HYPNOTISED INTO CONFESSION

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2010, 20 February 1907, Page 3

HYPNOTISED INTO CONFESSION

AN INNOCENT AIAN EXECUTED. Professor Hugo Afunsterberg, of Harvard University, United States, publishes a startling explanation of the confession made to the police of Illinois by tho young man Richard Ivins, who was l'econtly -executed for the murder of Airs Frank C. Iloliiter in Chicago. He declares that Ivins was absolutely innocent, that his confession was the result of a hypnotic spell due to the terrible “Third Degree,” and that his case is by no means an isolated one., Ivins, who was a credulous and somewhat absent-minded poi'son, discovered the body of Airs Hollister, a young married woman whom he had never before seen, early one morning in a barn a short distance from his home. He reported the discovery to his father, who immediately communicated with tho police. Officers who inspected the body ordered Ivins’ arrest, and informed him that lie was the guilty man. Ivins vigorously denied tlio charge, but after the lapse of some time, when the police with impressive insistence reiterated the suggestion, lie begun to confess. He repeated the confession, which at every repetition became richer in detail, “I took her into an alley,” he said, in one of his latest confessions, “and wrestled with liei*. I lost m.V senses. She wanted to run, and I killed her. On the strength of this statement Ivins was executed. Six days before his death, however, ho suddenly retracted the confession, declared his innocncc of the crime, and affirmed that lie had no recollection of ever making admission ot his guilt to the police. All he remembered was the coroner’s inquest, and seeing a revolver pointed at him. 1 saw a flash of steel in front of me, lie said. “Then two men got m ffOM of me, and 1 recollect no more. Professor Alunstorborg now asserts that Ivins was the victim ot hypnotic suggestion impregnated into a mind dazed with sudden trouble, and that the flash of steel and the stern accusations of the police utterly unmanned him. The case, lie aigucs, is a typical one of that large borderland region in which the neurotic mind develops an illusory memory ot its doings in the past. The Professor quotes numerous instances within his own experience of hypnotic disintegration of the intelligonce, and conjures the police authorities of all countries to take to heart the tragic fate of Ivins, and to be aware in future of accepting at their face value the criminal confessions of weak minds.