People v. Sapp

• Decision Date: 06 February 1918
• Docket Number: No. 11583.,11583.
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SAPP.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

282 Ill. 51

118 N.E. 416

PEOPLE

v.SAPP.

No. 11583.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 19, 1917.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 6, 1918.

Error to Circuit Court, Mercer County; William T. Church, Judge.

Bert Sapp was convicted of murder, and he brings error. Affirmed.

L. H. Hanna, of Monmouth, William H. Hartzell and Bert M. Cavanagh, both of Carthage, and Edward S. Martin, of Warsaw, for plaintiff in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., Oscar E. Carlstrom, State's Atty., of Aledo, Sumner S. Anderson, of Charleston, and David A. Hebel, of Aledo, for the People.

CARTER, C. J.

At the September term, 1916, of the circuit court of Mercer county, the grand jury returned an indictment against plaintiff in error, Bert Sapp, for the murder of Emma Larkins. At the April term, 1917, of that court, plaintiff in error was tried by a jury, and found guilty of murder in manner and form as charged in the indictment, and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of 22 years. After motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled, judgment was entered on the verdict. This writ of error was sued out to review the proceedings of the trial court.

In the first week of September, 1916, a fair was held at Winfield, Iowa, at which Emma Larkins was employed at an eating stand as a waitress. While there she met C. D. McPherson, with whom, apparently, she had become acquainted at some fairs previously held in Iowa. McPherson was in charge of and showing trained ponies at these fairs. Some time Sunday forenoon, September 10, 1916, McPherson and Emma Larkins started to drive in a spring wagon from Winfield east to Aledo, Mercer county, Ill., about 50 miles from Winfield. They crossed the Mississippi river at Keithsburg, Ill., and remained at that place over night, registering at Mrs. Porter's hotel as man and wife and occupying a room together. The next morning after breakfast they drove in a northerly direction to a farm known as the Dixon pony farm, and from there drove to Aledo, where they arrived about 4 o'clock p. m. on September[282 Ill. 53]11, 1916. They drove directly to the fair grounds, and were shown the stalls that had been assigned to McPherson for his horses. Here Emma Larkins left McPherson and went to look for some people she had worked with at the fair at Winfield and other places. She returned in a short time to where McPherson was, and engaged in a conversation with Ed Greer, whom she had met at the Winfield fair, and who was acting as stall man for the Mercer county fair. Later in the same day Emma Larkins and McPherson took a hack and drove to Aledo and to the Janes restaurant for supper. After supper they went to the hotel across the street, where McPherson wrote some letters, while Emma Larkins went down near the post office to listen to a band. She returned in a short time to the hotel, and she and McPherson took the same hack back to the fair grounds, where McPherson remained all night. Emma Larkins obtained her two suit cases and rode back in the same hack to Aledo, where the driver took her to his sister, Mrs. Russell, where she remained all night. The next morning this same hackman again took her and her suit cases back to the fair grounds, where they arrived about 8 o'clock a. m. on Tuesday, September 12. Shortly after reaching the grounds that morning she met Greer, the stall man, and he assisted her in carrying her suit cases to the secretary's office, where they were left. These suit cases were never taken out or called for by Emma Larkins, but remained there until taken away by the sheriff of Mercer county during the investigation of the alleged crime.

