Animal Trials

Animals were tried as people from the 14th century to the 18th century Europe, the earliest recording of an animal tried being recorded in 1266 (it was a pig). So, these animals were actually appointed lawyers in ecclesiastical court. (ecclesiastical court is basically christian court or religious court). They weren’t given lawyers in secular court, but apparently in this timeline humans weren’t either. Usually if convicted the animals would face a death penalty or be exiled (cue the Lion Ling).

So because i thought this was so bizarre and frankly unbelievable I just wanted to give you animal court stories.

Switzerland: In 1474 a rooster was put on trial for laying an egg, more specifically “the heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg”. And not surprisingly he was put on trial for witchcraft, and thus burned alive at a judicial hearing. People came to witness this death, because it was taken as seriously as a human execution. 

France: In 1510 group of rates were notified to come to court because they destroyed a field of barley, when the rats were a no-show, their lawyer Bartholomew Chassene said there was no way they could come because they would be putting their lives at risk, you know, due to the neighborhood cats and all. This defense resulted in the judge permanently postponing the trial

In 1519 moles were brought to court for destroying crops, which resulted in them being exiled. The defense attorney spoke up, thus making the judge say about the moles  “with young and to such as are yet in their infancy” they were given 14 days to back up and head out of town.

In 1750 a man named Jaques Ferron was caught in the act of, ahem, well engaging in sexual activity with a female donkey and apparently there were enough witnesses that came forward on the donkey’s defense, that they spared her and ordered Ferron be hanged. In a document that had been recorded in in the The Criminal Prosicution and and Capital Punishment of Animals many of the witnesses, the parish priest among them stated that “They were willing to bear witness that she (the donkey) is in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature.”

USA: In September of 1916 an elephant named Mighty Mary was being led in a parade by a man who was brand new to the circus job of elephant handler and prodded her with a spear when she tried to eat a watermelon rind that was on the ground, Mary reacted by throwing him off with her trunk and stomping on the handlers head, thus killing him. This prompted the crowd to chant “kill the elephant!” and when bullets bounced off of her thick hide, she was hanged with a crane.

Macedonia: In 2008, a bear was put on trial for attacking a beekeepers hives, because he didn’t show he was convicted of his absence and because he had no owner, the state was ordered to pay £1,750 in damages that’s 2,288 in USD. 

Some of the things I didn’t list in this were, weevils being exiled for destroying church property, a cow being sentenced to death for accidentally killing a woman by pushing her over, a monkey being hanged for acting as a french spy, and a pig sentenced to hang for killing baby. And these are just a few of the things that have happened. There’s a whole entire book published on this. 

And I think if you think any of this is ridiculous, you should take a look at our animal justice system now.

We’re still doing it, they're just not getting lawyers .

Corinne and Jayne Peters

July 12, 2010 around 6am Corrinne Peter’s was packing up her brand new 2011 Hyundai Sonata about to set out to her first-choice college, UT Austin, for freshman orientation. She was excited to finally make the near four hour trip because her plans to go down to austin earlier had been stalled time after time due to her mom and coppell city mayor, Jayne Peters, medical issues. Shed had previously vented to friends about being frustrated for missing an earlier orientation as her mom awaited results from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Corrinne was planning on majoring in Health Science at UT Austin and friends have also mentioned that she expressed interest in psychiatric nursing as well. Corrinne was also very depressed though, too. Her father had recently passed away from cancer in 2008 and her loved ones mentioned that she was still having a really rough time with it. Which as someone who lost their dad at age 10, I can't imagine what it is like to lose a father to illness at an age after you truly get to learn who your parents are. I’ve also seen in a couple of articles that Corrinne was a dancer and had been in the drill team in highschool (I’m pulling the drilteam info from a picture i saw on CBS but i cant be positive). I wish I could tell you more about Corrine, but because the city of Coppell seems to want to keep this tragedy in the past, I had a very hard time obtaining any personal information on her. 

