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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

11. An Assurance That Only Enhanced Fears

Court room in Australia’s apex tribunal. High Court of Australia

As Ivy Cogdon lay in her bed, wrapped in worries, her daughter tried to calm down and assure her: “Mummy, don’t be silly worrying about the war. It is not at your front door“. That attempted reassurance only worsened matters, and made Mrs. Cogdon imagine what would happen if the war actually did come to her front door – and crossed the threshold. Based on the medical evidence, Mrs. Cogdon’s mental history, and testimony by family and friends that she had been a loving mother, devoted to her daughter, she was acquitted. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on grounds that she was unaware of her actions at the time, and thus not responsible for their consequences. The case, Regina v. Cogdon, made legal history as the first successful use of sleepwalking or somnambulism as a defense in Australia.

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.