Breedlove v. State

• Decision Date: 21 November 1888
• Parties: BREEDLOVE v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

9 S.W. 768

BREEDLOVE v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Texas.

November 21, 1888.

Appeal from district court, Smith county; F. J. McCORD, Judge.

Indictment of John Breedlove for the murder of Isham Amos, who was shot after dark on July 26, 1888, while sitting on the gallery of the house of Caleb Cooper with Willis King. Cooper testified that he was in the house at the time, and soon after went for help; and, after calling at two houses, one of them defendant's, and finding no men there, he finally met, while on his way to a third house, defendant and Mr. Graybill, whom he told of the killing, which apparently surprised defendant, and requested defendant to go after the justice of the peace, which he promised to do, but was not seen again by Cooper until after his arrest the next day; and the witness testified that on the day of the shooting, about two hours before sunset, he told defendant that he had seen, on the day before, Willis King in the act of committing adultery with defendant's wife, and at his request pointed out the place where he had seen them, and repeated the statement in the presence of others; that he next saw defendant some time after dark at the house, from which he soon after started to go home in company with Graybill, but soon returned, and reported the killing, and left to go after the justice of the peace. Mr. Graybill testified to the meeting of Cooper, and the apparent surprise of defendant, and said that defendant kept a shotgun at his (witness') house, which he took at his will; that the gun was at the house when witness left in the morning, but he did not know whether it was there when he returned at night or not; that he examined the gun on the following morning, and found that one barrel had been recently discharged; that defendant had asked him for some buckshot about a week before, and he had told him where he could get it. It was shown on the trial that the killing was with buckshot. The brother of Mrs. Graybill testified that he left Graybill's house about sunset to go home, and that Mrs. Graybill went with him a short distance; that when they started defendant was standing at the gate, but when he left his sister defendant had disappeared. Gun-wadding was found between Cooper's house and the corner of his smokehouse, 25 or 30 steps distant, at which place the weeds had been trampled down, and some of them cut. One witness testified that defendant had a very intelligent dog, which was accustomed, when left by defendant, to take his track, and follow and find him; and that on the morning after the killing he saw this dog leave defendant's house about sunrise, and, with his nose close to the ground, follow the meanderings of a trail to a point in the woods to which tracks had been traced from the smoke-house, and that the dog followed these tracks from the woods to the corner of the smoke-house, where the...