CHRONOLOGY
Dec. 1, 1958 – Jane Dakin murders parents.
Jun. 15, 1959 – JD declared sane by one expert.
Jun. 17, 1959 – verdict: insane, Dr. Francis J. Millen;
Mautson circuit court. Judge Bruce Beilfuss.
Jun. 18, 1959 – enters Winnebago state hospital.
Nov. 9, 1962 – re-examination ordered by judge Beilfuss.
May 7, 1963 – parole approved by judge Beilfuss.
Dec. 3, 1963 – judge Beilfuss orders JD to be free from
supervision.
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FULL TEXT: Mauston, Wis. – A finance company president and
his wife were shot to death in their home last night. Dist. Atty. William Brady
said today that their 17-year-old daughter, apprehended in the family car a few
hours later, admitted killing her parents.
The bodies of Thomas Dakin, 46, and his 43-year-old wife
Betty were found where they were cut down by blasts of pistol fire. They were
the parents of two girls, the other 11.
Brady said that Jane Dakin would be taken before Juneau County
Juvenile Judge William R. Curran on a delinquency petition. He declined to
reveal any details of her statement.
[“Girl, 17, Slays Father, Mother,” Sioux Falls Argus-Leader (S.D.),
Dec. 2, 1958, p. 15]
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FULL TEXT: Mautson – A
17-year-old high school girl was quoted by her best friend’s mother today as
saying calmly, a few minutes after the crime. “I just shot my mother and my
father came home so I had to shoot him too.”
Mrs. Gunnar Johnson, a state witness in the first degree
murder trial of Jane Dakin, said that Jane called her out of a 4-H club meeting
at the Mauston Court House at about 8 p. m. last Dec. 1 to make the statement.
“She was so calm,” Mrs. Johnson testified. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought she was
crazy. I thought things like that don’t happen. I didn’t realize she had really
done it.”
~ Picks Bouquet ~
Mrs. Johnson’s 16-year-old
daughter, Kathy, also took the stand and described her friendship with Jane/
Pagel testified on finding the bodies at the Dakin home.
Tuesday Jane picked a bouquet of flowers for the sheriff's
wife when the jury and principals visited her family home.
Miss Dakin, on trial in Circuit Court on I wo counts of
first degree nun der, kept her head bowed low as the tape recorded statement
she gave authorities on the night her parents were killed was played for the
court. She has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Earlier, as the court visited the Dakin home where the
double slaying occurred Dec. 1. Mis Dakin picked a small bouquet for Mrs. Arlene
Ripley, who acted as matron during the tour.
~ Permitted Tapes ~
Circuit Court Judge Bruce Beilfuss was expected to rule
today on whether the tape recording shall be entered as evidence. He permitted
the tapes to be played back to the court while the jurors were in their
quarters at a hotel on the outskirts of the city.
Miss Dakin said she shot her father, Thomas, 46, and her
mother. Elizabeth, 43 about 8 p. m. after watching television. Former Dist. Atty. William Brady questioned Miss Dakin for
four hours on the night of the shooting.
During the questioning, Miss Dakin told of constant
bickering between herself and her mother. She said the spats usually concerned
her friends, where she spent her time, school work and things she did or didn’t
do.
~ Went To Get Gun ~
Miss Dakin said that she shot at her mother from the top of
the stairway in her home.
Q – What did you do when you stopped watching television.
A—Went upstairs.
Q—What did you go upstairs for.
A—To get the gun.
Q – Why.
A – That’s a silly question.
Miss Dakin refused to answer several other questions but explained
her father had taught her to load the weapon, a .22 caliber Winchester. She
said she filled the magazine.
Q – How many times did you shoot.
A – Once.
Q – What did your mother do then.
A – She ran
upstairs and I went into Mary’s room and then I shot her when she reached the
top of the stairs. She fell down the stairs and I was getting ready to leave
when dad came in.
~ Started
Shooting ~
Q – Did he say
anything to you.
