MEDICAL EXPERT TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY 
MURDER TRIAL 
WALTER CHANNING, M. D. 
BY 
Boston, Mass. 
From 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY 
Vol. LIV, No. 3, 1898 MEDICAL EXPERT TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY 
MURDER TRIAL.1 
WALTER CHANNING, M. D. 
It has been so often the province of the alienist who has 
testified as an expert in a trial to find cause for criticism in the 
way his testimony has been presented and utilized, that it is with 
a feeling of the greatest satisfaction the writer can say that in 
the case under discussion there could be no just ground of com- 
plaint. On the contrary, the experts’ opinions were received 
with respect and consideration, and exerted an important and 
considerable influence in determining the final issue of the case. 
The precedent of the proper method of introducing medical 
expert testimony in a murder trial, which this case may be in- 
strumental in establishing, is of such value and interest that the 
writer will undertake to present a somewhat detailed account of 
the medico-legal aspects of the case. 
The circumstances of the homicide were these: Shortly before 
two o’clock on the afternoon of April 16th, 1897, the dead body 
of Joseph A. Stickney, cashier of the Great Falls National Bank 
of Somersworth, New Hampshire, was found on the floor of the 
bank. Death had been undoubtedly produced by numerous 
blows on the head, some of which had crushed the skull, and 
by cutting the throat from ear to ear, evidently with a razor; a 
black-jack or billy was found near the body, which accounted 
for the blows on the head. 
The vault had been rifled of nearly all the gold and silver it 
contained, amounting to several thousand dollars, and a valuable 
papkage of stamps, the property of the postmaster, was missing. 
No bonds or stocks had been molested. 
Suspicion quickly pointed toward Joseph E. Kelley, a young 
man who had lived for several years in Somersworth and the 
1 Read at a meeting of the Boston Medico-Psychological Society, De- 
cember 16, 1897. 386 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
town of Berwick across the river. Three days afterwards he 
was arrested in Montreal and made a frank and full confession 
of the crime. 
The cashier of the bank was an old and somewhat feeble man, 
seventy years of age, respected and esteemed by those who knew 
him, and his brutal murder aroused the indignation of the com- 
munity and a strong feeling of hostility toward the murderer. 
During the summer following the crime, experts were en- 
gaged by the counsel for the prisoner to examine into his mental 
condition, which led to the employment of others by the State 
for a similar purpose. This procedure was rendered peculiarly 
necessary in the case under discussion, as the law of New Hamp- 
shire specifies that “ where insanity is set up as a defense to an 
indictment, the jury must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt 
that the killing was not produced by mental disease.” 
The experts selected by the State were Drs. Edward Cowles, 
George F. Jelley and the writer, and they made several prolonged 
examinations of the prisoner in the county jail at Dover. Under 
ordinary circumstances it would have been desirable to have 
visited him singly, as well as in a body, thus seeing him under 
the most varied conditions. The prisoner’s counsel, however, 
preferred usually to be present themselves with one or all 
three of their own experts. This resulted in a combination 
investigation, which, while it eliminated the disadvantage of a 
possible personal bias on the part of the investigator, did away 
with the accuracy and exactness resulting from a close and con- 
tinuous investigation along one single line. Often a man in the 
presence of a dozen other men is quite unlike the person wholly 
alone with one other man. In a multitude of counsellors there 
is sometimes safety for him who is seeking to escape the conse- 
quences of their counsel, as well as for him who seeks to gain 
advantage from it. 
The situation with Kelley then was this when the experts for 
the State first saw him: he had previously seen his counsel 
and some of the experts employed by them a number of times, 
and had acquired a familiarity with their system of probing and 
sounding him for evidences for and against mental unsoundness. 
While he could form no idea of their precise purpose, it was 
possible for him to gain a facility in responding, and it happened 1898] 
♦ 
WALTER CHANNING 
387 
that he had the ready and quick perception which materially 
helped him in accomplishing this purpose. Thus it was that we 
found him ready and alert in answering innumerable questions, 
and the writer felt that he had so many times rehearsed most of 
what he had to say, that without in any sense feigning a part, 
he had come to use instinctively whatever his agile wit enabled 
him to pick up as something coming quite spontaneously from 
himself. It appeared that he was able to manufacture lies where 
truth would not serve, and he had become a composite of Kelley 
plus, not only his counsel and the alienists he had seen, but news- 
paper reporters, detectives, fellow-prisoners and most of the per- 
sons he had seen since his arrest. It will thus appear evident 
that it was no easy task to analyze satisfactorily such a mental 
conglomeration, especially in the presence of a large number of 
both friendly and hostile inquisitors. 
The better to understand the man we were called on to thus 
examine, it becomes necessary to describe his appearance physic- 
ally and mentally. His measurements were as follows; Height, 
5 ft. 4.3/2 in.; weight, 170 lbs.; length of head, 190 mm.; maxi- 
mum width head, 146 mm.; minimum width head, 122 mm.; hori- 
zontal circumference head, 555 mm.; length face, 132 mm.; width 
face, 120 mm.; width between eyes, 26 mm.; length orbit, 34 mm,; 
length nose, 56 mm.; width mouth, 49 mm.; width jaw, 115 mm.; 
cephalic index, 76.3i-j-; length left ear, 59 mm.; width left ear, 
30 mm.; angle left ear, 50°; length right ear, 58 mm.; width 
right ear, 31 mm.; angle, 50°. The palate (see Plate I) was a 
little higher and longer in proportion to the width than normal. 
Parallelism of the alveolar processes was a striking character- 
istic. Teeth were regular and comparatively sound. 
While the measurements of the head reveal no striking ab- 
normality or asymmetry, there was a slight flattening on the 
right side in the parietal region and parietal depression of a 
congenital character on both sides. About the middle of the 
left frontal bone there was a small cruciform scar, and under it 
a depression rather smaller than the end of the little finger, 
which could be seen as well as felt. 
The type of head was medium dolicho-cephalic; in appearance, 
however, brachy-cephalic, but not in reality, the pompadour 
cut of the hair making appearances deceptive; thus the hair 388 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
standing up straight in front two or three inches high made the 
forehead appear higher than it really was. The accompanying 
outlines of the head give an approximately correct idea of its 
contour (see Plate II). 
The hair was dark and rather coarse. 
The eyes were brown and tending to the almond type. The 
skin was clean and smooth. The arms and legs were well pro- 
portioned; the hands rather large for the body. The general 
appearance was of physical symmetry and the roundness and 
plumpness of the young boy or girl. The color was bright and 
fresh and ruddy enough to suggest perfect health. 
Coming now to a description of what we may call “ psycho- 
physical characteristics,” the facial expression deserves special 
mention. No correct idea can be formed of it from the 
accompanying picture (see Plate III). There was something 
attractive and winning, almost fascinating, about it, which was 
very much enhanced by a smile lighting up the whole face. It 
was easy to get an impression of ingenuousness and even inno- 
cence, in spite of his evil deeds, as one looked into his face. 
There were no furrows, no suggestions of hardship, suffering 
or sorrow in any facial lines; nothing but a broad, flat, round 
visage with the happy look of untroubled youth. The mouth 
was rather small, the lips thinnish, the lower jaw somewhat 
heavy. A subtle look of cunning now and then could be detected; 
but it was the negative character of the expression, as far as 
any betrayal of emotion was concerned, that struck the writer’s 
attention. There were no evidences in the face that anything in 
life had so far reached down below the surface. There were 
indications of coarseness and lewdness to be observed on a very 
close inspection, but not to a sufficient degree to mar the gen- 
eral effect of good-natured boyhood. 
