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Tue 14 Apr 2009 NBC-TV Dateline program, "Deadly Dreams", which aired on Friday March 13, 2009.This excellent, well-produced, Wellbutrin and anxiety, and provocatively balanced, one-hour news program analyzed the notorious Wellbutrin and anxiety - Santa Catalina Island, California murder case Wellbutrin and anxiety - Wellbutrin sr antidepressant : from October 2001, involving the deceased 42 year-old Eva Weinfurtner, and her 25 year-old lover Stephen Reitz who was found guilty of first-degree murder--despite his vigorous use of the Sleepwalking Defense. (The case is currently under appeal). My participation in the program involved the extensive use of our sleep lab footage from the Sleep Runners Deluxe Academic DVD (www.sleeprunners.com website that is linked to this website), along with wellbutrin and anxiety background information to the producer Robert Dean about the forensic aspects of the Wellbutrin and anxiety : parasomnias, including a summary and my conclusions about the infamous sleepwalking murder case from Wellbutrin sr antidepressant : May 1987 involving Kenneth Parks from Toronto, Canada. The Parks case made Canadian legal history as the first successful use of the Sleepwalking Defense in a murder trial. Ken Parks drove 14 miles (23 kilometers) on the night of May 24, 1987 and murdered his mother-in-law, and nearly murdered his father-in-law, and these were relatives whom he wellbutrin and anxiety loved and over the years had repeatedly demonstrated his love and affection for them. He was found not-guilty on the basis of sleepwalking, and my analysis of the court transcripts led me to agree with the jury's verdict. In contrast, the Santa Catalina Island murder case featured in the NBC-TV Dateline program presents compelling evidence both in favor of sleepwalking and in favor of murder (or at least manslaughter). I strongly recommend that the readers of this Newsletter read the excerpts below about the Ken Parks case in the Forenics chapter in my book "Paradox Lost: Midnight in the Battleground of Sleep and Dreams", and then go to the NBC-Dateline website to view the video of the Deadly Dreams program. And of course, I encourage the readers to consider obtaining my book to read the entire forensics chapter, along with the other chapters containing detailed accounts of virtually all the parasomnias.
Wellbutrin and anxiety : CHAPTER 13 (Abridged)
Carlos H. Schenck, MD (from “Paradox Lost” 2005)
MEDICAL-LEGAL ISSUES: FORENSIC ASPECTS OF PARASOMNIAS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter allows for all the poignant and revealing Parasomnias stories and the current scientific explanations contained in this book to be brought together and viewed through the prism of our current legal system and its sadly outdated views of “sanity” and “insanity”—with cymbalta wellbutrin implications for the ultimate disposition of an accused person in regards to criminal behavior associated with Sleepwalking, sleep-related violence, and other non-volitional, sleep-related activity. Wellbutrin and anxiety : My colleague Mark W. Mahowald, M.D. and I have given this important matter considerable deliberation, and we have published extensively in this area. Furthermore, our research and our synthesis of the literature have addressed the issues of dissociated states of sleep, dreams, and wakefulness and their impact on consciousness, which wellbutrin and anxiety major forensic implications. For example, based on our research foundation and an analysis of pertinent trial transcripts and reports, we have proposed the adoption of two new forensic Parasomnia categories:
i) Parasomnia with continuing danger as a non-insane automatism. ii) (Intermittent) state-dependent continuing danger, and its implications for willful self-abusive behavior and future Parasomnia recurrence.
The first section of this Wellbutrin and anxiety - chapter presents and analyzes the historic case and subsequent trial of Kenneth James Parks, wellbutrin and anxiety in 1987 drove his automobile one night while Sleepwalking and proceeded to murder his mother-in-law and nearly murdered his father-in-law. Parks was acquitted of all charges by Wellbutrin and anxiety, utilizing the “Sleepwalking Defense.” The original verdict was subsequently upheld after an appeal was filed by the prosecution (Regina v. Parks, Court of Appeal, Brooke, Krever and Galligan JJ.A., June 1, 1990, as documented in Wellbutrin and anxiety - ONTARIO REPORTS, SECOND SERIES, VOLUME 73, July 27, 1990).