A – No. I just
started shooting.
The father died of two bullet wounds, his wife had been shot seven
times. Miss Dakin’s sister, Mary, 11, was at a movie at the time of the
shootings.
The statement continued with Miss Dakin relating how she asked a
family friend to care for Mary, then drove out of town contemplating suicide. She
changed her mind and called authorities.
Miss Dakin seemed wistful as she walked through the empty rooms of
the family home. She took a few books left on a living room shelf and several
phonograph records from the kitchen, handed them to Mrs. Ripley and left.
Outside, she walked around the house picking flowers and waved to a neighbor
boy when he called to her before the group returned to their automobiles and drove
back to the court room.
[“Testifies Jane Dakin Told of Jane Dakin Told Of Killings
Calmly; Thought She Was Crazy, Friend Says,” The Sheboygan Press (Wi.), Jun. 3,
1959, p. 1]
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FULL TEXT: Mautson – Seventeen-year-old Jane Dakin, on trial
for slaying her parents, testified Thursday that five or six years ago she killed
two baby rabbits by burying them alive because voices told her, "They're
dumb things they won't live anyway.
The same voices, she told a Circuit Court jury of 11 men and
one woman, kept telling her, "You’re crazy, you're crazy when she shot her
mother death last Dec. 1.
Miss Dakin is on trial for first degree murder for killing
her mother Elizabeth, 43, and her father, Thomas. 46, in the family home here.
She has pleaded in nocent by reason of insanity.
She testified that she and her mother talked of Christmas
presents the night of Dec. 1 before she went upstairs and loaded an automatic
.22 caliber rifle.
After shooting her mother, she said, "It wasn't like I
was doing bad. I was just shooting and then I heard the voices again telling
me, 'You're crazy.' "
When her father entered the house shortly after the mother
had been shot, she said, "1 felt like saying 'look, Dad, I'm crazy, I just
shot mother'." Instead she shot and killed her father.
There was no cross examination of Miss Dakin.
Jane Dakin followed her 11-year-old sister Mary on the
stand. Jane kissed Mary on the forehead after the younger girl testified that
on the last night she saw her parents and Jane together “we were talking about
Christmas presents – about what I’d like and what Jane would like.”
Mary was at a movie at the time her parents were slain.
When Defense Attorney Arlo McKinnon asked Mary if “everything
was happy and all right with you, your mother and Jane,” the girl replied “as
far as I can remember, everything was normal.”
The state rested its case after playing a four-hour tape
recording made by Jane to county authorities a few hours after her parents were
slain. In it she described in details of the shooting and events that led up to
it.
Dr. Vernon M. Griffin, one of the first defense witnesses to
be called, testified that Jane “was mentally disturbed and in need of psychiatric
care.” He was the Dakin family physician.
Another defense witness, Mrs. Louise Hale, practical nurse
who said she had known the Dakin family for 20 years thought Jane was “insane
at times.”
[“Jane Dakin Takes Stand, Tells Of Hearing Voices,” Stevens
Point Daily Journal (Wi.), Jun. 5, 1959, P. 11]
***
FULL TEXT: MAUSTON (AP) — Dr. Joseph Weber, a Milwaukee
psychiatrist, said Monday he believes admitted slayer Jane Dakin was sane the
night her parents were shot to death.
"She was sane at the time the act was committed,"
Dr. Weber testified, "and she is sane now. She knew right from wrong and
was aware of the nature and quality of her acts."
~ Defense Testimony ~
Dr. Weber’s testimony directly contradicted by a number of
defense psychiatrists who said they believed the girl to be insane during the
slayings.
Miss Dakin, a 17-year-old high school student, has admitted
the automatic rifle slayings of her father, Thomas, 46, and her mother, Elizabeth,
43, the night of Dec. 1. She has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to two
counts of first degree murder at her Circuit Court trial before Judge Bruce
Bellfuss.