As Kelley faced the various experts and others grouped around 
him, most of them note-book in hand, it might be thought that 
the situation would have been an embarrassing one, considering 
the gravity of the situation for him, but the embarrassment was 
on the side of the experts, rather than on Kelley’s side. He 
carried himself with such self-complacency and answered all ques- 
tions with such ready frankness that for some time it seemed as 
if he must be playing a part, with a view to creating an impres- 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
389 
sion favorable and helpful to his own case. It was of course pos- 
sible for him to have adopted some definite line of action, sup- 
posing that he was bright enough to have reasoned it out, which 
would have presented indications of some form of insanity. 
While he never at any time actually feigned specific symptoms, 
it looked a little at first as if he had seized on certain salient 
points, which he lost no opportunity of bringing into the fore- 
ground. And the probability is that he saw that the inquiry 
was directed to the finding out of a particular kind of data, and 
he thought he would give us all we wanted, and so his story 
grew and grew, being a mixture of truth and fiction. Yet as 
time went on it was evident that he followed no definite plan in 
what he said, and often (from any point of view he could have 
had of his own) he made admissions more injurious than helpful 
to his case. 
Without reproducing here in detail much of what was elicited 
in our examinations, attention may be properly called to some 
of the principal points which, if later proved to be true, would 
have a positive value as evidence of mental weakness; while on 
the other hand, if shown to be false, would militate against such 
a theory. 
First may be mentioned his account of an uncontrolled ten- 
dency to steal money and articles of little or no value from his 
early youth up to the time of his final arrest. He stole a watch 
and chain when he was about ten years of age; money from his 
father and from his employers, as well as various articles from 
them. He stole a tent, which he used in some woods near where 
he lived and for the larceny of which he was sent to the reforma- 
tory; articles at the reformatory; small sums of money from the 
hotels where he was employed for nearly three years shortly 
before the crime, as well as numerous small and cheap articles, 
such as hair brushes, tooth brushes and so on. The money he 
took from guests’ bags, the hotel cash-drawer, the cigar stand, 
and the safe. There were several features of this pilfering from 
hotels which deserve notice, the first being the smallness of the 
amounts taken; the second, the cunningness of execution, so that 
it was not found out; and the third, that the money was not spent 
on drink and women, but saved and put into the bank with other 
money earned; and the fourth, that he kept a record of all the 390 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
money he stole, meaning to pay it back when he was twenty-five, 
a statement to be immediately explained. 
Second may be mentioned his statements about his having a 
contract with the devil, beginning when he stole the watch, 
about the age of ten, and to expire when he was twenty-five. 
He never attempted to thrust this devil story into his conversa- 
tion, but was ready to detail it if encouraged to do so. He had 
both seen and talked with the devil, he said; though there was 
evidence that he resorted to fiction in describing him, it appeared 
probable that he believed a portion of what he said. He frankly 
confessed that he had been brought up to believe in the con- 
ventional devil, but this one was different. He had a dark com- 
plexion; eyes like drops of water; dark hair streaked with grey, 
and a deep bass voice. When asked how tall the devil was, he 
thought it an immense joke to say, “as tall as you”; he could 
not help dropping into cheap or vulgar buffoonery when occasion 
offered. At our different interviews he mentioned categorically, 
though with constantly added details, what the devil said and 
how he behaved. It was most difficult, in fact impossible, for the 
writer to get at Kelley’s real idea about the devil. The thing 
that was the most genuine and had some hold of him was his 
compact with the devil, which, as already mentioned, was binding 
to a certain time. He honestly believed in a personal devil, and 
thought he was in his power. As to how he looked and be- 
haved, he made so many statements that it was easier to believe 
he was lying, than that he had actual delusions and hallucina- 
tions. There was without doubt something in the devil story, 
but just how much importance to give to it could not be de- 
termined during the examinations. 
Third, he had had three attacks of somnambulism. 
Fourth, he had had syphilis and at various times immoral 
relations with women. 
Fifth, he never drank to excess. 
Sixth, though he was very amiable, hail-fellow-well-met, and 
was generally liked, he had no intimate friends or comrades 
except a respectable girl with whom he “ kept company.” As a 
result of this peculiarity he was able to conceal his constant and 
curious thefts and his other bad practices for years; even his 
sweetheart did not receive his full confidence. 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
391 
Seventh, the way he committed the crime, and his relation to it, 
was most strange and unusual, and became more unnatural each 
time that he talked of it. He seemed to actually delight in tell- 
ing about the murder, and was never happier than when he was 
narrating its most terrible details. He no doubt had long thought 
of robbing the bank, and had taken a room opposite for the 
purpose of watching what went on. Not long before the murder 
he had stolen a pistol which had been found in his room, and he 
was in trouble about it, but such details did not upset him. A 
few days before the murder he went to Boston and bought a 
false moustache, black-jack, chloroform and straps. While he 
told no one of what he intended to do, it cannot be said that he 
took extreme care to conceal his movements. The things that 
had almost always diverted suspicion from him were his reputa- 
tion of being good-natured and inoffensive, and his having had 
no intimate friends or pals to betray his wrongdoing, and had 
he had the shrewdness to realize his advantage in these respects 
and exercised ordinary self-control and judgment, the crime 
might never have been discovered. That he was lacking in these 
qualities the evidence later to be referred to makes especially 
clear. 
With the greatest gusto he related how he watched the bank 
at the noon hour on the first day he made the attempt to rob it, 
to see the female assistant cashier go out, leaving the cashier 
alone. How he then went to the bank in a partial disguise, 
intending to pass himself off as a detective, his plan being to 
tell the cashier that a gang of “crooks ” intended to “ crack the 
safe,” having already connected wires with it, which he would 
locate if the cashier would take him to the safe. By this means 
he would gain access to the safe, and have a chance to assault 
the old man at the same time. He failed in the accomplishment 
of this plan, because the assistant cashier had not gone out to 
dinner, and he went away so hurriedly that he left a bundle 
on a window seat in the bank entrance containing some of his 
outfit for the robbery. Later, when he was in an oyster saloon, 
he remembered that he had left his bundle and went back for it. 
The murder was committed on Friday. During our exam- 
inations he insisted on it that his first visit to the bank was made 
on the previous Wednesday, and that all the time between Wed- 392 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
nesday night and Friday morning up to half-past ten o’clock 
was a blank to him. It was, however, proved by evidence pre- 
sented at the trial that it was Thursday, and that on that day he 
appeared in every way as usual. He undoubtedly was lying 
about his condition on Thursday, having for some reason got the 
idea that it would be advantageous to his case to prove that he 
had periods of unconsciousness, of which this would be a most 
desirable illustration. 
On the fatal Friday he wrote in his room or office an order 
for some stamps belonging to the postmaster, which were in the 
bank safe, watched until he saw the old cashier was alone, then 
with his black-jack, razor, chloroform, straps, disguise, and a 
pillow-case stolen from his boarding-house, repaired to the bank 
shortly after twelve o’clock. Some of his things were done up 
in a paper parcel. It is a question in the writer’s mind whether 
he contemplated murder. Like a boy, he had armed himself 
to the teeth, but that alone would not be proof in such a fellow 
as Kelley that murder was intended. What he wanted was the 
money in the safe. Whether he went as far as to plan the de- 
tails of a murder and just what he would do afterwards is, in 
spite of considerable evidence to the contrary, open to doubt. 