About 30 minutes after Corrine was seen loading her car for the trek ahead of her, neighbors noticed Corrine’s mother Jayne unloading the car. When a neighbor asked how she was doing Jayne replied, “Good.” Jayne was seen again in her backyard, taking her dogs out at around 10am, and then around noon the mayor was seen walking down a busy street looking “uncharacteristically dishevelled” That was the last time Jayne Peters was seen alive.

Police were called to the Mayor’s $400,000 home around 7:45pm on July 13th when people grew concerned that she didn't show to a regularly scheduled City Council meeting. On the door, there was an envelope taped to it contained a key and a typed note that read:

“To our first responders:

Here is the key for the front door. I am so very sorry for what you are about to discover. Please forgive me.

Jayne”

Inside the police discovered another note on the kitchen island, next to her husbands ashes, this one also typed and printed: 

“O grace of God, please forgive me and have mercy on my eternal soul. My sweet, sweet Corinne had grown completely inconsolable. She had learned to hide her feelings from her friends, but the two of us were lost, alone and afraid. Corinne just kept on asking,

Why won’t God just let me die. We hadn’t slept at all and neither one of us could stop crying when we were together.

Please ask my family to take care of my pets. The dogs, Hope and Lucy, should be kept together or put down. There are four cats: 

Mystic the black cat 9 years old

Sassy Siamese 11 years old

Snowflake Siamese 11 years old

Reno brown Abyssinian 6 years old.”

Another sheet contained contained contact information of relatives and ended with this note:

“Please, please, please, no funeral, no memorial just cremate us both.”

Police found Corrine Peters’s body in the laundry room, a gunshot wound that entered the left side of the back of her neck and exited her near her right cheek bone, autopsies show that Corrinne’s attacker was several feet behind her when she was shot from behind. Corrinne’s head was wrapped in towels, police still don't know if it was to cover her face or prevent the mess.

In an upstairs bathroom police find yet another note, this one hand witten, 

DNR, Do not recesitate (sic) under any circumstances.

Jayne Peters

Inside they found Jayne Peters’s body, with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the forehead. An autopsy done by Dr. Jeffrey Barnard shows that on jayne’s body there were two fentanyl patches-- a painkiller that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, usually prescribed to patients with chronic pain or after major surgeries-- on her back. 

"It could be that she had those patches on there for a long time, and there was nothing left in there to absorb," Barnard said. "Or, it could be that she put them on right before she shot herself and the drug didn't have time to absorb and wasn't in her bloodstream in a level that we could detect."

He said one reason to apply the patches could be to induce an overdose. "It would overdose her and she would go to sleep if the gunshot didn't kill her," he said.

Inside the bathroom with Jayne there was a pillow, blanket, and a book about coping with suicide with pictures of her deceased husband and daughter, Corrinne inside. 

Autopsies would later show that Corrinne was killed up to 14 hours before Jayne committed suicide.

Not long after the bodies were found police got a call from Rob Franke, the mayor of Cedar Hill, notifying them he thinks that it might be his gun that was used in the murder suicide. It turns out that on July 8th he and Peters practiced shooting with Franke’s gun and she actually returned home with it. Franke said that Jayne had told him that she was interested in obtaining her concealed license and was going to take a class for it, so he let her borrow it (its Texas).

Jayne was described by friends as “doting, highly-organized, and a loving mother to her only daughter” (Dallas Morning News). City spokesperson said about Jayne’s death: 

It's a tremendous loss not only from an employee standpoint, but a community standpoint and a personal lost that really I'm just trying to get a hold of right now, get my arms around it, figure out what's happened and what do we do next.

- The Daily News

All of that would come crashing down, however when police would continue their investigation on Jayne’s motive. Why did Jayne do this?As it turns out, Jayne was in what friends called “acute financial difficulty” after her husband had passed away in 2008. The Peters’ home had been foreclosed on 3 times within the past year leading up to their deaths, and Jayne came under suspicion of the city attorney when her city credit card had a charge from a Plano clothing store. Apparently the charges started from November 2009 up to the deaths in July of 2010. There were 68 charges on the card, and they’d racked up to be over $6,300 The personal charges included restaurants, pet supplies, and rental car charges for a 2011 Hyundai.

