Bradley v. Com., 4348

• Citation: 196 Va. 1126,86 S.E.2d 828
• Decision Date: 25 April 1955
• Docket Number: No. 4348,4348
• Parties: LEROY BRADLEY, JR. v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. Record
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 828

86 S.E.2d 828

196 Va. 1126

LEROY BRADLEY, JR. v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA.

Record No. 4348.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia

April 25, 1955.

J. Hugo Madison and James A. Overton, for the plaintiff in error.

J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., Attorney General and Thomas M. Miller, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.

JUDGE: SMITH

SMITH, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This writ of error brings here for review a judgment entered on the verdict of a jury finding the defendant, Leroy Bradley, Jr., guilty of rape by force against Miss Martha Lou Drewery, and sentencing him to confinement in the penitentiary for life. The grounds relied on for a reversal of the judgment are, (1) the trial court erred in admitting certain testimony, and (2) the evidence does not support the verdict. The defendant's major contention that Miss Drewery's account of the alleged rape is inherently incredible requires that the evidence be stated in some detail.

The prosecutrix, a 34 year old white woman employed by Allen's Hardware on Washington street in Suffolk, testified that at about 2:25 p.m. on January 23, 1954 she called Smith's Grocery Store, located on the corner of Brook avenue and Wellons street, and inquired whether they had fruit cake mix. When informed by the cashier that they had it, the prosecutrix said she would be 'right over to get some.' It was snowing at the time, the streets were icy and slippery; few people were on the streets, and business at the Hardware was 'awfully dull' with only a few customers coming in all day. At about 2:30 p.m. Miss Drewery borrowed a dollar from Mrs. Bradshaw, the bookkeeper at the Hardware, and told her that she was going out and would be back in twenty or thirty minutes. She left the Hardware with the intention of walking to Smith's Grocery Store, a distance of about one mile. She was dressed for the wintry weather, wearing gloves, a scarf on her head, a heavy topcoat and knee boots.

As she proceeded south along the left side of Saratoga street by a ball park, an undisclosed distance from Allen's Hardware, the prosecutrix overtook a colored man whom she did not know and had never seen before, but who she later learned was the defendant. At that time there were no other pedestrians nor any vehicles traveling along the street. She testified that when she undertook to pass between the defendant and the ball park fence, where the snow was not deep, 'he grabbed me by my right arm, and for a second or two I was speechless. When I came to my senses I asked him to turn me loose. I pulled against him, and he told me I was going with him. I told him I did not want to go. He said, 'You are going whether you want to or not.' ' The defendant then dragged her a distance of 286 feet across the street and a vacant lot to a shed, where peanut hulls were stored. When asked what she meant by 'dragged', she said: 'I was partly crawling and partly walking part of the time, and I dropped down on my knees and he would take me by the arm and snatch me up. Then I stumbled over something else and he would give me a snatch.'

While crossing the lot a car passed and Miss Drewery waved her hand and screamed for help, but the defendant put his hand over her mouth and grabbed her throat and told her to keep quiet if she wanted to live. She further testified that upon entering the shed he 'dragged me around to the back of this pile of hulls, and he held me by one arm and he took the other arm, and dug a cave in the peanut hulls. When he got the cave fixed he asked me to take my skirt off. I told him I wasn't. So he shoved me down on the hulls and straddled me. * * * He pulled my pants to one side and penetrated me. After he penetrated me once he straddled -- he sat on my chest and held me by the throat and forced me to take his organ in my mouth. After he did that he straddled me again and penetrated me again, which seemed to me like it lasted for hours.' She also testified that during the attack her face was below the rim of peanut hulls and that she was so weak and scared she could not resist and had to save what little strength she had left to keep the peanut hulls from smothering her.

