General
Kenneth Parks – The Story of Sleepwalking Killer
In May 1987, sometime after two o’clock on a Sunday night, 23-year-old Kenneth James Parks left his home in the suburbs of Toronto, started the car and covered 14 miles to the house of his wife’s parents.
He got out of the car, took a tire iron out of the trunk and opened the door with the key given to him. Once inside, he strangled his father-in-law, Dennis Woods, and beat his mother-in-law, Barbara Ann Woods, before stabbing the woman to death with her own kitchen knife.
Parks got back in the car, drove to the nearest police station, and stated, “I think I killed someone.”
All this time the young man was sleeping, and therefore could not be held responsible for his actions. During the trial, held in 1988, the jury reached just such a decision after nine hours of deliberation.
The prosecution considered this ridiculous and appealed the outcome of the case, but in 1992 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the original decision.
Even the sleep specialist who was brought in as a consultant was initially skeptical about such a case of sleepwalking, because the person performed a whole series of rather complex actions. Imagine passing three traffic lights without incident, passing a stretch of freeway, etc.
Most somnambulists end up hurting themselves or those sleeping next to them, not people tens of miles away. However, upon closer inspection, it turned out that the man was really asleep …
According to the readings of the laboratory instruments, Parks was characterized by an unusually deep sleep.
Even as a child, he often talked in his sleep, sometimes walked, and until the age of 11–12 he constantly woke up in a wet bed. (A 1974 study of 50 adults who indulged in violent behavior while sleeping found that many of them also peed the bed and walked without waking as children.)
One night, one of Parkes’ brothers grabbed him by the leg at the last moment as he was about to exit through the window. Similar symptoms occurred in his relatives in three generations.
Sleepwalking is fairly common in children – about 15% experience somnambulism in one way or another, but this usually does not lead to attacks on others. Typically, children go back to bed without incident and simply outgrow their problem afterwards.
Adults sleepwalk much less often. However, unlike children, they are more prone to hostile and aggressive behavior when others try to wake them up, which has been documented in a number of studies.
True, some details from the life of Parks do not put him in the best light. Almost a year before the attack, he became addicted to gambling, which did not reflect well on his marriage. He ended up stealing $30,000 from his job to cover his debts. Two months before the attack, the wrongdoing came to light and Parks was fired.
He refrained from playing for several weeks, after which he started again and forged his wife’s signature twice to get money.
But three days before the attack, he attended a Gamblers Anonymous meeting for the first time and decided to make amends with his wife’s parents, with whom he was apparently quite close. Parks even lost sleep because he was preparing for the upcoming conversation.
Psychiatrists and other specialists found no evidence of brain disease or psychosis in Parks. He himself was shocked by what he had done.
A brain wave survey showed that he naturally cycles through sleep phases more frequently than most people. He also experienced no physical pain during the attack, despite tearing several tendons that required surgery. Parks came to his senses only at the police station.
The doctors had no choice but to admit that sleepwalking was to blame. Indeed, since then there have been studies that support the hypothesis that the brain does not fall asleep all at once.
In a small number of people, the synchronization of the process of falling asleep between different parts of the brain is so disrupted that there is complete disorganization: people can talk, walk, drive a car, and even cook food, without understanding what is happening.
Apparently, Parks went to his wife’s parents, because the part of the brain that planned this trip was not sleeping. But why did he attack? Even the prosecutor’s office could not answer this question – there was no benefit to Parks from this.
According to experts, at that moment it did not seem to the poor fellow that he was killing someone in his sleep. The kind of sleepwalking that Parks suffered happens during a certain stage of sleep, when dreams are rare and mostly consist of fragmentary images.
Also, the part of the brain that tells us what to do in a given situation (the prefrontal cortex) is inactive during this phase of sleep.
Most likely, Dennis Woods found his son-in-law wandering around the house sleeping and tried to wake Parks. He took it as if his life was in danger. Unfortunately, the part of his brain that could tell him what was really going on had been too exhausted by last night’s insomnia and debt worries.
The Catholic Church is reportedly investigating a potential miracle that occurred at a church in Connecticut, reports independent.co.uk.
The supposed miracle took place at St Thomas Church in Thomaston, Connecticut, according to the Hartford Courant.
The
Revered Joseph Crowley, who heads St Maximilian Kolbe Parish, which
includes St Thomas Church, reported that the wafers distributed during
the observation of communion multiplied while sitting inside the
ciborium.
“God duplicated himself in the ciborium,” Rev Crowley
said after communion, referencing the metal storage containers used to
house the communion wafers. “God provides and it’s strange how God does
that. And that happened.”
