Written by: Amy E. Seely
Researched by: Kirk Strohman and Dean Micknal
Edited by: Nick Caleb and Tracy Frazier
Managing Editor: Lauren E. Trent

Each October in the United States, grocery stores beef up their candy displays, and thrill-seekers go searching for the scariest movie, creepiest haunted house, or spookiest ghost story. Indeed, horror movies about the Devil and his minions, claiming to be “inspired by actual events” tend to fly off the shelves as All Hallows Eve approaches.

Although such real-life claims of demonic possession may be a touch more believable during this season of thrills and chills, during the rest of the year, most people have a hard time believing “evil spirits” can cause criminal behavior. This begs the question: once the body count is totaled, an arrest is made, and the evidence is collected, can a claim of “the Devil made me do it” ever act as a defense?

Dorothy Talbye and the Devil in Salem

Satan seems to have reared his ugly, horned head early in the development of American criminal jurisprudence.  In 1638, the Massachusetts Bay Colony hanged Dorothy Talbye for murdering her three-year-old daughter, Difficult Talbye, at the Devil’s direction. Puritan Governor John Winthrop recorded the facts of the sad tale, which predates the Salem witch trials by fifty years, in his journal:

[Talbye] had been a member of the church of Salem, and of good esteem for godliness, etc.; but, falling at difference with her husband, through melancholy and spiritual delusions, she sometimes attempted to kill him, and her children, and herself, by refusing meat, and saying it was so revealed to her. After much patience…the church cast her out…[B]ut soon after she was so possessed with Satan, that he persuaded her (by his delusions, which she listened to as revelations from God) to break the neck of her own child, that she might free it from future misery.

At trial, the court determined that although Mrs. Talbye thought she was hearing the voice of God, she actually killed her daughter while possessed by the Devil.  As American common law governed (which was based on English common law and largely influenced by the Bible), death was the only allowable punishment for the murder of Difficult Talbye. As insanity and mental illness were not considered mitigating factors for criminal behavior at that time, even if the Puritan court had found her to be insane, the punishment would have been the same. Although Mrs. Talbye never repented for her crime, she went to the gallows very unwillingly. Her hanging may be one of many early American executions of the mentally ill.

The demons made me…plead insanity?

The insanity defense did not come into being until more than 200 years later in the 1843 British murder case of Daniel M’Naghten, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity (alas, no demons were involved). Insanity is an “affirmative defense,” which, rather than claiming the defendant didn’t commit the crime, attempts to excuse the defendant’s behavior based on the fact that the defendant was insane at the time the crime was committed. The theory is that the defendant did not have the requisite intent to commit a crime because they either did not understand the act was wrong, or even if they did, they could not control their behavior. Therefore, if the punishment is to fit the crime, insane individuals should be sent to a mental health facility where they can receive care, rather than to prison, which is “unlikely to deter future antisocial conduct” in such cases.

Today, insanity pleas are rarely used, and even more rarely successful, as the required standard of proof is incredibly high. Additionally, an insanity plea can only be made with the defendant’s consent, and the defendant may refuse the defense so long as the rejection is intelligently and voluntarily made. The standard for proving legal insanity also differs from state to state, with some states banning the defense entirely.

DeFeo pulled the trigger, but the black hands gave him the gun

Few houses in the United States are as iconic and easily identifiable as the Amityville “House of Horror.” Many have read or seen the various books and movies about the alleged paranormal activity at 112 Ocean Avenue. Few are aware, however, of the criminal trial following the grisly murders of six members of the DeFeo family that occurred there. These murders would set the stage for one of America’s most recent claims of “the devil made me do it.”

On November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his mother, father, and four siblings while they slept in the family home. During his trial, DeFeo claimed that although he murdered his family, he wasn’t alone that night. As part of his insanity defense, he claimed that he’d heard voices telling him to kill, and that something outside of his control made him do it. He also stated that a figure with black hands handed him a rifle and followed him throughout the house as he killed his family. In what many critics have suggested was an attempt to shore up his insanity plea, however, DeFeo also claimed that he believed the voices he heard were messages from God, and alternatively that he actually was God. Despite his testimony, the jury did not believe that DeFeo was insane and instead found him guilty. Since his conviction, DeFeo has recanted much of his previous testimony, saying that he lied in an attempt to create a better insanity plea.  He is currently serving six life sentences in a New York prison, one for each of his murdered family members.

The demonic dog made me do it — The Son of Sam Killings

From 1976 to 1977, a killer stalked the streets of New York, taunting law enforcement and the media with claims that he was, among other things, Beelzebub, Mr. Monster, and the Son of Sam. When the police finally caught David Berkowitz, a.k.a. Son of Sam, six women were dead and seven others had been wounded. Interestingly, when asked why he committed the murders, Berkowitz claimed that although he pulled the trigger he was acting under the orders of something else. That “something” was Harvey, a neighbor’s black Labrador that Berkowitz believed was possessed by an ancient evil which constantly cried out for “blood and death.”

After his capture, the New York police searched Berkowitz’ apartment, finding phrases like “In this hole lives the Wicked King,” and “Kill for my Master” scrawled on the walls. Perhaps even creepier were Berkowitz’s admissions concerning his attempts to kill the possessed dog. In order to break its hold over him, he threw a molotov cocktail at it and finally shot it.  The dog survived all attempts on its life, helping Berkowitz to believe the animal was protected by supernatural forces.

Experts disagreed on whether Berkowitz was competent to stand trial for the murders he had committed. Psychiatrists for the defense diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. They believed that Berkowitz’s difficulties relating to people had caused him to be a loner, and that this isolation had provided a breeding ground for his demonic fantasies. Eventually, these fantasies “crowded out reality,” causing Berkowitz to live in a world full of demons, but the defense psychiatrists noted that his mental condition was improving with treatment. The prosecution’s psychiatrist, however, was unimpressed, concluding that “Berkowitz’s demons were ‘a conscious invention’ he was able to control, not a psychotic disorder which controlled his actions.”

The presiding judge found Berkowitz to be mentally competent to stand trial and he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 365 years in prison. While serving his sentence, Berkowitz, who was born and raised in the Jewish faith, converted to Christianity. According to New York Magazine writer Steve Fishman, who interviewed Berkowitz in 2006, he now “works as a pastor, walking the prison halls with a Gideons Bible and a calling from God. He’s battling Satan, he says, his old friend. And David is sure Satan’s afraid of him, because David knows all his tricks.” While some consider this a ploy to get out of prison, it is highly unlikely that David Berkowitz will ever again be free.

Was the Devil’s greatest trick making us believe he doesn’t exist?

Good and evil may exist on earth, but when it comes to proving that their agents effect human behavior, happy endings are more easily found preceding movie credits than following jury verdicts. In 350 years, the American legal system has evolved from a colonial practice of seeing Satan behind the evil but punishing the defendant nonetheless, to a modern belief that people are responsible for their own actions. The insanity defense is a narrow exception to this rule, and judges and juries are wary of those who attempt to avoid punishment by acting first and pleading insanity later. Although an insanity defense and a prolonged stay in a mental institution may seem like a better alternative to a lengthy or lifelong prison sentence, when trying to meet the burden of proof, always remember that with the insanity defense, “the Devil is in the details.”