TRANCE STORY OF A SUICIDE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 255, 21 October 1908, Page 4

TRANCE STORY OF A SUICIDE.

TKAfiEDY KKCOXSTJTUTKD IN A HYPNOTIC TEST. New York, September 1, Hypnotism as a means of " reconstructing" a supposed murder lias been used in a remarkable way at the Tombs Prison here, where a woman who is charged with killing her husband has been made to reeoiint the circumstances of his death while in a hypnotic sleep.

The woman is -Mrs. Charlotte llit-di-coek, the widow of a prominent business man. On November 20th last .Mr. Hitchcock was found shot dead in bed in his residence, and his wife was lying beside him suffering from serious gunshot wounds. ■When, arrested -Mrs. .Hitchcock said 'she did the shooting, and that she afterwards tried to commit suicide. Since her arrest Mrs. Hitchcock Ims been in the prison hospital recovering from her wounds. A few days ago Judge Foster, of the Criminal Court, appointed Drs. Allan McLane Hamilton, Carlos McDonald, and Francis Kohertsou. all distinguished alienists, as a commission to determine whether Mrs. Hitchcock should be committed to tin asylum as insane or placed on trial for murder.

| The alienists had held several sessions, when they were startled yesterday by I the evidence of Dr. Yangicsen. the lien't of the Pathological Jiiireiiu of tile Board of Health, who told how he hypnotised Mrs. Hitchcock in her cell, and th'.n ' suggested that she saw the scene of jV shooting. it was evident, said Dr. Yangicsen, that Mrs. Hitchcock had been addictel to the use of drugs, and that she bad been likewise subject to hypnotic iulluence by her husband. Dr. Yangicsen induced a hypnotic trance by administering a dose of formaldehyde, and then waving a lighted candle before the woman's eyes as she sat on a chair tilted against the wall of the cell, with her head resting against a pillow. When she passed into the hypnoiie state. Dr. Vangiesen asked Ikm- to describe the shooting. .She promptly replied that her husband had terrified her into promising to take the blame for IV; deed if she survived him. She then described in detail how lie. shot her and then killed himself. She detailed the eU'ciiiiistanccs carefully, every incident agreeing .with known facts. .Moreover, her account wvis more reasonable than the police theory, because it explained certain features which made the police theory seoui doubtful. For example, it seemed impossible that one of Mrs. Hitchcock's wounds could have been self-iullicted. Her storv, told in the trance stale, described how her husband held the revolver to inllict if. She reiterated that she confessed she had committed the crime because she was acting under her husband's compulsion. A man who witnessed Dr. Yangiescu's experiment testified before the commission that the doctor did not suggest the story or any detail oi it, but simply asked her to describe the scene, as'she saw it. The alienists are perplexed as to what course thev should pursue, but it is probable that they will accept Dr. Yangiescu's nd'er to rcjfrat the experiment ill their presence.