Charles Julius Guiteau (/ɡɪˈtoʊ/ ghih-TOH; September 8, 1841 – June 30, 1882) was an American man who assassinated James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, in 1881.

[4] In 1860, Guiteau inherited $1,000 (equivalent to $34,000 in 2023) from his grandfather and planned to attend the University of Michigan but he failed the entrance examinations because of inadequate academic preparation.

[6][7] Despite the sexually indiscriminate practices of the famously promiscuous Oneida Community members, Guiteau was generally rejected during his five years there and his name was turned into a play on words to create the nickname "Charles Gitout".

[8][9] He left the community twice; the first time, he went to Hoboken, New Jersey, and attempted to start a newspaper based on the Oneida religion, called The Daily Theocrat.

[10] Guiteau worked as a clerk at a Chicago law firm and passed a cursory examination to attain admission to the bar.

[11] Turning back to religion, Guiteau published a book on the subject called The Truth, which was almost entirely plagiarized from the work of Noyes.

[21] The speech was delivered at most twice, and printed copies were passed out to members of the Republican National Committee at their summer 1880 meeting in New York, but Guiteau believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's victory over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock that November.

[22] By the early days of Garfield's administration, which commenced in March 1881, Guiteau was living in Washington, D.C., destitute and forced to sneak between rooming houses without paying for his lodging and meals, and to walk around the cold, snowy city in a threadbare suit, without a coat, hat or boots.

"[6][22][24] Guiteau considered himself a loyal Republican and a Stalwart, and convinced himself that his work for the party had been critical to Garfield's election to the presidency.

Guiteau conceded that the president would be too strong to kill with a knife, stating, "Garfield would have crushed the life out of me with a single blow of his fist!"

"[34] After a long, painful battle with infections, possibly brought on by his doctors' poking and probing of the wound with unwashed hands and non-sterilized instruments, Garfield died on September 19, 11 weeks after being shot.

"[35] The conventional narrative regarding Garfield's post-shooting medical condition was also challenged by Theodore Pappas and Shahrzad Joharifard in a 2013 article in The American Journal of Surgery.

While Scoville's legal experience lay in land title examination, he had married Guiteau's sister and was thus obliged to defend him in court when no one else would.

MacVeagh named five lawyers to the prosecution team: George Corkhill, Walter Davidge, retired judge John K. Porter, Elihu Root, and E. B.

[38] Guiteau's trial was one of the first high-profile cases in the United States where a defense based on a claim of temporary insanity was considered.

[43]Guiteau became something of a media sensation during his entire trial for his bizarre behavior, which included him frequently cursing and insulting the judge, most of the witnesses, the prosecution, and even his defense team, as well as formatting his testimony in epic poems which he recited at length, and soliciting legal advice from random spectators in the audience via passed notes.

While in prison and awaiting execution, Guiteau wrote a defense of the assassination he had committed and an account of his own trial, which was published as The Truth and the Removal.

[citation needed] To the end, Guiteau was making plans to start a lecture tour after his perceived imminent release and to run for president himself in 1884, while at the same time continuing to delight in the media circus surrounding his trial.

[46] After the guilty verdict was read, Guiteau stepped forward, despite his lawyers' efforts to tell him to be quiet, and yelled at the jury, saying, "You are all low, consummate jackasses!

[citation needed] Twenty-nine days before his execution, Guiteau composed a lengthy poem asserting that God had commanded him to kill Garfield to prevent Blaine's "scheming" to war with Chile and Peru.

He also excoriated President Arthur as "a coward and an ingrate whose ingratitude to the man that made him and saved his party and land from overthrow has no parallel in history.

After he finished reading his poem, a black hood was placed over the smiling Guiteau's head and moments later the gallows trapdoor was sprung, the rope breaking his neck instantly with the fall.

[51] Guiteau's body was not returned to his family, as they were unable to afford a private funeral, but was instead autopsied and buried in a corner of the jailyard.

[51] With tiny pieces of the hanging rope already being sold as souvenirs to a fascinated public, rumors immediately began to swirl that jail guards planned to dig up Guiteau's corpse to meet demands of this burgeoning new market.

[52] The body was sent to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland, which preserved Guiteau's brain as well as his enlarged spleen discovered at autopsy and bleached the skeleton.

[53] Upon his autopsy, it was discovered that Guiteau had the condition known as phimosis, an inability to retract the foreskin, which at the time was thought to have caused the insanity that led him to assassinate Garfield.

[54] An autopsy of his brain revealed that his dura mater was abnormally thick, suggesting he may have had neurosyphillis, a disease which causes mental instability; he could have contracted syphilis from a prostitute.

George Paulson, formerly the chair of neurology at the Ohio State University, disputed the neurosyphillis diagnosis, arguing that Guiteau had both schizophrenia and "grandiose narcissism".

[55] The life of Guiteau, focusing on his psychological disturbances and his plan to kill Garfield, is the subject of "Portrait of an Assassin", a radio play by James Agate Jr.