Robert George Irwin

Robert George Irwin (August 5, 1907 – 1975) was an American artist, sculptor, and recurring mental hospital patient who pleaded guilty to killing three people on Easter weekend in 1937 in the Beekman Hill area of New York City's Turtle Bay neighborhood. One of his victims, Veronica "Ronnie" Gedeon, was a model who often appeared in seductive pulp magazine pictures. The crime, its investigation, Irwin's arrest, and the resulting court proceedings were heavily media publicized, often with eye-catching photos of Gedeon and headlines describing Irwin as the "mad sculptor." Veronica Gedeon left behind a portfolio of sexy photos that in retrospect, had no relevance to the crime, its cause, or Irwin's responsibility for it. However, that coincidence kept the story on front pages of newspapers around the country for months, and that publicity ultimately helped to bring Irwin into custody. Irwin's prosecution, which ended through a plea bargain that kept him incarcerated for life, renewed debate about the use and scope of New York State's version of the insanity defense. Once sentenced, Irwin was deemed "definitely insane" by state psychiatrists. He spent the rest of his life in secure mental institutions. Harold Schechter's 2014 book The Mad Sculptor tells Irwin's life story. The son of evangelist parents, Irwin was reportedly born in a tent on an old-fashioned camp meeting ground in Portland, Oregon. However, he was actually born in the Arroyo Seco Park near Pasadena, California on August 5, 1907. He was named for the nearby river (as was the park) and one of his father's favorite theologians, François Fénelon. Hence, he entered life as Fenelon Arroyo Seco Irwin. He later changed his name, much to the horror of his devout mother, to honor his philosophical idol the agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll. His father was Rev. Benjamin Hardin Irwin, a nationally known figure in the Holiness movement who had founded a racially-integrated radical Holiness denomination in 1898 at a national convention in legally-segregated Anderson, South Carolina.