Sleepwalking Murders

Strange Matters Podcast

Campfire Audio Productions

Science, History, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences

4.4 • 987 Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Strange Matters the bizarre and unusual topic of crimes involving sleepwalking murders is discussed. Though hard to imagine, in rare instances of homicide crimes an individual is actually capable of brutal and violent murder, all the while remaining asleep. Though many have tried and failed to use the “sleepwalking defense” through the years, for a select few cases the actions of the killer, and the science behind the condition, do show that a person is perfectly capable of murdering others while sleepwalking.
The idea that people were capable of killing in their sleep has been around for hundreds of years, but very rarely has it been successful in defending the accused. Many have tried to claim they were in a parasomnia state at the time they committed murder, but due to the scientific and behavioral studies of the modern world it is known their actions could not have been done while sleepwalking. However, there are a small number of cases where the most likely and agreed upon theory is that the murderer was actually asleep during the entirety of their crime.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Oh, Hello everyone and welcome to the Strange Matters podcast. Here are Strange Matters.
0:43.0	We discuss everything that is mysterious, bizarre, and unexplained.
0:47.0	I am Sean and I will be the host for this episode.
0:50.0	In this episode of Strange Matters, I will be talking about a very bizarre and unusual concept.
0:55.2	I'm sure for all you listening to this right now at some point in your life you've asked yourself the question
1:00.9	could I kill someone? The answer of course will vary from
1:04.4	person to person. Some would be able to do it under the right conditions, others
1:08.6	only for a desperate act like self-defense, while the rest probably just don't feel like they could ever have it in them to take another life, regardless of the circumstance.
1:17.0	As hard as that question is to answer, an even tougher one would be, could I murder someone in cold blood.
1:24.1	It would seem that most people would agree that anyone who commits murder
1:27.9	would do it as a deliberate and conscious effort
1:30.9	for whatever motives or desires or
1:32.8	Twistic logic they have in their minds.
1:35.2	They do it for a reason, a purpose.
1:38.0	However, in a few very rare cases, certain people have carried out brutal acts of cold-blooded murder, all the while not even realizing that they were doing it.
1:47.0	In this episode I will be discussing the strange topic of sleepwalking murders, also known as homicidal sleepwalking.
1:55.0	This term is used to refer to any case where the killer involved claims that they were not aware of anything they were doing,
2:01.0	as they were actually asleep the entire time.
2:05.2	This phenomenon has been controversial through the years as it is hard for the common person to believe
2:10.2	that a violent and horrible act like murder could ever be done while a person is still in an unconscious state like sleepwalking.
2:18.0	And it can be nearly impossible to prove what really happened in some of these cases. So for this discussion discussion I will present a number of cases where the culprit claims the
2:27.2	sleepwalking defense as a justification for their actions
	...

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