Dakota Datebook: Insanity Plea and John James Audubon, American Artist

Insanity Plea

by Merry Helm

June 4, 2019 — A prisoner of the Jamestown State Hospital made a surprising statement on this day in 1936. Charles Marratto, the convicted murderer of Fargo grocer Peter Stewart, confessed to feigning insanity in hopes of a transfer from the penitentiary at Bismarck to the institution in Jamestown. The convict believed that an escape from the hospital would be easi...