Dr. Weber said that his opinion as to Miss Dakin being
mentally ill would have to be negative. He said this was based on examinations
of Miss Dakin and observing her actions on many occasions.
~ Group Activity ~
She was able to participate in group activity Nov. 30 by
attending a movie with others, Dr. Weber said, in addition to roller skating
and driving an automobile.
He said that on Dec. 1 her actions were also normal, that
she was able to eat her meals, answer the door when visitors called and
complete the rather complicated process of loading the rifle though she had
only done it once before.
Dr. Weber also said that after the shootings Miss Dakin's
action were rational in that she could drive an automobile.
~ Wanted Sympathy ~
"These acts required coordinated movements," Dr.
Weber said, "and were not the nets of an insane person."
He added that he did not believe her statements of attempted
suicides were genuine but were attempts to gain sympathy.
"Desire for Immediate gratification in this girl was
immense," Dr. Weber said. "She has always wanted things when she
wanted them—right away."
Miss Dakin’s trial entered its third week Monday.
Authorities found the bodies of her parents in the living
room of the Dakin home after they were called and told of the crime by Miss
Dakin. Both husband and wife died of multiple bullet wounds.
[“Psychiatrists Disagree on Sanity of Jane Dakin in Parents’
Slaying,” The Racine Journal-Times (Wi.), Jun. 16, 1959, p. 8]
***
FULL TEXT: MAUSTON, Wis. – A jury decided last night that attractive
17-year-old Jane Dakin, who likes to read Shakespeare and play the piano, was
insane at the time she killed her wealthy parents.
The circuit court jury of 11 men and one woman, after
deliberating three hours, found that Miss Dakin was innocent on two counts of
first degree murder, because she was insane at the tame of the act, the plea
she entered for her trial.
The girl admitted shooting her mother, Elizabeth, 43, and
then her father, Thomas, 46, with an automatic .22 caliber rifle the night of
Dec. 1. Seventeen shots were fired from the gun, most of them striking the
parents. Afterward she went to a friend's home and told of the double slaying.
She testified at her trial that she had discussed Hamlet and
other works of Shakespeare her mother shortly before she shot her to death in
their home here. She killed her father when he entered the home a short time later,
she said.
Miss Dakin, who maintained remarkable composure during her
15-day trial, wept on the shoulder of her uncle, Phillip Dakin of Milwaukee,
when the verdict was read to Judge Bruce Beilfuss.
Judge Beilfuss remanded the girl to the custody of the
Juneau County sheriff and said he would confer with public welfare officials
before deciding whether the girl should be sent to an institution for a
determination of her sanity now and whether she should have psychiatric
treatment.
The statute under which the girl was found innocent empowers
the judge to have her committed for further treatment until she is cured to the
point where there is reasonable certainty she would not again commit such an
act.
The Wisconsin Diagnostic Center at Madison, which examined
Miss Dakin for 60 days after the shooting, said the girl was mentally ill. It
indicated that she could eventually be restored. If that happens she would be
free, under Wisconsin law.
Judge Beilfuss gave the jury three alternatives. It could
have found Miss Dakin guilty of first degree murder, punishable by life
imprisonment; innocent by reason of insanity at the time of the act or
acquittal.
Testimony at the trial, and from a tape recorded interview
with the | girl admitted as evidence, disclosed she had planned to kill herself
but instead shot her mother. The tape recording also quoted Miss Dakin as
saying she "heard voices" telling her that she was crazy and that at
another time the same voices told her to bury two rabbits alive because
"they couldn't live anyway."
Psychiatrists, testifying for the defense, said that the
girl could not distinguish between right and wrong and obviously was insane at
the time of the shooting and is now. Prosecution witnesses, including
psychiatrists, testified that the girl was not insane.
[“Jury Rules Jane Dakin Was Insane When She Murdered Parents
– May Send Girl Institution for Psychiatric Care,” The Racine Journal-Times
(Wi.), Jun. 18, 1959, p. 18]
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