In
response, the Archdiocese of Hartford began an investigation to
determine whether or not a miracle had occurred at the church.
Since
then, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, a group dating
back to the 1500’s tasked with promoting and defending the Catholic
faith throughout the world, has been notified and has begun its own
investigation.
A spokesman for the archdiocese, David Elliott,
issued a statement to the Hartford Courant saying that “reports such as
the alleged miracle in Thomaston require referral to the Dicastery for
the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. The Archdiocese has proceeded
accordingly, and will await a response in due time.”
Miracles are
an important part of the process of becoming a saint within the Catholic
Church. Sainthood considerations typically begin five years after the
death of an exceptional Catholic.
A
number of criteria must be met, including “verified miracles” — Vatican
officials must determine that the miracles are a direct result of an
individual praying to the candidate saint. They must come to the
decision that the miracle was a result of the dead potential saint
interceding between the petitioner and God, causing the miracle.
The
Catholic Church defines a miracle as a “sign of wonder such as a
healing, or control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine
power.”
While duplicating thin bread wafers may seem like a minor
use of divine power to those unfamiliar with Catholic theology, the
Eucharist — often called communion or the lord’s supper — is arguably
the holiest and most important sacrament — or ritual — in the faith.
Catholics
typically believe in the idea of transubstantiation, or the idea that
the bread and wine given during the ritual literally become the body and
blood of Jesus Christ upon consecration, as opposed to simply symbols
of his presence.
Michael
O’Neil, who goes by the moniker Miracle Hunter, authored a book called
Science and the Miraculous: How the Church Investigates the
Supernatural, spoke to the Hartford Courant and gave examples of
previous eucharistic miracles.
“There are various types of
eucharistic miracles, but the ones that are most remarkable, in my
opinion, were on some rare occasions, the host is said to bleed human
blood,” he said.
Reverend Michael McGivney, the founder of the
Knights of Columbus, ended his clerical career at St Thomas, where the
alleged communion miracle took place. He has been in consideration for
sainthood and requires one more verified miracle before he moves on to
final consideration for sainthood within the Catholic Church.
Archbishop
Leonard Blair explained to the Hartford Courant that “what has been
reported to have occurred at our parish church in Thomaston, of which
Blessed Michael McGivney was once pastor, if verified, would constitute a
sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to
strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist.
It
would also be a source of blessing from Heaven for the effort that the
US Bishops are making to renew and deepen the faith and practice of our
Catholic people with regard to this great Sacrament.”
“Blessed” is a title given to saint candidates who have had “verified” miracles attributed to them by the Vatican.
Julie McFadden is a hospice nurse who has witnessed many people’s
final moments of life. She has a unique insight into what dying people
see and feel as they approach the end of their journey, reports mirror.co.uk.
One
of the most common phenomena that Julie observes is that her patients
often report seeing their deceased loved ones, who come to comfort them
and reassure them that they are not alone.
Julie says that these
visions are so frequent that they are included in the educational
materials that hospice care provides to patients and their families.
She
recently started sharing her knowledge and experience on TikTok, under
the username @hospicenursejulie, and she has gained more than 430,000
followers and 3.6 million likes.
Julie said her patients often tell her that they see their loved ones who have already died – before they themselves pass away.
She
added that their deceased relatives will tell them comforting words
such as, ‘We’re coming to get you soon,’ or, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll help
you’.
According to her, it’s extremely common for dying patients
to see dead friends, relatives and even old pets, but she can’t explain
why this occurs.
“This happens so often that we put it in our
educational packets that we give to the patient and their loved ones so
they understand what’s going on. But we don’t know why it happens and we
can’t explain it,” she said.
“It
usually happens a month or so before the patient dies. They start
seeing dead relatives, dead friends, old pets that have passed on –
spirits, angels, that are visiting them.
“Only they can see and
hear them. Sometimes it’s through a dream and sometimes they can
physically see them and they’ll actually ask us, “Do you see what I’m
seeing?”
Julie explained that the patients are ‘usually not afraid,’ but that they’re actually very ‘comforted’ by it.
She added: “They’re usually not afraid, it’s usually very comforting
to them and they say they’re sending a message like, ‘We’re coming to
get you soon’, or, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll help you’.
“Most
people love this, they’re very comforted by it, it’s not scary to them.
But yeah, we can’t explain it and it happens all the time.”
When
someone asked Julie if she thought it was a hallucination, she said that
she didn’t think so, since the patients are normally ‘pretty alert and
oriented’.
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