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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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More than 25 years later details of the attack are still shocking: Sometime after 2 A.M. one Sunday morning in May 1987, Kenneth James Parks, then 23, left his house in a Toronto suburb and drove 23 kilometers to the apartment of his wife's parents. He got out of the car, pulled a tire iron out of the trunk and let himself into the older couple's home with a key they had given him. Once inside, he struggled with and choked his father-in-law, Dennis Woods, until the older man fell unconscious and then struggled with and beat his mother-in-law, Barbara Ann Woods, stabbing her to death with a knife from her kitchen.
Parks then got back into his car, drove to a nearby police station and announced to the startled officers on duty, "I think I have killed some people." For several hours before the Toronto man left his home, however, and throughout the course of the attack, Parks was asleep and therefore not criminally responsible for his actions, according to five doctors and the defense lawyer at his 1988trial for the murder of Barbara Ann and the attempted murder of Dennis. After deliberating for nine hours, the jury agreed and Parks was set free. Although prosecutors at the time considered the defense "ludicrous" and appealed the judge's decision to allow the jury to consider a sleepwalking defense, the Canadian Supreme court upheld the original ruling in 1992.
Even the sleep specialist who was first brought in as a consultant on the case was initially skeptical that a sleepwalker could have undertaken such a series of complex behaviors—including safely driving through three traffic lights and portions of an express highway—before attacking anyone. After all, most people who strike out in their sleep usually injure themselves or the person sleeping next to them—not someone 23 kilometers away. But further examination showed that the tragedy was not, as it had first seemed, a clear-cut case of murder.
For starters, Parks was an unusually deep sleeper (as verified by laboratory instruments). He had frequently talked in his sleep as a child, had sometimes sleepwalked as well and was a severe bed-wetter until 11 or 12 years of age. A 1974 study of 50 adults who acted violently while sleeping found that many of the subjects wet their beds or sleepwalked as children. One night, one of Parks's brothers actually had to grab him by the leg as he was about to walk through a window. Sleepwalking, sleep-talking and bed-wetting were also common in other members of his family across three generations.
While sleepwalking is a fairly routine occurrence among youngsters—happening in about 15 percent of children—it typically does not lead to attacks on other people. Indeed, sleepwalking children can usually be guided back to bed without any incident. They also are likely to outgrow the sleepwalking tendency.
Far fewer adults walk in their sleep. But unlike children, they are more likely to turn hostile or aggressive when others try to rouse them, as has been documented in several studies.
To be sure, some details of Parks's life did not put him in the best possible light: Almost a year before the attack, he developed a really bad gambling habit, which put a lot of stress on his marriage. He ended up embezzling $30,000 at work to try to cover his debts and keep them from his wife. Two months before the attack the theft was discovered and Parks was fired. He stopped gambling for a few weeks then started up again, twice forging his wife's signature to get more money. Three days before the attack, he attended his first Gamblers Anonymous meeting and decided to come clean to his in-laws, with whom he had been, by all accounts, very close. Two nights before the attack he couldn't sleep, thinking about what he would say to them.
The psychiatrists and other medical experts who examined Parks could find no evidence of brain disease or psychosis. He seemed genuinely devastated by what he had done. Measurements of his brain waves during sleep showed that he naturally cycled more often and more rapidly than most people from the deepest levels of sleep to wakefulness. He also felt no physical pain during his homicidal episode, in spite of the fact that several tendons in his hands were severed during the course of the attack (requiring surgical repair), until after he reached the police station.
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9 Comments
Add Comment"Sleep-or-wake is not an all-or-none phenomenon. It occurs on a spectrum." I wonder whether old-age senility has something to do with this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople who become senile with Alzheimers disease sometimes forget second spouses, or imagine their middle-aged children still to be, well, children -- even during waking hours. In the early stages they are said to do better on some days than others. Yet, I have many of these symptoms in my sleep when I dream.
As a child I was always my current age in dreams, as were the people I knew when I dreamed about them. Now, in my 50s, in my dreams I am usually much younger than my current age. In these dreams I often have no knowledge of newer family members though they are important to me today. A more up-to-date version of reality comes to me as I wake up.
We know that the aging brain becomes less efficient with age. The aging brain can forget how to fight disease leaving the aged more vulnerable to infections. It can forget how to regulate the heartbeat -- leading to a quick death unless a pacemaker is installed. We also know that the much of the brain deterioration characteristic of senility also occurs in people who did not become senile.
The percentage of people who become senile increases with age. Perhaps senility results from an aging brain's increasing inability to maintain a firm boundary between sleep and wakefulness. Perhaps the the difference between those who become senile by a given age versus those who do not is determined not so much by overall brain deterioration so much as the age at which this specific capability breaks down.
Wonderful. Homocidal maniacs are ALWAYS dangerous and thereby institutionalized to protect the public. However, this guy is only deadly when he's asleep, so he can only murder innocent people at night... why institutionalize him, then? It's not like he's dangerous to the public during daylight hours.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry to tell you something that seems so irrelevant,but I have never ever heard of such possible behavior in sleepwalkers. I have never met anybody that is a sleepwalker, but I have, of course, heard about sleepwalking. It is really amazing and terrifying the story told in this article. I am very sorry about the participants. Scientific American continues to be a good source of information. I hope it continues that way. I bet it will, and we must support SA as much as we can!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo maybe his mixed sleeping/awake faculties were "enacting what he had planned to do later that day" as he drove to the Woods' home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd maybe "Dennis Woods found his son-in-law wandering about in the dark, tried to stop him and Parks responded as if his life were in danger."
But, if so, why in the world did Parks open the trunk of his car and arm himself with a TIRE IRON before entering his in-laws' home?
The article doesn't state whether he was institutionalized or not, but if you commit a crime, the legal process should take steps to insure that you are unlikely to do so again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI, somewhat vaguely (read it 30-40 years ago) remember a similar case in France, the "culprit" was a prosecutor, who had killed several people while sleepwalking, couldn't remember a thing, but was himself convinced by a footprint he had left on a beach (he was missing a big toe).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe solomonic sentence was, that he had to spend every night in jail, but was free in the daytime.
I hope he didn't take afternoon naps!
I really do wonder if the sleepwalking was the cause or just a coincidental factor. Certainly the case mentioned in Sep 2012 SciAm of the sleepwalker who committed murder two days after visiting a sleep centre is suspect. The fellow was given an increase in "anti-anxiety" medication by the sleep centre. These drugs have been empirically demonstrated to increase the risk and severity of manic episodes and is more likely to be the cause than the long term non-violent sleepwalking condition he exhibited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe older, wiser "nightwatch" in the old state hospitals would waken patients by kicking the foot of the bed, because of the occasional violent sleeper.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am sorry but I am a firm believer that your sub-conscous will not allow you to do something in your sleep that you would not normally do when you are awake. I do not for one moment subscribe to this nonsense. It is just another lame excuse for people commit a crime, and then blame it on a something that can not be proven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs kimbarator said if he was just wondering around why is it that he “first” got the iron bar out of the boot of his car, it is obvious he had intention, before entering his inlaws house, and if had intention, he could not possibly have been sleep walking. How any jury could fall for this rubbish is beyond me, no matter how many ‘specialists’ they bring out there is no way logically thinking you could let Parks off, he should have been given life.