September 9, 2017 • 27 mins
We're revisiting the murder of Mary Ann Bickford on Oct. 27, 1845. Her paramour Albert J. Tirrell was eventually charged with murder. Tirrell hired Rufus Choate to defend him, and Choate claimed his client had episodes of somnambulism.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, who is ready for a classic Stuffy missed in
History Class episode? In case you have not noticed or
are very new to the show, these episodes that are
showing up in your feet on Saturday's are ones from
our back catalog that we are sharing so newer listeners
can get a taste of some of the shows from
years gone by. And since we're soon to be in
the Halloween season, which is my absolute favorite where we
(00:24):
would normally share some creepy history, it seems like maybe
a good time to give you a little warm up
with a story about a sleepwalking killer named Albert Terrell.
This episode is really a story of the first time
that sleepwalking was used as a legal defense, and you
will find out how that worked out for Terrell in
this episode. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class
(00:47):
from stuff works dot com. Hello, and welcome to our podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And uh,
have you ever had about of sleepwalking? I have never
had about of sleepwalking. My brother used to when he
(01:08):
was very small. My parents had to put a lock
on his door so that they could get in in
an emergency, but that he could not get out. And
injure himself, which is germane to our podcast today, It
totally is. The sleepwalking defense in criminal trials is not
entirely uncommon in modern modern trials. Medical and legal experts
(01:31):
are continuing to study the validity of such claims. And
did you know sleepwalking crime is actually on the rise.
It doesn't surprise me. It's one of those things where
as as people become more aware of sleep disorders and
sleep walking disorders both there's both the getting diagnosed increase
and the use as a defense, whether accurate or not increase. Yeah,
(01:55):
And we also don't um know if there is a
cultural or social trigger. Some uh experts in the field
have posited that because we live in a sort of
a more nervous, anxiety laden culture, it's actually triggering more
people to have sleepwalking disorders and sleep disorders in general.
So we don't know the exact route of why those
(02:15):
are on the rise. Those three things are all factors.
But in eighteen forty six, it was completely unheard of
to claim sleepwalking as a defense. No no one had
used that ever until Albert J. Terrell, who was on
trial and his lawyer Rufus Choke, who took a really
unorthodox approach to defending his client, and it for the time,
(02:37):
it was so out of left field that it was
almost like that it wasn't me, Like, yeah, yeah, you
saw me do it, but that was not me. But
nobody did see him do it, which comes up in
the trial. So the crime took place on October eighteen
forty five and Mrs Mary and Bickford's body was found
in a CD boarding house in Beacon Hill and Boston.
(03:00):
She was only twenty one, and her body was found
on the bed, partially on the bed, partially on the floor. Uh.
There are different illustrations you can see online that kind
of um put her in slightly different places, and there's
an account that comes up in the trial where they
described part of her body being on the floor. She
was in a nightgown and she had a wound to
(03:21):
the neck that had nearly decapitated her. Uh. The bed
had been set on fire, as well as two other
places in the room, and Bickford's hair and skin were
singed and burnt. Uh. An earring was missing from one
of her ears, which was split open as though it
had been pulled out, and there was a straight raisor
at the foot of the bed, which is a pretty
grizzly scene. It is pretty grizzly and and a lot,
(03:43):
there's a lot going on there. Albert Terrell had been
seen with her earlier that evening, and a witness account
also described him to speak speaking with a stable keeper
to try to get transport away from the city. Now,
to give a little bit of background on these two,
because this was not appairing that was unknown already, that
was not her first encounter with Terrell by any means,
(04:07):
so they were actually known to be engaged in an affair.
Both of them were married. Bickford, who also went by
Maria and some other pseudonyms at different times, had gotten
a taste for city life when she was visiting relatives,
and she actually left her husband, who was in Maine,
to stay in the city permanently. And she had even
written him a letter and said, you can come and
(04:28):
live in the city, but I'm and we'll be husband
and wife, but I'm going to need my freedom, kind
of saying like I will play the part of wife,
but I'm not really married to you in my heart.
Uh So, at one point, her husband, James, actually traveled
to Boston to look for her, discovered her working in
a brothel and headed back to Maine by himself. And
in corporateceedings, the prosecution stated at one point that she
(04:51):
had actually moved to Boston with a paramore that she
had presumably met on that first visit to the city
that was obviously not her husband. Uh And then that
man deserted her, which is what led her to prostitution.
So Mary had met Albert Terrell while working and the
two of them had started a very intense relationship. People
described it as both passionate and volatile. They traveled together
(05:14):
as a married couple, even though she was already married
and he also was married and had a wife and
a family. Uh. And on September forty five, which was
one month before the murder, Terrell had actually been charged
with adultery. His trial was delayed for half a year
for six months after friends and relatives and even his
wife actually petitioned the court to delay the proceedings because
(05:38):
they wanted to all work together to help Albert reform
his ways. And they thought, if he could, you know,
prove he was a good citizen for six months and
then go back on the adultery charge, even if he
Um was found guilty of it, they would be a
little more lenient because he was clearly trying to mend
his ways, and the delay was granted, and then Albert
(05:58):
was released after you know, posting bond and he went
right back to Marian Big first. Yes, so that's sort
of the history of of them as a couple. When
Terrell ran from Boston after the murder happened, he went
(06:21):
to hide with relatives in Weymouth. Then he went north
to Canada to get passage aboard a ship to go
to Liverpool. That voyage had to turn back because of
bad weather, and he got on a second ship in
New York to go to New Orleans. On December five,
he was arrested after a Louisian authorities got a tip
(06:42):
that he was a board a vessel in the Gulf.
