[Reprinted fro 
THE OTTO CASE -A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY. 
BY T. D. CROTHERS, M.D., SUPT. WALNUT LODGE, 
HARTFORD, CONN. 
Peter Louis Otto was tried for the murder of his wife at 
Buffalo, New York, December 7, 1884. The crime was com- 
mitted November 14th of the same year. The following 
facts in the history of the prisoner and crime were undisputed: 
The prisoner was thirty-six years of age, born in this 
country. His father was a German shoemaker, who drank 
more or less all his life, and at times to great excess. He 
was a morose, irritable man, of violent temper, who finally 
entered the army and died at Andersonville prison in 1863. 
His father, grandfather of the prisoner, was insane and died 
in an asylum in Germany. The prisoner's mother, now liv- 
ing, was a nervous, eccentric woman ; very passionate and 
irritable. For years she had been quarrelsome, and untidy 
in her appearance; has suffered greatly from rheumatism, 
and is a cripple. She is called by her neighbors " half crazy," 
and has a marked insane expression. Her ancestors in Ger- 
many were crazy; both her mother and an aunt died in an 
asylum. 
The prisoner's early life was one of neglect and general 
poverty in a cheerless home-on the street, in saloons, 
and in company with persons who frequent such places. 
He had beer at home at the table, and, from his earliest 
childhood, drank it with others. At eight years of age 
he was sent to school. When about ten he was thrown 
from the cars, and injured in the forehead. He was uncon- 
scious, and taken to the hospital, where he was treated for 
this injury and a dislocated ankle. From this time, up to 
about fourteen years of age, he went to school, and spent 
his nights and mornings on the streets and about saloons, 
living an irregular life. Then he went to work in a stove 
manufactory, where he remained for seven years, then went The Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Study. 
2 
to learn the printers' trade ; three years after gave it up and 
went into a candy shop. About the time he entered the 
stove works he began to use beer regularly, and was occa- 
sionally intoxicated. He drank at night, and at the period 
of puberty gave way to great sexual excess, with drink. 
From this time, up to November, 1884 (when the murder 
was committed), a period of over twenty years, he continued 
to drink more or less to excess all the time. 
When about twenty years of age, he married in a saloon, 
and was intoxicated at the time, and did not realize what he 
had done until the next day, when he became sober. For a 
long time after his sexual excesses were extreme, and he 
was often intoxicated. Then his mind began to fail, and he 
became irritable and abusive. He was stupid at times, then 
would have a delirium of excitement and irritation, talking 
violently, and be angry with any one, with or without 
cause. He frequently quarreled with his wife ; often both 
mother and wife combined against him, and turned him 
out of the house. For several years he has been steadily 
growing worse and more violent and irritable in conduct; 
this often depended on the amount of money he could pro- 
cure for drink. At times he would bring home beer and his 
mother and wife would join him in drinking it. Nine years 
ago, while in a torch-light he was struck on the 
head by a brick. A lacerated wound was produced, wjth 
unconsciousness, from which he recovered, but complained 
of severe head-aches for a long time after. Four years 
later he was struck on the head with a mallet, knocked down 
and made unconscious, and recovered, complaining of head- 
aches as before. Both of these injuries are marked by 
scars. 
For some years past a deep-seated delusion of his wife's 
infidelity has been steadily growing, also suspicions of intri- 
gue and poisoning by his wife and mother to get him out of 
the way. He has imagined his wife was alone in her efforts 
to drive both him and his mother away. The mother owned 
a small house which they occupied, and he claimed it, and 
was suspicious that it would be taken away from him. These The Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Sttidy. 
3 
delusions and suspicions were very intense when he was 
intoxicated, but at other times were not prominent. He 
attributed deep sleep, when intoxicated, to medicines put in 
the beer by his wife or others. He heard voices at night, 
out in the street, plotting his death. On one occasion, after 
a quarrel with his wife, he became depressed and tried to 
commit suicide by swallowing the contents of a bottle of 
rheumatic medicine, supposed to be poisonous. On another 
occasion he placed some fire-crackers under the lounge, fir- 
ing them with a slow match, expecting to be blown to pieces. 
His drinking and violence had increased to such an extent 
that both wife and mother complained to the authorities. 
