Sexual Perversion & Whitechapel Murders, LVP Med Articles

[Hunter]

Thanks, Archaic. Great pictures.

From a post I made on the JTR Forums. Its rather long... but chilling.


From The Book-Psychopathia Sexualis- Rchard Krafft-Ebing
First edition- 1886-publisher unknown
Last edition- 1922- Redman Co., New York


Case 21. Vincenz Verzeni, born in 1849; since January 11th, 1872, in prison; was accused (1) of an attempt to strangle his nurse Marianne, four years ago, while she lay sick in bed; (2) of a similar attempt on a married woman, Arsuifi, aged twenty-seven; (3) of an attempt to strangle a married woman, Gala, by grasping her throat while kneeling on her abdomen; (4) on suspicion of the following murders:—
In December a fourteen-year-old girl, Johanna Motta, set out for a neighbouring village between seven and eight o'clock in the morning. As she did not return, her master set out to find her, and discovered her body near the village, lying by a path in the fields. The corpse was frightfully mutilated with numerous wounds. The intestines and genitals had been torn from the open body, and were found near by. The nakedness of the body and erosions on the thighs made it seem probable that there had been , an attempt at rape; the mouth, filled with earth, pointed to suffocation. In the neighbourhood of the body, under a pile of straw, were found a portion of flesh torn from the right calf, and pieces of clothing. The perpetrator of the deed remained undiscovered.
On 28th August, 1871, a married woman, Frigeni, aged twenty-eight, set out into the fields early in the morning. As she did not return by eight o'clock, her husband started out to fetch her. He found her a corpse, lying naked in the field, with the mark of a thong around her neck, with which she had been strangled, and with numerous wounds. The abdomen had been ripped open, and the intestines were hanging out.
On August 29th, at noon, as Maria Previtali, aged nineteen, went through a field, she was followed by her cousin, Verzeni. He dragged her into a field of grain, threw her to the ground and began to choke her. As he let go of her for a moment to ascertain whether any one was near, the girl got up and, by her supplicating entreaty, induced Verzeni to let her go, after he had pressed her hands together for some time.
Verzeni was brought before a court. He was then twenty-two years old. Cranium of more than average size, but asymmetrical. The right frontal bone narrower and lower than the left, the right frontal prominence being less developed, and the right ear smaller than the left (by 1 centimetre in length and 3 centimetres in breadth) ; both ears defective in the inferior half of the helix; the right temporal artery somewhat atheromatous. Bull-necked; enormous development of the zygomw and inferior maxilla; penis greatly developed, frcenum wanting; slight divergent alternating strabismus (insufficiency of the internal rectus muscle, and myopia). Lombroso concluded from these signs of degeneration, that there was a congenital arrest of development of the right frontal bone. As seemed probable, Verzeni had a bad ancestry—two uncles were cretins; a third, microcephalic, beardless, one testicle wanting, the other atrophic. The father showed traces of pellagrous degeneration, and had an attack of hypochondria pellagrosa. A cousin suffered from cerebral hyperaemia; another was a confirmed thief.