So at that point he's in custody and he was
transported back to Boston for the trial, and he hired Terrell,
we should note was not a poor man. He had
some wealth. His family was well established in the shoe
manufactured trade, and he hired Rufus Choke, who was a
protege of Daniel Webster, as his defense and Chow was
(07:04):
already a very high profile figure with both a political
and legal career. He had served on the Massachusetts State
House of Representatives and the state Senate. He had been
a member of the twenty and twenty three Congress. He
was well respected in legal circles. Uh So it was
really like the equivalent of hiring a pretty heavy hitter lawyer. Today,
(07:25):
everybody would have known who he was. And Chow conceived
of this novel defense for his client, claiming that in fact,
Albert was a somnambulist and that he performed the entire
murder in a sleepwalking trance. Now, that wasn't his only defense.
He also tried to discredit the possibility that he had
even committed the murder. But that was sort of one
of the new and novel ways that he defended his
(07:47):
client right that the proceedings started on March eighty six,
and according to court records, the judges were judges Wild, Hubbard,
and Dewey. A Judge Shaw was also scheduled to be there,
but he was outsick. Representing the Commonwealth was Samuel D.
Parker and for Terrell rufus Choate and and us An
(08:11):
A by Meryl Esquire jurors were very quickly selected that morning.
If you read the Boston Daily Times account, it seems
like they really whipped through like wardiar and additional questioning
really really quickly. It took about half an hour, according
to that reporter's account of it, to select the entire jury,
which if you have ever done jury duty, it never
(08:32):
takes just half an hour to get everybody settled, So
that was pretty expedient. And then Parker's opening arguments UH
included a plea to the jurors to disregard any bias
that they might have as a result of hearing rumors
about the deceased Bickford's profession as a woman of the
night was not really helping the case, but he openly
(08:53):
acknowledged what he called quote her depraved character. But he
reminded the jurors present the the law protects even the
wicked as well as the good when it comes to murder.
Parker also asserted that Terrell, who was the son of
a really successful shoe manufacturer, had had to get married
very young at the age of eighteen because he had
probably gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He stated the cause of
(09:17):
so early a marriage in his minority I need not
state that's part of an overall scheme to kind of
chip away at Terrell's moral image, showing that he was
impetuous and given to impulsive and wanton behavior. Parker further
claimed that Bickford had actually been afraid of Terrell after
his adultery arrest because she was scared that he would
(09:39):
be angry that their relationship had gotten him into such
trouble because at that point it was very public what
was going on, and again there many many people petitioning
the courts, so everyone knew his business at that point.
The prosecution also painted a picture of the events leading
up to the discovery of Bickford's body. Uh. First, it
(09:59):
mentioned the pair being seen together in the days and
on the night leading up to the murder. Two UH
describes a faint shriek coming from Bickford's room early in
the morning. Three the sound of something falling to the
floor for a person running then tumbling down the stairs,
then being heard leaving the house. Five was a groan
(10:20):
or scream of fire, and residence in a nearby room
seeing smoke come under their door. And then six Mrs Lawrence,
who Uh was of the family living below those rooms,
coming up the stairs to find burning bedclothes piled at
the top of the stairs and against the door of
the other boarder's room, and then seven help arriving in
the room of Mrs Bickford being extinguished because it was
(10:42):
on fire, and then the realization that an item that
had been stumbled over in the rush to put out
the fires there was a fire in the closet, on
the bed and in a clothing trunk, was in fact
the body of Mary Bickford. So at first they didn't
realize there had been a murder. They just knew there
was a fire which they were putting out, and then
they realized this person has been gruesomely killed. There was
(11:03):
additional evidence also there was no fire in the fireplace,
so it could not be explained as an accident, an
accident of the fire used in the room getting out
of control. A man's apparel which consisted of a vest, drawers, socks,
and a cane were found in the room. The razor
that was found near the body didn't belong to anyone
(11:25):
who was in the house. Uh. And then there was
the interchange at the stable that we talked about earlier.
Terrell Terrell was reported to have told the man that
he was quote in a scrape about a girl. And
then after that opening on Parker's part, witnesses were called
for the prosecution, and there were many called. We won't
(11:45):
list all of them, but some of the really German
points that sort of brought in new information or corroborated
specific elements of information that are important to the sleepwalking angle.
So first, job As Pratt, who was the coroner, confirmed
statements from the opening and added that he had also
found a ring in the room with the inscription a
(12:05):
J T T M A B presumably Albert H. Terrell
to Marian Pickford. And Pratt had also found keys in
the pocket of the vest that was in the room
which unlocked of allies, and a trunk which were believed
to have belonged to Terrell. Another witness was Dr Joseph Moriarty,
and he talked about the wound to Bickford's neck as
(12:26):
being from ear to ear and separating the laryn x
and the blood vessels. He also said that it would
be possible to for a person to perform this at
one stroke on herself, and he stated he never knew
a person to commit murder on another person with a razor.
So it's kind of a weird witness for the prosecution,
(12:51):
it is. And I was looking over the notes of
the case that were published in the Boston Daily Times,
and I kept rereading that passage, thinking, did they really
call awayness that said she could have done it to herself?
