Parsons v. State

• Decision Date: 18 November 1953
• Docket Number: No. 26493,26493
• Citation: 271 S.W.2d 643,160 Tex.Crim. 387
• Parties: Mary Jean PARSONS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 643

271 S.W.2d 643

160 Tex.Crim. 387

Mary Jean PARSONS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 26493.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Nov. 18, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 10, 1954.

Certiorari Denied Oct. 14, 1954.

See 75 S.Ct. ----.

Bullington, Humphrey, Humphrey & Fillmore, C. C. McDonald, Wichita Falls, O. B. Fisher, Paris, Coyne Milstead, El Paso, for appellant.

George W. Anderson, Jr., Dist. Atty., Wichita Falls, William E. Clayton, Dist. Atty., El Paso, Wesley Dice, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

WOODLEY, Judge.

Mary Jean Parsons was indicted in El Paso County for the murder of her husband Richard O. Parsons. She was granted a trial in El Paso County upon the issue of insanity alone, and was found sane both at the time of the homicide on February 16, 1952, and at the time of the preliminary sanity trial on May 27, 1952. Thereafter the venue was changed from El Paso to Wichita County, and on February 11, 1953, a Wichita County jury returned their verdict wherein they found appellant sane at the time of the homicide and at the time of the trial, adjudged her guilty of murder with malice and assessed her punishment at 10 years in the penitentiary.

The statement of facts contains some 1,250 pages; the transcript more than 300 pages, and there are 58 bills of exception. Therefore a rather lengthy opinion seems to be justified, if not required.

The record has been carefully read and examined in the light of the well prepared briefs and arguments of able counsel, both for the state and for the appellant. It is apparent that all of the questions raised cannot be discussed herein, though each has received our careful attention.

Appellant, the daughter of a prominent and respectable family of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was married on January 2, 1952, to the deceased Richard O. Parsons, who had been recently commissioned as a Lieutenant in the United States Army and was under orders to report to Fort Bliss near El Paso.

Following a honeymoon trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, appellant and the deceased came to El Paso and, after residing for a time in the Royal Arms apartment on Mesa Avenue, moved to Hampton Courts at 1820 Montana Street.

It was established that the homicide occurred on the morning of February 16, 1952, in Apartment No. 2 of the Hampton Court Apartments in El Paso, which appellant and the deceased occupied as their residence, consisting of a living room bedroom, bath, kitchen and porch.

Appellant remained in and around the apartment during the entire day, and in the afternoon communicated by telephone with her parents in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and advised them she had killed her husband. She was told that counsel would be obtained for her.

Thereafter Mr. W. H. Fryer and his associate Mr. Jack Luscombe, prominent El Paso attorneys, arrived at the apartment and advised appellant that they had been employed to represent her.

Upon their arrival they found appellant in the apartment. The body of the deceased lay on the bed in the bedroom, with two bullet wounds in the head. A .32 caliber pistol was on a chair. The waste basket in the kitchen contained some torn writings of appellant which proved to be important to the state's case. Other letters and papers which were detrimental to appellant's plea of insanity were in the drawer of a desk.

The attorneys looked around the apartment, notified the officers by telephone and accompanied their client to the El Paso County Jail, advising her against making any statement to the officers regarding the homicide. We commend them and call attention to the fact that there was nothing said or done by Mr. Fryer or his associate which was not within the legitimate scope of their professional employment.

Justice of the Peace Charles Windberg, Jr. arrived at the apartment about 8 or 8:15 p. m., after the appellant had been accompanied to the jail by her attorneys. Thereafter several officers arrived and an investigation was made, including a rather thorough search of the apartment.

Appellant signed a statement in writing in which she confessed that she shot and killed her husband with a pistol which she had purchased a few days before. The testimony offered by appellant in cross-examination of the state's witness also shows that she confessed that she shot and killed her husband.

Appellant pladed not guilty and filed an application for suspension of sentence, but the sole defense was in fact that of insanity.

We will not attempt to set out the testimony offered in support of appellant's plea of insanity. Suffice it to say that the following facts, certified by the trial judge in some of the bills of exception, are fully supported by the evidence.