Verzeni's family was bigoted and low-minded. He himself had ordinary intelligence; knew how to defend himself well; sought to prove an alibi and cast suspicion on others. There was nothing in his past that pointed to mental disease, but his character was peculiar. He was silent and inclined to be solitary. In prison he was cynical. He masturbated, and made every effort to gain sight of women.
Verzeni finally confessed his deeds and their motive. The commission of them gave him an indescribably pleasant (lustful) feeling, which was accompanied by erection and ejaculation. As soon as he had grasped his victim by the neck, sexual sensations were experienced. It was entirely the same to him, with reference to these sensations, whether the women were old, young, ugly, or beautiful. Usually, simply choking them had satisfied him, and he then had allowed his victims to live; in the two cases mentioned, the sexual satisfaction was delayed, and he had continued to choke them until they died. The gratification experienced in this garrotting was greater than in masturbation. The abrasions of the skin on Motta's thighs were produced by his teeth, whilst sucking her blood in most intense lustful pleasure. He had torn out a piece of flesh from her calf and taken it with him to roast at home; but on the way he hid it under the strawstack, for fear his mother might suspect him. He also carried pieces of the clothing and intestines some distance, because it gave him great pleasure to smell and touch them. The strength which he possessed in these moments of intense lustful pleasure was enormous. He had never been a fool; while committing his deeds he saw nothing around him (apparently as a result of intense sexual excitement, annihilation of perception—instinctive action). After such acts he was always very happy, enjoying a feeling of great satisfaction. He had never had pangs of conscience. It had never occurred to him to touch the genitals of the martyred women, or to violate his victims. It had satisfied him to throttle them and suck their blood. These statements of this modern vampire seem to rest on truth. Normal sexual impulses seem to have remained foreign to him. Two sweethearts that he had, he was satisfied to look at; it was very strange to him that he had no inclination to strangle them or press their hands, but he had not had the same pleasure with them as with his victims. There was no trace of moral sense, remorse and the like.


Verzeni said himself that it would be a good thing if he were to be kept in prison, because with freedom he could not resist his impulses. Verzeni was sentenced to imprisonment for life (Lombroso, "Verzeni e Agnoletti," Rome, 1873). The confessions which Verzeni made after his sentence are interesting:—
"I had an unspeakable delight in strangling women, experiencing during the act erections and real sexual pleasure. It was even a pleasure only to smell female clothing. The feeling of pleasure while strangling them was much greater than that which I experienced while masturbating. I took great delight in drinking Motta's blood. It also gave me the greatest pleasure to pull the hair-pins out of the hair of my victims.
"I took the clothing and intestines, because of the pleasure it gave me to smell and touch them. At last my mother came to suspect me, because she noticed spots of semen on my shirt after each murder or attempt at one. I am not crazy, but in the moment of strangling my victims I saw nothing else. After the commission of the deeds I was satisfied and felt well. It never occurred to me to touch or look at the genitals or such things. It satisfied me to seize the women by the neck and suck their blood. To this very day I am ignorant of how a woman is formed. During the strangling and after it, I pressed myself on the entire body without thinking of one part more than another."


Verzeni arrived at his perverse acts quite independently, after having noticed, when he was twelve years old, that he experienced a peculiar feeling of pleasure Avhile wringing the necks of chickens. After this he had often killed great numbers of them and then said that a weasel had been in the hen-coop (Lorribroso, "Goltdammers Archiv," Bd. xxx., p. 13).
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[Stephen Thomas]

If a person with extremely perverted inclinations were to read 'Psychopathia Sexualis' c. 1888, it might not only give them ideas but might serve in a weird way to confirm for them that they weren't the only one in the world with those strange desires and impulses...

I think that that's the way it is, Archaic, and why such stuff was kept well away from 'ordinary' people until Pandora's Box got opened in the 1960s in the name of freedom.

[Archaic]

'A Case of Ideational Sadism (Sexual Perversion)', 1896

Hi everyone. I posted this 1896 Boston Medical Journal article back in December, but as it's highly pertinent to this thread I decided to post a transcription of it here. It's a very well written piece that specifically mentions subjects we are discussing: the Whitechapel Murders and the taking of 'trophies', the crimes of Verzeni, the problem of understanding motive in crimes involving sexual mutilation, etc.


>>Aug. 20, 1896 Boston Medical & Surgical Journal

"A CASE OF IDEATIONAL SADISM (SEXUAL PERVERSION).
BY MORTON PRINCE, M.D.,
Physician for Nervous Diseases, Boston City Hospital.

By Sadism is meant the association of active cruelty and violence with lust. By this association the performance of an act which is repulsive to the ordinary person, such as the infliction of torture or pain, the shedding of blood, the tearing of flesh, etc., directly excites intense lustful feelings in the individual. The name is derived from the "notorious Marquis de Sade, whose obscene novels treated of lust and cruelty." This perversion of the sexual instinct is the exciting motive of many notorious murders. The Whitechapel murderer was undoubtedly the subject of Sadism. Similar instances are well known and may be found described in the literature.

