Huffman v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 11 March 1937
• Citation: 190 S.E. 265
• Parties: HUFFMAN . v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

190 S.E. 265

HUFFMAN .

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

March 11, 1937.

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Error to Circuit Court, Augusta County; Joseph A. Glasgow, Judge.

Sylvian E. Huffman was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.

Judgment affirmed.

Argued before CAMPBELL, C. J., and HOLT, HUDGINS, GREGORY, BROWNING, EGGLESTON, and SPRATLEY, J J.

Forest T. Taylor and Charles Curry, both of Staunton, for plaintiff in error.

Abram P. Staples, Atty. Gen., and Edwin H.' Gibson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

GREGORY, Justice.

W. H. Riddle was shot and mortally wounded some time between one and two o'clock Sunday morning, April 26, 1936, in Augusta county and carried to a hospital in Staunton, where he died from the wound on Tuesday, April 28, 1936. Sylvian E. Huffman, the accused, was arrested upon suspicion on the same day of the shooting. He was indicted for the murder, tried, convicted of murder in the first degree, and his punishment fixed at death.

The evidence in the case was largely circumstantial. The most important question was whether or not the accused had been identified.

The indictment was in the form provided for in Code, § 4865 (as amended by Acts 1930, c. 238). At the trial the accused requested that a bill of particulars be furnished him and the court ordered the attorney for the Commonwealth to supply it. The bill of particulars was in this language:

"The Commonwealth, in obedience to the direction of the Court, expects to rely upon and prove the following facts at the trial of this case:

"That the defendant on the date set forth in the indictment wilfully, deliberately, maliciously, and feloniously, with a pistol or revolver previously in his possession, shot the deceased, Riddle, without provocation or justification, and inflicted upon him a wound which resulted in his death.

"That the defendant committed the murder charged in the indictment in connection with the hold-up and robbery of the deceased and took from the deceased a pocketbook belonging to the deceased and then and there in his possession.

"That the murder of the deceased by the defendant took place in the public highway at or near the filling station and residence of the deceased.

"That the defendant earlier in the night and a few hours before he killed and murdered the deceased, held up and robbed one Alexander at the store of the said Alexander, situated at Grottoes, in Rockingham County, and in connection with said hold-up and robbery used the same pistol or revolver which he later in the night used in the killing and murder of the deceased.

"That the deceased offered no provocation whatever to the defendant, but on the contrary was engaged at the time he was killed in furnishing and supplying defendant with gasoline for his automobile which was parked at a distance of more than 100 yards from the filling station and residence of the deceased."

Mr. Riddle, who was sixty-seven years of age, conducted a filling station in Augusta county on Hermitage road. His dwelling house is situated nearby. In the very early morning of the day on which he was shot he was awakened by some one who ostensibly wanted gasoline. He arose, dressed, and with his purse in his posses sion filled a bucket with gasoline. He then picked up the bucket and a funnel and went with the stranger in the direction of a parked 1929 Ford car.

The circumstances of the shooting are disclosed by a statement made by Mr. Riddle a very few minutes afterwards to those who heard his cries and who first reached him. This statement, which was related by two witnesses, Clyde Via and Samuel Diehl, and admitted as a part of the res gestae, over the objection of the accused, disclosed that Mr. Riddle was walking down the road with the stranger to the parked car. He was carrying the bucket of gasoline and the funnel and before reaching the car the stranger said, "Stick them up!" and he immediately shot.Mr. Riddle. Mr. Riddle also stated to these witnesses that he was not able to completely identify his assailant, but that he was rather "heavy and short" and he had a "Charlie Chaplin" mustache and said his name was "Shiflett."

Mr. Riddle was found lying in a road leading from the Hermitage road about halfway between his home and the point where the tracks of a car indicated that it had been parked.

Officer Long was called about one o'clock of that morning, and he and Melvin Riddle went to the scene and were shown the place where Mr. Riddle had been lying. They found there a funnel, and at Mr. Riddle's home they were shown the bucket in which Mr. Riddle had the gasoline when he was shot. This bucket had been returned to the Riddle home from the scene of the shooting by some one. The bucket at that time was nearly full of gasoline. It and the funnel were turned over to Officer Long. Long also testified that he made an examination of car tire tracks there. A sketch was made of tire tracks where a car had been parked a short distance from an intersecting road nearby.

