People v. Buoniconti

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: FARMER
• Citation: People v. Buoniconti , 340 Ill. 299, 172 N.E. 728 (Ill. 1930)
• Decision Date: 10 October 1930
• Docket Number: No. 20097.,20097.
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BUONICONTI.

340 Ill. 299

172 N.E. 728

PEOPLE

v.BUONICONTI.

No. 20097.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 20, 1930.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 10, 1930.

Error to Circuit Court, Du Page County; Edward D. Shurtleff, Judge.

John Buoniconti was convicted of murder, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Isidore Fried, Edward Horchler, and Bernard Stol, all of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., C. W. Reed, State's Atty., of Naperville, and Merrill F. Wehmhoff, of Springfield (Win. G. Knoch and R. W. Keeney, both of Naperville, of counsel), for the People.

FARMER, J.

John Buoniconti (hereafter referred to as defendant) and Anna Destefano were jointly indicted during October, 1928, by a grand jury of DuPage county for the murder of Arthur Thomas on September 29, 1928. They pleaded not guilty, and Mrs. DeStefano asked a severance, which was granted, and she testified for the people. Buoniconti was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary. He has sued out this writ of error to review the record.

Deceased was a colored man. Defendant, who was a married man having a wife and several children, owned a so-called mineral spring at Lemont, Ill., and on Saturday morning, September 29, he, Mrs. DeStefano, deceased, and another colored man named Stanton, drove in defendant's car from Chicago to the spring. The record discloses that defendant, Mrs. DeStefano, deceased, and a number of the witnesses and parties connected with them, were of the underworld and resided in Chicago. Defendant, Mrs. DeStefano, deceased and others with whom they associated, white and black, sustained illicit relations indiscriminately. Defendant admitted killing deceased, but claimed he did it in self-defense. The record discloses no reason or motive for deceased attacking or attempting to kill defendant, and the only motive shown for defendant killing deceased is that at one time, over three months prior to the murder, deceased took Mrs. DeStefano, with whom defendant was living, to a room deceased had, to get some liquor, and there had intercourse with her. Defendant was informed of this and made threats against deceased on several occasions before the day he took him out to the spring. On the morning of September 29, defendant, Mrs. DeStefano,deceased and Stanton, the other colored man, went to defendant's mineral spring at Lemont ostensibly for the purpose of defendant making a deal with deceased to handle the water of his spring. Stanton was to obtain employment from the deceased. When they arrived at the spring in defendant's car some or all of them got out of the car. They went to various places in or about the garage and the house inclosing the spring, when defendant claims he heard Mrs. DeStefano cry, ‘Look out! They are going to get you!’ The claim is made by defendant that deceased had a revolver and shot at defendant six times, and that defendant having a shotgun in the car then secured it from his car. Deceased ran into the garage and defendant saw him through a window, reloading his revolver, and defendant pushed his shotgun through the window and shot and killed him. Stanton, the other negro in the party, escaped through the weeds near the garage and went to the road, where he secured a ride in a car with two white men until he met an officer, with whom he went back to the garage, and they there found deceased lying dead in the garage. He was shot in the head. Immediately after the shooting defendant and Mrs. DeStefano got in defendant's car and drove to Mary Hayden's road house, where they got something to eat and lodging for the night. Sunday one Iandola took defendant and Mrs. DeStefano to Frank Schultz's house, in Brookfield, where they stayed all night. Defendant told one Filizzola, a cook at Mary Hayden's place, that deceased was a white-slaver-made the white girls do whatever he wanted them to-and that is the reason he killed him. Iandola testified that he heard defendant say he shot a negro; that the negro was behind the garage with a gun, and that defendant forced him into the garage and shot him. Tuesday night defendant and Mrs. DeStefano left Chicago by train and went to Michigan, where they were arrested and consented to return to Illinois without a requisition.

This a very meager outline of the testimony, which fills almost two hundred pages of the abstract. There was no possible motive shown why deceased should want to take the life of defendant. They went to the spring for the purpose of making some kind of an arrangement by which deceased was to handle the water from the spring for defendant, and when they arrived there, according to defendant's testimony, deceased sought to kill him, and defendant killed him in self-defense. Men do not ordinarily take the life of another fellow man without some...