Lobotomized: 8 Lives Ruined by History's Cruelest And Most Invasive Procedure

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. A child

(00:28):
murdering their parents is thankfully rare, but when it happens,
it grabs headlines. But some of the reasons that a
child gives for murdering his or her own mother can
be downright shocking and unbelievable. For decades, firefighters at the
Chicago Fire Department noticed an eerie handprint that left a

(00:50):
permanent mark on a casement which could not be washed, scraped,
or removed despite several attempts. Legends circulated, and many believed
that the handprint had a rather macab history, belonging to
a fellow firefighter named Francis Levy who succumbed to an accident.

(01:10):
Just the word lobotomy brings images of cruelty, inhumane treatment
under the guise of medicine, and a procedure that could
more appropriately be labeled as torture. We'll look at a
few cases of individuals who had a lobotomy performed on
them and the disturbing results. But first, ventriloquists don't get

(01:32):
a lot of prestige when it comes to the entertainment industry.
On many lists, they are just one wrung higher than
a juggler. But they've been throwing their voices at us
for centuries. And one man named James Burns was so
good at his art he was tossed into jail for
it will begin with that story. Now, bultr doors, lock

(01:54):
your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me
into the weird darkness. Let me introduce you to James Burns,

(02:18):
better known to his late seventeen hundreds fans as Squeaking Tommy.
So what do we know about this character? Well, from
one of his promotional posters, we can see that he
carried around with him a small doll, not much larger
than his hand. The doll had a broad face and
was wrapped in a piece of linen cloth, which Tommy
exhibited at pubs on race days and at fairs such

(02:40):
as the famous Nottingham Goose Fair. He would use the
doll as his assistant and project his voice through it.
It is reported that in June seventeen eighty nine, at
week Day Cross in Nottingham. He used the doll to
project his voice, and it was so convincing that a
child watching believe the doll was actually talking to her.

(03:03):
The child apparently became hysterical and caused her to have fits.
The authorities were not impressed by this, and, believe it
or not, Tommy was sent off for a spell to
the House of Corrections. Undeterred, however, Tommy continued to use
his ventriloquist skills around the country. In early seventeen ninety,
Tommy called at mister Barton's grocer's shop just outside Nottingham

(03:26):
City Center. He purchased an ounce of tobacco. Nothing odd
about that, except as he was leaving, he spotted a
young employee with his hand and a large canister on
the opposite side of the shop. The young man was
getting tea out of it and putting it into a
smaller canister. Tommy immediately threw a sound into the bottom
of the container, imitating the sounds of a dying animal.

(03:49):
So as you expect, the young man and mister Barton
stood aghast at the noise and were just about to
start rummaging around in the container to find the source. Eventually,
Tommy confessed that he was the real cause of the sound,
but not before enjoying this spectacle for a while. Another
of Tommy's pranks is said to have taken place in

(04:09):
August of seventeen ninety two. Tommy was traveling with a
John Batterly, who was at the time a servant to
a farmer from Carr Colston, just outside Nottingham. John was
driving a wagon which was full to the brim with hay.
Tommy was so skilled at imitating the cry of a
child he was able to project his voice into the

(04:31):
middle of the hay wagon, causing John to stop several
times between Bingham and Newark. John was so convinced he
could hear this sound in the hay he eventually stopped
and began to examine the hay more closely to find
out where the sound was coming from, and he even
enlisted Tommy's help to unload the wagon as he could
bear the child's crying no longer. But as you can imagine,

(04:54):
there was no child, leaving poor John to reassemble the
contents of his wagon to Tommy's amusement and John's annoyance
at being deceived. Another prank took place in the house
of mister Hogg, who kept the Milton's Head in cow Lane, Nottingham,
and he knew nothing of Tommy. A servant girl in
the kitchen was about to dress some dead fish, not

(05:17):
long after having been caught in the River Trent, but
obviously dead. Tommy, at the moment she laid the knife
on the fish's neck, uttered, don't cut my head off.
The girl, as you can imagine, was extremely startled and
quickly removed the knife from the fish and just stood
there and shuck. She eventually managed to compose herself, and

(05:38):
as the fish didn't move, she plucked up courage to
continue with her work and remove the fish's head. Tommy uttered,
rather sharply but mournfully, what cut off my head? The
girl was now terrified and threw down the knife and
refused to dress the fish. Tommy eventually settled in Shelford, Nottingham, where,