Long, Bryant, and Sheriff Gilkeson went to Huffman's home and found him there.. He was asked, "When did you shave your mustache off?" and he answered, "Last night, " but later said, "This morning." His face disclosed that his mustache had been freshly shaven off and there remained upon the rest of his face "half a week's growth." The sheriff said to Huffman, "I am going to place you under arrest on suspicion, " and before any one had told him of the shooting or that any crime had been committed and without asking whyhe was being arrested, he said, "That is all right, but you have the wrong man."

The officers having information that a lone bandit had robbed one J. D. Alexander, at Grottoes, a few miles away, on the night of April 25, 1936, went there and made an investigation before they went to Huffman's home. There they examined tire tracks made by the car used by the bandit, and a sketch or drawing was made from three tire impressions which were found in the road.

The accused was then taken to Grottoes, and then he undertook to account for his whereabouts from early in the evening prior to the shooting until 11 o'clock that night, at which time he said he had gone home with his wife from Waynesboro where they attended a circus and that he did not leave again that night. He denied having been at Grottoes. He was then confronted with Alexander. The sheriff testified that the accused told him on this occasion that he (the accused) had a flat tire on the road from Waynesboro to his home that night and he had to change it. He then put his "knobby" tread tire on the left front wheel.

The automobile of the accused was taken by the officers when he was arrested. At that time the "knobby" tread tire was on the left front wheel. The sheriff, before the car was taken, found "knobby" tread tire tracks in the roadway at a small stream near the home of the accused.

The accused was taken to the jail in Staunton. He was then questioned about a gun and stated that his gun had been stolen several months before. He also said he did not go to Waynesboro in the Ford car on the night in question, but that he had gone in his Chevrolet, but when the Chevrolet was examined it was discovered that both rear tires were off and the differential had been taken out. This established conclusively that he did not go to Waynesboro in the Chevrolet.

The accused told the sheriff that when he returned from Waynesboro he and his wife went together through their part of the house, but later contradicted this statement and said they had gone through his mother's part of the house and had gotten food there.

Melvin T. Riddle, a son of Mr. W. H. Riddle, testified that he went to the scene of the shooting about 1:20 a. m. on the morning of April 26, 1936, and that the point where it occurred was some 500 or 600 yards east of his father's store and filling station. That he returned with Mr. Moses early in the morning after it was light and again looked over the ground, and found "where a car had come from the east to this cross road below my father's store, and the car headed into the cross road, into the intersection, turning to the left, and backed up into the intersection, out of the road and almost landed in a ditch, and pulled forward and backed up a second time and then pulled out again with a left hand turn and headed back east." The marks of the tires of the car were plainly visible on the ground and they indicated the exact point where a car had been parked. This point was some 50 yards from the intersection of the roads. This witness drew a diagram from the impression in the road showing the tread of the tires. From the impression and the diagram it was shown that the "knobby" tread tire was on the left front wheel. This witness and others compared the diagram of the tire treads with the tires on the car of the accused which was then in the custody of the officers at the jail and they corresponded. All four of the tires on the car had different treads.

When witness Bryant and the sheriff went to Grottoes from Riddle's filling station, Bryant located there tire tracks where a car had been parked. These tracks were not far from the filling station at Grottoes which was operated by Alexander. A sketch was made of these tracks, and witness Bryant identified the tracks made by the car at Grottoes as having been made by the tire treads of the car of the accused.

The accused's car was a 1929 Ford roadster and over each headlight there was a protruding visor. When these lights were turned on completely, both of them burned, but when they were dimmed, the right headlight did not burn. Mervin Shull testified that while driving home with his brother just prior to the time that Mr. Riddle was shot they saw two men in front of the Riddle filling station. Farther on they passed a parked Ford roadster 1929 model with visors and parking lights on. About the time that they reached the home of Mr. Dutton, which was only a short distance, they...