That’s right. Jayne Peters wasn’t putting up this facade to just her coworkers and friends, but to her own daughter. Jayne peters never bought her daughter that car. Jayne peters never planned on buying her daughter that car because this was a premeditated crime. When police looked deeper into Corrinne and Jayne’s life they also found out that UT Austin, nor Corinne’s second choice school TCU, had never even received applications from Corrinne. Friends say that it was in Jayne’s character to take care of things like this for her only daughter and it is believed by friends and authorities that Corrinne really did think she was going to college at UT, that she did get accepted. She trusted that her mom had it handled. 

Police also looked into the Cancer thing and found that Jayne had no signs of cancer. Jayne was just stalling Corrine so she couldn’t go to school. 

I want to go back to the timeline

I want to know what Jayne Peters was doing for 14 HOURS before she finally killed herself after killing her daughter. Police think that shortly after Corrinne was seen loading her belongings into the rental car when she returned inside the home she was fatally shot by her mother who was seen minutes later unloading the car, as previously stated. I left something out if Jayne’s timeline out though- her call to Avis- a rental car company-  remember that Jayne was seen unloading Corrines car at around 630 am? Presumably Corrine was shot in that 30 minute window between the two of them being seen at the car. Within minutes of shooting her own child Jayne Peters called avis, didn't get through, and when the owner of that avis got there at 7am the sonata was already dropped off. We know she was seen taking her dogs out at 10am, but what was she doing on a busy street? I can't find any information on this. It's actually what made building this time line so hard for me in the beginning of researching this case. We know she was typing notes, we know she wrapped Corrinne’s head in a towel, she called the rental car company, and then it gets fuzzy. She took the dogs out at 10 am but was walking down a busy street at noon? I dont know, maybe its Not That Deep and some of the sightings were nosy neighbors wanting to interject in the case.

Because of the charges to Jayne’s city credit card, it was announced on July 23rd that the city was going to look into the inappropriate charges on Jayne’s City credit card, and that the money to pay for it would probably come out of the Peters’s estate. That changed when an anonymous man came to the Town Center that same day and donated $10,000 in cash to cover all of Jayne’s credit card charges. The video of the man donating was quickly recognized by a city staff worker as David Murph, husband of the publisher and editor of the town’s weekly newspaper, Jean Murph. Officials officially announced David as the donor publicly and it was only hours after that Jean Murph stated that it was a donation from her. Murph sent an email to journalists that day that said 

"The reason the donation was anonymous was for it to be representative of the many people in Coppell who cared about Jayne Peters and her family, I have no further comment."

Now dont get me wrong i absolutely love that Jean Murph did this, it was a very kind and compassionate thing to do, but i do take issue with one thing in this whole entire story i’ve told you:I cannot find one negative thing about Jayne Peters online. The only SLIGHTLY negative things I see are things that Corrinne’s friends said. Now, I'm not looking for a character assassination here but what Jayne did was wrong and bad. This is no different than the Chris Watts case, or Zankou Chicken Murders,  this is familicide. I found more information on Jayne being a fantastic woman than I could on Corrinne. The CHILD victim in this case. I found a small Facebook page for Corrine, a Youtube slideshow, and very few quotes from her friends online. Fine. I’ll chalk it up to not having a Facebook and not being able to see the things that were said about Corrine on her Facebook page, but that is absolutely no excuse for the little remembrance the media had for Corrine.  

I cant say it as eloquently as Dallas Observer Writer Jim Shutze, so I’ll close with his article- I would like to add that there are some Hot Takes here so hit that 15 fwd if you dont want to hear them.

The only people quoted in The News story who objected to the joint rites were the teenage friends of the murder victim, 19-year-old Corinne Peters. No kidding. What's the lesson? "Kids, sometimes really wonderful parents who are great people and fine members of the community may have to put a cap in your head. Try not to piss us off."