(05:59):
despite being extremely reluctant to settle, found himself a wife
and married Elizabeth Monks on Boxing Day seventeen ninety four
at the parish church. According to his marriage entry, he
was said to have been from King's County now County
Awfully in Ireland. As to how accurate, that is, we
will probably never know, but marriage didn't settle him too much,

(06:22):
and his travels continued, albeit quite locally, along with his pranks,
and the final one I have details of took place
in September seventeen ninety five. Tommy visited a fish stall
in Sheffield and asked the price of a tench. The
fishwoman gave him the price of the tench, at which
point he picked it up in his hand, crammed a

(06:42):
finger into its gills, and opened its mouth at the
same time, asking whether it was fresh, to which the
fishwoman replied, it certainly was, it was in the water yesterday.
Tommy immediately threw his voice into the fish's mouth, and
it said, it's a damned lie. I have not been
in the water this week, and you know that very well.
The woman, now aware that she hadn't exactly been telling

(07:04):
the truth, was aghast by this outburst, but she struggled
to dispute it. She was said to have been more
careful in the future about the freshness of her fish,
just in case. I'm sure there must have been many,
many more similar tales, but they don't seem to have
survived into history. Sadly, Tommy's marriage was to be short lived,

(07:25):
as he died just two years later on January seventh,
seventeen ninety six, and was buried in the parish church
where the couple had recently married. And if we hear
a voice from his grave, we'll know he's probably just
pulling another prank on us. Coming up for decades, firefighters

(07:54):
at the Chicago Fire Department noticed an eerie handprint that
left a permanent mark on a casement which could not
be washed, scraped, or removed despite several attempts. Legends circulated,
and many believed that the handprint had a rather macabre history,
belonging to a fellow firefighter named Francis Levy, who succumbed

(08:15):
to an accident. But first, a child murdering their parents
is thankfully rare, but when it happens, it grabs headlines.
But some of the reasons that a child gives for
murdering his or her own mother can be downright shocking
and unbelievable. That story is up next. Nothing is quite

(08:55):
as shocking to hear about as parents who are murdered
by their children. What could make a person take the
life of the person responsible for bringing them into the world.
The reasons behind the killings vary greatly. For some murderous children,
there does not seem to be any motive behind their
crimes whatsoever. Others were unhappy about minor slights like not

(09:17):
being able to keep a pet, but they reacted in
the most violent of ways. Still, others claim that abuse
had taken place in the home and that murder was
their only way to escape. No matter the motive, the
cases I'm about to share with you will understandably be
hard to hear. On average, five parents are killed by
their children each week in the United States, While the

(09:41):
number of parents who kill their children nearly doubles that amount,
the statistics are still alarming. During Mother's Day in May
of twenty seventeen, thirty six year old Joshua Lee Webb
killed his mother, fifty nine year old Tina Marie Webb,
in their home in Colton, Oregon. He also killed the

(10:01):
dog his parents had just gotten him. Moments after Webb
killed his mother, he showed up at a small local
grocery store with his mom's decapitated head in one hand
and a large kitchen knife in the other. Webb then
proceeded to stab one of the store employees before being
subdued by other employees who tied him up with duct tape.

(10:22):
The police were called to the store and Webb was
subsequently arrested. It is still unclear what Webb's motive was
for this violent attack. Webb pleaded not guilty to the
crimes of murder, attempted murder, first degree abuse of corpse,
and first degree aggravated animal abuse. He was found guilty
of murder by reason of insanity and was sent to

(10:44):
a psychiatric hospital. In September twenty seventeen, nineteen year old
Andrew David Wilson made a call to the police early
one morning. Wilson explained that he had just arrived tom
and found his mother, fifty one year old Lisa Wilson,
dead in their Williamston, Michigan home. Police arrived and discovered
the mother had been shot once in the back of

(11:06):
the head. The investigators quickly realized that no one had
been in the home besides Wilson and his mother. It
didn't take long before Wilson confessed that he was the
one responsible for the death of his mom, and that
the reason behind the killing was because she wouldn't allow
him to keep a puppy. Wilson had brought the dog

(11:27):
home several weeks ago, but had been informed that it
could not stay. Later, as Lisa Wilson slept, her son
shot her with a twenty two magnum rifle. Wilson then
took a drive to a desolate area and got rid
of the gun. Police were able to locate the firearm
after Wilson's arrest, the boy murderer was charged with one
count of murder and felony firearm possession. In March twenty twelve,