But they really did for a reason, I can't have them,
although I think their initial plan was just to describe
the severity of the wound, so he may or may
(13:13):
not have surprised them with those additional comments. They also
called a Joel Lawrence who owned the house where Mary
was killed, and he confirmed confirmed that a cravat that
was found in the burning room was one that he
had seen Terrell where previously. There was also James Fulham
who was the stable keeper, and he said that Terrell
(13:34):
had told him that somebody had come into the room
and tried to murder him. So we're establishing a lot
of incongruent comments on Terrell's part. Additional witnesses were called
primarily just to corroborate what had been said in the opening,
like the the list of things that happened leading up
to the discovery and uh several were called just to
(13:56):
establish the relationship between the deceased and the accused is
being romantic and volatile in nature. So there was also
the testimony of Mrs mary Head, who described an odd
encounter with Terrell during which he seemed out of sorts
and almost asleep, and he also made a bizarre sound
with his throat. Do you know more about that? I do?
(14:17):
It will come, it will come up. Uh. Just remember
that the opening argument for the defense had some interesting points,
and it was delivered not by Mr Choke but by
his associate, Mr Merrill, and he one of the quotes
from his opening is it does not follow that because
a body has been found exhibiting indications of violent death,
that a murder has therefore been committed. His argument was
(14:40):
very focused on the beyond reasonable doubt angle of finding guilt,
and he suggested that the clothing found in the room
could have belonged to another man, or it could have
been Terrell's, but because he was known to stay with
Bickford quite often, it could have been left there at
any time, not necessarily the night of the murder. He
also wanted to dispel the idea that that running meant
that he was guilty, so he asked, are not innocent
(15:03):
men often being often afraid of being thought guilty. Meryl
also read a list of cases where men had been
found guilty and executed entirely on circumstantial evidence. So again
they're building multiple angles to the case, and one is
that no one actually saw him do it. He also
asserted that if Terrell had wanted to kill Bickford, he
(15:23):
had ample opportunity in their travels together before this particular night.
There was also a little bit of a character assassination
going on against Bickford. She was characterized by Maryland the
opening as something of a beguiling siren, and that she
used her wiles to infatuate Terrell and that's what caused
him to leave behind his family and turned to her.
(15:45):
So after all of those layers of defense, Merrill introduced
the somnambulism defense, orating at length about the nature of
the condition and reading a variety of cases and medical
studies to support what he was trying to a and
according to the Boston Daily Times, Merrill's opening lasted two
hours and forty five minutes. There was a lunch break
(16:06):
in the middle, and according to the reporter, was quote
full of ability and research throughout, so he was impressive,
apparently in his open right. And then witnesses for the
defense were called, the first of which was Mrs Nabby Tyrrell,
who was the widow of Leonard Terrell and the mother
of the defendant, and she testified that Albert had been
(16:29):
quote in the habit of getting up in his sleep
since he was four or five years old, and she
described several episodes from the time he was tiny until
he um was a teenager and then was a young
man on his own and left, so the time he
lived with her, she described multiple episodes where he would
go on walkabouts and do things completely asleep. Albert's brother,
(16:50):
Leonard B. Tarrell, also gave testimony that Albert was prone
to wakeful episodes while he was still asleep, and that
during some of them he quote clenched whole of me
very hard, and it was difficult to force his hands
off of me. Additionally, family and neighbors of the Terrell
family were called to testify that they had also seen
(17:12):
Albert in somnambulist states, some even asserting that they had
interacted with him during these events and found him able
to speak and even answer questions but still seem asleep.
The defense attempted to introduce a complaint mentioned by Mary
Bickford that Terrell had at one point struck her across
the breast forcefully while he was asleep, but it was
(17:34):
ruled out as quote coming within the rule of death
of declarations, so they couldn't get a sworn testimony from
the deceased to back up this claim right uh and
most witnesses also were used to establish the idea that
Albert was in fact really quite fond of Mary and
treated her very kindly, that he was genuinely in love
with her uh, and a doctor EO. Finney was called.
(17:58):
There were several doctors called for the defense, but he
testified that the fatal wound could have been suicide or murder.
Witness Dr Walter Channing also testified that he had knowledge
of women committing suicide in this manner and had also
read about it happening just in his career studies and
in you know um journals and staying on abreast of
(18:22):
the information of the time. Several other doctors were called
to corroborate the argument that a person could easily commit
a murder while sleepwalking, and one thing that choke in
his associates repeatedly established was that when Albert was sleepwalking,
he would make an odd vocal sound similar to the
one described by Mrs Mary Head when she was on
(18:44):
the stand as a witness for the prosecution. So they
kind of artfully linked that back to you remember the
other person that said he seemed really odd and made
a weird clicking sound of his throat. That's what he
does when he sleepwalks. We've established he has like an
ability to sleep walk and do things in his sleep.
(19:08):
So on Friday, March six, the defense made closing arguments. Shouts.
Closing statement was six hours long. Yeah, all day, pretty much.
I feel like that's a filibuster on He was known
as an orator, uh and there are some accounts that
talk about how astounding it is that he could go
(19:28):
on for such length, But he never seemed to lose
the thread or focus of his speeches. So he had
a lot to say, and it took him six hours
to say it. Yes, his his testimony included the following
how far does the testimony lead? You? Did any human
beings see the prisoners strike the blow? No? Did any
human beings see him in that house? After nine o'clock
(19:50):
the previous evening. No, did any human beings see him
run from the house, know did any human beings see
him with a drop of blood upon his hands? Can
anyone say that on that night he was not laboring
under a disease to which he was subject from his youth? No?
