Asylum Walk (25)

In 1899 “Crazy Ben” Parrott, drunk, axed to death his drunken mother. He was hanged and buried in the yard of Barton Street gaol. The murderer’s autopsy, attended by seven medical men, disclosed that his brain weighed 2 ounces over normal. “Good proof,” announced the physicians, “of no insanity in the murderer’s make-up.”