i am occasionally haunted by ghostly victims of the 1944 hartford circus fire. sometimes they wander into my dreams at night. according to international circus code, when the band plays "stars & stripes forever" during a performace, it signals distress to the circus personnel."In 1950, a Circleville, Ohio man named Robert D. Segee claimed he was responsible for setting the Hartford Circus Fire. He said he had a nightmare in which an Indian riding on a "flaming horse" told him to set fires. He further claimed that after this nightmare his mind went blank, and that he did not come out of this state until the circus fire had already been set."
Thats weird. I wonder if that kind of phenomenon shows warning signs or behavioral characteristics in its host. I mean, can it happen to anyone? Is there a possibility that I will one night have a nightmare and wake up an arsonist? I do sleep really hard.
ReplyDeletethe greyhound bus killer actually used this same defense-- sleeping disorder. he was silent for the court hearing, but his lawyer argued that his client had no awareness that he was beheading the man in the seat next to him until after it had happened.
ReplyDeletecrazy somnambulism.
i just like the image of the indian on a flaming horse.
Did the greyhound bus killer get acquitted? I doubt it. That would be a dangerous precedent to set.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is, are these sleep killer's troubled individuals? Or do they just have unfortunate sleep behavior? I want to know more about this...
actually, the greyhound bus killer's trial just ended today. NOT GUILTY. but definitely a troubled individual.
ReplyDelete"The Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Judge, John Scurfield, deemed Li not criminally responsible for the crime due to this mental illness. Li pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder when the trial began on March 3.
Psychiatric evidence, provided by both the defence and the crown, suggest he suffers from schizophrenia and that last July, when he fatally stabbed, beheaded and cannibalized McLean, he was experiencing a major psychotic episode. The victim's family is unhappy with the trial's results and have been lobbying for a change in the Canadian Criminal Code that prevents mentally ill criminals from eventually being returned to society."
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as for segee the circus arsonist:
"It was said Segee fit the description of a serial arsonist right out of a psychiatrist's textbook. Segee also knew intimate details of the incident, which some believed only the real arsonist could have known. For instance, it was never made public that the circus had two smaller fires of undetermined origin prior to the tragedy. Segee admitted setting both of them as well. These statements, Segee added, were in response to a later dream he'd had of a woman standing in flames urging him to confess."