The year wellbutrin and anxiety the trial I was able to obtain a transcript of the entire court proceedings through my close friend in Ottawa, Canada, the Honourable Kenneth C. Binks, Q.C. (Queen’s Counsel). The official transcript of the trial that was sent to me was comprised of eight volumes totaling 1,737 pages, and was certified to be correct by a Patricia M. Grainger, C.S.R., Official Reporter, S.C.O. Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - (Supreme Court of Ontario). The front page of the trial transcript read as follows:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF ONTARIO
CANADA Wellbutrin and anxiety - Wellbutrin and anxiety : ) HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
PROVINCE OF ONTARIO Wellbutrin and anxiety - Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - wellbutrin and anxiety ) against
JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF YORK ) Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - KENNETH Wellbutrin and anxiety - JAMES PARKS
TRIAL PROCEEDINGS
--- Before THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE WATT, held at the Court Wellbutrin and anxiety - House, 361 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, commencing Monday May 9th, 1988.
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APPEARANCES:
MS. CATHY MOCHA Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - Wellbutrin and anxiety : for the Crown
MS. MARLYS EDWARDH ) for the Accused DELMAR DOUCETTE, ESQ.)
(A year after I had analyzed the court transcripts of the Parks trial in 1989—and then put it aside in anticipation of Wellbutrin and anxiety : including it in Paradox Lost, which took 15 years longer to complete than originally Wellbutrin and anxiety, planned-- an excellent book on the Parks trial was published in the popular press by June Callwood, entitled: “The Sleepwalker: the trial that made Canadian legal history.” As Ms. Callwood pointed out, this was the first time in Canadian legal history that a Sleepwalking defense had wellbutrin and anxiety successfully utilized in a criminal trial).
The subsequent sections of this chapter deal with a variety of other compelling forensic topics pertaining to the Parasomnias, including a detailed presentation of the rationales for our two cymbalta wellbutrin proposed forensic categories that were listed above; guidelines for determining the putative role of a Wellbutrin and anxiety - Parasomnia in a specific act of violence; presentation of another forensic Parasomnia category called “Parasomnia Pseudo-suicide;” a summary of an important law review article entitled Crime and Consciousness: Science and Involuntary Acts; and a discussion of Amicus Curiae and the need for sleep medicine experts to testify in criminal cases as an impartial “friend of the court.”
FORENSIC ASPECTS OF wellbutrin and anxiety I
SLEEP-DRIVING AND HOMICIDAL SOMNAMBULISM: THE FAMOUS CASE OF KENNETH PARKS AND HIS IN-LAWS
(SUMMARY BASED ON A REVIEW Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - OF THE COURT TRANSCRIPTS)
THIS CASE cymbalta wellbutrin ALSO REPORTED IN A PEER-REVIEWED MEDICAL JOURNAL ARTICLE THAT WAS PUBLISHED BY A GROUP OF MEDICAL AND LEGAL EXPERTS INVOLVED IN THE TRIAL:
“Homicidal Somnambulism: A Case Report”
SLEEP 1994; volume 17: 253-264
R. Broughton, R. Billings, R. Cartwright, D. Doucette, J. Edmeads, M. Edwardh, F. Ervin, B. Orchard, R. Hill, G. Turrell
The Event
Kenneth James Parks, 24 year-old male, 6’5” tall and weighing 280 pounds, was acquitted for the May 24, 1987 murder wellbutrin and anxiety his mother-in-law, Barbara Woods, on the grounds that he was engaged in sleepwalking—and therefore not conscious and not responsible for his actions wellbutrin and anxiety the time. On the night of the murder, Parks presumably arose from the couch where he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV, put on his shoes, grabbed a set of keys from an end table, left the house—leaving the front door open—and then got into his car. Without closing the garage door behind him, he then drove roughly 23 kilometers through the Toronto city streets to the house of his in-laws. He unlocked the door and proceeded to the Woods’ bedroom, where he strangled his father-in-law Donald Woods to unconsciousness and beat his mother-in-law with a tire iron and stabbed both of wellbutrin and anxiety with a knife he had taken from their kitchen.
The police later cymbalta wellbutrin signs of a great struggle in the bedroom: the bed was disheveled, the pillows were cymbalta wellbutrin in blood, and the mattress was moved around so that the headboard was tipped forward. Barbara the deceased was found in a room 5-6 feet from the bedroom. The tire iron was left in the bedroom. Barbara wellbutrin and anxiety had sustained 6 stab wounds through her chest (and one through her shoulder wellbutrin and anxiety the fatal wound went through her heart. She also had sustained Wellbutrin and anxiety - blunt-force injuries to her nose, eye and skull that caused a subarachnoid cymbalta wellbutrin In contrast, Donald Woods’ lacerations were not nearly as severe.
While bludgeoning his in-laws, Kenneth Parks cut himself severely with the same knife, severing flexor tendons in both hands. He felt no pain at the time, and also later that night when cymbalta wellbutrin was observed to be in an altered sleepwalking-like state and not having pain.
