Parker v. State, 42295

• Citation: 141 So.2d 546,244 Miss. 332
• Decision Date: 21 May 1962
• Docket Number: No. 42295,42295
• Parties: Perry PARKER v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 546

141 So.2d 546

244 Miss. 332

Perry PARKER v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 42295.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

May 21, 1962.

Berry & Yarbrough, Gulfport, for appellant.

Joe T. Patterson, Atty.Gen., by G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst.Atty.Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

LEE, Justice.

The grand jury of Jackson County indicted Perry Parker, Donald Lowery and Benny Jack Williams, jointly, for the murder of Rufus Charles Braddock. Parker was granted a severance, and, upon his trial, he was found guilty as charged and was sentenced to suffer the death penalty in the manner provided by law. From the judgment entered thereon, he appealed to this Court.

The evidence for the State showed the circumstances and manner of this death as follows: Braddock was fifty-three years of age. He was married and had two children. He lived in the City of Laurel, where he had worked for Masonite Corporation for twenty-four years. About eight o'clock on the morning of July 25, 1961, he left home in his 1961 Ford Galaxie ostensibly to go to Crossett, Arkansas. When his wife saw him again, he was in a funeral home in Laurel dead.

About 2:30 in the afternoon of July 26, 1961, Freeman Roy Northrop and James C. Cumberland, neighbors, who lived in the rural community of Lizana in Harrison County, went swimming at Cable Bridge on Wolf River in Harrison County. They took their wives and five of Northrop's children. They came out after staying in the water about forty-five minutes to an hour. The men and boys got their clothes from the car, and went several hundred feet to a thicket in order to change into their street clothing. Cumberland, happening to look ahead a short distance, saw a dead man, lying on his back, without a shirt or shoes, and clad only in a pair of trousers. These people hurried to the home of the constable of the district, reported their discovery, and accompanied the officer to the scene. An ambulance was obtained and the body was carried to a funeral home where it was identified. At that time, five photographs of the body were taken. Four of the pictures showed the head and neck with distinctive marks around the throat. The fifth picture showed lacerations or lesions on the back. The finders did not move the body at the time. Cumberland testified that the first four photographs fairly and accurately represented the marks that he saw on the throat of the deceased at the time the body was lying in the woods.

Dr. Henry D. Haberyan, a pathologist, did an autopsy on the body of Braddock at seven o'clock on the same evening for the purpose of determining the cause of death. He identified the subject as being the body which was depicted in the photographs. He explained that there were a number of unimportant and superficial lesions of the skin on the back and neck. The lesions of the skin and subcutaneous tissues of the neck indicated strangulation. On the back, the lesions were up and down that area, and he observed dirt and leaves or other vegetable matter in them. In his opinion, death was due to strangulation, which occurred perhaps twenty-four to forty-eight hours prior to his examination. He explained that a contusion is a bruise and a laceration is a superficial cut. There is no distinguishing characteristic between a laceration before or after death. The material in the lacerations suggested that the body was dragged over the ground either prior to or just after death. He said that, if there is a cut or laceration on a dead body in such manner as blood could flow out, there can be some outflow of blood.

At this time, a hearing as to the admissibility of a confession by the defendant, was conducted by the court in the absence of the jury. Douglas Thompson, a deputy sheriff, was placed on the stand. He said that Parker had expressed a desire to make a confession. He and Gaston Hewes, county attorney, asked questions of the accused, and Robert Daniels, a chancery court reporter, took the questions and answers as they were asked and answered. No promise or threat or force of any kind was used to induce the making of the statement. It was given freely and voluntarily. After it was completed, the court reporter typed it. The witness read it. It was accurate and contained what was asked and what the defendant said. He was present when Parker read the statement, signed it, and swore to it before Daniels, who was also a notary public. On cross-examination, the witness said that he had talked to the defendant once before. A tape recorder was used only when Daniels was operating it that day, at which time he was also taking the statement in shorthand. This statement was taken several days after Parker had returned from California. The defendant told the witness that he had been taken before a judge in California about two days after his arrest where the charges in Mississippi were explained to him. After Parker's return to Mississippi, he was not taken before a magistrate before he made the confession. The defendant had visitors while he was in jail. In his first talk with Parker, the witness advised him that he had a right to get an attorney if he wanted one. The defendant never asked him to call any relatives.