(11:52):
sixteen year old Kit Durant strangled his mother and stabbed
her over a hundred times with a butcher knife after
the two got into an argument over him coming home late.
Thirty five year old Rennette Emil was then covered in
sheets and blankets and left in the North Miami, Florida
apartment for over a week. During that time, Durant even

(12:13):
had a party in his home, with partygoers wondering what
the horrible smell was in the vicinity, despite Durant periodically
sprinking laundry detergent onto the corpse. Eventually, Emil's sister became
suspicious after not being able to get a hold of
a meal and discovered the body in the apartment. Durant
pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to twenty

(12:34):
eight years in prison. In October two thousand and seven,
sixteen year old Daniel Patrick had gotten into a dispute
with his parents in their Wellington, Ohio home. Parents Mark
and Susan Petrick were against Daniel playing violent video games.
They told their son that if they found the games
in the house, they would destroy them. The team enjoyed

(12:57):
playing games like Halo three, though, and would use They
just go to a friend's house to get away with
a night of gaming. One evening, Daniel managed to sneak
the game home, but his mother discovered him, told her
husband about it, and they confiscated it, locking it into
a safe. A week later, Daniel got into the safe,
taking his game along with his father's handgun. He then

(13:18):
proceeded to shoot and kill his mother and shoot and
injure his father. During the trial, his father, Mark, who
survived the attack, asked the judge to be lenient with
his son. Patrick received a sentence of twenty three years
in prison for his crimes. The defense explained the small
sentence was due to the teen's age and his addiction

(13:39):
to the video game. In September twenty seventeen, fifty one
year old Lisa Marie Caplan got into an argument with
her mother, seventy one year old Sandra Marie Barnt. Caplan
went upstairs in a home the two shared together in Palmerton, Pennsylvania,
and retrieved a crossbow. She then shot her mother in
the back of the neck with the crossbow and put

(14:01):
a blanket over her. Later, Caplin would text her boyfriend
and inform him of the murder. Days went by, and
the family eventually became concerned when they had not heard
from Bart, so they called the police. Once police arrived,
they found Barne's corpse with the arrow still protruding from
her body. Caplan was arrested, found guilty of burder, and

(14:23):
was sent to prison. She died less than a year
later in prison under mysterious circumstances that have still not
been released to the public. In December twenty sixteen, fourteen
year old Jacob Ramali called nine to one one saying
his dad killed his mom and little brother in their
new stand in Pennsylvania home. Once the police arrived, Ramali

(14:45):
went to his house retrieved the gun that killed his
family members and proceeded to walk down the street carrying
the weapon. A neighbor was able to talk Romali into
dropping the weapon and talking to police. The boy then
confessed that he grabbed his father's gun, which was located
on top of the refrigerator, and shot his mother, Dana
and little brother Caleb. Ramali confessed that he would have

(15:07):
shot his father as well if he had been home.
The teen's motive remains unknown. He was tried as an
adult for his actions. In February of twenty twenty. He
finally admitted his guilt, but claimed that he was mentally ill,
and upon hearing the plea Westmoreland County Common Please Judge
Christopher Felaciani sentenced Jacob Ramali to serve two concurrent prison

(15:29):
terms of thirty years to life. Ramali will be eligible
for parole before his forty fifth birthday. In March twenty sixteen,
twenty two year old Tyler Ryan Blansett was at his
parents' home in Mentone, Alabama, while on spring break. The
young adult went to school at the University of Alabama
in Birmingham, Blands. It and his mother, forty five year

(15:51):
old Sherry and Blansett were in the backyard discussing Blanst's grades,
which turned into a heated argument. Blansett ended up beating
his mother to death with a baseball bat. He pled
guilty to the murder and was given a twenty five
year prison sentence. In November twenty thirteen, nineteen year old
Rachel Hudson made plans to kill herself in her family's Chesapeake,

(16:14):
Virginia home. Hudson was continually arguing with her parents and
felt like ending her life. When her father was out
of the house shopping, Hudson began preparing for her suicide.
She wrote a note and loaded her gun, but then
she started thinking about who would find her body. Hudson
believed her fifty eight year old mother, Susan Lee, would
likely discover her corpse. The girl thought that would devastate

(16:38):
her mother, as Lee was in poor health after suffering
multiple heart attacks and kidney failure. It was then that
Hudson decided to kill her alien mother and then herself.
She went into her mother's room and shot her in
the head, instantly killing her instead of turning the gun
on herself as planned, Though she called her father to talk.

