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The Detective Who Discovered HE Was the Murderer: Historic Sleepwalking Cases

Khalid Elhassan February 9, 2025 15 min

Sleepwalking - Robert Ledru commits murder in his sleep — Robert Ledru commits murder in his sleep. Pinterest

9. The Fugitive Scion

Sleepwalking - Contemporary coverage of Bickford's murder and Tirrell's flight — Contemporary coverage of Bickford’s murder and Tirrell’s flight. Smithsonian Magazine

After he doused the flames, the brothel owner entered Mrs. Bickford’s room and discovered that she had been brutally murdered, savagely beaten and with her throat slit from ear to ear with a razor. Suspicion immediately fell upon Albert Tirrell. He was the last person known to have seen the victim alive, per multiple witnesses, who saw him enter Bickford’s room that evening after her last customer had left. A bloody razor was found near the body, along with pieces of Tirrell’s clothes and broken-off sections of a distinctive cane known to belong to him. Police immediately began a search for the suspect. However, he had fled, having last been spotted bargaining with a livery stable keeper, reportedly saying that he was “in a scrape” and needed to get away.

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.