Shell Shocked Soldier Hallucinates Murders
Carolyn Scopino
On November 1, 1921, Daniel Cleary was arrested for attempting to assault his roommate with a razor blade in Nyack, New York. Upon further investigation, two letters were found in his room, one of which was addressed to a local newspaper, The Liberty Reader, in which he confessed to the murders of a women and her two kids in Liberty, N.Y. Police also recovered another letter in which he confessed to the murder of a man named Thomas McCafferty in Ottawa, Canada. Also found in his room was his passport which contained a photo of Cleary but was made out to the name of “Daniel Hughes.” His identification described him as a member of the Seventy-third Regiment and a military veteran. According to military records, Cleary/Hughes was a victim of shell shock, and officials began to question the legitimacy of the confessional letters. The Chief of Police in Liberty said there had not been any reports of a woman and two kids being murdered in recent years. The cops believed that Daniel Cleary/Hughes made it all up.
The medical field was overwhelmed and unequipped to handle the influx of war veterans suffering from “shell shock” during and after World War I. Since shell shock was not a physical injury, it was challenging to categorize and find adequate treatments. Symptoms of shell shock included, but were not limited to fatigue, tremors, confusion, nightmares, and impaired sight and hearing. Shell shock was originally viewed as cause by a head injury or toxic exposure. Doctors understood it as related to a hereditary disorder, lack of discipline, weakness, and “careless recruiting procedures that had not weeded out unsuitables”. Eventually most military psychologist and medical professionals agreed that the actual cause of shell shock was “the emotional disturbance produced by warfare itself, by chronic conditions of fear, tension, horror disgust and grief”. Victims of shell shock had to undergo unusual treatments, such as electro shock therapy, in an effort to diminish their psychological trauma. Unfortunately, these treatments did very little to alleviate their symptoms.
Few post-war services were offered to veterans and the transition from trench life to civilian life proved to be difficult. “Soldiers with unseen, psychological wounds were re-evaluated upon their arrival and if deemed “incurable”, they were sent to Army hospitals with special neuropsychiatric wards for a maximum of four months”. “After four months, the Army ceased efforts to cure the solider and handed him over to the Bureau of War Risk Insurance to be sent to either a federally operated hospital or public asylum for long-term accommodations”. Many soldiers who suffered from shell shock remained uncured and spent the rest of their lives institutionalized. It remains unknown what ever happened with Cleary.
Primary source:
“Letters Say Man Here Is Murderer,” Nyack Evening Journal, 1 November 1921, Front Page
Secondary source:
Jones, Edgar. “Shell Shocked.” Monitor on Psychology 46, no. 6 (2012): 18
Jones, Edgar, et al. “Shell Shocked and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Historical Review” The American Journal of Psychiatry 164, no. 11 (2007): 1641-45 doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2007.07071180
Showalter, Elaine. “Male Hysteria: W.H.R. Rivers and the Lessons of Shell Shock.” The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
Stagner, Anessa C. “Representations of Shell Shock in the USA During and After the First World War.” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 2 (2014): 266
Image credit:
“Sunshine room in an American Hospital furnished by the American Red Cross,” June 1918, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-anrc-09120 (digital file from original), https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017674898/