People v. Mondich

• Decision Date: 30 April 1926
• Docket Number: No. 137.,137.
• Citation: 234 Mich. 590,208 N.W. 675
• Parties: PEOPLE v. MONDICH.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

234 Mich. 590

208 N.W. 675

PEOPLE

v.MONDICH.

No. 137.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

April 30, 1926.

Error to Recorder's Court of Detroit; Christopher E. Stein, Judge.

Euphemia Mondich was convicted of murder, and she brings error. Affirmed.

Argued before the full bench.

Willard & Czarnecki, of Detroit, for appellant.

Andrew B. Dougherty, Atty. Gen., and Robert M. Toms, Pros. Atty., and Ward Culver, Asst. Pros. Atty., both of Detroit, for the People.

STEERE, J.

In December, 1924, defendant was tried, convicted, and sentenced for life to the Detroit House of Correction, under an information filed in the recorder's court of Detroit charging her with having, in the city of Detroit, Wayne county, killed and murdered one John Udurovich on or about September 20, 1921. On the trial defendant took the stand as a witness in her own behalf, and testified to the circumstances of her disposing of Udurovich on or about the time charged, her defense on the facts being that she acted in self-defense and the killing was justified.

The legal defense and ground for reversal urged in her behalf is failure by the prosecution to make competent initial proof of the corpus delicti, that contention being interrogatively propounded in her counsel's brief as follows:

‘Was the corpus delicti proven when the confessions of the defendant were admitted over objection, and, if not proven, was error committed?’

In the order of proof the prosecution first called as a witness William Sigsby, a foreman for the Detroit Seamless Steel Tube Company, who in 1921 owned a house and lot known as 17687 Dryer street, located on a scantily developed subdivision in the northerly outskirts of Detroit, and the only house on that side of the street in the block. He identified defendant as the woman who, with her claimed husband, leased that place from him in September, 1921, under the name of Mr. and Mrs. John Udurovich. They rented it for an indefinite period, and paid two weeks rent. While they occupied the place he had some plumbing done in the house, and was there to look after it. He then again met his tenants. He had conversed with Udurovich when he met him, and was able to describe his appearance. He also identified a photograph of him. He knew they occupied the house for a week or more between September 10th and 25th, 1921, but they gave him no notice of quitting, and he first learned they were gone when some one in that neighborhood who wanted to rent the cottage called him up and told him they had seen the furniture removed and the place appeared to be vacant. A Polish woman who knew defendant testified that the latter lived there with Udurovich for a week or more during September 1921. There is no evidence any one saw them leave the place or Udurovich alive after that time. A wooman of his nationality who knew him told of meeting him at various times before, but not since then.

The prosecution next called Dr. A. L. French, chief medical examiner of Wayne county, who qualified as an expert with years of experience in autopsies and post mortem examinations. He identified the bones of a human skeleton as having received them for examination from Lieut. Collins, a detective of the Detroit police force. From his study of those bones he testified to and demonstrated with them four punctures through the skull caused in his opinion by two bullets, the marks of entrance and exit showing they were fired from the front, one entering below the right eye and the other at the left side of the chin. He was unable from the condition of those wounds in the skull to find any indication whether the subject was alive or dead when the punctures were made. He also found and pointed out a round, penetrating puncture or bullet hole through the right fifth adult rib, showing by the burr on the outside, or front, of the rib that it came from the rear, and showed a stain of blood infusion in the fiber of the rib indicating, as he testified, that the subject was alive when that puncture was made, since no extravasation of blood causing such stain would take place after death. He also testified that a bullet fired into the back of a human being and taking the course indicated by the mark on the rib would pass through the right lobe of the liver, causing a hemmorrhage which would result in death. Of the decomposition of a dead body, he testified it would be more rapid when buried near the surface of the ground, and faster in sand than clay.

This skeleton was found by Lieutenant Detective Collins and Sergeant Detective Wencel of the Detroit police on September 8, 1924, buried near the surface in damp, sandy ground under the front porch of the house on Dryer street in which defendant lived with Udurovich during a portion of September, 1921. The skeleton, a bullet, and some buttons were all they found remaining in condition to identify. It appeared they were led to make this search by information obtained from defendant.

Counsel for defendant urge prejudicial error on admission of testimony at that stage of the evidence as to what guiding information she gave the officers when the search was undertaken, on the ground that it was in its nature an extrajudicial confession of the defendant, by which alone the corpus delicti cannot be established and without which it had not been shown. In support of this counsel invoke the general rule that proof of the corpus delicti, or death of a human being and its cause, must be completed before any proof...