Magnuson v. State

• Decision Date: 12 May 1925
• Citation: 187 Wis. 122,203 N.W. 749
• Parties: MAGNUSON v. STATE.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

187 Wis. 122

203 N.W. 749

MAGNUSON

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

May 12, 1925.

Error to Circuit Court, Wood County; Byron B. Park, Judge.

John Magnuson was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error. Affirmed.

Murder. The plaintiff in error, hereinafter called the defendant, lived on a farm in the town of Auburndale, Wood county, Wis., which lay within the Mill creek drainage district. He was born in Sweden, came to this country when he was 14 years of age, was married, had 3 children, and at the time of the trial was 44 years of age. He was a skilled mechanic, and had a large and varied experience, having been a soldier in the Boer War, and was a man possessed of unusual talents, although he had had but little formal education. One James A. Chapman was a resident of Wood county, chairman of the county board, and at the time of the incidents hereinafter referred to, was a member of the Wood county drainage board, and as such, had taken part in laying out the Mill creek drainage. He was a man 65 years of age, and his wife, Clementine, was 63 years of age. They lived on a farm about 7 or 8 miles from the defendant's farm, and with them lived their grandson, a young man about 22 or 23 years of age.

On the afternoon of December 27, 1922, the grandson brought the mail from the mail box in front of the Chapman home. In it there were several Christmas cards, letters, and a package. Mrs. Chapman picked up the package from the table and handed it to her husband. It was a square package about 14 inches long, with a brown paper wrapper, tied with string. It was tied lengthwise and then tied crossways with four strings. The center string was pasted down with some kind of paste or glue. The package was addressed to “J. A. Chapman, Marshfield, Wis., Rural Route No. 1,” with no return address. Mrs. Chapman handed the package to her husband, who was sitting in a chair. He placed it on his knee, took his knife and cut the string that went lengthwise. As he did this, his wife was leaning over watching the operation. He cut three of the cross–strings, and, as he cut the third cross–string, there was a terrific explosion. Mr. Chapman's left hand, with the exception of his little finger, was blown off. He also sustained other injuries to his leg and thigh. The pieces from the bomb struck Mrs. Chapman in the abdomen, and, as a result of the injury sustained, she died the following morning. The grandson, who was sitting behind Mrs. Chapman, was uninjured. There was emitted, as a result of the explosion, some thick black smoke. Aid was at once summoned, and Mrs. Chapman and her husband were removed to the hospital at Marshfield. The post mortem upon the body of Mrs. Chapman showed that there were perforations to several of the vital organs sufficient to cause her death.

The wrapper on the bomb was somewhat torn and mutilated, but was preserved, identified, and offered in evidence as State's Exhibit A. The word “Marshfield” was misspelled, being written “Marsfilld,” the “h” and “e” being omitted. Professor Stromberg of the University of Minnesota testified that this spelling was characteristic of one familiar with the Swedish language as was also the pronunciation “Mars” for “Marsh.” This fact led to the supposition that some person of Swedish antecedents had written the address. The only person known to have any existing enmity against Mr. Chapman was the defendant. He was also the only person of Swedish nationality in the district. It appears from the evidence that the bomb had been picked up on rural route No. 5 south of the city of Marshfield from the box of one Thorbald Moen, about 2 o'clock in the afternoon of December 26, 1922, and taken to the city of Marshfield. For reasons which were sufficiently explained,the mail box in question had not been opened for several days before the afternoon of the 26th. Moen lived about a mile and a half west of the defendant's farm.

From the pieces picked up about the Chapman home, the bomb was reconstructed and was found to be made of a piece of white elm, about 14 inches long and about an inch and a quarter square, with a hole bored through the center, in which was placed a wagon bolt inside of a spring, which could be compressed by pulling the bolt back. The contrivance was so arranged that when the bolt was pulled back and the spring compressed it could be held in place by a trigger, which trigger could be secured by tying down one end with a string. Around the bolt and inside of the elm piece was a round brass tube, in which the bolt moved backward and forward. At the end of the square elm piece was a short piece of gas pipe, screwed on to the piece of elm, and connected with another small collar made from a piece of gas pipe. At the end of the bolt was fastened a small firing pin, and the firing pin was arranged so that, when the bolt was released by cutting the string that held the trigger, the firing pin would strike the cap of the U. M. C. Remington 12 gauge shell. All the paper part of the shell was cut off. In contact with the U. M. C. shell was a detonating cap which was buried in the T. N. T., which filled the gas pipe, so that when the U. M. C. cap was fired, it exploded the detonating cap and the T. N. T.

