Pathology of Lying, Etc.

W >> William and Mary Healy >> Pathology of Lying, Etc.

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Our attention was first called to this girl when a number of
court people were trying to solve the mystery. She had been
arrested for shoplifting and her curious attitude and statements
had made some believe she was not quite right mentally. Once
before she had been detected stealing things in a shop. One of
her remarkable statements this last time was that her parents
were implicated in the thieving and she named certain stolen
articles which might be found at their home. She went with the
detectives and accused her ``mother'' of wearing a dress which
she, Edna, had stolen. The woman was forced to give up the dress
and other articles, but it was found later that these goods had
been actually bought and paid for by the parents. Later it was
found that the woman was a party to the girl's stealing and this
made the girl's story seem all the more strange, for if she were
going to involve the people at all why did she not pick out the
actually stolen articles? However, long study of the case
brought out the fact that this type of statement was a
characteristic of Edna's. Her word on even important points was
absolutely unreliable and her own interests were frequently
thwarted by her prevarications.

The case in its different aspects came up in court again and
again until finally most of the truth was ascertained, enough to
justify radical measures being undertaken. During this period
the mother was discovered to be an atrocious liar; even with her
last bitter confession that all she had said about her motherhood
had been untrue, she manufactured more quite unnecessary
falsehoods. In the meantime the family physician and the family
lawyer had both informed me of the peculiar mysteries of the case
and of the perfect mass of lies into which the statements of both
mother and daughter led. This sort of thing had been going on
for years. It is of no small interest to note that the woman was
greatly over-dressed and made up. On numerous occasions she
appealed to us to study the girl and find out why she lied so
much and why she had such an inclination to steal, in the
meantime attempting to fill us up with many inventions about the
girl's antecedents.

Physical examination showed a perfectly normally developed girl.
No sensory defects. Pleasant features. Well shaped head.
Weight 101 lbs; height 5 ft. 1 in. We found no hysterical
stigmata. Menstruation had first occurred at 14. No trouble or
irregularity was reported. We learn the girl has never had any
serious illness. She herself told of fainting spells after being
whipped and so on, but these were undoubtedly falsifications.
The family physician informed us he had operated on the girl for
appendicitis about three months previous to the time we first saw
her. He had found some evidences of an old appendiceal
inflammation, but it is quite likely from the various accounts
which we heard that her symptoms recounted to him were largely
fabrication and that the signs which he found, at least in their
excessive phases, were partly deceptions. The most important
point for the court proceedings was his findings that the girl
had never been sexually tampered with and had no local disease.
At the time when we knew Edna she was being treated for a local
infection which must have been recent and superficial, for it
rapidly subsided.

We had ample opportunity to test Edna's ability and found it
quite normal. She had been out of school much and had been
careless in general about her education, but she had finally
finished the grammar school. A long list of tests was done
almost uniformly well. Where a prolonged task which required
concentration was asked, Edna was inclined to work carelessly,
but in general her capacities proved to be decidedly good. She
was accustomed to read nothing but the lightest literature and
fairy stories and her interests were of the superficial sort.
Neither in powers of imagery or imagination, nor by anything else
ascertained about her mental abilities did we come to know of any
point of special bearing upon her behavior.

On the ``Aussage'' picture test, she gave only 12 details, all
correct, on free recital. Upon questioning she gave 28 more
items and almost the only variation from accuracy was in respect
to the colors. Evidently she let her fancy run when she could
not remember correctly; through this she got 6 items incorrect.
She readily accepted 3 out of 4 suggestions.

Our earliest impressions of Edna state that she seemed much
confused in her stories and in her manner of telling them,
leaving sentences unfinished and trying to explain
inconsistencies by other inconsistencies. At this time she was
referring constantly to her doubts about her age, her family, and
her origin. She then seemed highly suspicious of every one and
talked of suicide. However, when she was showing these signs she
could be diverted, for she worked with much pleasure at the
tests, particularly certain memory tests on which she did well.

On account of the difficulties of the solution of this case under
the law considerable time and effort were spent in looking up her
record. It was found that some years ago Edna had run away from
home and there was a newspaper article published about her. Even
at that time an officer who went to the home was unable to
ascertain the truth in the case. The family had frequently moved
and the mother asserted it was because of the bad reputation
which the girl's actions had given them. The neighbors
complained of the cruelty of the parents to Edna, but this meant
only the whippings which the mother had given her. By all
accounts the father was a good man who insisted that affairs
between his wife and Edna were not his own. (Edna always
maintained that this man had been unusually good to her, although
she so strangely made in court the false accusations of prolonged
sex immorality on his part and reiterated these statements even
to us. It was not until many months afterward that she
acknowledged the falsity of her accusations, although we knew
from her physician that they were not true.)