- Jim Shutze

If you or anyone you know has been dealing with suicidal thoughts or attempts, please know that the National Suicide Prevention Hotline number is 800-273-TALK (8255), and they currently have an online chat available at suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Sources: CBS News, CBS Local, Dallas Morning News, Dallas Observer, WFAA, Star

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Arne Cheyenne Johnson - "Devil Made Me Do It"

So in February of 1981, in Brookfield, Connecticut Alan Bono who was 40 at the time, was stabbed with a pocketknife multiple times by his tenant Arne Cheyenne Johnson.Which was the first homicide in 193 years, which is WILD. But what really made the case difficult was Johnson’s defense in court. He claimed that “the Devil made him do it”

courtesy of Hartford Courant

So the murder and the actual court case happened in ‘81, but to give more of an explanation you gotta go back to July of 1980.

Johnson’s fiancee’s, her name is Deborah btw and she was 26, family had just moved to Brookfield to clean up some rental property. And a short time after that Deborah’s little brother started acting strangely.

One of the sources I found says it started with David, thats the little brother he was 11 at the time, being shoved or just suddenly fell kinda abruptly onto their mother’s bed by seemingly nothing. But when his mother asked about it later, David said he was shoved by an old man with burnt looking skin. Now this is according to only one of the sources I found which waaas mysteriousuniverse.org

Most of the other sources say that it really started with David having these nightmares. He’d just wake up just sobbing about “a man with big black eyes, a thin face with animal features and jagged teeth, pointed ears, horns and hoofs” and at one point the Beast Man, not my name fore it, told David to “Beware”. There could be more to that, one source said it was in regards to the family moving into the rental place but thats it. It DEF told him to BEWARE though. 

This kept happening for a while and eventually David;s whole behavior began to just shift. He was super quiet and nervous an he wasn’t the sort to just make stuff up for the hell of it either. After a bit of this Debbie, the fiancee at the time asked Arne to stay with the family at the rental house just to make everyone feel better. 

So whaddya know, it didn’t do anything. In fact, David starting getting strange injuries in his sleep that are actually pretty common with demonic possession, yknow bruises and scratches. There’s a lot more that happened apparently, there were more sightings of the Beast Man in the day, but it looked like an ‘old man with a white beard dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans’, there were sounds from the attic, slamming doors, sounds of footsteps, and voices.

So at this point the family sought the help of their church, St/ Joseph’s, to bless their house, and wouldn’t ya know it it only made things worse. The sounds got louder. David had more dreams, and multiple times he would just start quoting Paradise Lost 1667, which is an old as balls book of poems and is about how Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden essentially. OH. Also, side note, the demon tells David he was coming for his soul so that’s fun. 

So at this point things are getting real intense, and its obvious that blessing the house didn’t work so their priest gets a hold of a couple that the church has worked with before and, anyone whos interested in Amityville or has seen the Conjuring movie’ll know their names, but the priest asked for help from Ed and Lorraine Warren.

“While Ed interviewed the boy, I saw a black, misty form next to him, which told me we were dealing with something of a negative nature.  Soon the child was complaining that invisible hands were choking him – and there were red marks on him…”

— Lorraine Warren

So I think its safe to assume that whatever Lorraine saw was the demon or spirit or whaTEVER that was attacking David. 
The Warrens preformed four minor rites exorcism, which, it was either all of them or just the one preformed at the family church St. Joseph’s with four other priests there. And according to the mother

''He would kick, bite, spit, swear -terrible words,'' his mother, Judy, said. Worse, she said, he experienced strangling attempts by invisible hands which he tried to pull from his neck, and powerful forces would flop him rapidly head to toe like a rag doll. ''And he can't even do a sit-up,'' she said. ''He's too fat.'' 'Leave the Lad Alone'

courtesy of Hartford Courant

Which just a side note, i feel like I’ve heard of people LOSING weight with possessions but never gaining it? Cause all the pictures you ever see of folks after and exorcism are all gaunt with sunken cheeks and all that jazz. 

The exorcisms were NEVER approved and was constantly denied by Father Nicholas Grieco with the diocese of Bridgeport and all of the priests involved just wouldn’t comment about it or were transferred. The Warrens DID claim to have a friend they worked with named Reverend Francis Virgulak, who WAS assigned to look into the case by the Diocese of Bridgeport. But no actual exorcism was approved. 