Shortly after the explosion, the defendant's premises were inspected and searched with his consent. Pieces of gas pipe, of brass tubing, and other materials were taken from his premises, including a bottle of ink from his home, and sawdust and shavings from his work bench. There was found on the premises of the defendant a complete mechanical equipment for working in wood and iron, including a workbench, pipe wrench, monkey wrench, chisel, punches, planes, a thread cutter, drawing knife, hammer, blowtorch, files, hack saw blades, emery wheel and other tools, and there was found also a box containing T. N. T. and empty T. N. T. wrappers. There was also a lathe in the shop. T. N. T. detonating caps were found on the premises, and No. 12 U. M. C. Remington shells, the same kind that were used in the bomb. A triangular trip or trigger was taken off the gasoline engine of the defendant on account of its resemblance to the trigger found on the bomb. There were also found springs and other miscellaneous articles, and an exploded shell, which exactly corresponded with the shell found in the bomb, was found on the workbench of the defendant.

After the defendant was arrested, he made, at the request of the officers, several samples of handwriting and printing. He wrote the word “Marshfield” five times, and each time left out the “h” and the “e.” He, however, inserted two “l's” instead of one. At a later time he made other samples of his handwriting. This was after the employment of counsel, and after he had seen the original wrapper, and “Marsh” was correctly spelled.

With these materials in hand, counsel for the state set to work to establish the fact that the defendant was the manufacturer of the bomb and therefore guilty of killing Mrs. Chapman. The handwriting upon the package, together with the admittedly genuine writing of John Magnuson, was submitted to three experts––John F. Tyrrell of Milwaukee, Wis., Albert S. Osborn of New York City, author of Questioned Documents, and Jay F. Wood, of Chicago, probably the three most eminent and reputable handwriting experts in the United States. Working separately they all positively identified the handwriting on the package as the handwriting of the person who wrote the admittedly genuine standards. In this respect their conclusions were undisputed except by the defendant and one W. W. Way, of Milwaukee. A careful perusal of his testimony rather strengthens than disputes the conclusions reached by the three first–named experts. His cross–examination left his testimony in such shape that it rather confirmed than contradicted the testimony of the other experts. His attempt to account for the resemblance between the writing on the wrapper and the admitted writing of Magnuson on the ground of “accidental coincidence” cast great doubt upon his conclusions.

Under the microscope the writing upon the package showed that it was written with a fountain pen with a round point, similar to the pen of Ethel Magnuson, the daughter of the defendant. The ink used in writing the wrapper, Exhibit A, gave the same reaction to chemicals as the ink in the pen of Ethel Magnuson. The ink in the Magnuson house did not give the same chemical reaction, but it was discovered that Ethel's pen had been used by a schoolmate who used black ink, and this black ink, combined with the ink which was found in the house, gave the special reaction. An analysis of the glue used to fasten down the string disclosed that it was Le Page's glue. Magnuson had shortly before this time used Le Page's glue in an attempt to repair a fountain pen for his son. Prof. Arthur Koehler of the United States Forest Products Laboratory at Madison established the fact that the sawdust taken from the defendant's workbench was of white elm. This would not have been significant had not the defendant denied that he had ever worked on elm wood in his shop in his life. He admitted having worked on oak. Under the microscope it appeared that the sawdust came from hemlock, oak, and white elm. That part of the wooden covering of the bomb which remained was white elm.

The trigger on the bomb was compared with the trigger taken from the gas engine on the premises of the defendant. These triggers were analyzed by Prof. David Fahlberg of the University of Wisconsin. It was established that no two pieces of steel or iron are identical in appearance unless they come from the same piece. When magnified and photomicrographs are taken of the crystals and formation of the metal, the photomicrographs differ very materially in two pieces of steel. The analysis showed that the trigger from the bomb had the identical crystals and formation of that obtained from the trip on...