Tragic stories, such as the one below, triggers the imagination. We know what led to the situation, but how did the events play out inside the home over ten years? What went on between father and daughter? And was she insane before the death of her father? The story could be told in numerous ways, none of us really ever knowing what happened behind those closed doors.
Pitiful Case of Death and Insanity
New York, Feb. 1. — Henry Bensfield, 79 years old, worth thousands of dollars, was found dead of starvation by the police in his home in Brooklyn today.
By his dead body, was his daughter, her mind gone, unable to understand that her father was dead, hopelessly insane.
The tragedy is one of the most pitiful ever brought to the attention of the New York police.
Bensfield was a prosperous builder. Ten years ago, his wife died. So deeply had he loved her, that after her death, Bensfield refused to see any of his friends, refused to leave the home where he lived with his only daughter.
The solitude, the loneliness, prayed on the minds of both father and daughter. There is no doubt that the father absolutely starved to death.
He died last Monday. Since then, the daughter, now 44 years old, has wept by the body trying to get her father to waken from his “sleep.”
In the house were a dozen stray cats that Miss Bensfield had cared for. When her father “went to sleep” she forgot about them. It was their wailing that attracted the attention of the neighbors, who called the police.
Miss Bensfield has been taken to an asylum.
Source: (1912, February 01). Pitiful Case of Death and Insanity. The Day Book.
