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About the author
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors, Robert James Clark became a certified French-English translator. In addition to his twenty-five years of freelance translation work, he has written several published articles on food, arts, and culture. History and genealogy, however, have remained his passions since youth. After spending most of his adult life in Saskatoon, he moved to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island in 2020 with his partner of thirty-five years.
A True Story of Shell Shock and Murder
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In 1928, the bodies of two young boys were found in the Indiana Harbor shipping canal of East Chicago, their identities unknown. With no missing children of their age and appearance reported in the city, the police had begun to lose hope until a breakthrough led them to the murderer: their father, George Chisholm, a Canadian World War I veteran.
How could a parent commit such a crime? The case drew headlines around the country and worldwide. The death penalty loomed for Chisholm, and his attorneys planned a campaign to save him from the electric chair on the grounds of mental illness. During World War I, while serving in the Victoria Rifles of Canada for three years, Chisholm endured the horrors of trench warfare and the Battle of Vimy Ridge. After being gassed and shell-shocked on the battlefield, Chisholm returned to Canada a changed man and his mental health deteriorated. Although the war had produced epidemic levels of shell shock, it had often been viewed as “cowardice” or “nervousness,” rather than debilitating psychological trauma. And yet, its effects persisted long afterward, manifested in shocking cases like Chisholm’s. |
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Set near Chicago during the roaring twenties—the era of Capone and Lindbergh, bootlegging, gangsters, and rapid social change--Fiendish Crime explores not only George Chisholm’s case, but also the legacy of tragedy that continues long after war.
Reviews
FIENDISH CRIME - Review by Larry D. Rose
The banner newspaper headline screamed “SON SLAYER TO PLEAD GUILTY.” The front page story below it was just one day’s worth of garish news coverage in one of the most sensational crime cases of its day-- a father accused of murdering his two young boys.
The man in the dock was George Allen Chisholm, a Canadian First World War veteran who was living in East Chicago, Indiana (south and east of Chicago, Illinois). A central question in the 1928 case was about Chisholm himself. Did his being gassed during the war and suffering from “shell shock” afterward render him incapable of knowing right from wrong?
The riveting story is told in Robert James Clark’s Fiendish Crime: A True Story of Shell Shock and Murder (FriesenPress). Meticulously researched, the book notes that after the war as many as ten thousand Canadian soldiers were left suffering from “shell shock,” coping with war wounds that no one could see. Shell shock was the First World War description for what we now call PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
George Allen Chisholm, originally from Montreal and an infantryman in the Canadian Army, served at Vimy Ridge in 1917 and in numerous other battles. Post-war he had epilepsy that could have been the result of artillery fire concussion while at the same time he showed many of the hallmarks of shell shock.
Hardly an angel, Chisholm had married and left two wives earlier, eventually ending up in Indiana with a new partner, Helen Lawrence. His blended family included his three sons and her two children.
Chisholm was evidently pursued by the ghosts of war when he decided he could no longer look after two of his three young boys, George and Edgar, and ended up murdering them and throwing their bodies into a river.
Chisholm was soon a suspect and under examination, amid crying jags and bizarre behavior, confessed to the murders. He recounted that he had been overcome by financial worries and “nagging, nagging, nagging” by his wife. He was drinking and saw no way out.
His trial, the subject of sensational tabloid coverage, focused on the murder of the boys but also on the trembling, weeping, and fear-ridden defendant.
The trial ends in a cliff hanger moment as the judge has to decide if a man who murdered two innocent children deserves execution or if his war record and post-war trauma should at least count for something. As Robert James Clark so convincingly argues, it is clear that there are more victims of war than we often realize.
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Larry D. Rose is the author of Mobilize! and Ten Decisions, Second World War books published by Dundurn.
The banner newspaper headline screamed “SON SLAYER TO PLEAD GUILTY.” The front page story below it was just one day’s worth of garish news coverage in one of the most sensational crime cases of its day-- a father accused of murdering his two young boys.
The man in the dock was George Allen Chisholm, a Canadian First World War veteran who was living in East Chicago, Indiana (south and east of Chicago, Illinois). A central question in the 1928 case was about Chisholm himself. Did his being gassed during the war and suffering from “shell shock” afterward render him incapable of knowing right from wrong?
The riveting story is told in Robert James Clark’s Fiendish Crime: A True Story of Shell Shock and Murder (FriesenPress). Meticulously researched, the book notes that after the war as many as ten thousand Canadian soldiers were left suffering from “shell shock,” coping with war wounds that no one could see. Shell shock was the First World War description for what we now call PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
George Allen Chisholm, originally from Montreal and an infantryman in the Canadian Army, served at Vimy Ridge in 1917 and in numerous other battles. Post-war he had epilepsy that could have been the result of artillery fire concussion while at the same time he showed many of the hallmarks of shell shock.
Hardly an angel, Chisholm had married and left two wives earlier, eventually ending up in Indiana with a new partner, Helen Lawrence. His blended family included his three sons and her two children.
Chisholm was evidently pursued by the ghosts of war when he decided he could no longer look after two of his three young boys, George and Edgar, and ended up murdering them and throwing their bodies into a river.
Chisholm was soon a suspect and under examination, amid crying jags and bizarre behavior, confessed to the murders. He recounted that he had been overcome by financial worries and “nagging, nagging, nagging” by his wife. He was drinking and saw no way out.
His trial, the subject of sensational tabloid coverage, focused on the murder of the boys but also on the trembling, weeping, and fear-ridden defendant.
The trial ends in a cliff hanger moment as the judge has to decide if a man who murdered two innocent children deserves execution or if his war record and post-war trauma should at least count for something. As Robert James Clark so convincingly argues, it is clear that there are more victims of war than we often realize.
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Larry D. Rose is the author of Mobilize! and Ten Decisions, Second World War books published by Dundurn.
Reviewers on Amazon have said:
"The characters who appear in the story are well fleshed out and there is a finely tuned sense of time and place. Clark write in a terse no nonsense style which draws the reader directly into the story. This is an excellent book which I enjoyed from the first page to the last."
"I couldn't put it down. Heartbreaking but fascinating story of the often hidden effects of war, and life in the post WWI era. Highly recommended."
"The characters who appear in the story are well fleshed out and there is a finely tuned sense of time and place. Clark write in a terse no nonsense style which draws the reader directly into the story. This is an excellent book which I enjoyed from the first page to the last."
"I couldn't put it down. Heartbreaking but fascinating story of the often hidden effects of war, and life in the post WWI era. Highly recommended."