Has he ever made a confession of the deed to
(20:11):
the two friend or thief taker? Not one word? So uh.
That was part of the six hour closing statement and
Choke finished at about in the afternoon, and after a
brief recess, Mr Parker made his closing argument, summating his
case pretty much just repeating what had come up throughout
(20:31):
the trial, and he wrapped up at six fifty and
Albert Terrell waived his option to address the jury and
the court was adjourned until Saturday the following day. On
Saturday morning, Judge Dewey addressed the jury at length on
the somnambulism issue. He said, quote, medical testimony is very
(20:53):
properly admitted in these cases, but it should be weighed carefully.
It is dangerous to admit the possession of this ease.
Lest in the reveries of our brains. The possessors might
commit deeds which in others would be high crimes. So
after just two hours of deliberation, at ten minutes to
one o'clock, the jury returned with their verdict, which was
(21:16):
not guilty, and the foreman of the jury actually stated
though that the question and I quote the question of
somnambulism had not entered into the consideration of the jury,
So even with the sleepwalking defense, it seems like the
circumstantial nature of the evidence was actually what hurt the prosecution. However,
this case is usually cited as the first use of
(21:36):
the sleepwalking defense and is characterized as though that's the
reason for the acquittal, but the jury foreman said that
wasn't even really a factor for them. Terrell was also
tried for the arson charges that were associated with the
night of the murder. Show defended him again with the
same defense and used many of the same witnesses, and
he was once again acquitted. Perhaps emboldened by these two sixs,
(22:00):
is Terrell actually this is so brazen requested that Chot
refund half of his fees as the case had both
cases had obviously been one with greater ease than expected.
Uh Chote of course refused. However, he didn't get off
on everything. Terrell was convicted of adultery and ended up
(22:20):
serving three years for it. Uh And after that he
returned to his wife and children in Weymouth and he
lived out his days working in the family business of
shoe manufacturer. He could never hang onto any of his money.
They did have another child, but that was sort of
his His life after the trial got pretty quiet. After
his trials and his time, he went home again and
(22:44):
Choke continued his impressive legal career and he continued to
be involved with politics, which could be a whole other podcast,
because he really was at the next point of a
lot of important moments. But what's interesting to think about
is that from a modern perspective, would this defense of
really held water. And we know people use the sleepwalking
defense in modern times. There's a famous case from Canada
(23:07):
from the late eighties where a man had driven i
think fourteen miles killed his in laws and woke up
while he was driving home and drove himself to the
police station and he was actually acquitted. So we know
these still come up, and there are still some you know,
that come up even more modern than that. They don't
always succeed though, UH and A Michael Kramer Borneman, who
(23:30):
is a medical director doctor and a medical director of
the Cardio Sleep Services at the University of Minnesota. UH
was interviewed by Focus magazine and he said of sleep
walking disorders, something in the switch between phases goes wrong,
creating an aberrant electrical impulse that triggers an overlap between states.
You're not fully in rim, so your muscles are relaxed,
(23:52):
not paralyzed, and you're not fully in non rem so
you can still be dreaming. In this state, some of
the brain's processes will be awake while others are offline.
Why does that lead to violent behavior, you ask, yes,
he continues, As with many things in neuropathology, it's to
do with real estate brain structures like the hypothalamus that
(24:13):
regulate sleep sitting next to the mid brain where early
evolved behaviors lie. So when this electrical impulse is sparked,
it also wakes up this part of the brain, leaving
the moral areas like the frontal cortex asleep. That leaves
nothing to inhibit your rage reaction while you're sleepwalking, and
that's why people are advised to never wake a sleepwalker
(24:35):
because their their reaction may not be delightful or pleasant.
It's completely not um in any way dampened by their morality,
so they could do something without even realizing it. Right,
But some of Terrell's behaviors, like the fire to conceal
evidence in running and hiding, are not consistent with sleepwalking
(24:58):
actions as we now understand in them. And if he
had not tried to include that in his defense, you
could make the case. But he used the same defense
in his Arson trial, right, So it's feasible from a
neurological perspective that a sleepwalker could kill another person while asleep,
but that then attempting to conceal evidence while asleep unlikely.
(25:21):
That's that's much less likely. Uh So, if he were
trying today and use the sleepwalking defense, particularly for the
arson element, he would probably not fairest well since that
was part of the concealment of the crime. So that's
the first in the US anyway sleepwalking defense, and it
was successful. Yes, have you seen the movie sleep Walk
(25:43):
with me? Yes? And it's it's reminded me of that,
and and how alarmed he is when he hears that
people while sleepwalking when having sleep disorders have either inadvertently
or sort of acting out a rage impulse, killed the
person that that they were sleeping with. Yeah, it's fascinating stuff.
(26:04):
I always worry secretly that I will one day magically
begin sleepwalking and doing bad things. That's a little weird
fear of mine. Hey, so, uh, these episodes that we're
sharing our past classics, we have some updated information that
will supersede the contact stuff you've heard before. If you
(26:25):
want to email us, our email address is History Podcast
at how stuff works dot com, and you can find
us across the spectrum of social media as Missed in History.
