More example of killer and rapist somnambulists, from Belgium :
http://www.lesoir.be/archive/d-2010...ar&sort=date+desc&start=20&word=somnambulisme (translated) :
Crime comes while sleeping
Wednesday 31 march 2010, 0:00
Ettore Rizza et Marc Metdepenningen
Somnambulism, parasomnia and sexsomnia, and judges.
Mons courts are clearly at the leading edge of taking psychiatric disorders into account in their rulings. 15 days ago, the criminal court [Crown Court], acknowledging the existence of a "denial of pregnancy", had acquitted a mother who was accused of infanticide. And on Monday, the court competent for lower crimes had acquitted a father who was prosecuted for having raped his daughter, for he was in a sexomnia state, a "sexual somnambulism", of whom only 11 instances were the subject of a study in the whole world. In 1992, in a similar case, a Canadian court had also acquitted a defendant that scientists had considered as a somnambulist and who under the influence of alcohol (like in Mons) and codein had perpetrated a "technical" rape.
Sleep can be dangerous. In 1893, psychiatrists had already been interested in France by the case of servant Valroff, who had murdered his master and who was trying to get clean of his crime by claiming to be sleepwalking (they didn't believe him). Already in 1630, a sleepwalking Parisian had crossed the Seine to kill a man before quietly going back to his bed.
150 knife strikes. One of the most uncanny judicial cases from the last years involved a 15 years old teenager, acquitted by the criminal court's special chamber for minors in Besançon. On 24 September 2000, Vincent G. had slaughtered his parents with 150 knife strikes. He had explained that a grain of hatred he had for his parents had turned in his sleep in a murderous frenzy, during a dream : "Kill your parents. They are too rigid, they don't love you, you'll be fred", had told him a mysterious voice. Psychiatrists established that he was suffering from the Elpenor syndrom, defined by a "liminar state of dissolution of consciousness during a premature awakening". An extreme state of somnambulism that could lead, in its least tragic instances, children to meander in their home unaware.
Twenty-three kilometers while asleep. A notorious case in matter of criminal sleepwalking is Kenneth Sparks'. In 1987, mired in gambling debts, he drove to his his parents-in-law's house (at 23 km from his own home) whom he killed before going to a police station, where he said that he thought he had committed a crime. Experts would detect symptoms of parasomnia. He was cleared. As was Jo Kiger. The victim of a nightmare while asleep, he grabs a handgun to kill the 'monster' who is attacking him : he kills his brother and his father. He is acquitted.
Strangled in her sleep. Last November, Brian Thomas, a 59 year old British man, was cleared for the murder of his wife. They were sleeping in their camper van when Brian, who was dreaming that young people had broken into their motor caravan, strangled his wife who was sleeping alongside him.
A physical education teacher acquitted. Mark Bonnsletter was also cleared for sleepwalking. In 2006, he had sexually assaulted a female neighbour. Psychiatrist had detected the presence of a serious sleep condition, resulting in a kind of violent and unconscious somnambulism.
Alongside those extraordinary instances, numerous other defendants claiming to be sleepwalking were convicted by jurors. Because they expected to find in psychiatric uncertainties and the gullibility of judges or jurors an easy justification and motive of acquittal for their genuine murders.
Sleepwalking can also be dangerous for people who are afflicted with it : a young female sleepwalker, 23 years old, was raped bay a homeless man in Cincinnatti in 2003. The rapist claimed that she had told him to be consenting...
Robert Poirrier : « sexsomnia ? Never heard of ! »
INTERVIEW
Pr Robert Poirier has directed for 27 years the Centre d’étude des troubles de l’éveil et du sommeil [Center for study of sleep and awakening disorders) (Cetes) in the Liège hospital.
What do you think of the verdict by the Mons court acquitting a man of rape while the defendant pleaded sexsomnia ?
I won't give an opinion relating to this instance. I will only say that I have never heard of sexsomnia. As far as I can tell, the word is not mentioned in the international classification that I use – l’International classification of sleep disorder/2. My knowledge in this field is in the same range than what is said in the media ! If I read the same thing than you did, experts who were heard in the case told that it was "maybe yes, maybe not", and the doubt benefited to the accused.
So, sexsomnia does not exist ?
This is not what I said. Any nocturnal abnormal behaviour is possible while asleep. I could jump in any direction, spit... Everything could happen while in a parasomnia.
And what if the court had required your opinion as an expert ?
I would have done my job as honestly as I could, which is not easy when dealing with parasomnias. When I am faced with a similar case, which happens very rarely, I send him at fisrt to a colleague who is an epileptologist. Once epilepsy is ruled out, I do not always perform a sleep recording. I'm listening patiently my patient, and I'm trying to ponder with him and his family if a drug-based prescription is needed in instances that could cause problems.
Parasominias do not seem to worry you...
A sleep study lab has usually 200 instances waiting. I am trying to select them. Somebody who uses to get up in the middle of the night to go and eat a drumstick of poultry is not going to put the world into danger. On the contrary, a heavy truck driver who suffers from sleep apnea as is the case of 20% of his colleagues can cause big trouble. If there is something that is scandalous, it is to not conduct any diagnosis of such people because we don't have the material means. And some people may come with somewhat exotic illnesses.