In an odd twist in a disturbing tale, Emily Dickinson gets a name check in the Central Maine Morning Sentinel.
Over Labor Day weekend, 2006, Christian Nielsen killed four people in and around the town of Newry, a picturesque village in the Maine mountains just up the road from my father’s house. In an area where the biggest news tends to be the visit of Edith’s grandchildren “from away”, a review of the pies served at the First Baptist Church’s summer fund raiser, and the traffic congestion caused by a moose’s sudden appearance on the edge of town, these murders were sensational and shocking.
Now Nielsen’s defense lawyer is trying to suppress the confession he made soon after the killing, on the grounds that Nielsen’s lawyer wasn’t present during the interrogation. Nielsen waived his rights to an attorney, according to the transcripts, but since his defense rests on “mental disease or defect,” his defense team argues that he did not have the capacity to do so. It’s a bit of a catch-22.
I’m neither a lawyer, nor do I play one on television, so I can’t really comment on the validity of the argument. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect a defense lawyer to do–I’d certainly want mine to play this card if I were in the same spot–but I’d be surprised if it was an unqualified success.
What would be more interesting, would be an attempt to exculpate Nielsen on the basis of his reading habits. According to the story:
Nielsen sounded calm and laughed occasionally as [Detective Jennifer] King asked him about his work and his hobbies. He said he attended the University of Maine at Farmington for a while before he started working as a restaurant cook. He said he enjoys reading fiction and writing when he can, and that his favorite author is the poet Emily Dickinson.
Of course, Mark Chapman was a fan of Catcher in the Rye, and Nixon enjoyed Tolstoy. Perhaps the most that can be said from this little tidbit of information is that some writers are so good that it takes no especial moral sense to recognize their greatness. (We won’t start down the dark and weedy path of morality and aesthetics; I was up too late watching fireworks to think especially deep thoughts today…)
I meant to have but modest needs,