You can also find us at missed in History dot com,
and you can visit our parent company, how stuff Works
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(26:48):
thousands of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.
Hey, who is ready for a classic Stuffy missed in
History Class episode? In case you have not noticed or
are very new to the show, these episodes that are
showing up in your feet on Saturday's are ones from
our back catalog that we are sharing so newer listeners
can get a taste of some of the shows from
years gone by. And since we're soon to be in
the Halloween season, which is my absolute favorite where we
(00:24):
would normally share some creepy history, it seems like maybe
a good time to give you a little warm up
with a story about a sleepwalking killer named Albert Terrell.
This episode is really a story of the first time
that sleepwalking was used as a legal defense, and you
will find out how that worked out for Terrell in
this episode. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class
(00:47):
from stuff works dot com. Hello, and welcome to our podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And uh,
have you ever had about of sleepwalking? I have never
had about of sleepwalking. My brother used to when he
(01:08):
was very small. My parents had to put a lock
on his door so that they could get in in
an emergency, but that he could not get out. And
injure himself, which is germane to our podcast today, It
totally is. The sleepwalking defense in criminal trials is not
entirely uncommon in modern modern trials. Medical and legal experts
(01:31):
are continuing to study the validity of such claims. And
did you know sleepwalking crime is actually on the rise.
It doesn't surprise me. It's one of those things where
as as people become more aware of sleep disorders and
sleep walking disorders both there's both the getting diagnosed increase
and the use as a defense, whether accurate or not increase. Yeah,
(01:55):
And we also don't um know if there is a
cultural or social trigger. Some uh experts in the field
have posited that because we live in a sort of
a more nervous, anxiety laden culture, it's actually triggering more
people to have sleepwalking disorders and sleep disorders in general.
So we don't know the exact route of why those
(02:15):
are on the rise. Those three things are all factors.
But in eighteen forty six, it was completely unheard of
to claim sleepwalking as a defense. No no one had
used that ever until Albert J. Terrell, who was on
trial and his lawyer Rufus Choke, who took a really
unorthodox approach to defending his client, and it for the time,
(02:37):
it was so out of left field that it was
almost like that it wasn't me, Like, yeah, yeah, you
saw me do it, but that was not me. But
nobody did see him do it, which comes up in
the trial. So the crime took place on October eighteen
forty five and Mrs Mary and Bickford's body was found
in a CD boarding house in Beacon Hill and Boston.
(03:00):
She was only twenty one, and her body was found
on the bed, partially on the bed, partially on the floor. Uh.
There are different illustrations you can see online that kind
of um put her in slightly different places, and there's
an account that comes up in the trial where they
described part of her body being on the floor. She
was in a nightgown and she had a wound to
(03:21):
the neck that had nearly decapitated her. Uh. The bed
had been set on fire, as well as two other
places in the room, and Bickford's hair and skin were
singed and burnt. Uh. An earring was missing from one
of her ears, which was split open as though it
had been pulled out, and there was a straight raisor
at the foot of the bed, which is a pretty
grizzly scene. It is pretty grizzly and and a lot,
(03:43):
there's a lot going on there. Albert Terrell had been
seen with her earlier that evening, and a witness account
also described him to speak speaking with a stable keeper
to try to get transport away from the city. Now,
to give a little bit of background on these two,
because this was not appairing that was unknown already, that
was not her first encounter with Terrell by any means,
(04:07):
so they were actually known to be engaged in an affair.
Both of them were married. Bickford, who also went by
Maria and some other pseudonyms at different times, had gotten
a taste for city life when she was visiting relatives,
and she actually left her husband, who was in Maine,
to stay in the city permanently. And she had even
written him a letter and said, you can come and
(04:28):
live in the city, but I'm and we'll be husband
and wife, but I'm going to need my freedom, kind
of saying like I will play the part of wife,
but I'm not really married to you in my heart.
Uh So, at one point, her husband, James, actually traveled
to Boston to look for her, discovered her working in
a brothel and headed back to Maine by himself. And
in corporateceedings, the prosecution stated at one point that she
(04:51):
had actually moved to Boston with a paramore that she
had presumably met on that first visit to the city
that was obviously not her husband. Uh And then that
man deserted her, which is what led her to prostitution.
So Mary had met Albert Terrell while working and the
two of them had started a very intense relationship. People
described it as both passionate and volatile. They traveled together
(05:14):
as a married couple, even though she was already married
and he also was married and had a wife and
a family. Uh. And on September forty five, which was
one month before the murder, Terrell had actually been charged
with adultery. His trial was delayed for half a year
for six months after friends and relatives and even his
wife actually petitioned the court to delay the proceedings because
(05:38):
they wanted to all work together to help Albert reform
his ways. And they thought, if he could, you know,
prove he was a good citizen for six months and
then go back on the adultery charge, even if he
Um was found guilty of it, they would be a
little more lenient because he was clearly trying to mend
his ways, and the delay was granted, and then Albert
(05:58):
was released after you know, posting bond and he went
right back to Marian Big first. Yes, so that's sort
of the history of of them as a couple. When
Terrell ran from Boston after the murder happened, he went
(06:21):
to hide with relatives in Weymouth. Then he went north
to Canada to get passage aboard a ship to go
to Liverpool. That voyage had to turn back because of
bad weather, and he got on a second ship in
New York to go to New Orleans. On December five,
he was arrested after a Louisian authorities got a tip
(06:42):
that he was a board a vessel in the Gulf.
