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This volume deals with a remarkably complete history of a psychotic murderer who has been incarcerated for several years in a hospital for the criminally insane after conviction for various crimes such as burglary and robbery. He has been tried for murder and convicted, and another such procedure is now scheduled to take place. The patient was examined by Dr. Silvano Arieti, and this study gave rise to an article co-authored by Dr. Arieti and Professor Schreiber entitled, “Multiple Murders of a Schizophrenic Patient: A Psychodynamic Interpretation,” which appeared in this journal [(1981), 9, 501-524]. The book may well be the most detailed study of an individual psychotic murderer ever undertaken. The author has seen the patient or talked to him by telephone every day for six years — a veritable triumph of perserverance. She has tapped every conceivable source of information, including the mother who gave him up for adoption, his sister, his two wives and children, neighbors, teachers, and law-enforcement officials. The prisoner has been seen by many psychiatrists, and, as so often happens in medicolegal matters, their opinions have differed. Some have considered the patient psychotic; others have said that he is not psychotic, but has a personality disorder. A neurologist did a neurologic examination and said the patient had no organic brain disease. Another neurologist said the patient was a malingerer who was faking the signs of Huntington's chorea, but there is no statement as to whether the patient had ever seen a case of that disease or whether there was a family history of it.
Both Dr. Arieti and Dr. Lewis L. Robbins saw the patient at Farview State Hospital as a private patient, and both concurred in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. There is much to suggest that, despite lengthy observation, the case has not been fully worked up medically. Dr. Arieti did suggest that the patient should have an “electroencephalogram and other neurologic tests,” but the suggesti