Murder for Sanity

Ten years ago, a gentle, dark-eyed boy of 17 stabbed his mother 32 times with a bread knife. He was quite intelligent: he worked night & day, in school, in a bakery and tending his fatherless brothers and sisters. Everyone in the neighborhood liked and respected him.

Why did Gino kill his mother? This problem intrigued famed Manhattan Psychiatrist Frederic Wertham. He had examined many insane murderers*, but Gino fitted none of the classic descriptions. Besides, matricide is probably the rarest form of murder. This week, in a fascinating popular book, Dr. Wertham revealed the secret of Gino's personality (Dark Legend: A Study in Murder; Duell, Sloan & Pearce; $2.75).

Gino's tragedy, Dr. Wertham discovered, paralleled almost exactly the old Greek myth of Orestes, the prince who killed his mother, was later pursued by the Furies. (The doctor also introduced a unique, well-documented interpretation of Hamlet: his main ambition, too, was to kill his mother.)

Gino's parents were Italian, very affectionate to each other and their children. But after Gino's father died, his mother changed. She neglected her children, had an affair with their uncle Aiello (Hamlet's Claudius), who used to beat them. Although Gino hated Aiello, he did not retaliate, for in his mind only his mother was guilty. After Aiello, his mother became promiscuous.

When he was eleven, Gino determined to kill her. After six years of wrestling with his inhibitions, he rushed into her bedroom with the knife. As soon as he killed her, he felt relief from tremendous tension.

Obvious to amateur Freudians is the fact that Gino had an Oedipus complex, was in love with his mother. He was prudish toward girls, shied away from sex experience. But, contrary to Freud's definition, he did not consider his father a rival--in fact he identified himself with him as the head of the family, and had the same feelings as a jealous husband.

Such a complex, of course, does not explain the act of murder. Many men, says Dr. Wertham, have matricidal impulses, never translate them into action. Instead they bury the desire in their subconscious, develop compulsion neuroses--a morbid dread of knives, persistent symbolic hand-washing, etc. If he had had a tendency toward ordinary forms of insanity, Gino might have killed himself instead of his mother. Or he might have withdrawn to the world of fantasy, developed schizophrenia.

Instead, not understanding his powerful sex urge, he convinced himself that his mother had disgraced the family honor. He had been brought up among people who consider it right to punish someone who disgraces the family--Gino never thought he was doing wrong.

Dr. Wertham's conclusion: Gino's murder of his mother was a safety valve, an act to preserve his sanity. If he had not killed his mother, he would have gone mad. Said the doctor: "Gino acted like a man who cuts off his arm to escape blood poisoning. By the cruel deed, he eradicated his own mother-complex." Such a violent act to release a neurosis Dr. Wertham calls "catathymic crisis." It accounts, says he, for many murders committed by otherwise sane persons. After the temporary aberration they may have a good chance of returning to sanity again.

Gino was declared legally insane, committed to an asylum. After a profound inner readjustment, he came to realize the nature of his crime. Today he is "a normal young man in his twenties." His ambition: "to spend an afternoon at Coney Island--with a girl."

Last week, Dr. Wertham was rewarded for his efforts: Gino was declared sane, will be released this month.

*Some of Dr. Wertham's notorious patients: Sculptor Robert Irwin, who killed three persons in a fit of jealousy; Albert Fish, who tortured and killed several children; Gunman Martin Lavin.

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