People v. Schermerhorn

• Citation: 203 N.Y. 57,96 N.E. 376
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SCHERMERHORN.
• Decision Date: 03 October 1911
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

203 N.Y. 57

96 N.E. 376

PEOPLE

v.SCHERMERHORN.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 3, 1911.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Trial Term, Dutchess County.

Frank Schermerhorn was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

George Wood and John F. Ringwood, for appellant.

John E. Mack, Dist. Atty., for the People.

WERNER, J.

The homicide, for the commission of which the defendant has been convicted, was one of peculiar atrocity. The victim had been a nurse in the family of the Comptons, who lived at Milbrook, near Poughkeepsie. She was found dead in her bed on the night of January 13, 1910, under circumstances which indicated that she had been strangled. The autopsy which was performed upon her body confirmed these indications, and also revealed the fact that she had been carnally outraged. Other circumstances pointed to a burglary and larceny in the Compton residence, and still other incidents tended to identify the defendant as the perpetrator of all of these crimes. The defendant was arrested and later indicted under a presentment in the common-law form. His trial and conviction followed in June, 1910. The evidence against him was largely circumstantial, but was strongly supplemented by the defendant's confessions, which, if accepted as true, leave not a shadow of a doubt as to the defendant's guilt. Upon this appeal the defendant asserts that these confessions, received in evidence against him at the trial, were wrung from him under circumstances which rendered them inadmissible, and that without them the evidence is not strong enough to support the conviction; that, although the indictment against him was in the common-law form, there was no evidence tending to show that the homicide was committed with premeditation and deliberation, and that the case was not submitted to the jury upon that theory; that it was error to submit the case as one of murder in the first degree, upon the assumption that it was committed while the perpetrator was engaged in the commission of the two distinct felonies of rape and burglary, because there was no evidence to connect the burglary with the murder. These contentions are obviously important, for if they are well founded it must logically follow that the defendant's conviction cannot be upheld. It becomes our duty, therefore, to examine with critical minuteness the circumstances surrounding the homicide.

At the time of the homicide, the Compton family consisted of the husband and his wife and a child about four years of age. They employed a number of servants, among whom were the defendant, who served as coachman, the deceased, who was nurse to the child, Ohashi, a Japanese butler, and two maids named Alice Dutcher and Mary Farrell. The defendant, a married man, lived in the coachman's house, which was something more than 600 feet westerly of the Compton residence and on the opposite side of the highway. His wife had for some time been absent at a hospital for treatment, and he was temporarily the sole occupant of this dwelling. The deceased and the Compton child slept in an open-air apartment or porch at the westerly end of the Compton residence, and the other servants, Ohashi, Dutcher, and Farrell, occupied rooms on the same floor, but at the easterly end of the house, so that there was an intervening distance of about 40 feet between the two places. On the night of January 12, 1910, Mr. Compton and his wife were in the city of New York. In the early evening, the defendant took the maids, Alice and Mary, out for a drive, and returned at about 9:30. The two maids entered the house, had some refreshments with the deceased, and then retired. Ohashi, the butler, was then in his room. At about half past 3 o'clock the next morning, the maid Alice was awakened by sounds indicating that some one was trying to gain entrance to her room, and in the same instant the maid Mary screamed, and said she had been awakened by a flash of light, which caused her to bound out of bed into the middle of the room, where she found herself quite close to a man, who at once ran out of her door and down the stairs to the kitchen. The screams of the two maids, Alice and Mary, brought Ohashi, the butler, from his room across the hall, and together the three went downstairs. There they discovered that the silver chest had been rifled, and that Mrs. Compton's room was in such disorder as to indicate that a burglary had been committed. The maid Alice then called the defendant on a telephone connected with the stable, and from thence with the coachman's house by means of an electric bell, which the defendant had been instructed to answer directly in person whenever it rang at night, or at any unusual hour. Contrary to these instructions, the defendant instead of answering the bell directly, first answered the telephone, which could only be done from the stable, and then made his appearance at the Compton house. As he came in, each of the other servants, Ohashi, Alice, and Mary, noticed that his face was blackened over the eyebrows, under the eyes, on each side of the nose, and across the lips. He explained to Alice that he had been putting coal on the fire, and must have daubed some of the soot on his face. His next remark was: ‘We must go up and see if Miss Polly (the child) is safe; that is what we are here for.’ Together the four servants, Ohashi, Mary, Alice, and the defendant, went upstairs. The defendant went directly to the bed where the body of the deceased lay, and shouted: ‘This girl is dead, Alice; this girl is dead.’ Meanwhile Alice had looked into Polly's cot, and at first rhought she was gone, but the defendant raised the bedclothing and disclosed her sleeping, safe and sound. Efforts were made to resuscitate the deceased with ammonia and whisky, and when these failed Alice directed the defendant to telephone for Dr. McKenzie. He called Dr. Knott, a veterinary, and when Alice remonstrated with him he told her to go to hell. The prosecution refers to this circumstance as indicating that the defendant was so confused that he did not know the difference between Dr. Knott, the veterinary, and Dr. McKenzie, the physician, but this point is greatly weakened, if not destroyed, by the testimony of the maid Mary, who said she suggested telephoning Dr. Knott, as well as Dr. McKenzie, for they wanted Mrs. Knott more than her husband. Having finished telephoning, the defendant said something about going back to his house, as he was not dressed, and wanted to wash the black from his face. Alice begged him to remain, and told him to wash in Mrs. Compton's room. Meanwhile Alice procured a pair of trousers, which she offered to the defendant, but he declined them, with the remark that he had trousers on.

