Com. v. Umilian
| Decision Date | 26 February 1901 |
| Citation | 177 Mass. 582,59 N.E. 439 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. UMILIAN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
John
C. Hammond, Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
John B O'Donnell, for defendant.
The defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and the only question before us is whether there was any evidence to warrant the verdict. He and Casimer Jedrusik were working together as farm laborers for one Keith, in Granby. On Sunday, December 31, 1899, Jedrusik disappeared, and was never afterwards seen alive. On April 10, 1900, his headless mutilated body was found, inclosed in a bran sack, in an unused well, between 400 and 500 feet from Keith's horse barn. His clothing was inclosed in another sack in the same well. His skull was afterwards found buried in a cellar of the horse barn. The sacks were similar the those which Keith had in the horse barn. The stone which was inclosed in the sack of clothing exactly fitted a vacant place in a stone wall about in line between the old well and north door of the horse barn. On the day of the disappearance there was no snow on the ground, and the surface of the ground was entirely frozen. In the cellar of the horse barn pigs were kept, and there was soft mud there. The clothing, which was exhibited to the jury, and mud upon it, which the commonwealth contended, on the evidence was like that in the cellar. Mr. and Mrs. Keith drove away to church on December 31st, leaving the defendant and Jebrusik about the barn. The defendant's wife was in the house where she was employed as a housemaid, and there was evidence tending to show that the only other person who came there during that day was a young woman who came to visit her. The defendant was outside of the house, about the premises, for some hours after Mr. and Mrs. Keith went to church, and when he came in he said that Jedrusik had gone to Granby. There were wounds on the head of Jedrusik, which the commonwealth contended were made by a corn cutter that was in the horse barn, and was exhibited to the jury. The evidence tended to show that the defendant had ample opportunity to commit the murder, and that no other person had an opportunity to do it without discovery. On November 18th the defendant went to Chicopee, to the house of a Polish priest, to have the ceremony of marriage performed between him and a young woman who had been living as a maid...
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Com. v. Bonomi
...wife 'a dirty son of a bitch.' The testimony plainly was competent. See Commonwealth v. Abbott, 130 Mass. 472, 474; Commonwealth v. Umilian, 177 Mass. 582, 59 N.E. 439; Commonwealth v. Howard, 205 Mass. 128, 148-149, 91 N.E. 397; Commonwealth v. Bartolini, 299 Mass. 503, 510-511, 13 N.E.2d ......
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