Ingram v. State

• Decision Date: 13 July 1948
• Docket Number: 16263-16265.
• Citation: 48 S.E.2d 891,204 Ga. 164
• Parties: INGRAM v. STATE (three cases).
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

48 S.E.2d 891

204 Ga. 164

INGRAM v. STATE (three cases).

Nos. 16263-16265.

Supreme Court of Georgia

July 13, 1948

Rehearing Denied July 28, 1948.

Syllabus by the Court.

The evidence was sufficient to support the verdict of the jury finding the accused guilty of murder.

Rosa Lee Ingram, Charlie Ingram, Wallace Ingram, and Sammie Lee Ingram were jointly indicted for murder, the indictment charging that they killed and murdered John Ethron Stratford in Schley County on November 4, 1947, by hitting striking and beating the said Stratford in and on his body with a certain rifle, hoe, and claw hammer. The accused, Rosa Lee Ingram, Wallace Ingram, and Sammie Lee Ingram were tried together. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder without a recommendation. Each accused filed a motion for new trial on the general grounds only. The trial court commuted the sentences to life imprisonment, and overruled the motions for new trial. To this judgment, overruling the motions for new trial, the accused excepted.

The State's evidence was as follows: Mrs. Irene Stratford wife of the deceased, testified that the deceased on the day of his death weighed 130 pounds, his age was sixty-six, and 'he was not strong, he was weak;' that she and her husband lived on Mr. C. M. Dillinger's place in Schley County, and her husband was a share-cropper for Dillinger, as were the four defendants, who lived on the same place on a farm joining the farm on which the deceased resided; that the dwelling house in which the Ingrams lived was licated in Sumter County; that on the morning of November 4, 1947, she saw some mules in her husband's field; that she saw a gray mule, belonging to the Ingrams, in a corn field south of the house; that she saw her husband came to the house, get a rifle, and leave with the rifle, going towards the corn field; that she never again saw her husband alive; that the last time she saw her husband alive he was going with the rifle around a small tool house.

The witness then identified certain photographs. The first (introduced by the State as Exhibit 1) showed a small wooden house with a dirt road leading by the house. About fifty or seventy-five feet from the house, there was shown a hat lying in one rut and a satchel lying in the other rut of the road. She testified that this house, shown in the photograph, was the tool house around which she last saw her husband walking alive; that she later found her husband's body near the tool house, and the hat and satchel in the photograph represented where her husband's body was lying on its back with the head east and the feet west. The witness further testified that when her husband left with a rifle he did not say anything, 'only said he was going to kill the stock;' that this was about 9:30 in the morning and around 11:30 she went to the mail box and returned, without having heard any shot, and after she returned from the mail box, she met Jackson, Charlie, and Wallace Ingram; that Jackson Ingram freely and voluntarily made a statement to her; that 'Jackson Ingram asked me in the presence of Charlie and Wallace Ingram if I knew Mr. Stratford had shot Mama and I told him I did not know anything about it; he says, 'Well, he shot her and she needs to go to the doctor and we have not got any money;' I says, 'Well, he asked her to keep the stock off of him and she would not do it,' and he says, 'Well, he is done now.' I says, 'Well, where is he at,' and he says, 'Up there in the field dead.' He said he would show me where he was at and I went in the house to see about the fire in the stove and three of them run.' She further testified that she hunted for the body and could not find it, and then went to Rosa Lee Ingram's house and called, and nobody would answer, but finally one of the boys came out and told her where to find the body on the road leading to the tool house; that she found the body lying in Schley County and went to get somebody to go to Americus to notify officers. The witness identified a rifle and knife as belonging to her husband, but stated that a claw hummer and metal hoe shown to her did not belong to her husband.