Parker then took the stand. He said that, after his arrest, he was held in California for five or six days; and that he was not given the benefit of counsel. An "F.B.D." man brought the extradition papers before a judge, where he was advised as to the charges. The man handed him and Lowery a paper that said that they were wanted in Mississippi for murder. He had then been under arrest two days. He said that he was under an emotional strain while being questioned and the statement was being taken down. On cross-examination, he said that he had known Gaston Hewes a long time, and that they asked questions and that he answered them. He said that neither Hewes nor anybody else threatened him, and that nobody made any promises. He said that he gave the statements freely and voluntarily. His wife was in jail at the same time. He was also turned loose in the "bull pen"; and he admitted that he did not ask Holleman, the district attorney, or Hewes, the county attorney, to get in touch with anybody for him.

After this preliminary hearing, the court held that the confession was admissible in evidence, and the jury was returned to the jury box. Douglas Thompson, who had been on the stand, returned, and said that, after Parker and his co-indictees were returned from California, he and Gaston Hewes, county attorney, took the statement from Parker. Robert Daniels, the Chancery Court Reporter of Harrison County, took it down in shorthand as the questions were asked and answered. All of this was reduced to writing. He said that there were no threats or promises of any kind. The completed statement was typed. Perry Parker read it in the presence of the witness and the witness also read it. Parker swore to it and signed it in the presence of Daniels, who was also a notary public. The whole statement, consisting of fifty-three pages, was then offered in evidence.

Space will not permit the inclusion of the entire confession in this opinion. It is sufficient to say however that it disclosed that, on Tuesday morning, July 25, 1961, Parker, his wife Margie, Benny Jack Williams and "Donnie" Lowery set out from Gulfport in Williams' car on a trip to Hattiesburg to find Williams' wife. The car broke down and was later sold for $20. A preacher and his wife came along and took them to Hattiesburg. They were not able to find the woman while they were in Hattiesburg. Margie, in some unexplained way, met up with Braddock, and she introduced him to her companions as her husband. Braddock agreed to drive them to Gulfport. Along the way, they stopped at several places and drank beer and whiskey. At Wiggins, Braddock bought Margie some clothes in the store of Earnest Yeager & Sons. Thereafter, at Circle Inn in Lyman, he again bought whiskey. When they left, he and Margie were in the back seat and the others were in front, with Parker driving. Along the way, before Williams parted with possession of his car, they transferred all of their effects to Braddock's car, together with the old tag from the car which Williams sold. Braddock suggested several times that they get something to eat, and the others did eat, but he ate very little, if anything. They stopped at a Shell station on the beach at the intersection of Beach and Thirtieth Streets where they filled the tank and Braddock paid for it with his credit card. Thereafter, Braddock went to sleep in Margie's lap.

As they continued down Highway 90 toward Pass Christian, after both Braddock and Margie were asleep, Parker, Williams and Lowery decided to get Braddock's money. Benny Jack reached back and got it. They divided it, $42 each to Williams and Lowery and $84 to Parker for his and Margie's part. They then stopped, bought another fifth of liquor, splitting the price between them. They decided to dump Braddock somewhere, finally concluding that it would be better to do so in the area from which they came. So, they turned around, and Williams took Margie's place in the back seat. They drove east through Gulfport, Biloxi and Ocean Springs. They stopped at Earl Bond's Truck Stop, where, as the others sat in the car, Parker bought a fifth of Early Times liquor and cigarettes. Parker, at the wheel, then drove angling across the highway into a country road, that was blacktopped, for about five or six miles. Here he stopped the car, and Braddock, "passed out", was lying with his head in Williams' lap. Both Williams and Parker put their socks on their hands. Parker held Braddock's hands and Lowery held his feet. Williams put a handkerchief around Braddock's neck and tightened it. The man gasped for breath, then was still. Parker heard the noise of a bowel movement, and Lowery said "Well, he has gone now. He done took his dying *** (an unprintable word, meaning a movement of the bowels.)" ...