Esteemed Illinois professor revealed as teen killer

A popular psychology professor at an Illinois college was a teenage killer who murdered his family 46 years ago, reported The Huffington Post citing Georgetown Advocate and CBS 2News.

Dr. James St. James, the head of Millikin University’s psychology department, was ousted by a Texas reporter with the Georgetown Advocate, a newspaper based in the town where St. James fatally shot his parents and 17-year-old sister on Aug. 4, 1967.

The then-15-year-old, under his born name James Wolcott, spent six years in a mental institute after being found not guilty of the murders by reason of insanity.

At the time, he admitted that he planned to kill his family. He claimed that he was suffering from mental illness. He told investigators that he “hated” his family and believed that they were trying to destroy him.

He blamed his mother for chewing her food too loudly and his sister’s bad accent as part of a plan to drive him mad. He confessed to a classmate that he was angry at his father for not allowing him to grow his hair or march in a peace rally.

Doctors later diagnosed his condition as paranoid schizophrenia and after a six-month trial an all-male jury found the teen not guilty by reason of insanity.

He changed his name after he was released by a jury. With his new identity, James St. James — who has an IQ of at least 134 — began a career in academia and started teaching for Millikin University with a Ph.D. in 1988, the paper reported.

St. James, who won a leadership award in 1997, has declined several requests for comments by multiple news agencies, according to The Huffington Post.

However, even with this revelation, some 2,400 students appeared to support the 61-year-old esteemed professor.

“Millikin University has only recently been made aware of Dr. St. James’ past,” the school said in a statement. “Given the traumatic experiences of his childhood, Dr. St. James’ efforts to rebuild his life and obtain a successful professional career have been remarkable.

The university expects Dr. St. James to teach at Millikin this fall.”

But a city councilman, Jerry Dawson, said the bespectacled professor should have told the school about his blood-stained past.

“I look at this from a law enforcement perspective, and I just have a problem with somebody who didn’t disclose this information,” Dawson told Reuters. “If I were a parent and my kids were going to Millikin, that’s something I would want to know.”