Even what he said himself is misleading. He asserted that he 
did intend to commit murder. Once he said he thought of it in 
his office; another time he said it was on his way across the 
street to the bank. But these answers were made in response to 
leading questions and cannot be too implicitly relied on. 
Arriving at the bank, he handed the old cashier the order for 
the stamps. They were promptly given him through the window, 
and not, as he had probably expected, through the door in the 
wire partition between the front and back part of the room. 
His next move was to ask the cashier to take his package and 
keep it until the next morning. That brought the old man to 
the door in the partition, and then it was that he felled him to 
the floor. Just what went through Kelley’s mind as he rained 
the blows with his black-jack on the defenseless cashier’s head 
can never be known. He says himself; “He opened the door 
and I struck him. When I struck him the first blow he fell 
right to the floor. Then I kept on striking him as hard as I 
could. Well, when I struck him I felt blood on my face; it was 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
393 
like sweat. Then I took my razor out of the case and cut his 
throat.” This description of what would ordinarily be the very 
climax of horror, and from the narration of which one would 
suppose almost any criminal, however hardened, would shrink, 
Kelley delivered with care and deliberation, and with an air of 
pleased satisfaction, as if he felt sure of the sympathy of his 
auditors. 
The cashier being disposed of, he took a little money out of 
his (the cashier’s) pocket-book and the bank keys out of his 
pocket, and locked the outside door of the bank. Next he pro- 
ceeded to rifle the safe of the gold and silver, putting all but a 
few dollars into the stolen pillow-case, also the package of stamps. 
Then he threw away in the bank two or three of the things he 
had brought with him, donned his disguise and prepared to leave. 
At this point he apparently became frightened, and his pres- 
ence of mind partially deserted him. His own explanation was 
that he saw through the glass panel of the bank door the face 
of the devil, who was holding the handle of the door and grin- 
ning at him. This so upset him that he turned to a window to 
escape, but looking around again he saw that the devil had gone. 
Then he went to the door, but was too frightened to unlock 
it, so he smashed the heavy plate glass with his foot, got through 
the opening thus made, hurried down the stairs, and made his 
exit from the building. 
Such is in brief the account of the crime as given by Kelley 
up to the time of leaving the bank. His subsequent movements, 
which are of some medico-legal importance, can best be con- 
sidered in connection with the evidence. 
Eighth. A point to which special attention should be called 
was his conception of the difference between right and wrong, 
and other moral distinctions. His lack of any feeling of remorse 
for his crime, or any realization that it was a thing of which 
he should be ashamed, has already been referred to. He was, 
perhaps, not proud of it, but he did believe it to be rather 
a creditable performance. He said himself in detailing his 
conversation with the devil; “ I was glad I had killed Mr. 
Stickney, I felt good and was tickled to death.” Then he went 
on to say; “ I had no reason for thinking I had done a good 
thing. Think (now) I had done wrong. Sometimes not sorry 394 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
I did it. It will benefit some people. There is no one dies but 
somebody grows better or worse. I have always noticed in 
families one grows better or worse. ... I have come to this con- 
clusion from observation. When I die people will grow worse, 
because they are all good now. I would like to feel sorry for 
killing Mr. Stickney, but I can’t; I can’t make myself believe so.” 
Later in the same conversation he said: “I think no murderer 
is ever forgiven. I have asked God to wipe this thing all out, 
but he won’t. It does no good to pray. I shall not be forgiven 
until January 16, 1899, when I am twenty-five years old (when 
the devil compact expires). God will not help me any now. 
The devil has got hold of me. ... I can’t excite myself to feel 
any compunction. I don’t feel for anything nor for anybody.” 
When talking with him on other occasions he said “ he knew 
it was a dirty, cowardly deed,” but he never felt or showed 
any feeling of sorrow. He seemed to realize this and to regret it, 
and said he’d rather feel bad than the way he did. “ I want 
some one to pray for me to be sorry. lam too happy now. .. . 
I am going to plead not guilty because the lawyers want me to, 
but I am guilty. I had rather be hung than go to prison, be- 
cause this (the latter) would be paying fifty cents on the dollar, 
and I had rather pay my whole debt.” He said at the close of 
one long interview: “Doctors, lawyers and reporters are all 
alike, they are all professional liars,” Another time he told us 
he knew what we were there for: to make him out insane, but 
he was not insane. 
Ninth, mention should be made of Kelley’s poetry. He was 
told by his counsel the last day we visited him that we would 
like to hear some of his poetry, so with the greatest good nature 
he went to his cell and brought out a blank book into which he 
had copied a number of his poems. He read them standing up, 
in a clear, self-confident schoolboyish tone of voice, pleased 
rather than otherwise with the effect they produced. The poetry- 
writing began three months before. One day he said he found 
that the words in a letter had a tendency to rhyme with each 
other, and since then he had had no difficulty in making poetry. 
How much value should be attached to poetry written as this was 
while he was confined in prison as a noted criminal, perhaps 
somewhat exhilarated and with a sense of his self-importance, 
it is difficult to determine. Especially so, it may be said, as he 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
395 
was pressed to write poetry, if we may judge from his letters, 
and for this reason he may have applied himself more dili- 
gently to the task than would otherwise have been the case. 
In a letter under date of July 18th, 1897, for instance, he says: 
“ I have written four poems, and my lawyers want me to write 
a lot of them.” In estimating the significance of the poetry- 
writing, these circumstances must be taken into account. 
The following samples will give one a fair idea of the kind of 
poetry Kelley seems to have written: 
DREAMS OF BOYHOOD DAYS. 
As he sat there alone, 
Thinking of the years gone by, 
Of the happy home and mother, 
From his heart there came a sigh. 
The sisters and the brothers, 
The shaded lover’ lane, 
The old seat by the running brook, 
He ne’er shall see again. 
The roses in the garden, 
The cerious nightly bloom, 
All is still and fragrant 
’Neath the silvery shining moon. 
The twinkling little stars, 
The beautiful northern lights, 
These sights he ne’er shall see again 
On balmy summer nights. 
On the door stoop by his side 
With the one he loved so dear, 
He spoke in pleasant whispers 
That none but she might hear. 
The swaying elm trees, 
The waving fields of grain, 
The little girl he loved so much 
He ne’er shall see again. 
No more the golden sun will see, 
No more the rising moon, 
Nor the white sails on the ocean, 
Nor the screeching big black loon. 
The earth is still the same, 
The waters ever run; 
But the poet’s life is ended, 
His work on earth is done. 
(Joseph E. Kelley.) 396 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan, 
THE 20th CENTURY GIRLS. 
When girls are little babies, 
They cry, they scratch and bite; 
And papa has the pleasure 
Of rocking her at night. 
She is a little darling, 
A precious little child; 
But when she cries and hollars 
She makes poor papa wild. 
When at the age of sweet sixteen, 
She still has her childish ways, 
It’s strange that she remembers them 
Most all her live long days. 
She sits down in your lap, 
She bites, she hugs, she kisses; 
Me thinks at times our sweet sixteens 
The nursing bottle misses. 
(Joseph E. Kelley.) 
WILL. 
Dover, N. H., Aug. 16, ’97. 
