Ep 5: The Sickles Insanity Defense

Detective Society

This week we explore first case ever to use the Insanity Defense! Natalie and Michael ramble about infidelity and the dogs misbehave.

Show Intro:

Teresa Bagioli was born into a prominent family of creatives and musicians in NYC in 1836 (they were a society family...)

Teresa was beautiful, bright, and said to have spoken 5 languages by the time she was 15. The picture on google--total smokeshow.

Around the time that she was born, her uncle, a professor at the newly founded NYU, invited a young protege named Daniel Sickels to live in his home while he studied.

daniel went on to become a lawyer and politician and stayed close to the Bagioli family for the next decade until she proposed to Teresa. He was 33, she was 15.

The family opposed the marriage, due to the age difference, but Daniel and Teresa were desperately in love! And in 1852 they get married anyway.

They were young (one of them more than the other), they were in love, and they were successful.

They moved to DC where their popularity skyrocketed, Teresa was a charming and welcoming hostess and Daniel was appointed the secretary of the U.S. legation in London, and later elected to as a member of the New York State Senate

And they lived happily ever after...

Nope. this is a murder show. In 1857 just 5 years after getting married, in the middle of Lafayette Plaza, across the street from the white house, Daniel would gun down Teresa's lover in broad daylight

What followed was a scandal that would rock America and change the history of US criminal Law.

This is the Sickles Insanity Defense.