He had been arrested six different times, and confined in 
jail. Once he served sixty days in the work-house for vio- 
lence and drunkenness. Two months before the murder he 
was sent to jail, and was delirious and confused, and the 
police surgeon, Dr. Halbert, was in great doubt whether it 
was not a case of real insanity. 
The judge ordered his confinement that he could be ob- 
served a longer time. He had what the physician called 
alcoholic insanity, but after eight days' confinement was 
discharged as sufficiently improved to go out again. For 
a week before the murder he had drank every night to excess 
and was, as usual, quarrelsome and very irritable to all he 
came in contact with. He bought a revolver, and was 
taught how to use it, giving a fictitious name where he 
bought it, and greatly alarming the clerk by placing the pis- 
tol to his head and offering to shoot himself. The day and 
night before the murder he drank freely of beer and whisky. 
On the morning of the murder, he drank as usual, and had an 
altercation with his wife; was seen to follow her into the house, 
and pistol shots were heard. Otto was seen to run out 
through the back yard, running against the door of a house 
in a dazed way, then walked out in the street, and some 
hours after was arrested in the store of a friend. He did 
not seem intoxicated, and talked of getting into a "bad job "- 
meaning the murder. At the station he was at first very 
talkative, told many stories of his wife's infidelity, but denied 4 
The Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Study. 
the crime; said nothing had happened. Later, he was dazed 
and silent. The jail surgeon found him in the afternoon of 
the murder in a cell, in a stupefied, confused condition, with 
no apprehension of the crime, and, although not apparently 
intoxicated, was nervous, restless, and dazed. The next day 
this state of mental aberration continued, he talked but little 
and stoutly denied the crime, saying it was all a conspiracy. 
His confused, dazed state gradually passed away, and he 
seemed to realize his condition, but the delusion of conspir- 
acy grew more positive. He believed that a scheme had 
been formed to keep him in jail so his wife and mother could 
secure the property. One reason he gave for his wife's infi- 
delity was, that she had done washing for the inmates of a 
bad house, and that he heard voices of persons out in the 
yard planning to get in and stay with her, and other more 
absurd reasons-all without the slightest basis in fact. His 
suspicions extended to others, whom he believed to be always 
trying to cheat him. He claimed not to remember any events 
from a day or more before the crime, until some days after, 
when he awoke in the jail. He had evidently a faulty mem- 
ory which had been noted in many things long before the 
murder. 
As in many other cases, the medical testimony given on 
this trial was a medley of faltering, confused statements. 
Two physicians thought these delusions and mental defects 
were no indications of insanity. One man doubted the ex- 
istence of alcoholic insanity. Another was sure loss of 
memory could not occur unless dementia was present. Oth- 
ers swore that it was possible for persons to drink as the 
prisoner had done and not have a defective brain. Alcoholic 
trance and monomania were denounced as having no exist- 
ence. 
The judge very naturally seemed to ignore the medical 
testimony, and fell back on the letter of the law, merely ask- 
ing the jury to discriminate between a mind actuated by 
revenge and jealousy and one full of diseased emotions and 
impulses. 
A verdict of guilty followed, and sentence of death was The Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Study. 
5 
pronounced. An appeal was taken, and a year later I exam- 
ined the prisoner in jail as to his mental condition. I found 
him pale and anaemic, with no other indications of ill health. 
He has had attacks of neuralgia in his head and shoulders 
from time to time; his appetite, nutrition, and sleep seemed 
natural. His face was blank and stolid, the eyes were staring 
and unequal in size. Talked in a slow, hesitating way, and 
changed with difficulty from one subject to another. He had 
become very religious since confinement in jail, and read 
the Bible and prayed often during the day. His ideas of God 
and heaven were confused and childish. He saw lights on 
the prison walls, and thought God had something to say to 
him, and opened the Bible, and the first verse he read was 
God's message to him. He often heard voices at night, tell- 
ing him various things; sometimes they were threatening, 
calling him bad names. Then he heard God's voice telling 
him that he would not die, but live. These hallucinations of 
hearing and sight had all a meaning. The day before this 
visit a flash of light, like lightning on the wall, appeared, and 
he found an explanation in this sentence from Jeremiah: " Is 
not my word as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer 
that breaketh the rock in pieces?" He still thought that 
his wife was living, and the whole thing was a plot to destroy 
him. He was very, suspicious of every one ; thought every 
person was deceiving him, and no one was true but God. He 
said all the stories of the murder were false, and that after a 
time God would bring back his wife to her senses, and she 
would live with him again. Said he would never drink spirits 
again, and would like to live with his wife in quietness. He 
had no concern about the future; was indifferent about the 
efforts made to stay his sentence. His mental powers,-or 
capacity to realize what was said, were dull and slow. He 
stared, and asked, with suspicious hesitancy, "What do you 
mean?" or, "What is that?" He was unable to go from one 
subject to another unless the subject was often repeated 
and pressed on his attention. When he came to realize the 
topic, he talked in a confused, dogmatic way, asking questions 6 
TJte Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Study. 