(16:58):
She confessed her crime, but her father did not believe
her to be capable of such a thing. Hudson then
snapped a photo of her dead mother and sent it
to her father in a text message. Hutson's father, Donald,
talked her out of killing herself while on the phone.
She was subsequently arrested for the murder and sentenced to
eighteen years in prison. In April two thousand and five,

(17:21):
fifteen year old Christopher Dankovitch killed his mother in the
Rochester Hills, Michigan home. Fifty year old Diane Michelle was
stabbed one hundred eleven times, suffering wounds to her back, chest, head, heart, face,
and eyes. The mother and son had recently been arguing
after Michelle went through the Internet search history on Dankovitch's computer.

(17:44):
Dankovitch had been looking at porn as well as searching
for tips on making homemade weapons. Allegedly, Dankovitch believed he
was on a mission from God to protect children from
abortionists and child pornographers. Once Michelle discovered Dankovitch's improvised weapons,
he stabbed her to death. Degevitch pleaded guilty to second
degree murder for his mother's death. He received a prison

(18:07):
sentence of over twenty five years. Fifty four year old
Joseph Nearne stabbed his mother, eighty four year old Elaine
Neroone to death in March twenty twelve. The woman was
found in the Chicago, Illinois home that she shared with
her son. After police discovered the victim, they also found
Joseph Nearne covered in blood. When the police questioned Joseph

(18:30):
about his mother's death, he told them that Setan had
possessed his body and killed his mother. In twenty eleven,
the killer was arrested for a battery when he badly
beat a neighbor. When arrested for that crime, Joseph claimed
that he was God. He's currently being held in a
psychiatric hospital. In July twenty seventeen, police were called to

(18:52):
a bel Air, Maryland home after they received a call
about a man threatening suicide. Once the police arrived to
the address, they discovered the dead body of fifty six
year old Donna Zaragoza. She'd been beaten with a balpeen
hammer and stabbed in the back and chest area. Upon
searching the rest of the house, police found sixteen year
old Andrew Zarragoza. The boy had a bloody kitchen knife

(19:15):
in his bedroom. He had apparently attempted to kill himself
by drinking bleach and cutting himself. The police discovered a
letter where the teen admits to killing his mother. Andrew
allegedly also sent out a text message which included a
photo of his dead mother, saying that his life was over.
The teen's lawyer told reporters that his client had suffered
a lifetime of physical, mental, and emotional abuse from his

(19:37):
drug addicted mother. The teen was charged as an adult
on numerous charges, including first and second degree murder. A
jury found him guilty in late January twenty nineteen of
second degree murder and two counts of wearing and carrying
a dangerous weapon with intent to injure. He was sentenced
to thirty years in prison, with fifteen years suspended for

(19:59):
the murder charge, and three years each on the two
weapons charges. And this last one is the most brutal
of all. No one knows precisely what occurred the night
that nineteen year old Moses Maras Espinoza decided to kill
his mother, Amelia Espinosa. Neighbors have discovered that the mother

(20:19):
and son often fought, mostly about Maras Espinosa staying out
all night. What is known is that in February twenty eleven,
the teen strangled his mother to death. Afterwards, he stabbed
her and cut her body into pieces. An expert in
rituals spoke at length during the trial, stating in this case,
the body was dismembered, flayed, delayed, eviscerated, decapitated, and disanguinated,

(20:45):
and the skin from the face, scalp and head was
removed in one piece. The teeth, fingers, toes, and eyes
were removed, and several internal organs were absent. This is
really the very definition of a ritual killing, to the
expert testimony. It was also noted that satanic imagery was
found throughout the apartment, and that Marazaspinoza kept his mother's

(21:08):
skull and bones inside his backpack, which was covered in pentagrams.
The rest of her chopped up body was stored in
the apartment's freezer. Days after dismembering his mother Moyes's, Maraza
Spinoza went to the police station and calmly confessed to matricide.
A judge sentenced him to twenty five years to life

(21:28):
in prison, noting that it was the most disgusting and
vulgar case he had ever seen. On April eighteenth, nineteen

