Wicked Women of Missouri by Wood Larry

Author:Wood, Larry [Wood, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

A newspaper photo of Bertha Gifford during her trial. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Failing in their attempt to exclude the contents of Bertha’s statement, her attorneys resorted to an insanity defense when it came time for them to present their case on the third day of the trial. Bertha’s husband, Gene, was called as a witness to testify that Bertha was nervous and excitable. Four other acquaintances of the defendant gave similar testimony. Several Franklin County doctors were called to the stand and asked what they would conclude if they knew the defendant was nervous and restless, had administered arsenic to patients for years in the hope of helping them, had stated that she herself had long taken arsenic for her looks and her heart, had tended to the sick for years without reward, had always been kind to those she treated and had no motive for killing her patients. They all agreed that she would be insane, and the defense rested its case. The state called two alienists (i.e., psychiatrists) from St. Louis as rebuttal witnesses, but the St. Louis doctors agreed with the local physicians and offered the opinion that Bertha was suffering from the mental disease of paranoia (which today we would probably call schizophrenia). After hearing all the testimony, the jurors deliberated for three hours and came back with a verdict late on the evening of November 21 that Bertha was not guilty by reason of insanity. 150

Judge Breuer ordered that Bertha be confined to a mental institution for the duration of her insanity, which a local newspaper speculated could easily be the rest of her natural life. Bertha was escorted to the Farmington State Hospital (then often called the insane asylum) on December 19, 1928. Later, she was, ironically enough, assigned the job of being a cook at the hospital. The local newspaper’s prediction that Bertha’s incarceration might last the rest of her life proved true, as she died at the Farmington facility on August 20, 1951. 151

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