Simon Fraser suffered from somnambulism. This was not
the first time that Simon had experienced problems in his sleep, in fact
nightmares were a normal occurance. Witnesses at his trial at Edinburgh
High Court gave evidence of previous injuries he had caused while
fighting off the visions in his nightmares. His father recounted how he
had awoken one night to find his 14-year-old son on top of him beating
him. His sister also told the court how one night Simon had almost
strangled her.
The court was also told about one occasion when Simon
had to be pulled out of the sea where he had gone to try and rescue his
sister from drowning. She was, of course, safe in bed at home. On
another occasion he had pulled his wife out of bed by the legs because
he thought he was saving her from a fire.
The foreman of the jury intervened to say that he and
his colleagues thought there was little point in hearing any more
evidence and that they considered that Fraser was not responsible for
his actions. It was then decided that testimony should be heard to
determine whether Fraser was sane or not. This would decide whether he
went free or spent the rest of his days in an asylum.
Expert testimony was heard from Dr Yellowlees, who
considered him insane and from Dr Clouston who though he was not. The
jury did not even retire and after a minute or so of whispering amongst
themselves returned the verdict that Fraser was not responsible for his
actions and that he was sane.
However, even though he had been found not guilty
there was still some concern about the fact that Simon may commit yet
another serious crime and no-one wanted that. It was rumoured that a
compromise was reached over a 'special arrangement'. The details of the
'special arrangement' were never made public but it was reported that
during the day Fraser was a free man. At night he slept alone, in a room
locked from the outside. His wife kept the key.
This is a very sad case but not as uncommon as one
would think. Through the years murders have taken place by people who
are locked within a dream or nightmare as are living completely
different circumstances. The worst of it is that normally the only
people in the same room or house as the sleeper are close relatives or
loved ones. The effect on the person when he wakes up is normally
devastating.
Homicidal somnambulism, literally homicidal
sleepwalking and colloquially known as sleepwalking murder, is the act
of killing someone during an episode of sleepwalking. Occasionally,
sleepwalkers kill people, usually a family member, during their
sleepwalking act. There have been several rare cases in which an alleged
act of homicide has occurred, and the prime suspect may have committed
the act while sleepwalking. About 68 cases to date have been known.
These cases have fared in various ways in the judicial system.
Historic cases
Polish physician Jan Jonston reported a case which
occurred around 1630 where an inhabitant of Paris while asleep got up,
took his sword, swam across the river Seine and killed a man he had
planned to murder the day before. After that, he crossed back the river
to his home, eventually getting to his bed, without awaking.
Parks
case
In 1987, Kenneth Parks was a married 23-year-old man
with a 5-month-old daughter. He had a very close relationship to his in-laws,
with his mother-in-law referring to him as "her gentle giant." The
summer before the controversial events, he developed a gambling problem
and fell into deep financial problems. To cover his losses, he took
funds from his family's savings and then began to embezzle at work.
Eventually, in March 1987, his actions were discovered, and he was fired
from his job. On May 20, he went to his first "Gamblers Anonymous"
meeting. He made plans to tell his grandmother the following Saturday
(May 23) and his in-laws on Sunday (May 24) about his gambling problems
and financial difficulties.
In the early morning hours of May 23, 1987, Parks
reportedly got up (not awoke) from his sleep, drove roughly 23 km to his
in-laws' home and broke in, assaulted his father-in-law and stabbed his
mother-in-law to death. After all this, he managed to drive himself to
the police station. Aside from a few isolated events, the next thing he
could recall was being at the police station asking for help, saying “I
think I have killed some people…my hands.”
Parks’ only defense was that he was asleep during the
entire incident and was not aware of what he was doing. Naturally,
nobody believed it, even sleep specialists were extremely skeptical.
However, after careful investigation, the specialists could find no
other explanation. Parks’ EEG readings were highly irregular even for a
parasomniac. This combined with the facts that there was no motive, that
he was amazingly consistent in his stories for more than seven
interviews despite repeated attempts of trying to lead him astray, that
the timing of the events fit perfectly with the proposed explanation,
and that there is no way to fake EEG results, Parks was acquitted of the
murder of his mother-in-law and the attempted murder of his father-in-law.
Falater case
In 1997, Scott Falater was accused of murdering his
wife by stabbing her 44 times. According to an eyewitness, Falater was
also seen holding his wife’s head under water. When he was tried, the
prosecution claimed that after the murder had been committed, Falater
changed his clothes, put the murder weapon in a Tupperware container,
put the container in a trash bag with his boots and socks, stashed the
bag in the spare tire well in the trunk of his car, and took and hid all
the items that showed that he was the person who killed her. On June 18,
1999 a prosecution expert testified that that Falater's actions were
"too complex" to have been carried out while sleepwalking. A week later,
Scott Falater was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to
life in prison without chance of parole.