So at that point he's in custody and he was
transported back to Boston for the trial, and he hired Terrell,
we should note was not a poor man. He had
some wealth. His family was well established in the shoe
manufactured trade, and he hired Rufus Choke, who was a
protege of Daniel Webster, as his defense and Chow was
(07:04):
already a very high profile figure with both a political
and legal career. He had served on the Massachusetts State
House of Representatives and the state Senate. He had been
a member of the twenty and twenty three Congress. He
was well respected in legal circles. Uh So it was
really like the equivalent of hiring a pretty heavy hitter lawyer. Today,
(07:25):
everybody would have known who he was. And Chow conceived
of this novel defense for his client, claiming that in fact,
Albert was a somnambulist and that he performed the entire
murder in a sleepwalking trance. Now, that wasn't his only defense.
He also tried to discredit the possibility that he had
even committed the murder. But that was sort of one
of the new and novel ways that he defended his
(07:47):
client right that the proceedings started on March eighty six,
and according to court records, the judges were judges Wild, Hubbard,
and Dewey. A Judge Shaw was also scheduled to be there,
but he was outsick. Representing the Commonwealth was Samuel D.
Parker and for Terrell rufus Choate and and us An
(08:11):
A by Meryl Esquire jurors were very quickly selected that morning.
If you read the Boston Daily Times account, it seems
like they really whipped through like wardiar and additional questioning
really really quickly. It took about half an hour, according
to that reporter's account of it, to select the entire jury,
which if you have ever done jury duty, it never
(08:32):
takes just half an hour to get everybody settled, So
that was pretty expedient. And then Parker's opening arguments UH
included a plea to the jurors to disregard any bias
that they might have as a result of hearing rumors
about the deceased Bickford's profession as a woman of the
night was not really helping the case, but he openly
(08:53):
acknowledged what he called quote her depraved character. But he
reminded the jurors present the the law protects even the
wicked as well as the good when it comes to murder.
Parker also asserted that Terrell, who was the son of
a really successful shoe manufacturer, had had to get married
very young at the age of eighteen because he had
probably gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He stated the cause of
(09:17):
so early a marriage in his minority I need not
state that's part of an overall scheme to kind of
chip away at Terrell's moral image, showing that he was
impetuous and given to impulsive and wanton behavior. Parker further
claimed that Bickford had actually been afraid of Terrell after
his adultery arrest because she was scared that he would
(09:39):
be angry that their relationship had gotten him into such
trouble because at that point it was very public what
was going on, and again there many many people petitioning
the courts, so everyone knew his business at that point.
The prosecution also painted a picture of the events leading
up to the discovery of Bickford's body. Uh. First, it
(09:59):
mentioned the pair being seen together in the days and
on the night leading up to the murder. Two UH
describes a faint shriek coming from Bickford's room early in
the morning. Three the sound of something falling to the
floor for a person running then tumbling down the stairs,
then being heard leaving the house. Five was a groan
(10:20):
or scream of fire, and residence in a nearby room
seeing smoke come under their door. And then six Mrs Lawrence,
who Uh was of the family living below those rooms,
coming up the stairs to find burning bedclothes piled at
the top of the stairs and against the door of
the other boarder's room, and then seven help arriving in
the room of Mrs Bickford being extinguished because it was
(10:42):
on fire, and then the realization that an item that
had been stumbled over in the rush to put out
the fires there was a fire in the closet, on
the bed and in a clothing trunk, was in fact
the body of Mary Bickford. So at first they didn't
realize there had been a murder. They just knew there
was a fire which they were putting out, and then
they realized this person has been gruesomely killed. There was
(11:03):
additional evidence also there was no fire in the fireplace,
so it could not be explained as an accident, an
accident of the fire used in the room getting out
of control. A man's apparel which consisted of a vest, drawers, socks,
and a cane were found in the room. The razor
that was found near the body didn't belong to anyone
(11:25):
who was in the house. Uh. And then there was
the interchange at the stable that we talked about earlier.
Terrell Terrell was reported to have told the man that
he was quote in a scrape about a girl. And
then after that opening on Parker's part, witnesses were called
for the prosecution, and there were many called. We won't
(11:45):
list all of them, but some of the really German
points that sort of brought in new information or corroborated
specific elements of information that are important to the sleepwalking angle.
So first, job As Pratt, who was the coroner, confirmed
statements from the opening and added that he had also
found a ring in the room with the inscription a
(12:05):
J T T M A B presumably Albert H. Terrell
to Marian Pickford. And Pratt had also found keys in
the pocket of the vest that was in the room
which unlocked of allies, and a trunk which were believed
to have belonged to Terrell. Another witness was Dr Joseph Moriarty,
and he talked about the wound to Bickford's neck as
(12:26):
being from ear to ear and separating the laryn x
and the blood vessels. He also said that it would
be possible to for a person to perform this at
one stroke on herself, and he stated he never knew
a person to commit murder on another person with a razor.
So it's kind of a weird witness for the prosecution,
(12:51):
it is. And I was looking over the notes of
the case that were published in the Boston Daily Times,
and I kept rereading that passage, thinking, did they really
call awayness that said she could have done it to herself?
