Background: On occasion a suspect will feign psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations in order to trivialize their criminal responsibility. If doctors exercise only their clinical judgement, however, every now and then they will fail to identify a malingerer.
Case description: A 38-year-old male was remanded in custody. He was accused of having murdered 2 family members. He claimed that he had committed the murders as a result of hearing imperative hallucinations. We conducted a structured interview and specially designed tests to examine the plausibility of this claim. All our instruments pointed to the man having feigned his imperative hallucinations. When confronted with this, he confirmed that he had simulated his hallucinations.
Conclusion: Feigned hallucinations in a forensic setting can be detected using validated tests.