That night Parks also had picked up the phone in the Woods’ kitchen and set it wellbutrin and anxiety again, off the hook. He ran up the stairs towards the children’s bedrooms. The Woods’ wellbutrin and anxiety daughters described hearing screaming and animal-like grunting sounds which “got really loud…then all of a sudden they stopped, and then the grunting noises started again and the person started coming up the stairs…The grunting stopped and he just stood there for we don’t know how long…and then ran back downstairs and left.”
Parks presented himself to the local Wellbutrin and anxiety - police station at 4:45 a.m. saying, “I just killed someone with my bare hands.” He appeared distressed and was shaking. He asked a policeman, “What happened? I was Wellbutrin and anxiety - sleeping on the couch. I just woke up. I had a dream. I had a knife in my hand. I was killing them. I choked them, then I went to the police station…How could I drive there and not know?” He did not appear to notice his cut hands with the severed tendons until after the confession. In fact, according to the police, he did not appear to be in pain, despite having cut tendons in both hands. This is an example of “dissociative analgesia,” with Wellbutrin and anxiety, profound blunting of pain sensation, that can be evident in the sleepwalking state. This observation by the police actually constitutes compelling evidence cymbalta wellbutrin a grossly impaired state of consciousness with analgesia that is seen with sleepwalking, and wellbutrin and anxiety not seen with malingering (“faking it”).
Background Events
Parks had been under a great deal of stress in the months Wellbutrin sr antidepressant : preceding the murder. He started betting on horses in the summer of 1986 and lost all his savings at the racing track. To replenish his account, he embezzled $32,000 from the company where he worked as an electrician and project coordinator. He kept losing money and when the company found out about the missing funds in March 1987, he was fired. He then was compelled to tell his wife about the gambling and she then told her family.
By all accounts, Parks’ relationship with the wellbutrin and anxiety Wellbutrin and anxiety : wellbutrin and anxiety been one of mutual caring and respect. Mrs. Woods called Parks Wellbutrin sr antidepressant : her “gentle giant” and he said he loved her as a son would love his mother. (It should be noted that Ken had first met Mrs. Woods’ daughter—and his future wife—when Wellbutrin sr antidepressant : she wellbutrin and anxiety a teenage runaway, and he had convinced her cymbalta wellbutrin return home to her parents, which she agreed to do, and so her parents were always grateful for his positive intervention during that family crisis). However, after losing his job, Parks stopped visiting the Woods because he was ashamed. He was unable to find a job, did side jobs as an electrician—and continued to gamble. He was booked on fraud charges and was out on bail at the time of the murder. His wife wanted him to Wellbutrin sr antidepressant : get help for his gambling and said she would leave him if his gambling continued. They had bitter arguments about this. Parks arranged to join Gamblers Anonymous. He also had planned a barbeque at the Woods’ house later in the day of the murder to “come clean.”
After starting to gamble heavily, Parks began to suffer from “pressure headaches.” He started to watch TV all night to “take his troubles away.” He socialized less and his weight increased from 240 to 310 pounds. He had Wellbutrin and anxiety, trouble falling asleep. After going to bed at 11 pm, he would ruminate, then get up and watch TV until 1-2 wellbutrin and anxiety His sleep improved temporarily in December 1986 with the birth of his first child and less work pressure. Then in March 1987 he again suffered from insomnia Wellbutrin and anxiety : about 6 nights a week, with total nightly sleep lasting 4-6 hours. The quantity of his sleep decreased progressively in April. He began to complain of severe daytime sleepiness, and took frequent naps. He would wake up and cymbalta wellbutrin like there was heavy breathing, like, there was a pressure Wellbutrin and anxiety : on me and I would get up. Like, I would find it hard to get up…I would feel like a pressure [on the chest] and it would be hard to breathe…I’d have to catch my breath.” He complained of intermittent chest pain, saw a doctor about this and was given treatment for asthma.
Parks and his wife agreed he had “virtually no sleep at all” on the two nights before the murder. They were having Wellbutrin and anxiety, frequent arguments about his gambling and he was banished to sleeping on the couch. On the day before the murder Parks played in a rugby match when it was wellbutrin and anxiety hot and humid and he was out of shape and felt “exhausted.” He came home in mid-afternoon when his wife went to work, and he took care of their baby until she fell asleep at 9 pm. He then made a salmon sandwich and cooked some ravioli for himself—the first meal he’d eaten all day. He had ingested no alcohol or drugs. Very tired, he lay down and watched TV cymbalta wellbutrin then watched with his wife when she arrived at 10:45 PM. She made him some kool-aid to drink and went to bed around midnight, inviting him to sleep with her. Parks refused, saying he’d wait until he’d gotten some help for his gambling, and besides, he wasn’t sleepy (!).
