Often she would take on multi-faceted personas, backed up by forged letters and testimonials. One time, just after being released from prison she managed to convince the Salvation Army to lend her money to buy and furnish a six-room house in Oamaru.Īnother time she managed to talk her way into ownership of a chicken farm. They were bold, audacious and often ludicrously complex. Jenny Coleman said Amy was a “wholesome” criminal in the eyes of the public - never drank, never committed violent crimes, never engaged in prostitution. #Dark sheep herder art serial#If we did, a good many people would soon be bound to think that they were suffering with that disease.” Criminal CelebrityĪ police mugshot of Amy Bock, 1886 Photo: NZ Police Museumĭespite Amy’s serial criminality, she was popular with the New Zealand press. This defence was not well thought of by the court with the judge remarking that: Specifically, Amy said she suffered from kleptomania, a mental illness which compels people to steal. “The malady I suffer from now has been upon me from childhood, and no one but God and myself know the fearful horror I have had to face year after year in the knowledge that, instead of my being able to fight successfully against it (as I have prayed so often to do), it has rather overpowered me more and more.” - Amy Bock #Dark sheep herder art trial#After moving to New Zealand in the mid-1880s she was put on trial for a series of scams and frauds around Dunedin. “Much sympathy has been felt for Miss Bock as her mistake is believed to have been caused more by a hereditary misfortune than a criminal intent.”Īmy played up the link between her crimes and her mother’s mental illness throughout her life. Eventually, the judge gave her a discharge without conviction. On all hands astonishment is expressed that the girl had thus far contrived to keep out of the lunatic asylum, of which her mother was a confinee for many years”īoth the newspaper and the court thought it was best to go easy on Amy Bock. “She had a perfect mania for what she called ‘shopping’ which consisted of ordering goods she did not require and could not pay for. When Amy was eventually caught and put on trial for fraud, a local newspaper put it like this: Her scams were like a pyramid scheme but with nobody at the top. She would go to great lengths to scam people, then use the money to buy things which she gave away for free. This was a running theme in Amy Bock’s crimes - often they don’t benefit her. “Quite bizarre scenarios for some her scams… I mean, what was the benefit to her?” “She would go around all the undertakers and order up coffins and get them sent all to the same family,” Jenny said. Some of the things she bought were very bizarre. #Dark sheep herder art windows#“She’s fidgeting the school attendance roles because her salary was dependant on how many children were in attendance.”Īmy also lied about broken windows to get extra money and often bought goods on credit then failed to pay the shop owner back. “She’s basically scamming them,” said Jenny Coleman. One time she bought a load of books under her father's name and just gave them away to random people in town.Īmy’s father was worried she was starting to show the same early signs of insanity as her mother, so when she turned 19 he used his connections in town to land her a good job as a sole charge teacher for a rural school.īut if he hoped a steady job would help settle Amy down, he was sadly mistaken. She began telling stories and acting out in bizarre ways. It was around this point people started to have concerns about Amy’s mental health. When Amy was ten years old her mother was locked up in a lunatic asylum. So probably what we would think of now as manic-depressive ,” said Dr Jenny Coleman, author of Mad or Bad: the life and exploits of Amy Bock. “ would have very manic episodes and then episodes of melancholia. Amy’s mother suffered from a serious mental illness. Amy came from a respectable family in Sale, her father ran a successful photography business which helped him make connections with the movers and shakers in town.īut there was a tragedy at the heart of the Bock family.
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