The subject is an important one from a medico-legal point of view, as well as of psychological interest ; and it is desirable that the motives leading to crimes of this kind should be thoroughly recognized. Lust murders, not murders for the purpose of concealing or committing rape, but violence and murder for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement in the murderer, are probably more common than is generally supposed. The sexually exciting element in such cases, is the sight or smell of blood, or the cutting, tearing or mutilation of the victim's flesh. Verzeui found, as he confessed, unspeakable delight in strangling women, experiencing during the act erections and real sexual pleasure. Some find delight in actually eating the flesh or drinking the blood (Leger, Verzeni- -). Sometimes special pleasure is found in cutting or tearing out the uterus, ovaries and genitalia which are carried away (Whitechapel murderer), but this is not always the case, and the victims are not mutilated in this respect.
A similar perversion is found in the excitement which some have in harmlessly cutting, beating or whipping women and boys. A case has been brought to my attention of a man who was in the habit of visiting a prostitute whom he used to strike over the nates with a shingle. No coitus was indulged in.

In the following case, for the observation of which I am indebted to Dr. Harold Williams, with whom I saw the boy in consultation, the sexual perversion was fortunately not gratified by actual violence, but was limited to the excitement which the subject intentionally induced in himself by dreams and probably hallucinations of violence and murder. The association was between lust on the one hand and volitionally-induced hallucinations of murder and mutilation of women on the other. Hence it might be called ideational Sadism. The case is, I think, unique in this respect. It only needed perhaps, the opportunity, perhaps a sudden impulse or thought to convert this embryo Sadist into an actual murderer. That such possibilities made him dangerous to the community is self-evident.

The subject was a young man, twenty-two years of age. When I saw him this sexual perversion was unsuspected, nor were the other symptoms of insanity clearly recognized by the family. His condition had been regarded (before coming into Dr. Williams' hands) as one of neurasthenia or hysteria. The diagnosis of some near relatives had been general laziness, with the usual corresponding advice to the mother, who recognized in a general way that the boy was not right. The fact that the boy had concealed his mental condition so long is noteworthy. After considerable difficulty I obtained a complete confession.

It was his custom to lie upon the bed in the daytime and fall into a sort of trance or day-dream state in which he was apparently between waking and sleeping. He said he thought he was awake because if any one should knock on the door or come into the гoom he would know it. While in this state he used to imagine that he killed and mutilated women. It was not possible to learn from him the exact mode in which this habit began, or what was the original exciting occasion, but his imagination began in a moderate way and afterward extended. At first, it was only a single woman whom he imagined he thus mutilated, but afterward in each " seance " he destroyed great numbers. His imagination seems to have created actual hallucinations, for he said that at these times he actually saw his victims with great vividness as objective realities, and had the sensations of actually killing them ; for the time being his acts were absolutely real to him, and soon a belief in them persisted.

At first it was a single girl whom he mutilated ; he killed her, tore her to pieces and ate her; later he imagined that he lived in towns where it was the custom for the men to destroy all the women in this way. Then, as the habit grew, the towns became cities and the cities countries. These countries were completely depopulated of the women by the men, all of whom together held these Sadistic feasts.

While indulging in these dreams or hallucinations, he had most intense sexual excitement with emissions. His habit was thus a form of masturbation, the peculiarity being the association of sexual feeling with hallucinations of cruelty. When in the waking state he seemed to be at times confused as to whether he actually committed these imaginary murders or not ; for while at one time he said he had not, at other times there was sufficient confusion in his mind to make him think that he had committed these unpardonable sins and to be in great misery in consequence; he would then be in a state of great penitence which was not understood by his mother until this confession was obtained. He also admitted to me that at times he thought he had actually committed these acts. He had practiced this habit from the time he was ten years old until about twenty, that is, up to about two or three years ago. During the last two years this habit had largely died out but there has been of late (September, 1895) a tendency to recurrence. It was apparent that such a person was dangerous to the community and that at any time there was a possibility, under favorable conditions, that he might put what had hitherto been pure imagination into actual practice; we therefore sent him to an asylum without delay. He denied that in mutilating the bodies of his victims that he selected any particular parts of the body, as is the case with many Sadists.

