European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 30, 1981, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Violent crimes by Steve Wilson associated press police said Francis Hoben clubbed his Mother and sister to death with a baseball and that Marianne Teruel killed her husband and two teenage daughters with a Daryl according to shoved his wife to her death from a third floor James and Patricia Nassar told authorities they abandoned their starving 2yearold son on the Steps of a Church and threw out the body of their infant daughter with the but none of these people went to prison or the exec they went to mental there among a growing number of defendants who successfully use insanity As a Park assistant psychiatry professor at Harvard medical says there were at least 48 acquittals by reason of insanity in Massachusetts in compared to Between one and 10 a decade there is no question some states Are seeing a dramatic increase in the use of the insanity Dietz it is being used More and More for less serious offences even insanity defences often attract much Public attention and they frequently involve spectacular crimes it is reported that the accused killer of John the former will plead insanity and in some they end for two Days before Christmas he beat his 79yearold Mother and 46yearold sister with a baseball then stabbed them at their Home in investigators Hobens Leonard said Hoben thought mobsters were going to Kidnap and torture his relatives so he had to kill them to spare Hoben was acquitted by reason of insanity and committed to a state last state psychiatrists testified his mental health was in stable Remis and he was released from Northampton state Hospital on seventeen Days in his Small room at a lodging he Slit his Throat with a Kitchen knife and shot her and their two teenage daughters As they slept in their Home in police a Superior court jury acquitted her by reason of insanity on three counts of first degree Teruel was sent to Westboro state but she last september she was found dead in a car in police termed the death apparent suicide by Carbon monoxide the Nassar Case Drew widespread at first because it involved tragic deaths of Young children and again when authorities proposed granting virtual Freedom to the the 24yearold disinherited heiress to the Burns International detective Agency and told police they received orders from god to abandon their 2yearold son the boy was found wrapped in a ski Parka on the Steps of a Western Massachusetts Church on and pronounced dead at a doctors said he had been 5monthold Elizabeth Nassar died in her crib at the couples Cambridge the Kassars said they put the infants body in a trash bag and dumped it in a garbage the body was never a 3yearold has been placed in Foster and a fourth was released for psychiatrists testified the couple suffered from Para noid compounded by a rare Case of self reinforcing double the Kassars were charged with manslaughter and child neglect but claimed Insani they have been found innocent of All last state psychiatrists said they were ready for Hampden Superior court judge John Moriarity ruled both were still mentally ill but should be freed to be treated As Berkshire county District attorney Anthony Roberto wanted the Kassars to remain hospitalized but finally recommended the unusual outside treatment we Are better off with an outpatient commitment than no commitment at he but i still cant understand the january 1981 the Kassars have not yet been authorities say they Are concerned for the couples reportedly because of threats made against in Hess was tried in the death of his who plunged to her death from a porch in Brookline last he was found innocent by reason of insanity and sent to a state mental health Center for six the growth of insanity defences places increasing Bur Dens on were not Fortune says we have no special skills to determine whether someone is ready to be some critics want the insanity defense abolished or we have a responsibility to the other citizens to satisfy the to show there is rhyme and reason to our criminal says Abraham clinical psychiatry professor at new York medical Hal pern has Long opposed what he Calls the inanity de Henry Steadman of the department of mental Hygiene in new York state is conducting a study on the insanity defense in six including the Only kind of conclusion so far in All six states is there is great concern about How to treat and detain people acquitted in insanity he they Are consistently seen As a problematic the Public is afraid of them it becomes a real dilemma whether these people belong in the mental health system or the correctional system or whether there should be a third but Akin Harvard Law professor and noted civil liberties says the insanity de sense wont no one could conceive of convicting someone who thought he was strangling a Dershowitz we will never have a completely satisfactory in sanity we May try to change it or eliminate but the insanity defense is Here to we cant live with it or without the stars and stripes Page 13