Lowe case
On
October 30, 2004,
the body of 83-year-old Edward Lowe was found on his driveway in
Manchester, England. His son, Jules, admitted that he caused his
father's death, but did not remember committing the act. He has used "automatism"
as his defense. He was not convicted, but he was confined indefinitely
to a mental institution.
Steven
Reitz
Steven Reitz killed his girlfriend, Eva Weinfertner
and used a sleepwalking defense according to Dateline. His defense was
rejected, and he was convicted of first degree murder
Cases from
the Book of Lists 3
In the Book of Lists 3 there is a list of
eight people who were recorded as having killed in their sleep,
including use of firearms, fighting, or mishandling infants. Their names
were "A. F." (only his initials were recorded), Willis Boshears, Simon
Fraser, Wasyl Gnypiuk, Esther Griggs, Jo Ann Kiger, Robert Ledru, and
William Pollard. (Contributor to The Book of Lists 3: John M. B.
Edwards.)
"A.F."
case
"A. F. " was a gun fancier and a hunter, and kept
loaded firearms in his room. His father, with similar interests, slept
in the adjoining room. Hearing a bump against the connecting door early
one morning, "A.F.", still asleep, hollered "You dog, what do you want
here?" and fired the gun near to his hand. The intruder turned out to be
his father.
Boshears case
Willis Boshears was an American Army sergeant
stationed in England, drinking in a British pub on New Year's Eve. After
a while he returned to his apartment with a young couple. He went to
sleep on the floor, where the woman was already asleep. When he woke up
he found he had killed the woman; terrified, he hid the body miles from
the apartment.
Fraser
Case
Simon Fraser, of Glasgow, Scotland, often dreamed
that a beast had invaded his home at night. One time, he dreamed that a
white beast had come up through the floor. He seized it and dashed it to
the ground. He woke up to find he had killed his infant son.
Gnypiuk Case
Wasyl Gnypiuk, a Polish immigrant (to England) had
suffered Nazi internment, which caused him to have nightmares; in one of
these, he dreamed of fighting back. In fact, he was in the home of his
landlady, and when he woke up it turned out he had beaten her to death.
Griggs
case
Esther Griggs, resident of London and a mother of
three, dreamed one night her house was on fire. Screaming "save my
children!" though asleep, Ms. Griggs threw her baby into the street.
Kiger
case
Jo Ann Kiger, a teenager, was asleep when she took a
revolver in each hand, poised to defend her family against a "monster."
She fired, and fatally shot her brother and her father.
Ledru
case
Robert Ledru, a French police detective, was asked to
investigate a murder on the beach. Examining the evidence--the fatal
bullet and some footprints--he decided he had been sleepwalking on the
beach and fired the fatal shot. He turned himself in.
Pollard case
William Pollard was a farmer whose neighbors knew him
well as a sleepwalker and sleepworker--doing his chicken-farm
chores while fast asleep. One night he dreamed he was fighting with a
marauding stranger. When his wife awakened him, he found he had killed
their daughter.
How
the law dealt with these eight
The volume says how the law dealt with them, adding
that Western law recognizes sleepwalking as a defense but is otherwise
not consistent. "Griggs and Pollard were never charged; 'A. F.,' Kiger,
and Boshears were acquitted; Fraser and Ledru were acquitted but ordered
by the court to sleep henceforth only by themselves, in locked rooms;
while Gnypiuk, denied an appeal to the British House of Lords, was
hanged."
In the first season of the Perry Mason TV
series, one episode was titled "The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece."
Causes
It has been suggested that sleepwalking and other
forms of parasomnia occur from deep non-REM slow wave sleep. It is
caused by an inappropriate physiological event where the brain tries to
exit SWS and go straight to wake. In normal sleep, the brain transitions
from sleep either from stages 1 or 2 of NREM or REM sleep, but almost
never from SWS. As a result, the brain gets “stuck” between a sleep and
wake state.
In the case of Kenneth Parks, his EEG
showed that his brain tries to wake from SWS 10 to 20 times a night.
Needless to say, this is an incredible number compared to normal
sleepers who almost never experience this. Nobody is sure why some
people will commit murders in their sleepwalking episodes, but it seems
reasonable to assume that many conditions must be met. Using Kenneth
Parks as an example again, he was planning to go to his in-laws’
residence the next day, he was stressed and depressed from marital and
financial troubles, and he had been sleep deprived because he couldn’t
get any sleep the night before.
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