Mad or Bad? This presentation looks at two famous cases from the twentieth century: John George Haigh, “The Acid Bath Murderer”, committed six murders between 1944 and 1949, and, following his arrest, claimed to have killed three other people. At his trial, defence counsel called a number of witnesses to testify in support of a plea of insanity. At his trial in 1981, the “Yorkshire Ripper” pleaded not guilty to thirteen counts of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of insanity. How could a jury determine whether these two men were responsible for their own actions?
Spree killers: what makes them snap? This presentation examines a number of spree killers from both the United States and the UK in an attempt to determine what motivates someone to engage in a sudden murderous campaign. Is there some common psychological reason, or could there be an explanation based on the malfunctioning of some primitive part of the brain?
Why do eye-witnesses get it so wrong? Most people would probably think that an eye witness to a crime would provide strong evidence to a court of law. In fact, there have been hundreds of cases where innocent people have been convicted of murder based on eye-witness testimony. This presentation examines one such case in detail, and demonstrates how it led to significant changes in police procedures.
Why do people confess to crimes they didn’t commit? A man was executed in 1936 for the kidnapping and murder of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son, but since then more than 200 people have claimed they were responsible. There are many other cases where people confess to having committed a crime which took place before they were born. More recently, in the UK, there have been a number of miscarriages of justice based on confessions, perhaps the most notorious the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. This presentation focuses on personality traits and police procedures to develop an explanation of these cases, and explains how law enforcement procedures have been radically revised in recent years to avoid such cases happening again.
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