At the trial, Parks’ account of the night’s events was as wellbutrin and anxiety he fell asleep on the couch sometime after midnight and his next recollection was seeing his mother-in-law’s face, “and she’s got her eyes open and her mouth open...it’s a very sad face. I just wellbutrin and anxiety and I heard the kids [yelling].” He recalled thinking the kids were in trouble and needed help. He says he yelled “kids, kids, kids” and went upstairs. He recalled going to pick up the phone but left the townhouse to get help. His memories of the events at the police station and his subsequent treatment at the hospital were spotty.
Sleep History
By all accounts, cymbalta wellbutrin was a very cymbalta wellbutrin sleeper. Before the night of the murder, he used to sleep 8 hours a night and took wellbutrin and anxiety minutes cymbalta wellbutrin the morning trying to wake up. He was not cymbalta wellbutrin alert in the morning. Driving to work he would have to turn on the radio, open the window to let the breeze blow in his face, and wellbutrin and anxiety and slap himself to wake up. His wife Karen Parks had no recollection of his sleepwalking, but he snored and would talk to her in his sleep, not remembering anything in the morning. She said he perspired a lot at night.
As wellbutrin and anxiety child, Parks had a problem with bedwetting until age 13-14 years. His mother cymbalta wellbutrin him as a deep sleeper and difficult to awaken. Once when he was 11 or 12, his mother went in to check on her sons and saw Ken’s “legs cymbalta wellbutrin out the [6th floor] window.” This is the only parasomnia which she cymbalta wellbutrin recall—but it was another dramatic and potentially lethal event. His grandmother, with whom he ultimately lived, said that when he was a teenager he talked 2-3 nights a week. Social History
Park’s parents separated when he was 5 wellbutrin and anxiety his mother subsequently remarried. He had no contact with his father until age Wellbutrin and anxiety, 18. His mother was hard of hearing and he never had a wellbutrin and anxiety relationship with her. He was described as a self-sufficient person: “I did things on my own.” He was truant in elementary school, but settled down after meeting a good teacher in 5th grade. In Junior High School he was arrested once for petty theft. At age 16 he move in with his grandmother after his parents had moved Wellbutrin and anxiety : away. He completed an 11th grade Wellbutrin and anxiety : education. He enjoyed sports. He married Karen after a long friendship and the relationship had been a good one, until the gambling problem developed.
Family History
Park’s family history was replete with sleep disorders.
1) His grandfather Stanley Hodge suffered from night terrors, sleepwalking, sleep-cooking, and sleeptalking. According to his wife, throughout his entire marriage Wellbutrin and anxiety, he would “wake up, cymbalta wellbutrin in bed and jump around…sweat a lot, and he would get up through the night and walk around through the wellbutrin and anxiety in his undershorts and…his Wellbutrin and anxiety - eyes were always very stary, very bulgy…and he used to get up through the night often, and he would go different places to the bathroom except the washroom.” wellbutrin and anxiety also would get up and start cooking in the middle of the night, frying onions, potatoes and eggs. He never ate them, just left them in the pan and went back to bed. He didn’t always turn off the stove. Sometimes he would put the kettle on and walk away. His eyes looked “bulgy,” he would be breathing Wellbutrin and anxiety, heavily and would push anyone away if they tried to interfere. He was never violent to his wife, and never left the house during these episodes.
Parks remembered one time his grandmother calling for help after his grandfather had walked into Wellbutrin and anxiety, the laundry room Wellbutrin and anxiety - and had fallen, cut himself and lost control of his bladder. Stanley Hodge had no memory for these incidents. His wife said he cymbalta wellbutrin sleep deeply for 2-3 hours, “then start getting up and walking around and doing all these things.” Hodge’s son Glen reported that the spells occurred 2-4 times a week. If he tried to touch his father “he would almost send me flying. He swung around to hit me. That happened a couple of times…[Stanley] was staring in a terrifying manner and was grunting…very heavy breathing.” Glen said his father would occasionally leave their trailer for 15-20 minutes at night and then return.
2) Two aunts talked in cymbalta wellbutrin sleep, with no identifiable words.
3) Two uncles had Wellbutrin and anxiety, bedwetting until ages 13-14 years. One of them had sleeptalking until age 12-13 years, whereas the other one would run through the house screaming and then hide in the sofa.
4) Wellbutrin and anxiety - A second cousin, when he was 8 or wellbutrin and anxiety years old, was found going to the bathroom in a pail outside the neighbor’s house, and then sat on the side of the road.
5) Ken Parks’ younger Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - brother, a sleeptalker, once turned the stove on, fried and egg in a frying pan, and then went to bed without eating it, and without turning off the stove.