(21:49):
twenty four, it was an ordinary day for the many
firefighters working at the Chicago Fire Department. Apparently ignorance is bliss.
Francis Levy, a firefighter, was cleaning a window at the building.
He'd been odd all morning. He didn't talk, didn't smile
or greet his peers, just busied himself with work, with

(22:09):
an air of gloominess around himself. Suddenly, Levy foretold, in
a funeral tone that he was, in fact feeling that
he was about to die that day. We can imagine
a group of fellow workers giggling at this grim pronunciation
with a few purple threads of ill omens. These feelings
often bring the phone rang in the most melodramatic manner,

(22:31):
a bus conductor announcing that he was noticing flames coming
from the current's hall, a four story building located many
blocks away. Heroic firefighters jumped into the flaming ruins, fighting
the wild flames from both sides of the building, but
people were caught on the upper floors, helpless people with
depleting oxygen. They used ladders to access the upper floors,

(22:53):
and so far the rescue mission was going all right,
but the fire began to show weird property. It ran
down to the lower stories, down the stairs like a
liquid flowing down, a common phenomenon in oil fires. The
waves of fire soon covered the entire building. The roof
crashed first, followed by the walls, causing the death of

(23:15):
many many people who were smashed to the ground under
heavy weight. Among them was firefighter Francis Levy. Several died,
while a lucky few were rescued with heavy injuries. The
investigation later determined that it was arson, an insurance fraud
perpetrated by a novelty's business at the ground floor of
the building. Astoundingly, firefighters noticed a strange phenomenon just the

(23:39):
day after this tragedy. A strange handprint remained on the window,
and not just any window, it was the same one
Levee was cleaning just the other day. They tried everything
from window cleaners to chemical solvents, but the prints remained.
Eventually they stopped trying in the memory of the martyr. Sadly,

(24:01):
a careless paperboy through a morning paper upon the closed
window on April eighteenth, nineteen forty four, destroying the glass
and the handprint. The story is part of Chicago's folk mythology. However,
the thing about folk mythology is that it isn't all true.
It doesn't have to be. Whether Resurrection Mary, for instance,

(24:21):
is real or not doesn't make one bit of difference
on her effect on Chicago history. And plenty of supposedly
haunted places have no real story to back the hauntings up,
or the stories that go around are totally false. So
what of firefighter Frank Levy? Was his story real or not?
Francis Xavier Levey was a real person, and he qualifies

(24:45):
as a Chicago hero. He lived at sixty five oh
seven South Whipple, where neighbors admired as yard work, and
the fire that killed him and six other firemen really
did happen in nineteen twenty four at Curran's Dance Hall
on Blue Island Avenue. Left behind a wife and two children,
whose care was aided by massive drives in the city
for aid to the fallen fireman's kin. But the ghostly

(25:08):
handprint story. The earliest mention of the story is in
ghost books published decades after the fire station in question
was demolished, and there was no proof of it whatsoever
being real. Until that is, twenty fifteen. A photo was
eventually found in twenty fifteen, and it looks a bit retouched,
as newspaper photos often were in the nineteen thirties for

(25:30):
the sake of clarity, but the handprint was clearly not
only real, but something the fire department venerated. So the
story may have been collected from oral tradition. It was
originally believed by many to be pure myth, but then
the photo was found in twenty fifteen. Whatever your conclusion,
because of the story, thousands of Chicagoans who never would

(25:53):
have heard of this heroic fireman otherwise know Levy's name
and the sacrifice he made for the safety of the city.
When we're darkness returns just the word lobotomy brings images

(26:13):
of cruelty, in humane treatment under the guise of medicine,
and a procedure that could more appropriately be labeled as torture.
Look at a few cases of individuals who had a
lobotomy performed on them and the disturbing results up next.

(26:46):
Throughout the history of medicine, there have been few surgical
practices more barbaric and cruel than the lobotomy. Famous lobotomy
patients range from children of politicians and English lords to
singers who were on their way to stardom before finding
themselves waylaid by mental illness. The personality, memory, and IQ

(27:07):
of lobotomy patients before and after surgery varies wildly, and
doctors were not able to fully understand what was happening
and why. These true stories about lobotomy patients are at
times emotionally draining. When you think about the worst things
that happened to lobotomy patients, it's hard to decide which

(27:27):
nightmare scenario is worse. When it comes to hearing true
stories about people that received the lobotomy, It's a bit
like playing a twisted game of would you rather so?
While you listen to these stories of people who went
under the knife to have their brains fiddled with, consider
all the possible outcomes of this strange and dangerous surgery.

