Draper, William Henry

Deaf at age 2 from a fall down stairs. Uneducated and mute, in 1888 at age 15 was the tormented target of clods of dirt thrown by other (hearing) boys in Cardiff, Wales. Enraged, he picked up a stone and threw it back, missing his intended target but accidently striking and wounding another boy, an innocent bystander, on the knee. The other boy died of tetanus a week later from the infected wound, and Draper was arrested and tried for manslaughter. He was found incompetent to stand trial for lack of language or education, despite the presence of a nearby school for the deaf, and released after a short confinement.