25. America’s First Sleepwalking Defense Case
At Albert Tirrell’s trial, prosecutors called in numerous witnesses who established strong circumstantial evidence that the rich scion was the murderer. The defendant’s lawyer, emphasizing that the evidence was circumstantial and that nobody had seen Tirrell actually murder the victim, built his defense on the then-innovative sleepwalking defense. Choate argued that Tirrell was a chronic sleepwalker, and if he did kill Mrs. Bickford, he must have done so while in a somnambulistic state. As such, he would have been unaware of his actions and so could not be held legally responsible.
Defense witnesses testified that they had spoken with Tirrell on the morning of the murder, and that he seemed to have been in a trance, sounding weird and appearing “in a strange state, as if asleep, or crazy“. One witness testified that he had spoken with Tirrell when the defendant arrived in his hometown of Weymouth, claiming to be fleeing from an adultery indictment. When the witness told Tirrell that Maria Bickford had been brutally murdered, the defendant seemed genuinely shocked.
