Henderson v. People

• Decision Date: 10 May 1888
• Citation: 17 N.E. 68,124 Ill. 607
• Parties: HENDERSON et al. v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

124 Ill. 607

17 N.E. 68

HENDERSON et al.

v.PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 10, 1888.

Error to circuit court, Champaign county; C. B. SMITH, Judge.John M. & John Mayo Palmer

and Patton & Hamilton, for plaintiffs in error.

George Hunt, Atty. Gen., for defendants in error.

MULKEY, J.

At the September term, 1887, of the Champaign circuit court, the grand jury returned into open court an indictment founded upon the first section of the Criminal Code against William Henderson, John Henderson, Carroll Shutt, and Julia Shutt. The first count charges that the defendants on the 2d day of September, 1886, unlawfully and feloniously enticed and took away one Joanna Carman, then and there being an unmarried female of chaste life and conversation, from her parents' house, for the purpose of prostitution. In one other count of the indictment the defendants are charged with enticing and taking away the prosecutrix for the purpose of concubinage. In other respects the latter count is like the first. Upon consideration of the evidence in the light of the court's charge, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against all the defendants, fixing their respective times in the penitentiary as follows: William Henderson at eight years, Carroll Shutt at two, John Henderson at one, and Julia Shutt at one. A motion for a new trial having been made and overruled, the court pronounced sentence and judgment upon the defendants in conformity with the verdict.

The question to be considered is whether the finding of the jury and the judgment and sentence of the court are warranted by the law and the evidence. The defendants William and John Henderson are brothers. Julia Shutt is their sister, and the wife of Carroll Shutt. The prosecutrix, Joanna Carman, is the daughter of Benjamin F. and Eliza Carman, and at the time of the alleged abduction was about 15 years old. The Shutts and Carmans lived near each other in the city of Urbana, and had been on visiting terms some three years prior to this occurrence. William Henderson, the principal in the affair, is a barber by trade, and a dissolute, drunken character, who spent most of his time in the vicinity of Urbana, and was frequently at Shutt's house, with whom his brother John was temporarily stopping at the time in question. About the 1st of July, 1887, William Henderson commenced making calls at Carman's house, and paying his attentions to the prosecutrix. It was not long before Mrs. Carman, her mother, became acquainted with his dissolute habits and bad reputation, and forbade his coming to her house any more. He nevertheless managed to meet with the daughter at Shutt's and other places, and finally, by means of promises, threats, etc., induced her to consent to an elopement for the purpose, as he put it, of getting married, and she doubtless so understood it. In settling the preliminaries, he told her that they could start from Mrs. Shutt's, his sister's; ‘that she would not give them away.’ They accordingly did start from there on the evening of the 2d of September, a little after dark. John Henderson, about dark of that evening, went to Carman's house, where he found Joanna out in the yard, and, without attracting the attention of any of the family, told her that William was ready to go, and was upon the corner of the street waiting for her. After joining him on the street, the two repaired to Shutt's house, where all four of the defendants met together, and talked over the matter of the elopement, which was accelerated by the approach of Joanna's sister; upon discovering which John remarked, in the presence of them all: ‘Will, I tell you what is the matter. You want to hurry up and get out of here, because here comes Stell, and she is long-nosed, and will give it away.’ It was understood by all present that the two were to go to the Doyle House, in Champaign city, a short distance from Shutt's, for the purpose, as was stated to her, of waiting for the night train. But nothing seems to have been said about where they were to go beyond there, or their ultimate plans or purposes. On arriving at the hotel about 8 o'clock, instead of sitting up for the train or ordering separate rooms, and making arrangements to be called for the train, Henderson engaged a single room ‘for [as he put it] himself and wife;’ and the two were at once conducted to it, where they lodged together as husband and wife. They remained at the hotel together, under that assumed relation, until next evening about 5 o'clock, when they returned a-foot to Shutt's house; John Shutt going back with them. They reached Shutt's some time before night. John had visited them at the Doyle House three times that day,-in the morning, at noon, and in the evening,-and told them that they would have to keep hid, or they would be found. After their return to Shutt's on Saturday evening, Joanna's father came to the front gate, and was engaged in a conversation with Carroll Shutt. She was at the time in the back yard, though she recognized her father's voice, and heard him make the remark, ‘That girl is in this town, and I am going to find her.’ The parties, however, were not speaking sufficiently loud to enable her to understand anything else that passed between them while this conversation was going on. Mrs. Shutt and John and William Henderson were most of the time out in the back yard with Joanna, all of whom knew of the conversation, and that the object of Carman's call there was to find his daughter. Occasionally John Henderson would go around in front, and participate in the conversation for a short time, and then return and caution the parties to speak lower, or they would be discovered. After Carman had left, and about 11 o'clock at night, the party out of doors, being informed the coast was clear, went into the house; whereupon Mrs. Shutt brought some bedding into the bedroom adjoining the kitchen, and threw it down on the floor, telling William to fix his bed, and he and Joanna were left in that room by themselves, where they slept together until about 2 o'clock in the morning, when John Henderson, Mrs. Shutt, her daughter and mother, rushed into the room where William and Joanna were sleeping, and told them to jump up; that her father and mother, with the police, were at the gate. Being thus warned, they hastily retreated through a door leading to the rear of the building, whence, by means of an alley, they made their escape; John accompanying them to the fair grounds, but a short distance from the house. The latter, on parting with them, remarked, ‘I will bet before to-morrow night I will be taken up for this.’ The two fugitives, after parting with John, proceeded a-foot to Talona, thence to Sadonis, thence to Ivesdale, and thence towards Bement. On Sunday night they lodged in a cornfield within about a mile and a half of that place. Monday morning Henderson went into the town, and brought back with him a young man, who, by his direction, took her to Bement, and left her at an hotel,...