Hung by the neck until dead 
Is very easy to say, 
And this is to be my fate 
In January, on the sixteenth day. 
Yes, the sentence has been passed, 
Dead is all future hope; 
The people of Strafford County 
Have got me on a rope. 
I do not wish to make a will, 
For I have few bequests to make; 
In the shape of bloody weapons, 
Which I give for remembrance sake. 
The razor which cut the throat 
Of the cashier of the bank 
I give to James A. Edgerly, 
A lawyer of high rank. 
He is after all such things; 
A kind of souvenir crank. 
His office is at Somersworth, 
Quite near the savings bank. 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
397 
To my junior counsel, Mr. Ryan, 
I give the small black-jack 
With which I struck the kind cashier 
A well-directed crack. 
The straps and chloroform 
You may equally divide; 
They led me to the awful crime 
By which the cashier died. 
As my counsel and advisors, 
I trust that you will see 
That after I am dead, 
Dissected I shall be. 
Bancroft of Concord may have my body, 
If to experiment he feels inclined. 
He then can tell the people 
All about my mind. 
The last thing that I ask of you, 
Let no friend see my face; 
But remove me from the prison 
To Doctor Bancroft’s place. 
And after he is through with me, 
Cremated I wish to be. 
If justice is only satisfied, 
It’s all the same to me. 
(Joseph E. Kelley.) 
THE CONVICT’S PRAYER. 
A prisoner on an autumn day 
On bended knees to God did pray: 
O God! in Thy mercy and holy love, 
Send down Thy blessing from above. 
Give me sorrow for every sin, 
That Thy love and friendship I may win. 
Like the fading, dying flower, 
Thou cans’! save me by Thy power. 
Help the lawyers in my case 
By Thy holy loving grace. 
Although they lie, and against Thee sin, 
They are working cheap, for I have no tin. 
And while they sit about the hearth, 
In time You can give them a nice warm berth. 398 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
Help the doctors, of Thee I beg, 
For they are pulling the county’s leg. 
If they much more my caranium drum, 
They will put the county on the bum 
But, good Lord, have mercy, and lay not up a feeling, 
It’s the best and safest way to do the sin of stealing. 
Have mercy on the ladies who practice salts and pills, 
And show them how to do like men, to send in nice big bills. 
Forgive the sheriff, of Thee I pray, 
And help him on election day. 
And if a vote or two is bought, 
Make his life—as jailor very short. 
As high sheriff he will pass, 
Though he has the manners of a big jackass. 
His wife, God bless her, I don’t think, 
Has driven him crazy, to rum and drink. 
God bless the attorney-general, and the county attorney, too, 
And should they go to Heaven, don’t place them in the zoo. 
God bless the judges, so solemn and calm, 
And keep them from spiritual and bodily harm. 
God bless the jury, one and all, 
The young, the old, the large and small. 
Give them grace to consider the case, 
And on facts and evidence their opinions base. 
God bless us when we are laid at rest, 
And take us to the land of blest— 
The land that ever is the same, 
We ask of Thee in Jesus’ name. 
Amen. 
Kelley’s letters written in the jail, of which the writer has 
examined about twenty, are similar in tenor to his conversation. 
They show only a fair amount of facility of expression, but are 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
399 
written carefully and in a handsome hand. They were probably 
all seen before being mailed, which may account for their cor- 
rectness and carefulness. They were nearly all written to mem- 
bers of his family, and chiefly to a sister. He refers in several 
of them to his relations with the devil and of the impossibility of 
his doing right while under his influence. 
In a letter written May 14, 1897, he says; “ I am a child of the devil, and 
you need have no fear for what I have done. I am not as bad as you think, 
and know God knows the trouble I am in. I expected to live until I 
was fifty, and half of my life was for the devil and half for God.” 
In a letter written on the 30th of April, 1897, he says: “ I don’t feel as 
though I have done anything, but of course I have, but it does not make 
me feel as bad as I ought to feel.” 
May 22, 1897, he writes that “ Life on earth was hell to me, but here I am 
at ease and happy. . . . About five years ago my Guardian Angel told me 
to go to see Bishop Bradey and he would drive the devil off, and now I 
am going to write him and ask him to bless me and I shall feel safe.” 
In several letters he says he is very happy, and that “ prison is heaven 
to what the outside world is,” meaning probably that he feels that he 
will be prevented in prison from yielding to the devil’s influence and 
doing wrong. 
There is one letter written about three weeks before the murder which 
appears to be in every way a common, plain, direct letter. In several 
of the letters severe remarks are made about the experts’ visits. One 
dated August 4, 1897, is written to Dr. Bancroft, and is as follows: “My 
lawyers lied to me; don’t come any more, for I am all right. You are 
a man that likes to see justice done, and so am I. Will be in Concord 
in October and will tell you something good at that time.” (He refers 
to going to the State prison when he speaks of being in Concord in 
October.) 
In estimating the value of the letters as evidence, it must be 
remembered that they were written while he was under the 
watchful observation of his counsel and a number of experts, and 
he might (had he been feigning) have been cunning enough to 
make use of them to express his irrational ideas. It is more 
probable, however, that he expressed himself as he really felt, 
and hence they tend to corroborate the statements he made in 
conversation. 
Such is a partial report of the investigation at the jail into 
Kelley's mental condition. At its close the writer was strongly 
impressed with the feeling that he was not playing a role for the [Jan. 
400 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
occasion; that he was himself, and only acting out what was 
natural to him. He had always lied and with some cunning 
trimmed his sails to the blast of the moment. It was natural 
for him to be shifty and tricky, and he was not above taking 
advantage of subterfuge. Still his desire was to be frank and 
straightforward, as no doubt his counsel told him it was best for 
him to be, and his lying was justified, in his opinion, when it 
would make the truth of his statements more apparent. On the 
whole he stood the ordeal wonderfully well. Probably no feigner 
could have gone through so many long days of severe and rigid 
cross-examination without at least partially breaking down. At 
the end, as at the beginning, he was the same pleasant, happy,, 
superficially sharp, self-reliant boy. He had always had plenty 
of egotism, which no doubt the notoriety of the crime had 
materially augmented, still it was far from having the quality of 
obtrusiveness and aggressiveness characteristic of the so-called 
“ paranoiac.” 
It was apparent that he was not the subject of any form of 
insanity, but it was equally apparent that he was quite unlike 
the ordinary young man of twenty-three. While he had a quick, 
wide-awake way of taking things in and some degree of so- 
called smartness, he had no maturity of judgment. His lack 
of moral sense was, however, the most striking indication he 
presented of an undeveloped mind and character. The conclu- 
sion was inevitable that he was a degenerate with congenital or 
acquired criminal instincts. 
How far he could be held responsible for the crime was at 
the end of the examination a difficult matter to determine satis- 
factorily, and fortunately it was not necessary to give an opinion 
until all the evidence had been presented at the trial. 
Kelley was the same happy, good-natured boy when he ap- 
peared in the court-room that he had been in the jail, and was 
evidently pleased to be the observed of all observers. He was 
neatly and tastefully dressed, and healthy and attractive looking. 
Each step in the proceedings he followed with interest, and was 
on the qui vive to give his counsel hints or advice, a thing he 
could easily do, as he sat in the bar close beside them. 