So during these exorcisms, the Warren’s claimed that there were 43 demons that spoke from him. These happened apparently in the span of a several days according to wikipedia, but during what I’m assuming is the last one. Our good ol friend Arne Johnson was just so tired of it all and did the classic move of just said. “Come into me, I’ll fight you, come into me.”

And if that reminds you of somebody I have some wonderful news. So, side story real quick. 

Apparently during these exorcisms there was a a chair present. Its this old rocking chair with those tie on cushions and during the exorcisms it would “rock on its own, levitate, disappear and reappear.” and the Warrens even claim to have seen the devil sitting in it. So ofc you know who had to have it? Bagel Bites himself. He bought it for $67,000 put it on display in his Haunted Museum thing, and the exhibit got shut down in May of 2019 cause things got too intense. A woman allegedly went temporarily blind, folks just staring crying uncontrollably, and a plug got yanked out of a wall socket..

So, like this isn’t really an uncommon thing you hear about with exorcisms, yknow objects becoming possessed by the spirit or demon that was controlling the person. But if you believe in that, then one of two things happened. The Beast Man in David DID move on in and chilled in that chair that is allegedly haunted, OR. It did in fact take up Arne’s challenge and possessed him instead. There were supposed to be 43 demons, but in my head they can just Volton into one big one. 

So back to Arne being a bitch. When that last exorcism was over the Warrens, which seems to have happened in October? The Warrens called the police to keep an eye on Arne and said that something bad was going to happen.

Judy and Carl, the parents of David did do some, well i dunno if good is the right word but, good things, they took him to a doctor to have checked and he was deemed normal with a “minimal learning disability” and then had him enrolled into a private school for disturbed children. 

So Arne and his girlfriend Deborah had been together for a bit and because of all the shit that went down in that house, she wanted to move out, and of course he went as well. They ended up moving to an apartment rented out by her new boss at the Brookfield Pet Motel, 40 year old Alan Bono.  And up until this point Arne’s been a “Good Guy”, he hasnt had any previous issues with the law and dropped out of high school to help his mom when she was in a tough spot.  

But Debbie started to notice that Arne would just growl out of nowhere in a trance and say he saw the Beast Man. And after just. Forget the whole thing. This happened about 4 times in those 6 months leading til the murder according to Debbie. He also started to get into minor trouble with the police but it wasn’t anything WILD, but strange considering he’d done nothing til now. 

But on Febuary 16th, 1981 yknow. Murder.

So Arne called in sick to his job to hang out with Debbie, his sister Wanda, and Debbie’s 9y/o cousin Mary who as there cause school was out for President’s day.  So I imagine these kids are just hangin out when Alan Bono, the boss shows up and takes em all to lunch at a bar. Which. First of all. At lease TWO of the 4 are underage. So yknow WHATEVER.

When they got testimony from the waitress she said she served three carafes or red wine to BOTH men. So they all finish up lunch and head back to the couple’s apartment, and Arne and Alan start to argue over Debbie, over what exactly I couldn’t find. So OFC Debbie tries to get Wanda and Mary out, and when she does Alan grabs Mary, whos the 9 y/o, and just doesn’t let go. Debbie is standing between these two men as Wanda is trying to get Alan to get go and at some point Arne growls, takes out his pocketknife, and stabs Alan over 20 times. He flees and when the police find him later 2 miles away. And he  just says “I think I hurt someone.”

Alan Bono dies hours later to his wounds, one of which that stretched from his stomach to his heart.

So I do give credit to his lawyer for trying at least, he found two cases in England (which nEITHER went to court) and decided to just say FUCK IT and give it a shot. So the first defense of demonic possession was a total bust the Judge wasn’t havin ANY of it, so then they shifted to self defense.

The jury deliberated for 15 hours before declaring Johnson guilty of first degree manslaughter for 10 to 20 years, but he only served 5.

When he got out Arne and Debbie got married and still are to this day.

Sources:

Wikipedia, People.com, The 13th Floor, Mysterious Universe, NY Times, The Truth Source, Skeptical Inquirer