Diane Bender, POB 178, Washington Grove MD 20880, 301-948-0133, exeline@alumni.gwu.edu   Sep 2010

Hagerstown Morning Herald, 23 Feb 1953, Dr. Richard B. Norment testified for defense in case of man accused of raping daughter, p 14, continued on page 2
p 14
McKinley Convicted of Raping Daughter
Judge Mish To Study Case Before Announcing Sentence
Robert B. McKinley, 41-year-old father of eight children, was found guilty here Saturday of raping and performing unnatural sex acts with his 13-year-old daughter.
Judge Joseph D. Mish, who tried the case without a jury, did not immediately pass sentence.
"I consider this a very serious case," said Judge Mish. "That's the least I can say."
The Main Avenue man, who did not deny the offenses but used heavy drinking as his defense, could be sentenced to hang. He was found guilty on three charges: rape, incest and unnatural sex acts.
"I have always thought the world of my wife and children," McKinley sobbed from the witness stand.
But he said since about 1947 he has been a heavy weekend drinker in the face of personal and family troubles.
Mrs. McKinley, who described her husband as being "terrible drunk" on the night of the alleged offenses, said when he was sober "he couldn't have been any better to me and the children."
Asked by Defense Attorney Roland Ready if she still loved her husband, Mrs. McKinley had this to say:
"That is a hard question for me to answer. I love him. But my inner feelings I cannot explain to you."
The 13-year-old daughter testified tearfully that her father had threatened her life when he forced her to walk along the Western Maryland Railway tracks near their home after returning from a Saturday night movie on Nobmer 23.
"He twisted my arms and said he would kll me," she sobbed in a whisper that often couldn't be heard in the courtroom with the aid of the microphone.
"He said he would kill me if I tried to get away."
The attractive little girl said she tried to run away "but he got me."
McKinley, who held a hand or a handkerchief in front of his face during much of his testimony, claimed he remembered nothing about the allged attack on his daughter. He said he had been drinking heavily. He said he remembered nothing from the time he walked with his daughter to South Potomac and Antietam Streets until he found himself talking to his wife at their kitchen table the next morning.
The next morning McKinely said his wife told him to "get out or I'll call the cops," but he claimed he didn't know why she was putting him out of the house.
Dr. Richard Norment was called as a defense witness.
He said McKinley, who was a heavy drinker, could have been suffering a "temporary functional amnesia" at the time he allegedly attacked his daughter. He said his observations of McKinley had indicated he is a "constitutional psychopath."
Trouble in the case of people lik McKinley, said Dr. Norment, starts when they drink alcoholic beverages.
"Alcohol takes their brakes off," said the doctor. "Alcohol submerges their restraints."
The 13-year-old daughter was not cross-examined by Roland Ready and Louis Boublitz, defense attorneys.
State's Attorney John S. Hollyday, who asked the court for a conviction on the first count of the indictment for which the maximum penalty is death by hanging, placed Dr. Irene Hitchman, psychiatrist with the Springfield State Hospital on the stand as the first witness for the State.
Dr. Hitchman testified that there was no doubt in her mind and in the minds of others who examined McKinley that "he was perfectly sane" both at the time of the examination and at the time of the alleged offense.
She said it is very likely that he is a psycho-neurotic individual, then adding, "but then so many of us fall into that category."
Dr. Hitchman said the examination disclosed that he "showed very real remorse and seems heart broken."
Dr. Omer Sprecher, a surgeon, took the stand to testify in behalf of the State's contention that the girl was raped. He described her as "a pretty frightened girl."
William F. Nutter, 425 Salem Avenue, an employe of the Western Maryland Railway, testified that he saw a slender man answering McKinley's description walking down the tracks from Antietam Street while he was on his way to work.
He said that later he saw them from a distance near the Western Maryland yards after he had gone to work. Nutter said he saw the man take off his coat and throw the girl to the ground. He said he was standing on top of a box car and he could see that the girl was crying, and that when he yelled, the man got up and took the girl by the arm.
He said he could not determine how old they appeared to be and when questioned by defense counsel as to why he didn't break up the activity, he replied, "If I had known it was his daughter I would have."