Acid: The Murder of Hajna de Kaplany

This one of those cases that's a punctuation point for the use of the gay panic defense in law. The poor victim was sidelined as the defense did all they could to, if not justify the murder, contextualize it, which now and then seemed like a mission impossible. My heart goes out to Hajna.   The 1962 acid murder of 25-year-old Hajna de Kaplany by her doctor husband of five weeks has at its core an element that is rarely discussed. For all his professional accomplishments, Dr. de Kaplany felt his beautiful wife only wanted him for the social standing and the wealth he could someday provide. On one hot California night, the planning, implanted sense of betrayal, and the need for revenge would explode in an act so brutal that only death could be the possible outcome. At trial, Dr. de Kaplany's lawyer would be one of the first in the United States to use homosexual panic as part of a mental illness defense to explain the defendant's murderous actions. By the end of the 1960s, homosexual panic would be used solely as a rationale for heterosexual men murdering gay men then trans men and women. Thanks for joining me for, Acid The Murder of Hajna de Kaplany. To watch this episode find it at: https://youtu.be/A0Mo9639wvk