He listened carefully to the simple and direct yet forceful and 
convincing opening address of the counsel for the State. It 1898] 
401 
WALTER CHANNING 
was arranged that the jury should visit the scene of the murder, 
and in accordance with the law of New Hampshire Kelley went 
with them. He rode to the bank from Dover in an electric car 
with the lawyers, some of the experts, newspaper men and sheriffs, 
and he was the most cheerful and unconcerned member of the 
party. He acted as master of ceremonies at the bank, showing 
the exact spot where the old cashier met his death. His non- 
chalance and total lack of appreciation of his crime and its con- 
sequences, combined with his jocose yet pleasant and polite man- 
ner on this occasion, were something incredible in the man of 
sound and normal mind. 
The evidence presented by the State proved easily and con- 
clusively that he was guilty of the murder. Its medico-legal 
interest consisted in the account of his strange actions both be- 
fore and afterward. These actions showed recklessness, care- 
lessness and bungling, and a great lack of judgment. The brown 
paper he used to do up some of his things in, and in which he 
probably intended to wrap up the stolen money, he borrowed in 
a conspicuous way of a local tradesman, and then he left it in his 
haste at the bank door after he had committed the murder. 
There was little difficulty in tracing this paper directly to him. 
The order for the stamps, already spoken of, was in his own 
handwriting, and he left that in his haste on the bank counter. 
The stolen pillow-case, also already spoken of, he slung over 
his shoulder, walked out into the street with, and then took 
through streets where he was seen (though not recognized be- 
cause of his disguise), to an orchard where he was seen. Here 
he left it covered with his coat, and after changing his hat he 
went to his boarding house, calmly eating a little dinner. He 
then hired a horse and buggy, ostensibly to go fishing, and 
returned to the orchard (being seen by several persons) to get 
the money, putting it into a dress-suit case, after which he again 
returned to his boarding house and paid his landlady out of the 
stolen money part of the sum he owed her. His next move was 
to drive some miles to the town of Milton, where he put his 
horse in a stable (the horse showing evidences of rapid driving) 
and bought a new coat and hat, leaving his old hat in the livery 
stable. He enquired if there was any one who sold glasses in 
the town; went to a hotel, where he met an old acquaintance; 402 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[J an. 
took a train bound toward Canada; on the train kept a good deal 
to himself, yet spoke to several persons, some of whom he had 
previously known. He gave the stolen stamps to a brakeman 
to mail for him, paying him liberally for doing so. They were 
directed to “ L. J. Sullivan, Montreal,” the letters “ L. J.” being 
the initials of Sullivan the pugilist reversed. The stamps were 
carelessly done up and mailed in such a peculiar way that the 
postmaster decided they had been stolen and would not forward 
them. 
It is impossible to minutely follow each step in Kelley’s move - 
ments in the limits of this paper. It must be stated, however, 
that by a series of what appeared to be rather haphazard changes 
from one train to another, he finally turned up in a little Canadian 
village named St. Justin de Newton, telling a very plausible 
story (about coming to Canada on account of trouble he got into 
by selling liquor) to the keeper of an inn where he lodged. On 
the Monday, three days after the murder, he bought a woman’s 
dress and bonnet of the innkeeper, paying an exorbitant price 
for them, which he wished to use for a disguise, he said, to go to 
Montreal to see his wife who was there, and he proposed to 
bring her back with him. The dress was that of an old woman 
and entirely out of keeping with his apparent age, but that did 
not seem to trouble him, and he took the train for Montreal, 
going straight to a house of ill-fame. All such houses had been 
warned of his possible arrival, and the police being notified, he 
was immediately arrested and before the next morning had 
confessed the crime. After taking the officers to the place where 
he had thrown away some of the money, he returned to Somers- 
worth without a requisition, and was his usual pleasant, con- 
genial self on the journey. Such are the facts relative to his 
conduct after the murder, presented and proved by the State. 
He could not well have pursued a course which would furnish 
more clues, once suspicion turned toward him. Instead of cov- 
ering his tracks, he left them visible up to the time he changed, 
as if by sudden impulse, from one train to another. He was 
temporarily safe perhaps on Sunday when in the small country 
inn, and his best chance lay in keeping himself hidden from 
sight, but the reckless, hare-brained boy in him impelled him to 
go to a city and have a spree. He could not have more adroitly iBgB] 
WALTER CHANNING 
403 
thrown himself into the hands of his pursuers than by visiting 
a house of ill-fame, his reputation being just shady enough to 
suggest his doing such a thing. Disguising himself as he did 
illustrated his cunning and recklessness, but it only aided him 
in walking directly into the lion’s mouth. 
Carefully analyzing all that he did after the murder, the con- 
clusion is forced on one that he acted with little judgment and 
foresight, threw away such opportunities as he had for escape, 
and stupidly and without reason allowed himself to be caught. 
The prosecution having put in their case, the defense next 
outlined in their opening what they would rely on to prove the 
claim of insanity. Said Mr. Ryan, who made the opening 
address: 
You have heard the story of the crime and a partial account of this 
young man’s life. You have noted the many peculiarities of this remark- 
able homicide. 
To these facts and circumstances we desire to especially call your atten- 
tion, and that of the physicians, as showing in a measure his mental con- 
dition. The boy was born in Amesbury, Mass., on the 15th day of Janu- 
ary, 1874. He was the fourth of a family of eight children, all living. 
The prisoner was born a healthy, well-developed child, and grew up to 
the age of four years a bright, happy, laughing child, until a fatal day in 
September, 1878, while at play with another child upon what is known as 
a carriage brow, he met with an accident. The place from which the boy 
fell was a distance of from 12 to 14 feet from the ground. He was picked 
up unconscious and so remained for two or three days. 
A witness will say that he went to the place where the accident hap- 
pened and picked up a board with a common tenpenny nail driven through 
it. He says the nail was rusty, and he noticed that there was blood upon 
at least a half-inch of it. The nail looked as if a small piece of it had 
been recently broken off. 
During the period that the boy was confined in bed from the injury he 
suffered from what are commonly called fits or convulsions, and he con- 
tinued to have fits up to about the age of 13 or 14. 
When he was 15 or 16 years of age he used to say that the devil was 
here or there, or in his room or somewhere all the time. He did not 
care for money at all. He one time took two $5 gold pieces, and one he 
gave to a boy and the other he battered with two stones. He was 10 or 
12 years old at that time. Another time he took a gold watch and chain 
from the house and gave it to a boy for a New York pictorial newspaper. 
He was sent to the reformatory because he took so many things that 
did not belong to him. One day he was passing along the road with two 
other boys and he saw a man in a field at work. He had a revolver in 
his pocket and he took it out and fired twice at the man. He did not 404 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
know the man, and when he was asked why he did it he would make no 
reply. Once he shot himself in the arm. 
He seemed to be always afraid, and kept a sword in his room to defend 
himself with, and always carried a revolver in his pocket. He wrote a 
letter to his father while he was at Grant’s Hotel, stating he was going to 
build a hotel on a hill in Amesbury; that it was to cover two acres of 
land and be the finest hotel in the country, and that he was going to 
entertain all the nobility of England in it. When he was in the Concord 
prison he wrote a letter in regard to an elephant, in which he said: “ You 
done a good job on the elephant. I was watching you. He tried to 
crush you up against the wall, but you knocked him down with the 
hammer and put the shoe on him in good shape.” 
We shall have a number of witnesses from Amesbury who will testify 
as to his having fits and his peculiarities when he played ball, and that 
they regarded him as a foolish boy. 