'Be it remembered that on the trial of the above entitled and numbered cause the duly qualified medical experts, who had treated and examined the Defendant, testified that on February 16, 1952 she was suffering from a major, malignant, mental disorder known as schizophrenia of the catatonic type; that a catatonic schizophrenic will frequently go into and out of a state of stupor or restardation or loss of contact with environment; that it is a recurrent type of illness; that when having a catatonic attact such a schizophrenic acts impulsively and may become dangerous and homicidal; that on emerging from a catatonic attack, some contact with reality is established and there is memory; that in the opinion of such doctors, there the Defendant at the time she pulled the trigger if she did, on the gun that killed Richard O. Parsons, this Defendant did not know the nature, quality, or consequences of such act and that she did not know right from wrong.'

* * * 'The defendant, through counsel, adduced the testimony of there qualified medical doctors who testified that the defendant, Mary Jean Parsons was suffering at the time of the trial from schizophrenia and that she was insane and still suffering from schizophrenia and that she needed medical attention for the treatment of this major, malignant, mental disorder.'

In addition to the medical testimony, a number of witnesses who had been acquainted and associated with appellant testified for her and expressed the opinion that she was insane and did not know right from wrong.

Two letters written by appellant to her parents prior to the day of the homicide and referred to as 'suicidal notes' were offered in behalf of appellant, one mailed from Santa Fe and another mailed from El Paso on February 1, 1952, at 3 p. m. There letters fully support the conclusion of appellant's witnesses, therefrom, that she was apparently contemplating suicide.

On the other hand a number of witnesses who had seen and observed appellant shortly before and after the homicide were called by the state and testified that they observed nothing to indicate that she was insane, and expressed the opinion that she was sane.

Among the documents introduced by the state, and which were relied upon as indicating sanity, are the following:

The written confession, made the night of the day of the killing, which reads as follows:

'About 8:00 P.M. last evening February 15th, 1952 my husband and I, went to the Apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Tom Fields to play canasta, we played canasta untill about 11:30 P.M. we then went home. Shortly--this we got in to an argument about our parents, my husband said my parents had done too much for us in every way, we then started arguing back and forth, I really dont know what it was all about. We then went to bed.

'I awoke about 6:00 A.M. February 16th, 1952, I then went and put the coffee on, I then sat down and smoked a cigarette, all this time thinking about the argument we had been having last night before we went to bed, I then went in to wake Dick up. When he woke up we started arguing again, all I can remember is that he my husband told me to go to hell. I then lost my head compleatly, I then went to the closet in the bed room got my gun, returned to the bed where my husband was laying put the gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger twice. I dont remember any thing very clearly after this for some time. When I did come to my sences about 5:05 P.M. this afternoon I called my mother in Tulsa Oklahoma and told her what I had done. I then told her that I had not called the Police or anty one else, (my mother then told me that she would call my Father, and have him call me back, which he did about fifteen minutes later). My Father then asked me what I had done, and I told him that I had killed my husband, My Father then told me that he would charter a plane and come as soon as possiable, also that he would get me an attorney. My Father then called me back about twenty minutes after this and told me to wait untill my attorney came, before calling the Police, as he d they would make the proper arrangements. About 7:30 P.M. February 16th, 1952 Mr. Fryer and his partner came to my apartment, told me that my brother John B. Fleeger who lives in Tulsa Oklahoma had asked him to repesent me. Mr. Fryer and his partner went to the bed room looked at the body, then looked around the apartment, Mr. Fryer then asked me to tell him what had happened, which I did. Mr. Fryer then asked me if I needed a sedative and I told him no. Mr. Fryer then went to the phone and called the Sheriff's Dept. He also called the coroner, he then brought me down to the Sheriff's Office, where I was placed in jail.

'After shooting my husband I placed the gun on a chair by the window in the bed room. I bought this gun at the Elpaso Sporting Goods Store, I also bought one box of shells with the gun. My husband was 24 years old and his home was in Pleasantville New York his home was at 12 Hardscrabble Road with his mother and father before he entered the Service. He was stationed at Ft Bliss and was going to start to School thursday.

'My husband and I were married January the 2nd, 1952 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

'I went to Dipps Grocery store two times to day before I called my mother, the...