The plaintiff in error, Bert Sapp, had brought a racing mare (Helen S) to the Mercer county fair on the Saturday evening previous, for racing purposes. Mike Ferguson was employed by him as caretaker of the mare. Plaintiff in error was given by the fair authorities stalls Nos. 20 and 21. They placed the mare in stall 21 and used stall 20 as a bunk stall, for sleeping purposes. They slept there Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights. About half an hour after Greer had gone with Emma Larkins to the secretary's office with her suit cases, he passed along by stalls 20 and 21, occupied by Sapp, which were located under the amphitheater. Greer testified that he saw Emma Larkins seated with plaintiff in error in one of the stalls, apparently the bunk stall, which had been assigned to plaintiff in error. Greer had some conversation with plaintiff in error in reference to the bunk stall. During this conversation Emma Larkins made inquiry of Greer as to the whereabouts of McPherson. So far as the testimony in the record shows, she was never again seen alive outside of that stall. The evidence as to just what occurred in this bunk stall is circumstantial. Ferguson, the caretaker of the horse, testified that on Tuesday morning, after he had fed the mare, he called plaintiff in error to get up. This was about 7 o'clock. He then left the stall and walked around the grounds for an hour or more. These stalls were shut in with double doors, upper and lower. At the top of the lower door in bunk stall 20 there was a hole. When Ferguson came back to the stall on Tuesday forenoon after his walk around the gounds, he found the doors closed and a blanket hung on the inside of the door, so that any one passing on the outside could not see in. He rapped on the door, and plaintiff in error put his mouth to the hole and said, ‘You can't come in now; go away for an hour and a half and come back.’ Ferguson did so, and returned about 11 o'clock. The doors were still closed, and he again rapped, and plaintiff in error told him there was a woman in there, and that she had fallen in a faint. These stalls, as we understand the record, were built under the seats of the amphitheater. At the back end of the stall, far enough in for a person to stand upright, there was a partition across the stall. Through this partition there was a door extending back under where the seats gradually descended toward the ground. Apparently the roof of the stall at this point was not high enough to be used for horses. When Ferguson came back at 11 o'clock, plaintiff in error stated to him that the woman who had fallen in a faint was back of this partition at the further end of the stall under the seats, which sloped from the ground upward and formed the roof of the compartment back of the stall proper. The feed for the mare Helen S, was kept in bunk stall 20, and it was necessary for Ferguson to go to the bunk stall to get the feed. Ferguson, when he went into the stall at 11 o'clock, opened the door in the partition across the end of this stall, and saw a body covered with a light blanket. He suggested to plaintiff in error that a doctor should be called, and plaintiff in error said he had seen lots of women faint away like that. Ferguson then fed the mare, and did not return till about 3 o'clock. He found the bunk stall closed, and plaintiff in error sitting upon a trunk in the stall. He stated to Ferguson that the woman was getting along all right, and that he would take her out on the grounds when night came. Shortly thereafter Ferguson left, and did not return until about 5 o'clock. He found the doors of bunk stall 20 still closed, and plaintiff in error reported to him that the woman was getting along all right, and that she had had a good sleep. Ferguson went away, and did not return again until about 7 o'clock in the evening. When he came back, plaintiff in error asked him to stay while he went to get something to eat, as he had nothing to eat all day. Plaintiff in error was gone for 15 minutes, and when he returned Ferguson went away again. Ferguson came back about 11 o'clock that night, and, when he made inquiry as to how the woman was getting along, he testified plaintiff in error reported, ‘All right.’ Ferguson then went to bed, and did not waken until half past 5 the next morning.

Stall 19 under the amphitheater, next to bunk stall 20, was occupied by Guy Haas and June Bond. They kept in the large front part of the stall a mare they had entered to race at the fair. These two men slept in the rear part of the stall back of the partition, under the seats of the amphitheater; this part of the stall being similar to the one in which Ferguson saw a body covered with the blanket in bunk stall 20. During the afternoon of September 12 and late that evening, both these men heard a noise in the back part of bunk stall 20, which immediately adjoined stall 19 and was separated therefrom only by a board partition. Both these witnesses described these noises as groaning, hacking, or coughing sounds. About 5 o'clock Tuesday afternoon plaintiff in error was in stall 19 advising them how to care for their racing horse and helping them wash and bandage the legs of the horse. They inquired of him about the noises they had heard in the back part of bunk stall 20, and he told them he had a friend in there sleeping off a drunk.

Plaintiff in error and Ferguson slept in the main part of bunk stall 20 on Tuesday night. After Ferguson got up Wednesday morning, he fed the mare and then came back to bunk stall 20, and then plaintiff in error informed him the woman was dead. Ferguson testified he told him, ‘Now you are up against it; you have got yourself in a bad fix, to which plaintiff in error replied, ‘That's nothing; I will get out of this.’ In a few minutes plaintiff in error asked Ferguson to help put the body in the trunk in which some blankets, harness, and other property had been brought to Aledo. Ferguson objected to this, and said he did not like to handle a dead body; but plaintiff in error insisted, and told him he would not get into any trouble if he would swear that he had never seen the woman. The two men then lifted the body and placed it in the trunk. Ferguson then went outside, and when he next returned to the stall plaintiff in error told him he was going to get...