It will appear that as he was released from the reformatory he went to 
Somersworth and there undertook to obtain employment. We shall show 
you conclusively that this prisoner never had the capacity to hold any 
position of any kind or description that could not have been held or 
filled by a boy of 10 years. 
The above is in substance, as taken from the Boston Herald, a 
portion of the opening for the defense. It was closed by an 
appeal to the jury on the nature of the responsibilities which they 
assumed, as the issue to be determined was one involving life 
and death. 
The life at stake being Kelley’s own, it was both interesting 
and important to notice how he behaved during his counsel’s 
address, when for the first time he was hearing how his case was 
to be defended. Sitting, as he did, side by side by the experts, 
there could not have been a better opportunity to watch him. 
Now, as always before, however, he was the same pleasant, cool, 
jocose Kelley. He was quick to catch any little point and pre- 
served a critical, observant attitude, not indifferent to what was 
going on, but absorbed in it. Yet all the time it was impos- 
sible to discover that he had the slightest conception of the mag- 
nitude of the crime or his relation to it. A Herald reporter 
very accurately pictured him in the following paragraph: 
“ He listened with great attention to what Mr. Ryan said, and 
when references were made to his devil he looked toward the 
Herald reporter and laughed. He also smiled frequently at Mr. 
Nason, counsel for the prosecution, who sat beside him while the 
opening was being made. When the statement was finished 1898] 
405 
WALTER CHANNING 
Kelley told Mr. Ryan he thought it was a pretty good speech, 
much better than that delivered by Mr. Nason, and he said he 
did not think he got such a hard roast in it after all. 
“ Kelley’s composure was not a bit disturbed by the generally 
interesting events of the day. He was as cool when the detec- 
tives were telling about how he acted at the time he was arrested 
for murder as when Mr. Ryan gave information to the jury about 
the thefts of his boyhood days. Sometimes he bit his lips at the 
talk his attorney made about insanity, but there were no other 
signs of nervousness.” 
The opening of the counsel for the defense occupied the clos- 
ing portion of the afternoon session of the third day of the trial, 
and it had considerable weight as corroborative evidence of Kel- 
ley’s peculiar mental condition, because it furnished an explana- 
tion of doubtful points in his account of himself, and further 
made it more possible to understand his boy-man make-up and 
his stunted moral nature. Though of course the statements 
made in the opening had not been proved to be true by evidence 
duly passed upon by the court, yet enough data had already been 
unofficially obtained by the writer to warrant him in assuming 
their probable accuracy. 
Of great corroborative value also was Kelley’s conduct in and 
out of court, especially during his counsel’s address. It was in 
every way consistent with his conduct in the jail. 
Thus little by little enough cumulative proof had been collected 
to focus and define the writer’s opinion of Kelley’s condition, 
which had been only partially arrived at after the examinations 
in the jail. 
Upon the evening of the same day the counsel for the State 
and their experts held a conference, and later the experts of both 
sides conferred together. While in some respects they differed 
in their opinions, they were all prepared to go as far as to say 
that Kelley’s brain was imperfectly developed, and that, in the 
full sense of the word, he was not responsible. 
Such being the unanimous opinion of the experts, the counsel 
for both sides decided that Kelley should the next morning, at 
the opening of the court, retract the plea of “ not guilty ” and 
substitute that of “ guilty.” This he did in a neat little speech 
addressed to the court, delivered with a cool, self-possessed 406 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
manner and in a clear voice. The gist of what he said was that 
he would plead guilty provided he could have an extension of 
sixty days. What he meant by asking for this amount of time 
was, that if he was sentenced to be hung, the law of New Hamp- 
shire delaying the execution of sentence for one year, the sixty 
days extra would carry him to the time when his compact with 
the devil would expire and he could die a free man! 
Kelley’s plea of guilty made a remarkable change in the method 
of legal procedure, as what up to that time had been a jury 
trial became a hearing before a judge! A jury was no longer 
necessary under the law of New Hampshire, guilt being admitted. 
The responsibility of determining the degree of guilt is placed on 
the judge, and this depends on whether deliberation and pre- 
meditation can or cannot be proved. 
It was a striking and never-to-be-forgotten moment when the 
jury, the supposed bulwark of justice and personal freedom, was 
dismissed, and on the judge alone was left the weight of deciding 
between life and death. It was, however, a weight more appar- 
ent than real, for the question resolved itself into one of two 
degrees of guilt, and the first was already, inferentially at least, 
excluded by the agreement of counsel that the prisoner should 
plead guilty because of his peculiar mental condition. 
A portion of this, the fourth day of the trial, was spent in the 
introduction of evidence relative to Kelley’s infancy and youth, 
corroborating the statements made in the opening of the defense 
and adding to their force by fuller details. It appeared that he 
had been a normal child up to four years of age, when the 
accident occurred resulting in an injury to the brain. As already 
stated, the seat of this injury is distinctly visible as a depression 
in the left frontal bone. After the accident there were epileptic 
convulsions up to 13 or 14 years of age. There was accompany- 
ing moral perversion and strange conduct noticeable enough 
to lead to his being called “ foolish Joe,” “ Kelley’s fool,” and 
so on. 
He stole persistently, unblushingly and openly. His father 
said in his testimony: “Beat all boys I ever see; would steal 
money wherever he see it.” He shot himself, as stated by the 
doctor who treated him, simply to create a sensation. He ran 
off and wandered away from home on numerous occasions. 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
407 
Altogether he was a troublesome, erratic boy, and finally after his 
arrest for larceny his father got a doctor to examine his head to 
see what was the matter with him, and the doctor told him it 
would not hurt him to go to the reformatory. He was always 
good-natured and got along well with people. At the jail, after 
the murder, when the father saw him he appeared just as he 
always had. He claimed as a boy to have seen the devil in his 
room, and there was a place in the wall where the plastering was 
broken in his attempts to strike the devil. 
The mother testified that he thought the devil was after him 
when he was about twelve years of age. Both mother and sister 
told him the stealing was wrong, and the sister told him to pray, 
which he did, but he could not help the stealing. The mother, 
sister and brother testified to his walking in his sleep. Another 
sister testified that he drew well, and she asked him to draw 
houses, but he would always make pictures of the devil in red 
clothes with a five-tined fork held up in the air. 
The doctor who attended him when he shot himself in the 
arm at the age of sixteen said in his testimony: “ From his look 
and manners he seemed to me unsound. I thought he was 
regarded below par. He seemed exalted then. He appears very 
much the same now as then.” 
Testimony was presented which showed that during the year 
before the murder, Kelley had undertaken schemes which were 
of a more ambitious and erratic character than at any previous 
time. He started a summer hotel on less than three hundred 
dollars, which was largely stolen money deposited in the savings 
bank. This enterprise failed. He talked about starting a news- 
paper and evidently had a serious intention of doing so. An 
erratic undertaking was an advertising scheme by means of a 
megaphone, through which he cried various merchants’ wares 
from the top of a building. 
These references to the evidence presented by the defense are 
sufficient as illustrations of its general tenor, and help us very 
materially to understand Kelley’s mental status. 