The first time Edna was in court was when she was about 14 years
old. At that time she had been observed by a department store
detective stealing hosiery and a bracelet. She perceived she was
being shadowed and walked up to the counter and ordered some
children's garments, having them charged and sent to a fictitious
name and address. The detective thought this a masterpiece of
slyness, this endeavor to throw them off the track. Since the
family, who really kept an account at this store, appealed to the
manager to have Edna let off as it was an ordinary trick of a
growing girl, the charge was withdrawn. Detectives who had been
employed from a private agency made a very poor showing on
getting at the real facts. The husband was doing well in his
business and there never seemed to be any reason to suspect his
wife of being directly or indirectly connected with the
shoplifting. Earlier there was some intimation that Edna was not
the child of these people, but the persons who suggested this did
not know the true facts and were found to have a grudge against
the mother. In the meantime the latter had strongly maintained
her relationship.

It was months after this and just before we saw the case when a
detective, who had kept the case in mind, went to the house to
get the goods which Edna maintained had been stolen. There he
found the ``mother'' and another woman smoking and thought he
detected signs of their being drug habitues. Later, I myself
felt sure of this point, but we were never able to state to what
drug they were addicted. Edna frequently stated she had been
accustomed to buying morphine for these women, but her statements
about its appearance and its cost were so at variance with the
facts that though it is likely she had bought something of the
kind, yet no amount of inquiry brought out the definite facts.
The woman's appearance and her remarkable lack of veracity were
both highly suggestive of a drug habit.

In our several interviews with this woman we were amazed by her
strange self-contradictions. It was not only that she stated
something different from what she had said a week before, but
even at different times on the same day her statements would be
changed. Concerning her relationship to Edna she gave us the
facts of the girl's birth and laughed off the idea that she was
not the girl's mother. ``Why, I can remember every moment of my
pregnancy with her.'' It was anomalous that this woman had hired
a righteous man as a lawyer to represent her and the girl. This
attorney, consulting with me, soon came to the conclusion that
the only interest he would serve in the case was that of the
girl, and then only in the effort to save her from the miserable
influences of her mother.

Edna's school record was most peculiar. She had been frequently
changed on account of her dishonesty. In one sectarian school
she was said to steal all sorts of useless things--bits of
string, pieces of pencils, and articles no one else would want.
She also stole a two dollar bill from a grocery store; the
cashier followed her and recovered the money from her person
right there in the school. Edna always denied that she took
things. While in another school she had flowers sent to all the
teachers and the florist's bill was presented to her there. In
still another school she took a pair of shoes from a boy at
recess, wore these and left her old ones in the locker room. Her
word was everywhere recognized as being most unreliable.

After the case had long been in court and Edna still stoutly
maintained that she was not the child of these parents, but had
complicated her story by adding incidents which were known to be
untrue, such as her ``father's'' immorality with her, that there
had been another adopted child in the family, that even the
dishes the family used were stolen by her, and so on, the woman
came and suddenly blurted out that she herself had been lying all
along and that this was not her child. She then alleged the
parentage was so and so, but this matter was in turn looked up
and found to be false. It was adjudged that these people had
absolutely no parental rights, and then work was begun on
constructive measures of redeeming the girl if possible. It was
not long after this that the nurse came to us who had known the
girl's real mother in New York and who had taken charge of Edna
as an infant before her foster mother had taken her. It seems
that the mother was an American, that this child was
illegitimate. A few months after her birth the mother abandoned
her, became dissolute and is said to have since died.

Edna had run away from home on several occasions and slept in
hallways for a night or two at a time. She had not been sexually
immoral until just previous to our seeing her. Then while away
from home she had gone with a man to a hotel, and probably had
also been with boys. These were her first and last experiences
of the sort, but how much these affairs had been on her mind we
obtained some intimation of from herself.

``My mother took me to S's when I was 8 years old and told me to
take anything I could and I got into the habit of it. I can't
stop myself. I take anything I want. Mother said she would kill
me if I told the truth. I had to say lots of things that were
not so. I had to lie and say mother did not beat me, but she had
a horsewhip that was plaited, father burned it. Then they bought
a little one, but she beat me with a rubber hose and everything.
The first thing I think I stole was jewelry in a store down-town.
The woman I call `auntie' said if I would give her the goods she
would pay me for them.''

``My mother fixed it up that if she got the goods and got caught
she would get a clerk to make out receipts and get them stamped
paid. She has not done this yet, but I think she will in this
case.'' (This was a statement at the very first interview with
Edna and no doubt had reference to the fact that the mother could
produce receipted bills for the dress and other articles which
Edna had maintained to the detective she herself had stolen. Of
course the girl's story of this was untrue; the receipts were
genuine.)