(27:49):
Rosemary Kennedy. When Rosemary Kennedy was born, the medical community
was still decades away from understanding dyslexia and other learning disabilities.
The little sister of John F. Kennedy, Rosemary was misunderstood
by her parents, who struggled with her deficient cognitive skills.
Her father Joe Kennedy consulted the psychology department at Harvard University,

(28:11):
where doctors evaluated Rosemary and concluded that she was developmentally disabled.
Her father consented to his daughter's frontal lobotomy when she
was twenty three years old. It was thought that he
was afraid his daughter might embarrass him and his son
and hurt their chances in politics. She erupted into aggressive
tantrums when she didn't get what she wanted. In November

(28:34):
nineteen forty one, doctor Walter Freeman performed the surgery with
doctor James Wants, and they sliced away at the young
woman's frontal lobe until the left side of her body
was partially paralyzed. After the surgery, Rosemary was sent off
to a mental institution where she had to relearn how
to brush her teeth, walk, even dress herself. The bubbly

(28:55):
and sometimes volcanically angry young woman was replaced with someone
who was unable to talk. In twenty eighteen, people published
never before seen letters from Rosemary before she was lobotomized.
The letters were addressed to her caretaker, Dorothy Smith, an
irishwoman who cared for Rosemary for a month long period

(29:16):
when she was twenty. Rosemary recounted her adventures in Europe
to Smith, and she ended her letters with signofs like
best love from your darling sweetheart Rose Williams, the older
sister of Tennessee Williams. Rose was schizophrenic and described by
her playwright brother as one of the sweetest, most genuine

(29:37):
people he ever knew. In his Memoirs, Williams notes that
when Rose would go on a date, she would talk
with an almost hysterical animation which few young men knew
how to take. In nineteen twenty six, Rose wrote a
letter to her grandmother describing her depression. I don't know
what was the matter with me, except that I was

(29:57):
so nervous that I couldn't hold the glass to take
my benison in. I stayed in bed all day long
and had a big dose of calumeal, and I felt better,
but still weak. I just had finished a music lesson,
and Miss Bottel nearly drove me wild and makes me
nervous as a cat. By nineteen forty three, Rose was
beginning to lash out during manic episodes and agreed to

(30:20):
undergo a frontal lobotomy. The surgery seemed to reduce Rose
to a nearly catatonic state. She remained institutionalized, albeit in
a swanky institution, thanks to her brother's fortune. In a
post surgery letter she wrote to Tennessee, she said, I
want some black coffee ice cream on a chocolate bar,
A good picture of you, your devoted sister xxx Rose. Yes,

(30:45):
send me one dollar for ice cream. HM, a young
man only known by the initials h M, was hit
by a cyclist and cracked his skull. From that injury,
he began suffering seizures that lasted for around forty seconds
at a time. HM sought out doctor William Scovell, a

(31:07):
man who was experimenting with fractional lobotomies, which eliminated less
tissue and supposedly allowed patients to keep their original personalities.
On September one, nineteen fifty three, Scoville used a hand
crank and drill saw from a local hardware store to
remove a bottle CAP's worth of bone from above each
of HM's eyes. He then removed a few key parts

(31:31):
of HM's brain. After the surgery, Hm only suffered about
two seizures a year, a vast improvement, and his IQ
jumped from one oh four to one seventeen, but he
couldn't form any new memories. Ehm was forced to move
back in with his parents, where he performed odd jobs
despite having to ask multiple times what it was he

(31:53):
was doing. It was later discovered that due to the
loss of his hippacampus, HM's brain began to understand time differently.
According to Sam Keane, five minutes lasted subjectively just forty
seconds for him, one hour lasted three minutes, one day
fifteen minutes. Each Em passed in a nursing facility at

(32:14):
the age of eighty two from respiratory failure, and his
brain was removed immediately following his passing. Eachm's brain was
shaved into two thy four hundred one slices, each of
which was mounted on a glass plate and photographed at
twenty times magnification to form a digital zoomable map down
to the level of individual neurons. Anita McGhee Doctor Walter

(32:40):
Freeman lobotomized Anita McGee, who suffered from postpartum depression in
nineteen fifty three. Unfortunately, the procedure left her institutionalized for
the rest of her life. Her daughters said, I personally
think that something in doctor Freeman wanted to be able
to conquer people and take away who they were Dave Rubinstein.