The medical testimony was presented at the close of the direct 
evidence for the defense. It was arranged that all of the six 
MEDICAL TESTIMONY. 408 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
experts should be called in succession, the first three being those 
for the defense. Those who have had occasion to testify under 
the ordinary conditions with a jury gazing in twelve different 
directions with a fixed, puzzled and stony stare, and opposing 
counsel intent on developing two diametrically opposite points of 
view, will readily perceive that the present situation was a far 
different one. The jury was pleasantly conspicuous by its ab- 
sence. The counsel were sitting harmoniously side by side, and 
the experts could address themselves to the judge freely and in 
extenso, the hypothetical question, that most misleading and 
inadequate of forensic makeshifts, being allowed for once to 
slumber in silence. The pleasure and satisfaction of being able 
to try at least to say directly and simply on the witness-stand to 
an intelligent court just what one thought, it is hard to describe 
in words. 
Dr. Charles P. Bancroft, the first expert for the defense, said that 
in his opinion Kelley’s mental condition was one of arrested develop- 
ment due to an injury received upon his head in childhood. He 
thought the evidence showed that the prisoner was born healthy 
and continued a normal child until the day he met with the accident. 
That at that time he received such an injury to the brain as 
resulted in an improper, or rather prevented the subsequent normal de- 
velopment of the brain cells, and that there had been a consequent and 
corresponding failure in normal mental growth. He was a child in in- 
tellect and moral characteristics. He had many of the impulses and 
instincts of the adult, but his judgment for the carrying out of these plans 
was that of a mere child. His moral was more deficient than his intel- 
lectual capacity. Moral perversion was one of the earliest symptoms 
noticed. Next to the epileptiform attacks it was the striking character- 
istic of his early life and the one feature that made his management 
problematical. Next to moral obtuseness the most remarkable charac- 
teristic was a defective judgment, an inability to compare things properly, 
to discern the fitness of things, all of which suggests a general all-round 
deficiency of the higher intellectual processes. Coupled with this intel- 
lectual incapacity was an abnormal egoism, and an impulsiveness such as 
is characteristic of earliest childhood. Kelley never seemed capable of 
profiting by experience. This inability to exercise healthy judgment, to 
profit by the second sober thought, to make nice moral distinctions, and 
this rash impulsiveness that led him to childishly undertake the most 
absurd schemes that captivated his fancy, all indicate a generally arrested 
development of mind such as we understand is included in the term 
imbecility. The case would seem to be one of acquired or traumatic 
imbecility. Although an imbecile, he. was by no means dull or stupid. 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
409 
His perceptive faculties were unusually bright. But this brightness is 
evanescent rather than continuous. Back of and underlying this super- 
ficial elasticity of mind is the deficiency of judgment already referred to, 
the inability to maintain continuous exercise of the attention so essential 
to success anywhere, and a moral obtuseness which at one moment leads 
him to maintain a virtuous ideal and at the next to indulge in some moral 
excess. 
Dr. Thomas Waterman, the second expert to be called, testified that 
he thought Kelley’s responsibility very largely diminished, but whether 
absolutely or not he was not quite certain, but thought he would know 
in time. He regarded him as a case of arrested or defective brain de- 
velopment, and thought the expression that Dr. Bancroft had used, 
“ high-grade imbecile,” was expressive of his condition. He was exhil- 
arated to a certain extent, and perhaps had an uncontrollable impulse to 
rob the bank and kill the cashier, or the killing of the cashier may have 
been incidental. “ Question. He was not of sound mind at that time? 
Answer. He was not of sound mind; his responsibility was very largely 
diminished, and perhaps entirely so. I can’t feel absolutely certain about 
his entire responsibility. Q. Could he form a deliberate and premeditated 
purpose as you would form? A. No, certainly not in that way. He 
doesn’t have the judgment.” On cross-examination witness said he 
thought the crime was probably the product of a diseased mind. Being 
asked to explain what he meant by probably, he replied that he said 
“ probably ” because in such a case he would want to observe it for 
months. 
Dr. Wm. A. Gorton, the third expert for the defense, testified that he 
regarded Kelley of limited mental development, due probably to the 
injury of the brain received when he was a child. His condition on the 
day of the murder was the same that it had been for several years, and he 
is at present in a state of mental unsoundness. His trouble is not curable. 
It is a so-called degenerative trouble which is almost certain to go from 
bad to worse, showing more and more apparent evidence of mental de- 
generation. He did not have the capacity to carry a deliberate and 
premeditated purpose into effect as a sane person would have done. He 
did not have the capacity to resist an impulse in any sane sense. On 
cross-examination Dr. Gorton said that the first thing you would look 
for in a feigner would be any manifestation of insanity of an ordinary 
type. One of the things a feigner always does is to feign some well 
recognized form of insanity: to be stupid, or maniacal, or to go about 
and refuse to say anything. In Kelley all that was entirely absent. “ I 
talked to him as I would to any one else about the crime. He gave a 
full account of it without any hesitation whatever, concealing nothing, as 
far as I could find out, which bore on his responsibility for it. My own 
experience with feigners has been that when they feigned a delusion it 
was for the purpose of excusing them from a crime which they had com- 
mitted, and they have sought to throw the responsibility upon the 
delusion instead of on themselves. In this case the picture was exactly 410 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
reversed. The prisoner claimed that the devil, under whose guidance he 
had been, had absolutely nothing to do with this crime; that he alone was 
responsible.” Dr. Gorton further testified that the prisoner did not have 
complete aberration of the mind, but arrest of mental development, an all- 
round arrest of development, and while he has left in him various im- 
pulses to do wrong and a certain amount of capacity to plan wrongful 
acts and conceal them, he has not the judgment and moral perception 
which would enable a person of sound mind to restrain them if the im- 
pulse to do them was once conceived. 
The first expert for the prosecution was Dr. Edward Cowles. He was 
called immediately after Dr. Gorton. He testified that Kelley was the 
subject of limited responsibility. This was explained or described by 
the fact of his having an imperfect mental development; an imperfect 
development of a few parts of his mind. That he had epilepsy from five 
to fourteen is sufficient to account for a certain degree of the mental 
degeneration that appears in the ordinary observation of the man as he 
is seen here. The injury to the head probably accounts for the epilepsy. 
Some parts of his mind did go on to develop from the age of four 
through his youth, and in some degree perhaps most parts, but not all. 
The parts of a man’s mind in which the defect appears can be explained 
in this way; he must have some perception of things going on around 
him; he must have memory; he must then have the power to reason and 
form judgments about what he remembers, and then he should have 
control of these—complete, effective normal control of his mental opera- 
tions; then he should have normal development of the moral sense of 
right and wrong. In this case the prisoner has quick perception, he is 
alert and bright; he sees what is going on around him, perhaps to a 
greater degree than the average man. He has a good memory, but he 
lacks the essential power of control. He does form judgments, and of 
course has notions of things, and he does reason. But when he comes 
to motives his moral sense is decidedly defective and limited. . . . He 
does have natural affections and some feeling of regard for others, but 
that is imperfect and does not control his conduct. When he comes to 
act he acts upon his desires and impulses very largely, though with some 
reasoning about it. . . . He is gentle and amiable, . . . and he does not 
have the vicious traits that give him the desires and impulses to do 
very wrong things. . . . Because he is a person of rather good traits of 
character primarily, his impulses have not led him to some of the con- 
duct that would put him out of relation with people about him. . . . 
From his impulse to petty thieving as a child, and in other ways, he has 
developed a good deal of sharpness and brightness for carrying out his 
ideas, which carry him through by his appearance on the surface. 