``One of my sisters is adopted, but my father does not know it.
She ain't real. It was this way. When my pa was out west for a
year ma asked me to look in the papers for a baby and I looked
and found an advertisement about one. Ma said she must not be
redheaded because that ain't like the family. We went and got
her and ma went to bed for nine days and pretended it was her
baby. She took a shawl and gave the nurse $25 and made out
adoption papers. She took me with her. It was a month old. She
made me go and tell my aunt I had a little sister. My aunt said
it looked kind of big for 3 days old, but ma said she had been
keeping it in an incubator. She had padded herself out before,
and pretended it was her own child. Pa came home when it was six
months old and he loved the baby just like his own. I ain't
jealous, but it makes me sick to hear such lies.''

This alleged fact, reiterated to us and testified to in the
court, was in itself a source of the whole case being farther
followed up. The nurse was found who took care of Edna's
``mother'' during her confinement and it was found that Edna's
whole story was quite untrue. It was evidently an elaborate
fabrication representing the facts as they might have been about
Edna herself. The only part of it that was true was that one of
the younger children had been for a time in an incubator.

``Since I was 10 years old I have known about that. I have known
I was not her child. She said something that sounded queer to me
once when I ran away. It made me think she was not my mother.

``Why do I tell lies? I got started at it when I was small. She
used to make me tell lies to my father. I began to steal when I
was about 8 years old. My little sister has started to take
things already. She is only 4. I was trying to break her and
mother said, `Let her alone.'

``She's had about nine different servants. She never can keep
any. She used to make me forge letters. She made me sign a
girl's name to a receipt for wages which the girl never received.
The girl had no case against her because she had the receipts.
The poor girl lost it.

``I am going to tell the truth. There's going to be lots of
things come out. I am going to tell the judge I lied when I told
him I did not steal the things. Why did I lie? Well, she gave
me just one look and I knew what she would do to me when I got
home. Everything I told you about my father is the truth. Where
else would I get that disease? I was never allowed to go out
with boys.''

At another time when we inquired what bothered or worried her
more than anything else we obtained an account of her sex
repressions. Of course there would always be difficulty in
knowing just how true the details were but probably she gave us
the main factors in her mental life.

``I used to be out in the streets all the time. There were
hardly any houses around there then. I used to hear mother talk
about things. She would send me out of the room and say it was
not for me to hear. Then boys lived near me and they asked me to
do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on
the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it--what
my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it
enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet
are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always
come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If
she had explained it more it would not have come up that way. I
know a girl who does that thing. She's bad. She does it with
boys too. The people said so. When I was little I imagined
there were some bad girls. You can't tell, but you can guess a
little. That boy had lots of things. I don't know if he took
anything. It was when I was about 4 until I was 8 that I played
with him. These things never came up in my mind when I was
taking things. It was only when I was not busy. I was always
thinking about it when I haven't anything else to do. These few
little words were not enough to explain. I remember I asked my
aunt once. I tried to put things together what I heard, and what
words about it meant.''

The above excerpts from many interviews with this girl represent
points upon which there is the least contradiction. It is
obviously useless to give any more of her story because of the
variation from time to time. Even on the last occasion when we
talked earnestly to her before she was taken to her new home, she
lied to us about a number of points. Any attempt at an accurate
analysis of her impulse to steal seemed quite beyond the mark in
the light of her ever-ready fabrications.

The after-history of this case is of the utmost importance. A
woman of strong character took Edna and surrounded her with new
interests. Conference was had with us on the nature of the case.
For the next few months reports came that the girl was a liar
through and through and grave doubts were entertained of ultimate
success. It was after she had been tried in her new environment
for 3 months that, seeing us again, she confessed that her
stories about her foster father were absolutely untrue. From
about this time on there has been steady improvement. No more
elaborate fabrications have been indulged in. On several
occasions when Edna has been late from school she has lied about
it, but even that tendency for the last year has been nearly
obliterated. A good deal of interest in boys has been
maintained, but not with any show of immorality. There has been
nothing but normal flirting; accounting for the occasions when
Edna has been late from school.

At two or three periods during her new life Edna has engaged in
stealing. She has taken articles for which she had no particular
use and has told lies about the matter. The thieving has not
been a single event, but each time has seemed to represent a
state of mind she has been in, and for a week or so numerous
articles have been taken. We warned her good friend to make a
study of her social and mental influences at such periods. It
was found then that Edna was undergoing special stress on at
least one such occasion. A young man had been making up to her,
and later she confided that this given period was one of great
turmoil because of the renewed arousal of many ideas about sex
affairs. After this there was still more attempts to win Edna's
confidence about her daily experiences, including such as the
above. There has been the gradual development of character, and
Edna is now, two years after she was taken from her bad
environment, only very occasionally guilty of falsifying, and she
is otherwise trustworthy.