(33:02):
In the nineteen eighties, the band Reagan Youth bashed out
an intense, politically charged form of hardcore, then managed to
tow the line between brilliant, dumbed down circle pit anthems
and trenchant critiques of the racist punk scene that was
bubbling over throughout the decade. Unfortunately, the band's singer, Dave Rubinstein,
had a nasty heroin habit and also got into a

(33:25):
fight that left him with a head injury. Doctors informed
him that he required a lobotomy in order to recover.
After the surgery, Rubinstein technically recovered, but he was never
again the punk rock intellectual that he was while fronting
Reagan Youth. He quit singing with the band and threw
himself completely into his addiction. In nineteen ninety three, he

(33:48):
took his own life after his girlfriend Tiffany Bresciani was
murdered by the serial killer Joel Rifkin Genevieve Pularski in
nineteen forty four. Jenny Pularski was admitted to a state
psychiatric facility known as the Monteneo State Hospital in Mounteneo, Illinois,
after she and her parents had a disagreement about where

(34:10):
she should live post college. When she was admitted to
the facility, a doctor described her as neat, clean, tidy,
extremely quiet, but friendly and agreeable, cooperative in ward and routine.
He even noted that there were no signs of active pathology.
For some reason, instead of releasing Jenny on her own recognizance,

(34:31):
the hospital staff subjected her to hydrotherapy, repeatedly plunging her
in and out of ice water. Afterwards, she asked is
life a farce? By May nineteen fifty three, Jenny had
undergone one hundred and eighty seven electric shock therapies, two
a week, and on February eighteenth, nineteen fifty five, she

(34:52):
was subjected to an extensive neurosurgery with bilateral extirpation of
most of frontal and temporal lobes. This unnecessary surgery left
Jenny mute and totally dependent on commands for functioning of
everything from toilet urges on up. None of this was
reported to anyone, and for the next forty five years

(35:13):
she was shuffled between nursing homes and mental wards until
she passed in nineteen ninety eight at the age of
seventy nine. Randolph Stuart, Earl of Galloway born in nineteen
twenty eight. The Earl of Galloway was a slightly eccentric
child who was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia when he turned
twenty three. His parents took the unsuspecting Earl to a

(35:36):
hospital in London, where he was lobotomized. After the surgery,
Stuart spent the next fifteen years in the mental wing
of the Crichton Royal Infirmary, and then in nineteen seventy
his parents placed him in the Monastery of the Transfiguration
in Roslyn. After finally leaving the monastery and marrying a
commoner and shopgirl, he said I was never the same again,

(35:58):
referring to the lobotomy. Howard Dully. As a twelve year
old boy, Howard Dully was described as defiant and savage
looking His doctor's notes on him at the time reveal
a preteen with some mental issues who seems like he's
trying to test his boundaries with his father and stepmother.
From doctor Walter Freeman's notes, he doesn't react either to

(36:21):
love or to punishment. He objects to going to bed,
but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming,
and when asked about it, he says, I don't know.
He turns the room's lights on when there was broad
sunlight outside. In December nineteen sixty, doctor Freeman performed a
lobotomy on Dully, and his entire nature seemed to change.

(36:43):
Dully's stepmother noted that he sat quietly, grinning most of
the time and offering nothing. It took Dully decades to
understand what happened to him, and he still suffers from
memory loss, but he feels like he's missing something. Walter
Freeman's operation was supposed to to relieve suffering. In my case,
it did just the opposite, he said. Ever since my lobotomy,

(37:06):
I felt like a freak ashamed. Here's a story from
one of our Weirdo family members, Michael Immanuel O mccove.
This is what he wrote in. My name is Michael,
and I'm a PhD student in University of Saged, Hungary.
And I'm sure I'm mispronouncing the words. I apologize if

(37:26):
I am. When I was about eight years old in
nineteen ninety four, my entire family visited the parents' village
for Christmas festivities. The village is a small village called
Asoso in a Coco Edo Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria.
My parents and I were living in the northern part
of Nigeria in Koltongo Local Government Area of Ghambi State.