Bob Carswell, after recounting that he heard a report that the deceased was dead and went to look for the body, testified: 'He was laying there across the road * * * That body was in Schley County laying on its back; his head was laying to the east and his feet to the west. He had his right arm stretched out and the blood had run down clear to his hands. His head was right in the edge of the weeds. He was really dead. After I saw he was dead I did not make any examination of the premises around there. I noticed where they scuffled around in the edge of the cotton patch; there were shoe tracks and some rubber boot tracks there. The way I could tell that track from the others was because it was ridged on the bottom. Those other tracks I saw looked like shoe tracks. I could not tell whether men's tracks or women's tracks; they were all around there when that took place.'

S.E. McGowan, Jr., an embalmer, testified that he examined the body of the deceased and saw five wounds where the skin was broken. He identified a photograph of the deceased (showing the side of the head), and testified that two probes shown in the back of the deceased's head in the photograph represented wounds which penetrated the skull, and a third wound shown with scissors did not penetrate the skull. He testified that there were five separate wounds on the back of the head.

Clark Williamson testified (after identifying a picture showing the location of the body and a picture of the body) that the pictures represented where the body lay when he arrived, and the picture of the back of the deceased's head showed wounds similar to the wounds he saw. He then testified: 'When I went out there and saw that body I saw something out there a few feet from where the body lay, southwest from where the body was laying about fifty of seventy-five feet in this cotton patch, somebody had either been sitting down or kneeling down or wallowing around there * * * Out here it looked like somebody had been sitting down or wallowing around * * * ' The witness further testified that he talked to the defendants separately and they made statements to him which were freely and voluntarily given. He testified: 'Rosa Lee told me she took that gun away from Mr. Stratford and hit him over the head. She did not tell me why. She said she hit him over the head and knocked him down, and he tried to get up, and she knocked him down again. That is about all she said. She talked like she hit him and knocked him down, and he tried to get up, and she knocked him back down. She did not say whether anybody else hit him or not. Charlie and Wallace said they did not do anything. I took them in the presence of their mother then. They backed their mother up there--that all the licks that were passed were two licks that Rosa Lee herself hit him with the rifle. The hammer was not mentioned. Nobody said anything about who struck him with the hoe * * * Wallace and Charlie said they came to see what the trouble was, but said they did nothing. Sammie Lee did not know anything either. He did not do anything. I would judge that Mr. Stratford had very little blood in him when I got there. Where his head was lying there is a little bit down grade in that trench and blood had puddled and run down in the direction of his little house.'

R. N. Chapman, Coroner of Schley County, testified that he went to the scene of the homicide and made an investigation; that he found the body of the deceased lying in a field road leading from the Stratford house to the Ingram house; that the body was a good quarter of a mile from the Ingram house. He further testified: 'John Ethron Stratford had on a pair of rubber boots. I made some examination of the ground and premises around where that body lay. I did not find a knife, gun, stick, pistol or any weapon laying by the body of Mr. Stratford * * * I saw some tracks just to the right going from where the dead body was lying, maybe two cotton rows from where the man's body was lying, and I noticed from the signs of the tracks one of them was the rubber boot that the man had on. It was west of where the body was * * * I saw some blood there; there was blood running from where the dead body was off back that way, I would call it north some four or five feet * * * After I examined the body I then went towards the Ingram house and there was tracks of blood I would say something like two hundred yards from where the dead body was, going in the direction of the Ingram home. The blood was heavier by the body and the farther away I got the lighter it got on the ground * * * I would say around fifteen steps or something like that from where the dead body was, the ground was not messed up, only looked like somebody had been sitting on it. From what I saw there I would say it was some human sitting there on the grass.' The witness then testified that Rosa Lee Ingram made a free and voluntary statement, stating that she killed the deceased; that 'she said she took the barrel of the gun and struck the man twice over the head.'

W. T Beauchamp, of the Georgia Highway Patrol, testified that he, accompanied by Trooper Britt, made an investigation of the homicide; that they found the body in a little field road. The witness identified photographs numbered one to six, and testified as to their correctness, stating that he participated in making them. With reference to photograph No. 1 (Exhibit 1), he testified: 'In this picture the bag represents the position of Mr. John Ethron Stratford's head and shoulders, and my hat here represents where his feet were lying. Where I am standing there (about five feet from the location...