as answers, and expressing great doubts. Recited the lies- 
that had been told him, and inquired how he could believe 
anyone or any thing? He heard voices in the street talking 
about him at night, and the howling or barking of a dog he 
thought was the work of enemies, who wished to annoy him. 
He dreamed of going home and living with his family, and 
heard God speaking to him through those dreams. He 
described those dreams with great minuteness, and when 
laughed or sneered at, turned away with disgust, but forgot 
it quickly. He doubted his mother and counsel who visited 
him; was sure they were lying to him steadily. He selected 
out passages of Scripture and applied them to his case, but 
without plan or idea, except that God would defend him, and 
that the Devil would be finally driven out. When pressed 
sharply to explain his inconsistency, he turned, repeating the 
accusation with disgust. He was not greatly disturbed or 
annoyed, and seemed not to remember much that was said to 
him. When talking of himself, was not boastful of what he 
had done. The past seemed enveloped in a mist, and the 
future of no interest, and the present had no anxieties of 
moment. He saw different colored lights and interpreted 
them as God's answers or wishes to him. The jailer men- 
tioned his defective memory : of asking for the same thing 
many times a day, even when it had been brought to him. 
Of sending for a thing, then forgetting that he had done so 
a moment after. He had been uniformly quiet in jail, read- 
ing his Bible and praying many times a day, and manifesting 
no concern about anything in particular. A depression was 
noted where he had been injured on the head. 
From these facts I concluded that Peter Louis Otto was 
insane and irresponsible for the crime he had committed. 
A summary of these facts would be as follows : 
I. Otto had a bad heredity, with no training, and was 
brought up on the street in the worst mental and moral 
surroundings. He was ill-nourished, and suffered from 
defective hygienic surroundings, and also from severe trauma- 
tisms of the head at least three times in his life. The Otto Case-A Medico-Legal Study. 
7 
2. He drank beer from childhood. At puberty began 
to drink to excess, and gave way to great sexual excesses. 
From this time his life was that of a suicidal dement; con- 
stantly growing worse. Long before the crime was commit- 
ted, he was an alcoholic maniac, on the road to either suicide 
or homicide. 
3. Delusions of his wife's infidelity, so common in these 
cases, deliriums of suspicion and wrongs from others, great 
irritability and violent temper, with hallucinations of the 
senses, constitute a group of symptoms about which there 
could be no mistake. 
4. His conduct after the crime, and the persistence of 
delusions and hallucinations after a year's residence in the 
jail, indicated a permanently impaired brain. 
5. The crime was a most natural sequel to his life, and 
although a degree of premeditation was indicated in the pur- 
chase of the pistol, yet it was evidently the cunning of a 
maniac, and not the design of a sane mind. 
6. The probability of an alcoholic trance stage in his 
case is well sustained by all the facts of his defective memory, 
as seen in jail, noted before the crime was committed, 
and sustained by his steady denial of memory of the murder 
or any of its details. The continuous denial of recollection 
of the crime could not have been planned by his weak mind 
for any possible gain it could bring him. 
7. His irresponsibility was most conclusive from his 
cloudy, defective brain, and general indifference as to his 
present and future, and also the delusions of himself and 
surroundings. 
The prisoner continued in the same mental condition up 
to the time of his execution, May 21, 1886; manifesting 
great indifference and even coolness up to the last. 
The counsel for the prisoner, Mr. E. A. Hayes, deserves the 
warmest praise in urging the insanity of the prisoner to the 
last. Finally, a commission of two physicians appointed by 
the Governor, and designated by the district attorney, 
reported as follows on his case : 8 
The Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Study. 
"Buffalo, N. Y., May io, 1886. 