Our study of the causative factors of this girl's delinquency and
particularly of her extraordinary lying led us to see that
perhaps all of the following have a part: (a) Heredity. Father
unknown. Mother a free-living woman. (b) Home conditions.
Mental and moral bad influences in the home life on account of
the foster mother conniving at stealing and being herself an
extreme liar. (c) Psychic contagion from the atmosphere of lies
in which the girl has been brought up. (d) Mental conflict
arising from the suspicion of her parentage, early acquaintance
with sex knowledge, and the irregular morale of her home life.
(e) Bad companions, including her foster mother's friends, and
boys and girls.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Mental Conflict. Case 4.
Girl, age 15 yrs.
Home influences: Extremely bad, including
excessive lying.
Bad companions.
Heredity (?).
Delinquencies: Mentality:
Much stealing. (Shop lifting, etc.) Fair ability.
Excessive lying.
False accusations.
Sex immorality.
---------------------------------------------------------------

CASE 5

Summary: A young woman of 20, bright mentally, strong
physically, ``confessed'' to a professor of a university where
she was studying that she had shot and killed a man. The facts
were known to only three or four people and she was terribly
worried about it all. Upon her information the affair was taken
up by a group of professional men, one of them a lawyer of large
practical experience. She aided in an investigation which
attempted to uncover the ``white slave'' feature of the case.
The data of verification proved most elusive. Later, the young
woman implicated herself in a burglary, and altogether an
elaborate story of her life was evolved. It was found that from
early years she had been a great fabricator.

While a first year student at a university Marie M. begged for an
interview with one of her instructors at his home and there, with
him and others, she told a detailed story of how some months
previously she had escaped a difficult situation by killing a
man.

The exceedingly long account which was given at intervals to
several professional men and enlarged upon in response to
inquiry, or as the occasion otherwise demanded, we are not
justified in taking space to retell. This case figures, as a
whole, in somewhat anecdotal fashion among our others, we freely
confess; it is cited to show the extent to which apparently
purposeless fabrication can go. It has been found impossible to
gain a satisfactory idea of the genesis of this young woman's
tendency, quite in contrast to the other cases we have cited. It
forms the only instance where we have drawn from our experience
with merely partially studied cases.

Marie's story involved many items of her life since she was about
12 years of age. A distant relative who had come to know her
whereabouts (she was an orphan living with friends) figured
extensively in her narrative. This relative had hounded her in
an effort to get her to engage in an evil life. His attentions
varied greatly; sometimes for months she was not bothered with
him. Once when she was on her way to Milwaukee a gray haired man
approached her on the train, said he knew her relatives, they
were rather a bad lot of people, and he wanted to protect her
from them. Then came a long account of being driven in a
carriage, changing her clothes in a hotel, having her picture
taken in an immodest costume, signing a paper at police
headquarters, and, at last, safely returning home, all guided by
the mysterious gray haired man. Another trip led to an encounter
with a man who took her in an automobile under the promise of
meeting a friend. Entering a building where men carried
revolvers and girls were given hypodermic injections, just as she
was about to receive the needle in her arm, she reached the man's
revolver and shot him in the back. Events follow swiftly in her
tale, but all is thoroughly coherent, and a number of facts are
included which could be substantiated. The professional men
could not help being impressed and spent much valuable time
before they felt convinced that it was a fabrication. The exact
locations could not be discovered, but then Marie was a stranger
in the city.

When we saw her the whole story was reiterated with but few
changes, which, however, from the standpoint of testimony were
most important. We soon found we could get direct testimony on
physical features which were provably untrue. For instance, the
description of a certain hallway in a building where she had gone
with one of the men interested in the events was totally unlike
anything that existed there. Then, too, certain embellishments,
which by this time included the payment of a large check to her
as hush money, a check which she as easily gave away again,
seemed altogether improbable. Marie by this time was implicating
herself in a burglary with this relative, and some other curious
incidents were given. In all of these, as we later found, there
was a central event about which her statements MIGHT have been
true. There was such a burglary; she had said in previous years
that she was hounded by a man, and so on. We, too, were struck
by the uselessness and lack of purpose in the lying--for we soon
felt assured that it was such.

Physically we found Marie to be a decidedly good specimen. She
weighed about 140 lbs. Strong and firm in carriage. Vivacious
in expression. The physical examination at the university had
shown her to be without notable defect of any kind. We can
summarize Marie's characteristics by stating that from the
earliest age of which we can get satisfactory record, when she
was about 10 years old, she has been persistently addicted to
falsehoods. Even then she made up, without any basis, stories
which puzzled many people. It is much to the point that she has
been a great loser on account of this tendency; it has injured
her reputation on numerous occasions and destroyed many of her
good chances. When she was about 15 it was noticed that she was
a great day-dreamer. She thought she could write stories and
once began a novel. Much more peculiar than this was the fact
that she repeatedly wrote letters to her friends which were
simply a mass of fabrications, describing such things as
imaginary excursions.

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