiling siren, and that she
Speaker 1: used her wiles to infatuate Terrell and that's what caused
Speaker 1: him to leave behind his family and turned to her.
Speaker 1: So after all of those layers of defense, Merrill introduced
Speaker 1: the somnambulism defense, orating at length about the nature of
Speaker 1: the condition and reading a variety of cases and medical
Speaker 1: studies to support what he was trying to a and
Speaker 1: according to the Boston Daily Times, Merrill's opening lasted two
Speaker 1: hours and forty five minutes. There was a lunch break
Speaker 1: in the middle, and according to the reporter, was quote
Speaker 1: full of ability and research throughout, so he was impressive,
Speaker 1: apparently in his open right. And then witnesses for the
Speaker 1: defense were called, the first of which was Mrs Nabby Tyrrell,
Speaker 1: who was the widow of Leonard Terrell and the mother
Speaker 1: of the defendant, and she testified that Albert had been
Speaker 1: quote in the habit of getting up in his sleep
Speaker 1: since he was four or five years old, and she
Speaker 1: described several episodes from the time he was tiny until
Speaker 1: he um was a teenager and then was a young
Speaker 1: man on his own and left, so the time he
Speaker 1: lived with her, she described multiple episodes where he would
Speaker 1: go on walkabouts and do things completely asleep. Albert's brother,
Speaker 1: Leonard B. Tarrell, also gave testimony that Albert was prone
Speaker 1: to wakeful episodes while he was still asleep, and that
Speaker 1: during some of them he quote clenched whole of me
Speaker 1: very hard, and it was difficult to force his hands
Speaker 1: off of me. Additionally, family and neighbors of the Terrell
Speaker 1: family were called to testify that they had also seen
Speaker 1: Albert in somnambulist states, some even asserting that they had
Speaker 1: interacted with him during these events and found him able
Speaker 1: to speak and even answer questions but still seem asleep.
Speaker 1: The defense attempted to introduce a complaint mentioned by Mary
Speaker 1: Bickford that Terrell had at one point struck her across
Speaker 1: the breast forcefully while he was asleep, but it was
Speaker 1: ruled out as quote coming within the rule of death
Speaker 1: of declarations, so they couldn't get a sworn testimony from
Speaker 1: the deceased to back up this claim right uh and
Speaker 1: most witnesses also were used to establish the idea that
Speaker 1: Albert was in fact really quite fond of Mary and
Speaker 1: treated her very kindly, that he was genuinely in love
Speaker 1: with her uh, and a doctor EO. Finney was called.
Speaker 1: There were several doctors called for the defense, but he
Speaker 1: testified that the fatal wound could have been suicide or murder.
Speaker 1: Witness Dr Walter Channing also testified that he had knowledge
Speaker 1: of women committing suicide in this manner and had also
Speaker 1: read about it happening just in his career studies and
Speaker 1: in you know um journals and staying on abreast of
Speaker 1: the information of the time. Several other doctors were called
Speaker 1: to corroborate the argument that a person could easily commit
Speaker 1: a murder while sleepwalking, and one thing that choke in
Speaker 1: his associates repeatedly established was that when Albert was sleepwalking,
Speaker 1: he would make an odd vocal sound similar to the
Speaker 1: one described by Mrs Mary Head when she was on
Speaker 1: the stand as a witness for the prosecution. So they
Speaker 1: kind of artfully linked that back to you remember the
Speaker 1: other person that said he seemed really odd and made
Speaker 1: a weird clicking sound of his throat. That's what he
Speaker 1: does when he sleepwalks. We've established he has like an
Speaker 1: ability to sleep walk and do things in his sleep.
Speaker 1: So on Friday, March six, the defense made closing arguments. Shouts.
Speaker 1: Closing statement was six hours long. Yeah, all day, pretty much.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a filibuster on He was known
Speaker 1: as an orator, uh and there are some accounts that
Speaker 1: talk about how astounding it is that he could go
Speaker 1: on for such length, But he never seemed to lose
Speaker 1: the thread or focus of his speeches. So he had
Speaker 1: a lot to say, and it took him six hours
Speaker 1: to say it. Yes, his his testimony included the following
Speaker 1: how far does the testimony lead? You? Did any human
Speaker 1: beings see the prisoners strike the blow? No? Did any
Speaker 1: human beings see him in that house? After nine o'clock
Speaker 1: the previous evening. No, did any human beings see him
Speaker 1: run from the house, know did any human beings see
Speaker 1: him with a drop of blood upon his hands? Can
Speaker 1: anyone say that on that night he was not laboring
Speaker 1: under a disease to which he was subject from his youth? No?
Speaker 1: Has he ever made a confession of the deed to
Speaker 1: the two friend or thief taker? Not one word? So uh.
Speaker 1: That was part of the six hour closing statement and
Speaker 1: Choke finished at about in the afternoon, and after a
Speaker 1: brief recess, Mr Parker made his closing argument, summating his
Speaker 1: case pretty much just repeating what had come up throughout
Speaker 1: the trial, and he wrapped up at six fifty and
Speaker 1: Albert Terrell waived his option to address the jury and
Speaker 1: the court was adjourned until Saturday the following day. On
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, Judge Dewey addressed the jury at length on
Speaker 1: the somnambulism issue. He said, quote, medical testimony is very
Speaker 1: properly admitted in these cases, but it should be weighed carefully.
Speaker 1: It is dangerous to admit the possession of this ease.