Besides these perverted sexual tendencies there were other mental and physical phenomena of interest which showed that his mental condition was one of degeneration. He had practiced masturbation frequently in the ordinary way. It was very difficult, at first, to obtain from him a statement of his feelings and thoughts ; he became very easily tired and exhausted when interrogated, and every few minutes, when a question was put to him he would remain silent and make no attempt to answer; when asked why he did not answer he professed not to hear the question or at least not to hear it intelligently but merely as sounds which conveyed no meaning to his mind (word deafness ? ); at first I thought this a subterfuge to avoid answering pointed questions, but afterwards I became satisfied that it was a fact; for every few minutes he would go into a semi-trance-like state of only a few seconds' duration when he seemed to be in a condition much like that of petit mal. In these states he seemed to be no longer in association with the outer world but given over to a sort of union with an inner consciousness. Questions put to him at that time were not understood, but after a moment's silence he would say, " I did not hear that."

These momentary trance-like states increased in frequency as the interview was prolonged, until at the end of an hour it was impossible to carry the examination further. He then became very much fatigued and was obliged to lie down. The explanation of them I soon learned to be as follows: He thought there was an evil being or demon inside of him, and with this being he was continually contending. This evil one was trying to get control of him, and it was he who was urging him to do all sorts of things that he did not want to do ; and when he did such things it was the evil one, not he, who did them. He was confused regarding the character of this person ; but he, the evil being, was without sentiment, pity or feeling; his sole desire was to do him injury. When the patient did any wrongful act it was the being that was responsible, but as yet this being had not got absolute control of him. The boy said that he was losing his control over his demon, and was afraid he would be eventually overpowered. The ideas of the patient regarding the relations of this demon to himself were not clear, but confused, as were also his notions regarding his own ideas and those of the demon ; it was difficult for him to distinguish what were his and what were the demon's, and even to clearly define his own notions in a logical way.

When I asked him what he thought was the matter with himself, whether he had any particular hallucinations, fixed ideas, or mental impulses, he said he did not know, he could not remember; this evil one had them, not he; he was willing to tell if he could, but he knew nothing. He heard a voice at times, but was not quite certain whether the voice was that of the evil one speaking to him or the voice of a third person was speaking to the evil one as a separate person. On one occasion, ten days before my first interview, he heard a voice saying it was his duty to God to kill his mother; then be broke off all relation with tbis being. When 1 asked whether he was not afraid that this being would compel him to do some wrong act, be answered, " No," because when the demon went too far he broke off all relation with him and had nothing to do with him, and in this way felt himself safe. Now it was when he went into the above-described trance-like states, when he did not hear me, that he entered into communication with the evil one. At such times, he said the room seemed to become slightly darker, or rather he saw a sort of dark object, which was the evil one between him and the light; then, he said he "poked and jabbed this demon." '.I his seemed to be a way of punishing him. 1 noticed at such times his eyelids blinked or quivered continuously and a sense of exhaustion came over him. When this state passed off he would say, "There, I jabbed him." When I asked him if this demon was a real person or only a figure of speech, he found difficulty in explaining, but said it was his "environment." He evidently had no clear conception of this person.
Another perverted idea of the patient was that he was turned inside out.

