On the morning of May 14, 2013, while it was still dark, Suzanna Simpson strapped on a headlamp and shot her husband. She then shot and killed her two children, ages 5 and 7. Afterward, Simpson, 35, drove her car off the road near her home in Dacusville, S.C., and into a tree, in what she would later say was a suicide attempt. A neighbor called the police.
The same day, Simpson admitted to the shootings. (Her husband was severely injured, but not dead.) Simpson also shared her motives: The world was evil, so by killing her family, Simpson had sent them to a better place. Later she would share other unusual theories with psychiatrists — that her house was booby-trapped, that her dentist had bugged her mouth while giving her a filling, and that her deceased aunt shape-shifted into the family's cat. Simpson's case went to trial in June 2016, and she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
But to be judged not guilty, Simpson and her lawyers would have to prove that she didn't understand the nature or wrongfulness of her conduct. That's the country's oldest and most stringent definition of insanity: the M'Naughten test. South Carolina relies on a variant of M'Naughten, as does roughly half the country. M'Naughten, which is named after a 19th-century British legal case, says that someone can only be found not guilty by reason of insanity if she does not understand the nature or wrongfulness of her conduct.
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