Posted on 08/02/2013 5:12:17 AM PDT by texanyankee
Administrators at the private Millikin University in Illinois will allow a longtime psychology professor to keep his job after learning that he killed his family in Georgetown in 1967 and was committed to a state mental hospital until 1974.
The professor’s name was James Gordon Wolcott until he changed it to James St. James in Nacogdoches, after his release from the mental facility. He has taught at Millikin since 1986 and is the chairman of the university’s Department of Behavioral Sciences.
“Millikin University has only recently been made aware of Dr. St. James’ past,” says a statement issued by the university Thursday. “Given the traumatic experiences of his childhood, Dr. St. James’ efforts to rebuild his life and obtain a successful professional career have been remarkable. The University expects Dr. St. James to teach at Millikin this fall.”
The story of St. James’ past has been widely reported this week in the media. He is now 61 years old and declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday.
He was 15 years old when he shot and killed his father, Gordon Wolcott; his mother Elizabeth Wolcott and his sister, 17-year-old Elizabeth Wolcott at their Georgetown home on Aug. 5, 1967.
Tried for the death of his father, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1968. He was committed to Rusk State Hospital and released after he was found sane in 1974. The indictments for the murder of his sister and mother were dismissed because it was determined that he was also insane at the time of their deaths, officials have said.
Well, he got out of the in on the sane
Hey...maybe he was just having a bad day.
It's not like he was a closet Tea Party conservative or FReeper or anything truly horrific like that.
what a little pr8ck
Of course he is. The crazy medical students tend to end up as the Psychiatrists.
What’s his DU handle?
Purportedly, one of James’ psychiatrists felt he didn’t deserve to be incarcerated and invited James to live in his own home.
According to Martin McClain’s account, the doctor and his wife became “sort of surrogate parents,” apparently trusting James around their family. Medical records have since been destroyed, but in 1974, the hospital administrator sent a letter to the Williamson County District Attorney stating that James was no longer suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and requested a competency hearing.
Just six years after shooting his entire family, a jury declared James Wolcott sane after only ten minutes of deliberation, making him a free man. "
And when James goes insane yet again ?.....he’s teaching in a university for mercy sakes.
Yep, it is still a bad place.
I’ll bet when he tells a junior faculty member to do something they hop to it.
If the college wants to pay to retire him, I have no complaints but he ought to be stripped of any active titles and be forced to retire instead of teaching.
Remember when the Left complained that Reagan emptied all the mental health facilities back in the 80’s? Well, this is what happened to them. They now teach your kids and chair university departments where they can be crazy as loons and the Leftist zombies will call them enlightened.
Exactly. Lying on an employment application, especially about an incident of this magnitude, should be grounds for immediate termination.
I’ve always been an almost dangerously optimistic person. Now, I’m getting more than a little tired of the way this world is going. Maybe I’m just too old.
A mass murderer in charge of the psych department, a traitorous foreigner in the oval office, a pervert flasher running (seriously) for mayor of New York, a prostitute’s john running for Controller of same, the Fed spending borrowed money we will never be able to pay back, the most common game hunted by black people is black people, it’s all mad.
A cynic must find it hard to keep up.
Oh ... OK ,,, a JURY ! Now I understand.
Maybe the university will next hire BTK as their dean .
I don’t know—it’s easy to judge without thinking this through...
We have Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity laws in most every state. I do not think that this is a bad idea... There are certainly seriously insane people out there. However, most psychotic people are not a danger to others, but that is the common culture template we all expect. Hence the law.
So I ask, What Would Jesus Do?
I strongly believe schizophrenia, like many other mental diseases, has an organic cause. We know little but curiously find that certain drugs can keep the scrambled, misaligned thoughts under control or stop them outright, in some patients. Why is that? Someone with schizophrenia cannot just snap out of it, nor are they faking.
Is it possible for a schizophrenic to get better? Even to no longer be afflicted with the disease? Yes, I think that is certainly possible.
Now, some would argue for a sentence of Guilty, but Insane, so that after recovery, that person who committed so heinous a crime, would continue to serve a sentence that a criminal, but not sane, person would receive.
However, there still remains a huge difference between someone evil, or with evil intent versus someone whose whole brain is scrambled, malfunctioning, and clearly not in control of it at all.
I would not be so glib as some of you as to whatever liberalism you see being portrayed in this story. I think it is complex, and strikes me as one of those issues we need to consider when having a judicial system that has a Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdict.
In defense of you all, I would say we have all heard of evil criminals who try to use the Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdict to weasel out of the Justice they deserve. It is to those that our anger should be consumed! Not those who are truly insane. In a perfect world, people would not suffer the horror and pain of insanity. It is (and I am not personally aware of this-LOL) an unbelievable nightmare of pain and suffering.
My hometown. Read this story in the local paper. He was a budding anarchist peacenik and glue sniffer. If he were tried today for the same offense, our local conservative prosecutor would have him already bound for Huntsville for his lethal injection appointment.
Dunno that I can blame them. I don’t think they COULD get rid of him without a very expensive lawsuit.
he was 15 when he slaughtered his family... he was in his early 20s when he left the asylum... those years would not have been covered on his resume... say he went to college in his early 20s, got his degree... got his first job... that's where the resume might begin chronologically...
Libs protect libs. It’s what they do.
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