His general condition was one of neurasthenia. He had much depression and suffered from great anguish of mind from which he broke down and cried at times, saying that he "suffered intensely," but could not describe very definitely from what particular feelings; it seemed to be more an anguish of mind. His heredity is bad, and throws light upon the distinctively degenerate character of his mental condition. His mother was excessively neurasthenic. One maternal aunt was described as nervous, with abnormally fixed ideas on certain social subjects, and two maternal aunts suffered from hysteria. A maternal brother was delicate and always on the point of breaking down. His maternal grandfather was a very able and physically strong man, with decided elements of genius. He is well known to the public, and recognized to be very brilliant mentally, but a man of very extreme opinions. Up to the age of forty he bad a tendency to melancholia. The maternal grandmother was neuralgic, ailing, neurasthenic. The patient's father was eccentric and a dipsomaniac. One paternal aunt was well; a second was described as having a bad temper and at one time as having had delirium (about this my notes are confused). A third had hysteria. Two cousins, sons of the second paternal aunt, both drank to excess. The first paternal aunt had four children; of these, one had some sort of puerperal insanity, from which she recovered. Two paternal uncles are said to have died of dissipation.
The early history of this patient is interesting, as showing the progressive physical descent (facilis descensus averni) of such a case. Since two years of age always more or less out of order; five years of age, attacks of nausea, vomiting and headache with fever, delirium alternating with coma; these attacks were followed by excessive prostration and weakness slow recovery from weakness which persisted until the next attack, which occurred at the end of about one mouth; he lost flesh and his temper became irritable, so that he became violently excited and enraged over little things.

Several eminent physicians of New York were consulted. One said that he was unable to make a diagnosis. A second said it was brain disease ; and a third said it was lithemia from the liver. Accordingly he was treated, for this last, with calomel, with the apparent results that after this he had no more attacks but only premonitory signs which were always stopped by calomel.

The patient was then taken from New York to the seaside. He is said to have always become ill whenever taken back to New York, that is, lost flesh and color and looked sick ; became well again when taken back to the seaside; accordingly experiments of living in different parts of the country in search of health during his boyhood were tried. He has always been unable to study any length of time, fifteen minutes having been the longest time during which he has been able to concentrate his thoughts ; if he studies for a longer time at one stretch be becomes pale, and it is evident something is wrong with him.
At twelve years of age he went to school; at first he was well, then went down hill but did good work. In the spring he became ill, so that finally, after numerous attempts, school was given up and he went back to the seashore, where he became strong and rugged. Five years ago he passed his preliminary examinations for the Institute of Technology, having in spite of the above difficulties for the most part educated himself. Four years ago a trip was made to Europe ; this was a failure. Relatives strongly advised his being put into business, so three years ago he went to California on a ranch ; there became melancholy, inert and unequal to the physical exertion necessary; be was obliged to give up the ranch and went to the Pacific Coast, where he sailed all the time and became better. Then he tried looking after bis property as an occupation, but found the necessary mental exertion too exhausting. Then in the summer of 1893, upon the advice of relatives, who insisted that bis whole trouble was merely indolence, he went into a newspaper office, where he again broke down.

In the autumn of 1893 he went to Florida, where he improved ; but the following Christmas he broke down, and has been ill ever since with periods of intermission when be is comparatively better and has fair health. Further, his mother states she noticed his personality has changed, which is manifest in his voice, manner of speech and actions. He has giddy turns and his mind becomes possessed with thoughts he cannot direct. In the spring of 1894 his mother said " he wanted to attack people," a bell-boy, for example, in the hotel. In the spring of 1895, while in Europe, he bad a strong desire for suicide, fell into fits of deep depression of days' and weeks' duration. His present condition, as observed by the mother (in September, 1895), was one of depression, debility, languor, slowness of bearing and speech and mental action, inertia and lack of interest in everything. He has told her that he has committed a great sin and that be is going crazy. This refers to the hallucinations of Sadism ; further particulars he did not confess.

Certain physical stigmata can be recognized. He is of average physical development, but there is an asymmetry in the two sides of the face, that is, the muscles of one side move more energetically than those of the other so that when he smiles the mouth is drawn more to the right. The vault of the pharynx is high. The fingers do not show what some writers claim to be the relative proper development, some being too short."


If you would like to see this piece in its original form as a journal article or view the previous discussion, here's a link to that thread: http://forum.casebook.org/showthread...edical+Journal

Best regards,
Archaic