(37:48):
During that Christmas of nineteen ninety four, my elder brother
Andrew God Rest his soul and I went to our
uncle's farm to enjoy the fruits in the farm. One
thing you should know about my village is the fact
that people use all sorts of magical amulets and talisman
to protect their properties from thieves and intruders water wells, gardens,

(38:08):
vegetable farms, and even their livestock. It's believed that some
of the talismans have a potency to make a young
lady barren for life if she dare to remove it
from a well in order to fetch some water. On
that day that we went to enjoy our evening with
our uncle's cashew was the day that made me have
to rethink about the potency of these talismans. My brother,

(38:30):
being the eldest, decided to be the one to climb
the tree and get some of the fruits for us.
I gave him a little push to get him going
up the tree. While he was up there, everything was okay,
such that he selects the ripped cashew and throw it
down to me as I chew on one and keep
the other for when we got home. He was also
enjoying some of the fruits from up there. We stayed

(38:51):
there for about two hours, I guess, and when it's
almost getting dark and it was time for Andrew to
come down from the tree, he complained to me that
he could not be able to down because the tree
had increased in height. I was surprised. I told him
the tree had not grown any higher, that he should
just jump, nothing will happen to him. He crawled closer
to a height with a little jump, I could touch

(39:13):
his feet, and then he starts climbing up again. I
just start shouting at him, Andrew, you're almost there, just jump,
don't go back. But he just climbed back. He said
he couldn't jump, and when he was back into the tree,
he sat on one of the branches, stared down at
me and started crying that I should go and call
him mom. It's already getting dark and our house is

(39:34):
about two and a half kilometers away from the farm,
and I was very scared that I couldn't walk back
home alone without him, so I also joined him in
the crying, and we cried together for a while. A
certain old man was on his way back home from
his farm, heard our voices crying and started calling out
in our language, who were those crying? Since most of
the village people believe in supernatural and ghost stories, the

(39:57):
man started to mutter some incantation to wade away evil
children on his path. We didn't understand what was happening
at that time. We just kept crying out louder and
calling for help. The man knew that during this festive
season there are a lot of children coming from the
city and cannot understand much of the Assasso language. Then
he decided to be brave and entered the farm. On

(40:20):
reaching the tree, he met me sitting on the dirt
and sobbing, and that he asked me in a broken English, boy,
what you doing here at this time? They're not alone?
I pointed up to the tree as my brother started
to talk to him in our language, telling him his ordeal.
The man knew what was happening immediately that he gathered
some wood and set up a fire for me to
keep warm, and also to extend it to my brother

(40:42):
in the tree as he ran to the village to
call my uncle to the farm. At that time, my
uncle could not be found so easily, as he had
already gone for his evening drinking of local alcoholic brewis.
They later found him after looking for about forty minutes.
When they finally arrived, they found me eating the remaining
cashew I was saving to eat at home. My mom

(41:02):
gave me a warm hug as she rained curses on
Andrew for bringing me to the farm at that time
of the day. My uncle went around the tree in
three consecutive cycles maids of incantations and dug out something
from the root of the tree, a talisman. He spat
on it three times, and immediately my brother was able
to jump down from the tree. My uncle explained to

(41:24):
my mother that if he had jumped down before the
charm was removed, he would have jumped to his death.
Till this day, even after Andrew has passed away, I
dare not enter anybody's farm or even harvest mangoes that
are hanging outside the farm. I told only a few
people about this happening, and most of them didn't believe me.

(41:55):
Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share
it with someone you know who loves the pair of
normal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries
like you do. And if you've not done so already,
be sure to subscribe to the podcast. I upload episodes
seven days a week. If you want to reach out
to me, you can email me anytime with your questions
or comments at Darren at Weird Darkness dot com. All

(42:19):
stories in Weird Darkness aren't purported to be true unless
stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links
to the authors in the show notes. The Victims of
Lobotomies is by Jacob Shelton for Ranker. The Man who
Could Make Dead Fish Talk was written by Sarah Merdon
for Georgian Era. The Ghostly Handprint of Francis Levy is

(42:39):
by Prince Petropia for Paranorms and by Adam for Mysterious Chicago.
And They Murdered Their Mothers is by Jessica M. Thomas
for Ranker dot com. And now that we're coming out
of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light
psalm seventy three, Verse twenty six. My flesh and my
heart may fail, but God is the strength of my

(43:02):
heart and my portion forever. And a final thought, life
is like a camera. Focus on what's important, capture the
good times, and if things don't work out, just take
another shot. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in

(43:22):
the weird darkness.

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