apartment 44.apa.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

In April 1987, after securing a search warrant for Harveys apartment, investigators found a mountain of evidence against him: jars of cyanide and arsenic, books on the occult and poisons, and a detailed account of the murder, which he had written in a diary.  Following this new discovery of evidence, Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire was arrested on one count of aggravated murder, and after filing a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity was held under a $200,000 bond.  The evidence against Harvey was growing rapidly, and investigators were beginning to look into several other mysterious deaths at the hospital.  Harvey realized that it was only a matter of time before they discovered the full extent of his crimes, and decided he should try to make a plea bargain to avoid Ohios death penalty.

sooner 42.soo.01 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

During the 1920s, a family of enlightened educators and intellectuals, led by Dr. Karl Menninger, a Harvard graduate and one of the pioneers of modern psychology, were building a clinical dynasty in Topeka, Kansas. Menninger was fascinated with Sigmund Freud’s concepts of psychoanalysis. By 1930, he was already involved in research on the subject when he learned of Panzram’s case and his consuming hatred for humanity. During the trial, the court requested Menninger’s assessment of the defendant’s sanity. On the morning of April 15, in a small office inside the courthouse in Topeka, a meeting between the two men was arranged under court supervision.

Panzram was brought into the room at 8:30 a.m. Thick, heavy chains were wrapped around his arms and hands, a stiff iron bar clasped to each ankle. He was only able to walk a half-step at a time. Three federal guards encircled the prisoner. Panzram sat down in the chair, scowling, and stared at Dr. Menninger.

“Good morning, Mr. Panzram,” said Dr. Menninger. The prisoner huffed at the doctor and turned his head without saying a word. He glanced around as if to measure his chances of escape, and Dr. Menninger had the feeling that, given the opportunity, Panzram would kill everyone in the room just to get out the door. His chains rattled as he shuffled in his seat and the guards inched a little closer.

“I want to be hanged and I don’t want any interference by you or your filthy kind,” he said. “I just know the more about the world and the essential evil nature of man and don’t play the hypocrite. I am proud of having killed off a few and regret that I didn’t kill more!”

Dr. Menninger tried to get Panzram to talk about his life but Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire refused and became angrier and more impatient by the minute.

“I am saying I am responsible and I am guilty and the sooner they hang me the better it will be and gladder I will be. So don’t you go trying to interfere with it!” The interview was terminated, and Panzram shuffled out of the room.

The next day, April 16, Menninger wrote a letter to Warden T. B. White. In it he asked to interview Panzram again: “For purely scientific purposes I should like to look into the case of Carl Panzram a little more in detail. His case was an extraordinary one as you know and I am very interested in finding out what the earlier evidences of his mental instability were.”

But Warden White refused further access. To no one’s surprise, Menninger blamed Panzram’s adult hostility on the treatment he received as a child in the Minnesota state reform school at Red Wing. Menninger recognized the psychological damage that had been done to Panzram at an early age and later, when he wrote about the case, said “that the injustices perpetrated upon a child arouse in him unendurable reactions of retaliation which the child must repress and postpone but which sooner or later come out in some form or another, that the wages of sin is death, that murder breeds suicide, that to kill is only to be killed.”

register 44.reg.003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Cameron’s bondage sessions with Carol grew longer and became more frequent.  For added torture, he’d use a heat lamp to burn her skin or to electrocute her.  Sometimes he would strangle her, and the whippings never ceased.  He was sexually excited by all that he did to her, and the sessions would end up with him molesting her, although he did not have sexual intercourse with her.

Then one day, he decided to put her to work.  He constructed a tiny cell that fit under the staircase and into this he placed Carol, unshackled but blindfolded.  After closing the door, he’d remove the blindfold and order her to shell nuts or do macramé.  This became her small realm of liberty, the only time she had the freedom of movement, contained though it was.

Months came and went, and Carol turned 21.  She spent that day, as well as Christmas and New Year’s Day, in the coffin.  After eight months of submitting to torture and the uncertainty of ever getting away, Carol suddenly learned something new.

Cameron subscribed to an underground sadomasochistic newspaper called Inside News.  The edition that came out on January 1, 1978 contained an article entitled, “They Sell Themselves Body and Soul When They Sign THE SLAVERY CONTRACT.”

That gave him an idea.  He set about to create a contract, one that would appear to be legally binding.  He gave Carol the slave name, “K” and he signed the contract himself with a false name, “Michael Powers.”  By the end of that month, he made her read the article and then sign the contract as Kay Powers.  She thought what she was reading was pure evil, but he told her that either she would sign it or he would sign it for her and then make her wish she had.  She complied.

The document contained the rules she was to follow, and her signature meant that she agreed to them.  She was now to refer to him as “master,” and to keep her body “open” to him at all times for his satisfaction.  If she did not comply, he would not be allowed to keep her, and she might be turned over to someone not as nice as he was.

Contract of Slavery, trial evidence

He lied and told her he paid $1,500 to register her with something called   the Slave Company.  He explained that people with the company were watching them all the time, and they had even bugged the house.  They knew who Carol’s relatives were and would kill them if she ever disobeyed.  Janice was his slave as well, and should either of them attempt to escape, the company would punish them by nailing their hands to a beam and hanging them up for days.

“He always had things to back up his stories,” Carol reported, “and I believed what he said.”

Carol remained his captive for seven years, but the conditions would shift and change with Cameron’s obscene inspirations.  She learned to shut down her emotions.  “The more I played his game,” she told journalist Betty Lease, “the better it was for me.  If I fought, it went on forever.”  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire learned that begging for mercy only further incited him, so she stopped asking.  In his presence, she contained her tears so he would not know how she felt.  She used the power of her mind to escape her situation.  But each day she was brought abruptly back.