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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

1. A Travesty of Justice That Led to Law Changes

Cover of a book about the Steinberg case. Stylist

Steven Steinberg’s insanity was only temporary: he was sane at the time of the acquittal. So the defendant walked out of court a free man. In the trial’s aftermath, Arizona changed its insanity defense laws. Judges were thenceforth required to impose a “guilty but insane” sentence in temporary insanity scenarios such as that of the Steinberg case. Criminal defendants who are found guilty but insane nowadays would have to go to a mental institute. There, they might be interred for as long as if they had been sentenced to prison.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Frondorf, Shirley – Death of a Jewish American Princess: The True Story of a Victim on Trial (1988)

Herald Sun, January 1^st, 2014 – Night Terrors: The Sleepwalking Murder of Patricia Cogdon, From Emily Webb’s Murder in Suburbia

History Collection – Vigilante Justice and the Small Town Bully: A Crime That Shocked America

Knappman, Edward W., et al. – Great American Trials (1994)

Law Buzz – Sleepwalking: A Defense to Murder First Used in 1846

Look and Learn – Chief Inspector Ledru, the Policeman Who Caught … Himself

Madera Tribune, December 20th, 1950 – Sleepwalker Freed on Murder Charge by Australia Jury

New York Times, October 9^th, 1988 – The Defense Pleaded Nagging

Oughton, Frederick – The Two Lives of Robert Ledru: An Interpretative Biography of a Man Possessed (1963)

Smithsonian Magazine, April 30^th, 2012 – The Case of the Sleepwalking Killer

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.