At 20 minutes past 4 o'clock in the morning, Dr. McKenize arrived. He at once made such observations as would naturally suggest themselves to the experienced physician. He found the body of the deceased in the bed, slightly turned to the right side. The face was dark, discolored, distorted, and swollen, the eyes somewhat protruding and partially open, and the tongue swollen. There were brusis on the neck which might have been made by the grip of a human hand. Dr. McKenzie noticed dark, black dirt on her breast and some on her underwear. There were marks on both wrists, as if a cord had been wound twice around the wrists, and subsequently the strings, belonging to the pajamas worn by the deceased, were found beneath the bed; and there was testimony to the effect that the marks on the wrists might have been produced by these strings. Later in the day an autopsy was performed by Drs. Jacobus and McKenzie under the direction of Dr. Andrews, one of the coroners of Dutchess county . These three doctors were all agreed that the death of the deceased was due to asphyxiation from strangulation. The earlier observations made by Dr. McKenzie were supplemented by others, indicating that the deceased had been the victim of a carnal assault. Black sooty spots, of the same character as those noticed on the breast of deceased, were found at the crotch of the underclothing worn by her. There were abrasions and black dirt on the vulva. In the vagina there was a fluid, which was withdrawn with a syringe and subjected to a microscopical examination. It was found to be human semen. There were also injuries to the lower limbs. Without going further into these nauseating physical details, it suffices to say that the facts disclosed by the autopsy and the trial warranted the conclusion that the deceased came to her death by strangulation at the hands of a man who was at the time engaged in the commission of a criminal assault upon her person. The next step in the logical development of this gruesome story will be to ascertain in what manner the defendant is connected with this foul deed.

The defendant was a young man 22 years of age. His wife had for some time been absent from home. On the evening preceding the homicide, he had been out driving with the maids, Alice and Mary, and had been drinking at least enough to thoroughly fire his blood. There was evidence to the effect that in November he stated to a man engaged in clipping a pony for Mr. Compton that the deceased was a nice girl, and he would have sexual intercourse with her if he had to do it when the Comptons were in New York; that about a week before the tragedy he had made a remark to a man employed on the place, indicating that he had lascivious designs on the person of the deceased; that a day or two later he made a similar statement to another in language too vulgar to print; and on the day of the homicide he confided his lust to still another employé. Upon the body and clothing of the deceased were found black spots apparently of the same color and substance as the marks upon his face. When he returned from the drive with Alice and Mary, he asked the former what she was going to give him for the ride. When he, with Ohashi,...