His thefts and his schemes for getting money have become larger as he 
has grown older, but he has shown his defect in not having the capacity 
to plan well and in not controlling his ideas sufficiently to form good 
judgments. The premeditating to do this deed first as a theft and then 
with a final impulse to commit the crime is a natural outcome of the 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
411 
rather complicated condition already described. And the crime itself 
being so foreign to his general character and the quality of his mind, it is 
indisputably an evidence of want of reason and capacity to plan and 
conceive such a thing. His responsibility is limited in that way, rather 
than limited by what would be technically called insanity. It is more a 
limitation of responsibility that characterizes the criminal than an insane 
person, but in attempting to draw the line the difficulty arises that there 
is in the background the condition of disease which we have to consider: 
his epilepsy which has affected his nervous organization has given him 
an imperfect development and the crime has resulted. 
Dr. George F. Jelly testified that he considered Kelley childish and 
erratic, though possessed of a great deal of mental acuteness. His 
moral perceptions are blunted; his ability to control his desires and 
impulses is blunted. . . . The case is one of limited responsibility on 
account of impaired mental development, which prevents him from ex- 
ercising the power of premeditation and of deliberation. To that degree 
he is irresponsible. “ I have been much impressed,” said Dr. Jelly, “in 
watching him here, to notice his lack of reserve. I sat by him during 
most of the trial and was struck very much by the lack of concern 
which he showed after having plead guilty to the charge of murder, 
sitting drawing pictures, making careless and cheerful comments; and 
also last night when he shed tears, not because of his situation, but 
because he thought we had slighted him in regard to his poetry. He 
seemed more impressed by that fact—that we thought lightly of his 
poetry—than that he was accused of murder, or the fact that he had con- 
fessed murder and was liable to hang. These things are in line with im- 
paired mental development and with that diminished responsibility which 
I believe exists in this case.” 
The writer was the last of the six experts called. He went over some- 
what the same ground as those who had preceded him, and said he 
thought there was a defect in Kelley’s brain which had resulted in mental 
instability and weakened power of resistance. His responsibility was 
limited as a result of the brain impairment. He thought there would be 
progressive degeneration and eventually complete mental break-down. 
He did not think that he possessed the capacity to form a premeditated 
and deliberate purpose to the degree that a sane man would. 
This closed all the testimony in the case. The court estab- 
lished the degree of murder as that of the second degree, this 
being in New Hampshire a thirty years’ sentence to the State 
prison, and the trial was at an end. 
In seeking to make a diagnosis of Kelley’s condition the con- 
clusion is forced upon one that he belongs to the great class of 
degenerates. The physical signs presented by themselves some- 
what aptly correspond to what we should expect to find in a big, 412 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
healthy boy. There are few anomalies, or what could be cor- 
rectly called stigmata, unless we class facial expression as show- 
ing itself in muscular co-ordination as physical. There is a lack 
of development to some extent physically in proportion to age. The 
body has not outgrown the early teens. It has not matured 
fast enough. There are, however, no marked asymmetries or 
departures from the average. The physical signs are negative 
rather than positive, yet taken in connection with the mental 
stigmata have as much value as if they were more striking and 
obvious. An undeveloped type may have as great a significance as 
an over-developed or an anomalous type. As Hirsch1 has well said: 
“In consequence of the disturbances of development in de- 
generacy, the quintessence of the malady is to be sought in the 
disproportion in which the mental factors stand to one another.” 
So it may be said of the physical factors, which must be taken 
into consideration in connection with the mental. While alone 
they may have only a doubtful value, combined with the mental 
they may serve to bring out or to accentuate details which 
together go to make up the picture of degeneracy. 
The mental stigmata in Kelley’s case were obvious and strik- 
ing, yet the physical signs helped to make clearer the dispropor- 
tion in which the mental factors stood to each other, and so 
filled in and completed the picture. 
Hirsch quotes Morel as dividing degenerates into four classes, 
the first embracing persons in whom there are no particular 
anomalies, but who are characterized by a so-called nervous 
temperament. The second class includes those persons who, 
while their intellectual powers are unimpaired, display a decided 
disturbance of their feelings and impulses, and consequently 
great defects and perversity in morals. The third class contains 
imbeciles whose mental weakness is limited to the intellect, so 
that the instincts hold sway over the understanding; and the 
fourth class, idiots, in whom the whole mental development is 
extremely low. Hirsch very properly calls attention to the fact 
that any classification is largely arbitrary, as one class imper- 
ceptibly shades into another, still such an attempt is of assistance 
in defining our ideas in a case like Kelley’s. He approxi- 
mates to the second class, though we could not say his intellectual 
1 Genius and Degeneration, by Wm. Hirsch, p. 122. 1898] 
WALTER CHANNING 
413 
powers were wholly unimpaired. We would, however, say that 
the greatest disproportion existed between the intellectual and 
moral factors, that there was a decided disturbance of the feel- 
ings and impulses, and great defects and perversity of morals. 
In conclusion attention may be directed to various points of 
medico-legal interest suggested by this case, a discussion of 
which would be quite beyond the scope of this paper. 1. The 
value of an examination of a criminal to determine his mental 
condition in the presence of a large number of persons is doubt- 
ful and uncertain, and may not in itself be sufficient to accomplish 
the desired object. 2. Each expert should be allowed to ex- 
amine the prisoner alone. 3. In a medico-legal case the time of 
the trial should be extended until the experts have had every 
opportunity to form an opinion. 4. It would further the ends 
of justice and save expense to the State if the experts of both 
sides could have a conference before the trial, in order that they 
might come to some mutual understanding or formulate a joint 
opinion. 5. A conference being out of the question before the 
trial, a conference during the trial would be the next best thing. 
6. It would add to the dignity of testifying in court if experts 
would at least endeavor to pursue such a course. 7. The best 
way for the expert to express his opinion is directly to the court. 
The clearness, directness and reliability of his testimony are 
largely enhanced by this means. 8. The hypothetical question is 
admirably calculated to befuddle juries; it stimulates hair-splitting 
on the part of counsel, and obliges doctors to make fools of them- 
selves. The truth of this statement was abundantly proved in 
the present case, where, there being no hypothetical question, 
the expert was able to leave the witness-stand feeling that he still 
had some self-respect remaining and had not unwittingly stulti- 
fied himself in giving his opinion. 9. A more searching inquiry 
into the subject of degeneracy and the mental status of degen- 
erates is desirable. 10. Should experts define responsibility? Can 
they say in court a man is partly responsible? Would it be 
better in testifying not to attempt to draw a line between degrees 
of responsibility? Medically and informally the writer sees no ob- 
jection to doing so. In the case at issue the prisoner was not 
apparently the subject of a specific form of insanity, yet he was 
deficient mentally and to a degree which interfered with his 414 
TESTIMONY IN THE KELLEY MURDER TRIAL 
[Jan. 
complete responsibility. Did he have mental capacity enough to 
exercise in a sane sense the powers of deliberation and premedi- 
tation? was the question the court asked each expert. If not, he 
could not be responsible. But is a man who is not responsible 
a sane man? Fortunately these questions were not discussed, 
and the punishment was justly made to fit the degree of respon- 
sibility. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY. 
VOL. LIV. No. 3. 
PLATE I. 
To face page 414. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY. 
VOL. LIV. No. 3 
PLATE 11. 
To follow Plate 1, page 414. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY. 
VOL. LIV. No. 3. 
PLATE 111.—PHOTOGRAPH OF KELLEY. 
To follow Plate 11, page 414.