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A West Virginia Town Applied For Soviet Foreign Aid, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan February 21, 2020 33 min

Vulcan - McDowell County — Vulcan miners in 1919. The Sangha Kommune

12. The Deadly Kentucky Sleepwalker

Defendant Fain’s sleepwalking was not so serene. Irish Times

One cold February evening in 1879, a man surnamed Fain entered the lobby of the Veranda Hotel in Nicholasville, Kentucky, accompanied by a friend. As described by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky in Fain v. The Commonwealth, 78 Ky. 183 (1879), the duo shook the snow off their coats, and sat down. Both were tired, especially Fain, who had not slept much lately because of sick children at home whose care kept him awake at night. It was warm inside the hotel lobby, the lights were dim, and soon Fain and his friend fell asleep where they sat.

Eventually, Fain’s friend woke up and tried to wake him, but could not. He went to the reception desk and booked a room with two beds, then sent the receptionist to wake his friend. The receptionist tried, but could not, and told Fain’s friend that he thought the defendant was dead. The friend told him to not be silly, and to get on with it. The receptionist got on with it, only to get shot to death for his troubles when Fain woke up. Arrested and tried for murder, Fain turned to a sleepwalking defense.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.