" We, the undersigned, have the honor to report that in 
accordance with your request, we have made a careful exam- 
ination of the condition of Peter Louis Otto, the condemned 
murderer, as to his mental state at the present time, and 
since the date of his trial. In the course of this examination, 
lasting for one week, we have had repeated personal inter- 
views, together and separately, and have taken the testimony 
of those who have had the most intimate knowledge of him 
since his confinement in jail, namely: the sheriff, jailer, the 
assistant jailer, the watch, the jail physician, and his spiritual 
adviser. We have in this way taken every means to inform 
ourselves fully as to his true condition. We find no evidence 
of any physical or mental change having taken place since 
the time of the trial, which must necessarily have been the 
case if he were suffering from any form of insanity. He is 
in good flesh, and in good physical condition. His circula- 
tion and respiration are normal, and all of his physical func- 
tions are normally performed. He eats and sleeps well, and 
there is no complaint of any form of illness. 
" We find that his mental state is entirely inconsistent 
with any form of insanity known. And we believe that he 
is feigning mental disease. We therefore pronounce him, 
in our judgment, sane and responsible. 
" Conrad Diehl, M. D. 
" William H. Slacer, M. D." 
On this report, Otto was executed, May 21, 1886; another 
victim of medical non-expertness and judicial incompetency. 
Otto, in the grave, or in an asylum, is of no account, but 
the treatment of Otto and his crime is of the greatest 
importance. Psychology protests everywhere against the 
so-called administration of justice on the theological dogma 
that inebriety is always a vice and sin. To hang insane, 
diseased men is to go back to the days of savagery and the 
punishment of witches as criminals. Society gains nothing, 
and the progress of human justice is put back by the 
injustice, law and order becomes a mob rule, and inebriety 
and wife-murder is increased rather than diminished. The The Otto Case - A Medico-Legal Study. 
9 
Otto trial is only another landmark of the low legal standards 
and psychological levels on which insanity is measured. 
Two hundred years ago, eminent men of the three learned 
professions sat in judgment over some poor, insane people 
at Salem, Massachusetts, and hung them, and have gone 
down into history as more to be pitied than the poor 
victims who suffered. It is the same non-expertness that 
considered Otto, after twenty years of excessive use of beer 
and spirits, with changed character, habits, temper, disposi- 
tion, and intellect, committing murder from an insane delusion, 
as sane and conscious of the nature and character of his acts. 
Less than two centuries ago, both judges and clergymen urged 
that witches should be punished as a means of safety to 
society, and prevention of the extension of this crime. 
But witches increased, until science finally pointed out the 
real facts. In the Otto case, both judge, jury, and experts took 
the same position, opposed by all psychological teaching of 
science, and the result will be the same. It is a pleasure to 
note that some of the medical men on this trial saw the real 
facts ; among them were Drs. Halbert, Campbell, and Daggett, 
who all testified that Otto was clearly insane. The charge 
that Otto was feigning insanity was not sustained by the 
facts of his history and mental condition. Such a man 
might exhibit cunning in some directions, but his mind was 
incapable of planning and carrying out any scheme of as- 
sumed insanity. Both judge and experts started from the 
mediaeval theory that inebriety is ever and always moral 
depravity, and controllable wickedness, and that Otto as a 
drinking man should be punished, no matter what the circum- 
stances of the crime were. If crime was committed the 
punishment should be increased, and to call such a case 
insane was a dodge to avoid the penalties. 
The Otto trial is only another strange, inexcusable 
blunder of our boasted civilization, in mistaking insanity for 
wickedness, the injustice of which will react on both the 
court and the community where it was enacted. WALNUT LODGE, HARTFORD, CONN., 
FOR THE 
SPECIAL TREATMENT 
OF 
INEBRIATES AND OPIUM CASES. 
Such persons are recognized as diseased, requiring absolute removal from 
temptation; rest, change of thought and living, with legal control; also, every 
means known to science to bring about restoration. These combined with 
pleasant surroundings, and the influence of a true Christian Home, give 
assurance of a permanent cure in most cases. The Lodge is attractively located 
in the suburbs, where a limited number of patients are received, all of whom 
come under the direct personal care and supervision of the physician. 
« 
Address, 
T. D. CROTHERS, M.D., Supt., 
Hartford, Conn., U. S. A.