But they really did for a reason, I can't have them,
although I think their initial plan was just to describe
the severity of the wound, so he may or may
(13:13):
not have surprised them with those additional comments. They also
called a Joel Lawrence who owned the house where Mary
was killed, and he confirmed confirmed that a cravat that
was found in the burning room was one that he
had seen Terrell where previously. There was also James Fulham
who was the stable keeper, and he said that Terrell
(13:34):
had told him that somebody had come into the room
and tried to murder him. So we're establishing a lot
of incongruent comments on Terrell's part. Additional witnesses were called
primarily just to corroborate what had been said in the opening,
like the the list of things that happened leading up
to the discovery and uh several were called just to
(13:56):
establish the relationship between the deceased and the accused is
being romantic and volatile in nature. So there was also
the testimony of Mrs mary Head, who described an odd
encounter with Terrell during which he seemed out of sorts
and almost asleep, and he also made a bizarre sound
with his throat. Do you know more about that? I do?
(14:17):
It will come, it will come up. Uh. Just remember
that the opening argument for the defense had some interesting points,
and it was delivered not by Mr Choke but by
his associate, Mr Merrill, and he one of the quotes
from his opening is it does not follow that because
a body has been found exhibiting indications of violent death,
that a murder has therefore been committed. His argument was
(14:40):
very focused on the beyond reasonable doubt angle of finding guilt,
and he suggested that the clothing found in the room
could have belonged to another man, or it could have
been Terrell's, but because he was known to stay with
Bickford quite often, it could have been left there at
any time, not necessarily the night of the murder. He
also wanted to dispel the idea that that running meant
that he was guilty, so he asked, are not innocent
(15:03):
men often being often afraid of being thought guilty. Meryl
also read a list of cases where men had been
found guilty and executed entirely on circumstantial evidence. So again
they're building multiple angles to the case, and one is
that no one actually saw him do it. He also
asserted that if Terrell had wanted to kill Bickford, he
(15:23):
had ample opportunity in their travels together before this particular night.
There was also a little bit of a character assassination
going on against Bickford. She was characterized by Maryland the
opening as something of a beguiling siren, and that she
used her wiles to infatuate Terrell and that's what caused
him to leave behind his family and turned to her.
(15:45):
So after all of those layers of defense, Merrill introduced
the somnambulism defense, orating at length about the nature of
the condition and reading a variety of cases and medical
studies to support what he was trying to a and
according to the Boston Daily Times, Merrill's opening lasted two
hours and forty five minutes. There was a lunch break
(16:06):
in the middle, and according to the reporter, was quote
full of ability and research throughout, so he was impressive,
apparently in his open right. And then witnesses for the
defense were called, the first of which was Mrs Nabby Tyrrell,
who was the widow of Leonard Terrell and the mother
of the defendant, and she testified that Albert had been
(16:29):
quote in the habit of getting up in his sleep
since he was four or five years old, and she
described several episodes from the time he was tiny until
he um was a teenager and then was a young
man on his own and left, so the time he
lived with her, she described multiple episodes where he would
go on walkabouts and do things completely asleep. Albert's brother,
(16:50):
Leonard B. Tarrell, also gave testimony that Albert was prone
to wakeful episodes while he was still asleep, and that
during some of them he quote clenched whole of me
very hard, and it was difficult to force his hands
off of me. Additionally, family and neighbors of the Terrell
family were called to testify that they had also seen
(17:12):
Albert in somnambulist states, some even asserting that they had
interacted with him during these events and found him able
to speak and even answer questions but still seem asleep.
The defense attempted to introduce a complaint mentioned by Mary
Bickford that Terrell had at one point struck her across
the breast forcefully while he was asleep, but it was
(17:34):
ruled out as quote coming within the rule of death
of declarations, so they couldn't get a sworn testimony from
the deceased to back up this claim right uh and
most witnesses also were used to establish the idea that
Albert was in fact really quite fond of Mary and
treated her very kindly, that he was genuinely in love
with her uh, and a doctor EO. Finney was called.
(17:58):
There were several doctors called for the defense, but he
testified that the fatal wound could have been suicide or murder.
Witness Dr Walter Channing also testified that he had knowledge
of women committing suicide in this manner and had also
read about it happening just in his career studies and
in you know um journals and staying on abreast of
(18:22):
the information of the time. Several other doctors were called
to corroborate the argument that a person could easily commit
a murder while sleepwalking, and one thing that choke in
his associates repeatedly established was that when Albert was sleepwalking,
he would make an odd vocal sound similar to the
one described by Mrs Mary Head when she was on
(18:44):
the stand as a witness for the prosecution. So they
kind of artfully linked that back to you remember the
other person that said he seemed really odd and made
a weird clicking sound of his throat. That's what he
does when he sleepwalks. We've established he has like an
ability to sleep walk and do things in his sleep.
(19:08):
So on Friday, March six, the defense made closing arguments. Shouts.
Closing statement was six hours long. Yeah, all day, pretty much.
I feel like that's a filibuster on He was known
as an orator, uh and there are some accounts that
talk about how astounding it is that he could go
(19:28):
on for such length, But he never seemed to lose
the thread or focus of his speeches. So he had
a lot to say, and it took him six hours
to say it. Yes, his his testimony included the following
how far does the testimony lead? You? Did any human
beings see the prisoners strike the blow? No? Did any
human beings see him in that house? After nine o'clock
(19:50):
the previous evening. No, did any human beings see him
run from the house, know did any human beings see
him with a drop of blood upon his hands? Can
anyone say that on that night he was not laboring
under a disease to which he was subject from his youth? No?
