Margaret Hossack's Murder Essay

Is justice always served. Midnight Assassin, written by Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf, tells the story of John Hossack’s murder, the trial of Margaret Hossack, and it brings the question. Who killed John Hossack? The evident fact that William Haines executed John Hossack is as barefaced as it gets. William Haines had motive to liquidate John Hossack. At one point Margaret Hossack bleated about her abusive husband. Rinda Haines claimed in “On one occasion, he admitted, she had been ‘in a passion’ and told haines that he and the other neighbors should come ‘fix’ her husband and ‘attend’ to him”(pg 44). Wolf and Bryan also make it evident that the two feuded over politics. To take a excerpt out of the book, during Haines’ new testimony. "Now Haines remembered the date of their last reported dispute: It had been Election Day in early November 1900, less

Rinda proclaims that the stress of being called to witness at the trial caused him to become mentally unstable. Bryan and wolf mention a description of haines from the Winterset newspaper “...this Hossack neighbor had been ‘violently insane’...” (pg 221).Conveniently he was not able to testify until the decision became final that Margaret was guilty. His wife also divorced him because he remained dangerous and unstable after the trials were over. Haines shows symptoms of the mental disorder Paranoid Schizophrenia, which include displaying anger, and anxiety. Sufferers often show regular intellectual functioning and are able to display affection. This explains why he is “stressed” when ask to be a witness. After he killed John and ran out of the house he began to get paranoid and show anxiety. He shows the anger from feuds with John Hossack and, after the trial by his “violent” tendencies. This evidence makes him obviously capable of killing him. Other evidence implies he did it to such a degree it hard to