6) Two cousins had bedwetting. Also, the younger cousin was a noted deep sleeper who would sleeptalk incomprehensibly, while staring. The older cousin wellbutrin and anxiety had night terrors.
Table
The Parks Family Sleep History (Including Ken Parks)
18 parasomnias (across 4 categories) affecting 10 first & second degree family members
PRIMARY PARASOMNIAS—PARKS FAMILY
Sleeptalking: 7 family members Enuresis: Wellbutrin and anxiety - 5 family members (bedwetting) Sleepwalking: 4 family members Sleep terrors: 2 family members
10 MAJOR FEATURES OF PARASOMNIAS—PARKS FAMILY
Deep sleeper: 3 family members (excessive)
“Strange staring/ bulging eyes”: 3 family members (while sleepwalking)
Sleep-cooking: 2 family members (without eating; while sleepwalking)
Leaving the cymbalta wellbutrin on: 2 family members (when going back to bed after sleep-cooking)
Sleep-related injury: wellbutrin and anxiety 2 family members (with violence)
Leaving the house: 2 family members (while sleepwalking)
Sleep-running: 2 family members
Inappropriate urination: 2 family members Wellbutrin and anxiety : (while sleepwalking)
Excessive sweating: 2 family members (during sleep)
Sleep-grunting: Wellbutrin sr antidepressant - 2 family members (including animalistic)
In summary, the Parks family was replete with sleep pathology expressed across 4 primary parasomnias, with at least 10 major clinical features. (This may be an underestimate, pending a full clinical interview with all first and second cymbalta wellbutrin relatives and their spouses.)
The impressive Parks family sleep disorders history was a pillar of support for the sleepwalking defense as the explanation for the murder and attempted murder by Ken Parks of his parents-in-law. Sleepwalking, in wellbutrin and anxiety was adopted by a Canadian jury as the most likely cause for the bizarre and tragic events of the night of May 24, 1987, and became the wellbutrin and anxiety for the acquittal of Ken Parks.
The Court Case
The evidence presented in court established that Kenneth Parks had killed his mother-in-law and had almost killed his father-in-law with his own hands. These facts were indisputable.
The jury found the defendant Kenneth Parks to be Not Guilty of all charges, and wellbutrin and anxiety was acquitted and freed by the court.
The outcome of the trial was as follows: Kenneth Parks was acquitted of the murder and attempted murder charges on the basis of sleepwalking. In the eyes of the law, criminal behavior wellbutrin and anxiety from sleep is non-volitional behavior, and the accused is therefore Wellbutrin and anxiety - not culpable for such behavior and should be acquitted. Furthermore, since the risk of recurrence of dangerous sleepwalking—i.e. a hazard wellbutrin and anxiety the public—was considered by the court to be low (based on the evidence and on the expert testimony), Wellbutrin and anxiety : Parks’ sleepwalking was classified to be a “non-insane automatism” with “low continuing danger.” Thus, Ken Parks became a free man.*
The prosecution appealed the decision (which is allowed wellbutrin and anxiety Canada, but not in the United States), but the original acquittal was upheld, and Kenneth Parks wellbutrin and anxiety a free man under the law, but a deeply burdened man in his Wellbutrin and anxiety - own daily life, dealing with the consequences of his gruesome, albeit involuntary, actions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * However, if the risk Wellbutrin and anxiety : of recurrence of dangerous sleepwalking was instead deemed to be high (based on the cymbalta wellbutrin and on the expert testimony), then wellbutrin and anxiety sleepwalking would have been classified by the court to be an “insane automatism.” In that alternative scenario, Parks would not have Wellbutrin and anxiety : become a free man. Rather, he would have been sent to a psychiatric facility (for the “insane”) for an indefinite confinement. This scenario cymbalta wellbutrin not make any medical sense (and defies any common sense), and results in an unfortunate clinical-legal situation: mandatory psychiatric confinement cymbalta wellbutrin a sleep disorder, without any explicit mandate for active therapy, until the risk of recurrence—of a sleep disorder, and not of a psychiatric disorder—is determined (how? by whom? a psychiatric expert?) to Wellbutrin and anxiety - be low enough (how low?) so that the sleepwalking can be legally Wellbutrin and anxiety, re-classified as a “non-insane automatism.”
To summarize: the legal definition Wellbutrin and anxiety - of “insanity” in regards Wellbutrin and anxiety : to sleepwalking depends solely on the risk of cymbalta wellbutrin of the sleepwalking--a frequency criterion that is completely unrelated to any psychiatric symptom). Read more ... |
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