Has he ever made a confession of the deed to
(20:11):
the two friend or thief taker? Not one word? So uh.
That was part of the six hour closing statement and
Choke finished at about in the afternoon, and after a
brief recess, Mr Parker made his closing argument, summating his
case pretty much just repeating what had come up throughout
(20:31):
the trial, and he wrapped up at six fifty and
Albert Terrell waived his option to address the jury and
the court was adjourned until Saturday the following day. On
Saturday morning, Judge Dewey addressed the jury at length on
the somnambulism issue. He said, quote, medical testimony is very
(20:53):
properly admitted in these cases, but it should be weighed carefully.
It is dangerous to admit the possession of this ease.
Lest in the reveries of our brains. The possessors might
commit deeds which in others would be high crimes. So
after just two hours of deliberation, at ten minutes to
one o'clock, the jury returned with their verdict, which was
(21:16):
not guilty, and the foreman of the jury actually stated
though that the question and I quote the question of
somnambulism had not entered into the consideration of the jury,
So even with the sleepwalking defense, it seems like the
circumstantial nature of the evidence was actually what hurt the prosecution. However,
this case is usually cited as the first use of
(21:36):
the sleepwalking defense and is characterized as though that's the
reason for the acquittal, but the jury foreman said that
wasn't even really a factor for them. Terrell was also
tried for the arson charges that were associated with the
night of the murder. Show defended him again with the
same defense and used many of the same witnesses, and
he was once again acquitted. Perhaps emboldened by these two sixs,
(22:00):
is Terrell actually this is so brazen requested that Chot
refund half of his fees as the case had both
cases had obviously been one with greater ease than expected.
Uh Chote of course refused. However, he didn't get off
on everything. Terrell was convicted of adultery and ended up
(22:20):
serving three years for it. Uh And after that he
returned to his wife and children in Weymouth and he
lived out his days working in the family business of
shoe manufacturer. He could never hang onto any of his money.
They did have another child, but that was sort of
his His life after the trial got pretty quiet. After
his trials and his time, he went home again and
(22:44):
Choke continued his impressive legal career and he continued to
be involved with politics, which could be a whole other podcast,
because he really was at the next point of a
lot of important moments. But what's interesting to think about
is that from a modern perspective, would this defense of
really held water. And we know people use the sleepwalking
defense in modern times. There's a famous case from Canada
(23:07):
from the late eighties where a man had driven i
think fourteen miles killed his in laws and woke up
while he was driving home and drove himself to the
police station and he was actually acquitted. So we know
these still come up, and there are still some you know,
that come up even more modern than that. They don't
always succeed though, UH and A Michael Kramer Borneman, who
(23:30):
is a medical director doctor and a medical director of
the Cardio Sleep Services at the University of Minnesota. UH
was interviewed by Focus magazine and he said of sleep
walking disorders, something in the switch between phases goes wrong,
creating an aberrant electrical impulse that triggers an overlap between states.
You're not fully in rim, so your muscles are relaxed,
(23:52):
not paralyzed, and you're not fully in non rem so
you can still be dreaming. In this state, some of
the brain's processes will be awake while others are offline.
Why does that lead to violent behavior, you ask, yes,
he continues, As with many things in neuropathology, it's to
do with real estate brain structures like the hypothalamus that
(24:13):
regulate sleep sitting next to the mid brain where early
evolved behaviors lie. So when this electrical impulse is sparked,
it also wakes up this part of the brain, leaving
the moral areas like the frontal cortex asleep. That leaves
nothing to inhibit your rage reaction while you're sleepwalking, and
that's why people are advised to never wake a sleepwalker
(24:35):
because their their reaction may not be delightful or pleasant.
It's completely not um in any way dampened by their morality,
so they could do something without even realizing it. Right,
But some of Terrell's behaviors, like the fire to conceal
evidence in running and hiding, are not consistent with sleepwalking
(24:58):
actions as we now understand in them. And if he
had not tried to include that in his defense, you
could make the case. But he used the same defense
in his Arson trial, right, So it's feasible from a
neurological perspective that a sleepwalker could kill another person while asleep,
but that then attempting to conceal evidence while asleep unlikely.
(25:21):
That's that's much less likely. Uh So, if he were
trying today and use the sleepwalking defense, particularly for the
arson element, he would probably not fairest well since that
was part of the concealment of the crime. So that's
the first in the US anyway sleepwalking defense, and it
was successful. Yes, have you seen the movie sleep Walk
(25:43):
with me? Yes? And it's it's reminded me of that,
and and how alarmed he is when he hears that
people while sleepwalking when having sleep disorders have either inadvertently
or sort of acting out a rage impulse, killed the
person that that they were sleeping with. Yeah, it's fascinating stuff.
(26:04):
I always worry secretly that I will one day magically
begin sleepwalking and doing bad things. That's a little weird
fear of mine. Hey, so, uh, these episodes that we're
sharing our past classics, we have some updated information that
will supersede the contact stuff you've heard before. If you
(26:25):
want to email us, our email address is History Podcast
at how stuff works dot com, and you can find
us across the spectrum of social media as Missed in History.
You can also find us at missed in History dot com,
and you can visit our parent company, how stuff Works
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(26:48):
thousands of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.
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