Speaker 1: Lest in the reveries of our brains. The possessors might
Speaker 1: commit deeds which in others would be high crimes. So
Speaker 1: after just two hours of deliberation, at ten minutes to
Speaker 1: one o'clock, the jury returned with their verdict, which was
Speaker 1: not guilty, and the foreman of the jury actually stated
Speaker 1: though that the question and I quote the question of
Speaker 1: somnambulism had not entered into the consideration of the jury,
Speaker 1: So even with the sleepwalking defense, it seems like the
Speaker 1: circumstantial nature of the evidence was actually what hurt the prosecution. However,
Speaker 1: this case is usually cited as the first use of
Speaker 1: the sleepwalking defense and is characterized as though that's the
Speaker 1: reason for the acquittal, but the jury foreman said that
Speaker 1: wasn't even really a factor for them. Terrell was also
Speaker 1: tried for the arson charges that were associated with the
Speaker 1: night of the murder. Show defended him again with the
Speaker 1: same defense and used many of the same witnesses, and
Speaker 1: he was once again acquitted. Perhaps emboldened by these two sixs,
Speaker 1: is Terrell actually this is so brazen requested that Chot
Speaker 1: refund half of his fees as the case had both
Speaker 1: cases had obviously been one with greater ease than expected.
Speaker 1: Uh Chote of course refused. However, he didn't get off
Speaker 1: on everything. Terrell was convicted of adultery and ended up
Speaker 1: serving three years for it. Uh And after that he
Speaker 1: returned to his wife and children in Weymouth and he
Speaker 1: lived out his days working in the family business of
Speaker 1: shoe manufacturer. He could never hang onto any of his money.
Speaker 1: They did have another child, but that was sort of
Speaker 1: his His life after the trial got pretty quiet. After
Speaker 1: his trials and his time, he went home again and
Speaker 1: Choke continued his impressive legal career and he continued to
Speaker 1: be involved with politics, which could be a whole other podcast,
Speaker 1: because he really was at the next point of a
Speaker 1: lot of important moments. But what's interesting to think about
Speaker 1: is that from a modern perspective, would this defense of
Speaker 1: really held water. And we know people use the sleepwalking
Speaker 1: defense in modern times. There's a famous case from Canada
Speaker 1: from the late eighties where a man had driven i
Speaker 1: think fourteen miles killed his in laws and woke up
Speaker 1: while he was driving home and drove himself to the
Speaker 1: police station and he was actually acquitted. So we know
Speaker 1: these still come up, and there are still some you know,
Speaker 1: that come up even more modern than that. They don't
Speaker 1: always succeed though, UH and A Michael Kramer Borneman, who
Speaker 1: is a medical director doctor and a medical director of
Speaker 1: the Cardio Sleep Services at the University of Minnesota. UH
Speaker 1: was interviewed by Focus magazine and he said of sleep
Speaker 1: walking disorders, something in the switch between phases goes wrong,
Speaker 1: creating an aberrant electrical impulse that triggers an overlap between states.
Speaker 1: You're not fully in rim, so your muscles are relaxed,
Speaker 1: not paralyzed, and you're not fully in non rem so
Speaker 1: you can still be dreaming. In this state, some of
Speaker 1: the brain's processes will be awake while others are offline.
Speaker 1: Why does that lead to violent behavior, you ask, yes,
Speaker 1: he continues, As with many things in neuropathology, it's to
Speaker 1: do with real estate brain structures like the hypothalamus that
Speaker 1: regulate sleep sitting next to the mid brain where early
Speaker 1: evolved behaviors lie. So when this electrical impulse is sparked,
Speaker 1: it also wakes up this part of the brain, leaving
Speaker 1: the moral areas like the frontal cortex asleep. That leaves
Speaker 1: nothing to inhibit your rage reaction while you're sleepwalking, and
Speaker 1: that's why people are advised to never wake a sleepwalker
Speaker 1: because their their reaction may not be delightful or pleasant.
Speaker 1: It's completely not um in any way dampened by their morality,
Speaker 1: so they could do something without even realizing it. Right,
Speaker 1: But some of Terrell's behaviors, like the fire to conceal
Speaker 1: evidence in running and hiding, are not consistent with sleepwalking
Speaker 1: actions as we now understand in them. And if he
Speaker 1: had not tried to include that in his defense, you
Speaker 1: could make the case. But he used the same defense
Speaker 1: in his Arson trial, right, So it's feasible from a
Speaker 1: neurological perspective that a sleepwalker could kill another person while asleep,
Speaker 1: but that then attempting to conceal evidence while asleep unlikely.
Speaker 1: That's that's much less likely. Uh So, if he were
Speaker 1: trying today and use the sleepwalking defense, particularly for the
Speaker 1: arson element, he would probably not fairest well since that
Speaker 1: was part of the concealment of the crime. So that's
Speaker 1: the first in the US anyway sleepwalking defense, and it
Speaker 1: was successful. Yes, have you seen the movie sleep Walk
Speaker 1: with me? Yes? And it's it's reminded me of that,
Speaker 1: and and how alarmed he is when he hears that
Speaker 1: people while sleepwalking when having sleep disorders have either inadvertently
Speaker 1: or sort of acting out a rage impulse, killed the
Speaker 1: person that that they were sleeping with. Yeah, it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1: I always worry secretly that I will one day magically
Speaker 1: begin sleepwalking and doing bad things. That's a little weird
Speaker 1: fear of mine. Hey, so, uh, these episodes that we're
Speaker 1: sharing our past classics, we have some updated information that
Speaker 1: will supersede the contact stuff you've heard before. If you
Speaker 1: want to email us, our email address is History Podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, and you can find
Speaker 1: us across the spectrum of social media as Missed in History.
Speaker 1: You can also find us at missed in History dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can visit our parent company, how stuff Works
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
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