Can a person take possession of the mind of another and, of his own evil will, force him to commit a crime through hypnotic influence? This is the history of the court records.
At 28, Danish resident Palle Hardrup has never been in trouble. The gun in his coat pocket was cold and bulky. He walked past the bank four times, as if in tetanus, gripping a pistol with one hand and holding the collar of his coat at his neck with the other, since March 29, 1951 in Copenhagen was frosty.
For his crime, Palle chose a small bank or, more correctly, a small bank was chosen for him. Time after time the hypnotist encouraged Palle to take the gun and go to the bank. And now, in a daze, he hesitantly stomped at the door with a pistol in his pocket.
His mind was still struggling with the will of the other person when Palle stumbled into the bank and walked to the nearest window. Cashier Kai Moller looked at him with a smile, but the smile froze on his lips as he saw the strange, insane fire in Hardrup's eyes.
Palle did not remember whether he demanded money, and Kai Moller would never say, because the gun pointed at his face "barked" twice - and Moller collapsed dead.
Other bank employees fell to the floor in front of their desks, customers rushed out through the main entrance, and only Hans Wiesbom, the bank manager, looked straight into the robber's face. For his bravery, he paid with his life, sprawling on the floor with a bullet in his head.
When Palle was brought to trial, he told a strange story about how he was hypnotized by a certain Bjorn Nielsen, who told him three times a week for three months that he must rob this bank and shoot the cashier if he refuses to give out the money.
With this constant pressure, Palle told the jury, he became nothing more than a zombie out of control of his will, so the crime could not be avoided.
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Although the jury accepted Nielsen's statement that he was not at the scene of the crime when it was committed, they also believed the testimony of Palle Hardrup, who turned out to be just a robot controlled by Nielsen's evil will with the help of hypnosis. Nielsen was charged with planning a robbery and instigating a murder.
This accusation was unprecedented, and the Danish court needed to prove that Nielsen deliberately forced Hardrup against his will to commit a crime, for which he repeatedly subjected him to hypnotic suggestion. It wasn't easy to prove this.
Bjorn Nielsen
The trial was sensational in many ways. As expected, Palle Hardrup was found guilty of double murder and attempted bank robbery. He was sentenced to mental hospital treatment with release after two years if he was completely cured by then.
Palle's treatment was delayed and he was released from the hospital only in 1967 (after another court hearing). After all this, the man changed his name to Palle Wishman and tried to forget about everything that happened to him. He didn’t tell anything, even to his last partner. Palle passed away in 2012.
The Nielsen case was completely different. This required experienced experts with convincing evidence who could convince the criminal himself. The main witness in the case was Dr. Paul Reiter, head of the psychiatric ward at Copenhagen City Hospital.
He testified that when committing the crime, Hardrup acted contrary to his normal desires and motives. In fact, he acted in a morbid, semi-conscious state, deprived of his own will by repeated hypnotic suggestion. He was led to a criminal act by an impulse of will sent from outside.
Bjorn Nielsen was sentenced to life in prison, but pardoned after a 1967 retrial. It was decided that there was no evidence 100% confirming that his "experimental" Palle was under hypnosis at the time of the murder. However, the story left an indelible mark on Nielsen's psyche and in 1974 he committed suicide in his apartment by taking cyanide.
