Word: braunsdorf
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...death of Virginia Braunsdorf in your story "Murder or Mercy?" [TIME, June 5]: I am compelled to ask the eternal question-"Why?" Similar cases are constantly occurring and yet we seem no nearer getting to the crux of the cause of these tragedies...
Your write-up of the murder of Virginia Braunsdorf disturbs and disgusts me. You give the impression that a spastic is a hopeless case for which death is the logical, if illegal, solution. You should have at least investigated the records on cerebral palsy, the technical term for spasticity...
...years after the birth of his child, Detroit Symphony Musician Eugene Braunsdorf did everything in his power to make her happy and comfortable. It was a heartbreaking task; Virginia was a spastic child, and grew slowly into a helpless parody of womanhood. At 21, she was only four feet tall, could not hold her head upright, and talked in gobbling sounds which only her father could understand...
...time, to keep her at home and well attended, Braunsdorf had four jobs-one playing the bass viol with the orchestra, one teaching music, one on a Ford assembly line, and one as registrar with Detroit Business University. The strain of such a working schedule soon began to tell. In 1942 Braunsdorf fell ill, put all his earnings in a florist shop to recoup his finances, but eventually had to sell it at a loss. Finally, he resigned himself to leaving Virginia at a private sanitarium...
...Eugene Braunsdorf lived, to be charged with murder. Last week, in Detroit recorder's court, a jury was faced with the question which has plagued law-abiding humans for centuries-what is justice for the distraught who kill in the name of mercy? The jury's answer: "Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity at the time of the killing." Spectators in the courtroom cheered; some of the jurors wept. It seemed certain that broken, weeping Eugene Braunsdorf-who had been judged sane when he was ordered to stand trial for murder-would be quickly freed after...
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