After accomplishing his purpose the defendant led her from the shed to a house at 421 Wellons street, a distance of approximately 650 feet, in which there were several colored men and one colored woman. Miss Drewery testified that she was scared and wanted to talk to the colored woman, so while standing by the stove she turned to the colored woman and said, 'I hope you don't mind me coming in your house to get warm, because I am about to freeze,' but she did not reply. This colored woman testified that Miss Drewery had no opportunity to talk to her out of the presence of defendant. From this house the defendant led Miss Drewery to a house located on the corner of Ashley and Wellons streets, about 550 feet from the first house, and where there were many colored people. After remaining in this house a few minutes the defendant took her about 350 feet to a third house located on the corner of Nevada and Wellons streets where there were also several colored people. While there a man called the defendant into another room out of her presence for a few minutes. When asked why she did not attempt to escape or make some outcry at that time, she said: 'Because I knew he had again taken me where he had friends, and I was afraid to say anything to his friends because I was afraid that they, too, might hurt me; that if I tried to break for the door, they would be all around me. I was surrounded. Two of the colored women were talking. One said to the other, 'Isn't she white?' The other said, 'I think she is.' So I spoke up and I said, 'Yes, I am white, and I am just as much out of place as you think I am.' * * * I told them I was a Suffolk girl and that my name was Martha Drewery and I worked for R. R. Allen.'

Upon being asked to leave this house the defendant and the prosecutrix returned to the house on the corner of Wellons and Ashley streets, where he put money in a 'nickelodeon' and attempted to force her to dance with him. While there the prosecutrix asked a white man, Gaskin Ellis, if he had a car, and when he said no, she did not say any more because she did not know him or his business there. Miss Drewery then gave a colored woman a dollar to help her escape from the defendant and when this woman failed to assist her, she secured the aid of another colored woman who went with her to the door and pointed out the bus stop, to which she proceeded. The defendant followed her and undertook to take her back to the house but turned her loose when he saw the bus, which she boarded and returned to Allen's Hardware.

Mrs. Bradshaw testified that Miss Drewery returned to the Hardware at about 5:00 p.m.; that when she came in she was nervous and crying, fell on her shoulder and told her what had taken place. She further testified that Miss Drewery's coat was wet and muddy all over the back and that she saw peanut hulls in her hair and clothes and that her boots were wet inside. This witness also testified that Miss Drewery's reputation for honesty, truth and veracity was good.

Mrs. Bradshaw promptly called Investigator Churn, a police officer of Suffolk for thirty years, who came in a few minutes. He testified that upon his arrival he found Miss Drewery crying and highly excited, that her clothing was wet to her waist and she had peanut hulls in her hair and in her clothes; that she complained of having been raped by a colored man whom she described as to height, build and clothing. Thereafter she went with Inspector Churn over the course she and the defendant had traveled and pointed out the three houses which they had entered. When the defendant was found Miss Drewery identified him as her assailant and later that night at Police Headquarters, in the presence of Inspector Churn and Chief Butler, she accused him of criminally attacking her.

Inspector Churn also testified that during his investigation he followed footsteps in the snow from Saratoga street to the shed, and observed impressions in the snow near the shed which indicated that someone had been down on their knees; that when he found the defendant he was wearing clothes similar to those Miss Drewery had described; that he had peanut hulls in his clothes, galoshes and shoes and that at no time during his conversations with the defendant did he claim he knew or had ever seen Miss Drewery.

Dr. Thomas Christie testified that he examined Miss Drewery at 7:30 p.m. on January 23, 1954 and found male sperm in her vagina; that she was disheveled and nervous, and had peanut dust from head to toe; that she complained of pain in her wrist and had a bruise mark about one inch long on her right arm; that she was wearing a pad and told him it was the last day of her menstruation.

In a signed statement taken by Inspector Churn on January 27, 1954, the defendant stated that the accusation of Miss Drewery made on January 23rd at Police Headquarters was not true; that he met her on the east side of the ball park on Saratoga street after 2:00 p.m. on January 23, 1954; that she was looking for a man named 'Country' Ellis and he offered to help her find him; that while going along the path from Saratoga street to Wellons street she went to the hull house and stayed inside a few minutes; that she came back to the door and asked him to help her find one of her green gloves, which he did, but he did not do anything to her; that after they visited the three houses mentioned in the testimony of Miss Drewery, she told him that if he saw 'Country' Ellis to tell him she would be back after 6:00 p.m., and she left between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. on the bus from Ashley and Wellons streets.

However, when the defendant took the stand in his own behalf he abandoned the position taken in his signed statement, and testified that while in Allen's Hardware on the morning of ...