People v. Spaulding

• Decision Date: 20 October 1923
• Docket Number: No. 15434.,15434.
• Citation: 309 Ill. 292,141 N.E. 196
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SPAULDING.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

309 Ill. 292

141 N.E. 196

PEOPLE

v.SPAULDING.

No. 15434.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 20, 1923.

Error to Circuit Court, Stark County; John M. Niehaus, Judge.

Rolla Spaulding was convicted of murder, and he brings error.

Affirmed.John W. Fling, Jr., of Wyoming, Ill., and Henry E. Pratt, of Peoria, for plaintiff in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., E. J. Galbraith, State's Atty., of Peoria, and Floyd E. Britton, of Springfield (R. L. Thurman, of Peoria, Floyd Brian, of Toulon, Scott W. Lucas, of Havana, and I. L. Fuller, of Peoria, of counsel), for People.

THOMPSON, J.

About 9:30 p. m., Monday, June 12, 1922, Arthur Smith, a constable of the town of Richwoods, in Peoria county, was shot and killed on a public highway near Bradley Park, in the city of Peoria. There were no lights or residences near the scene of the homicide. Smith and another constable, Joseph Turner, were driving along the highway in Turner's car when they came upon two automobiles standing without lights at the south side of the road. At Smith's request Turner stopped his car and Smith got out to investigate. The two cars were headed east, and as Smith walked around the car in which he had been riding he was a few feet north of and about even with the rear of the second of the two cars. He called out, ‘What are these dark cars doing here?’ Two men ran toward the front car and a third man standing behind the second car fired several shots at Smith. Three shots entered his body and he was instantly killed. Finding his companion dead, Turner ran three blocks to the rear entrance of Bradley Park where he met a police officer and another man and with them returned to the scene of the homicide. The cars were there, but the men were gone. The first car was a Dodge sedan and the other a Buick touring car. The spare tire had been taken from the Buick and was lying on the ground between the two cars. Under the rear axle and near the right wheel of the Buick was a jack, and two of the rim lugs had been taken off and others were loosened. A flashlight and tools for removing the tire from the wheel were lying on the ground. The police officer went back to Bradley Park, where he had left his motorcycle, mounted it, and rode three miles to the police station, where he reported the homicide to the police department and the sheriff. It was then 9:45 p. m. Officers were immediately dispatched to the scene. The Buick car was identified as one which had been stolen from its parking place about a block from the courthouse in Peoria about 9 o'clock that evening, and the Dodge car was identified as the property of Rolla Spaulding, plaintiff in error. Alongside the driver's seat of the Dodge, in the pocket of the left-hand front door, was found an automatic pistol magazine full of cartridges loaded with .380-caliber steel-jacketed bullets, and a canvas sack containing 35 or 40 cartridges of the same character. On and under the right-hand running board of the Buick were found three exploded shells of identical make, size, and description. Two bullets were removed from Smith's body, and they were .380-caliber steel-jacketed bullets. When the Buick was parked it was locked with a switch key. When it was found there was a ‘jumper’ placed across the wires of the ignition system, making it possible to start the motor without turning the switch. Officers of the city and county searched for plaintiff in error throughout the city of Peoria without success.

Plaintiff in error is an automobile mechanic and for some time prior to the homicide was engaged in dealing in second-hand automobiles. January 11, 1922, he bought a Remington .380-caliber automatic pistol at a gun store in Peoria. The evening before the homicide two police officers saw the plaintiff in error and John Schorr driving the Dodge sedan found at the scene of the homicide. The officers stopped them and walked up to the car to talk with them about some matter not material here. One of the officers took from the pocket of the left-hand door of the car a Remington .380-caliber automatic pistol, examined it, showed it to his brother officer and then returned it to the place where he found it. At 8:30 p. m. on the evening of the homicide two other police officers saw plaintiff in error and Schorr driving in the Dodge sedan in the business district of Peoria. The morning following the homicide Schorr came to the police station and inquired if he was wanted for anything. His clothes were wet and covered with weed and grass seeds. It had rained during the latter part of the night. He was taken into custody and detained for several days, but was finally released.

Plaintiff in error left Peoria in a Ford touring car with two compaions some time before 10 o'clock on the night of the homicide. At 10:30 he stopped at a farmhouse on the hard road 18 miles south of Pekin to get some water for the car in which he was riding. The car was an old one and the radiator was leaking and nearly empty. The water in the radiator was boiling. Two men were on the front seat and plaintiff in error was riding in the rear. He got out of the car, asked for some water, filled the radiator, and offered to pay the farmer for his trouble. The men left the farm driving rapidly. Some months before, the plaintiff in error had leased a cottage about 7 miles north of Havana, in Mason county. The cottage was located among the sand hills along the Illinois river and was surrounded by timber and dense underbrush. It was about a quarter of a mile from the nearest public highway, which was little traveled except by the few farmers living in the neighborhood and by hunters and fishermen. Plaintiff in error was known in the neighborhood as Bob Anderson. His nearest neighbor lived about half a mile away. Sometimes his neighbors would see him every day for two or three days, and then he would not be seen at all for a few days. He arrived at his cottage some time during the night of the homicide and was there the next morning. During the day he went with a fisherman to Liverpool, a river town near by, and he told this fisherman not to tell any one his name. Plaintiff in error received and read the Peoria daily newspapers giving the account of the killing of Smith and telling of the finding of the Dodge sedan of plaintiff in error at the scene of the killing. He wrote to his attorney, Henry Pratt, in Peoria, and asked him to come to see him. He met and talked with Pratt on June 18. The following morning Pratt inquired at the sheriff's office if plaintiff in error was wanted for the killing of Smith, and upon receiving an affirmative reply he said he would produce him when the proper time came. About a mile from the cottage occupied by plaintiff in error was one owned by some people named Strawn, who lived in Peoria. Sometimes the plaintiff in error occupied this cottage and he was on intimate terms with the Strawns. June 23 he called the Strawns over the telephone and during his conversation said in substance, ‘See that fellow and have him bring my car down here.’ June 28 he again called the Strawns in Peoria and during the conversation said, in substance: ‘Why doesn't that fellow bring my car down here? Will you see him and tell him to come down with my car?’ Just before this last conversation he had written his attorney to meet him in Mason City, and pursuant to this request there was a meeting in Mason City July 1. July 4 his cottage burned. July 8 he was walking in the wheatfield of a neighboring farmer, and during the conversation with him the farmer said he had seen in the Peoria paper that a policeman had been killed in Peoria. Spaulding made no reply but complained of a shortage of breath and said he had heart trouble, and picking up a rifle which he had set down walked away toward his home. July 9 plaintiff in error told some of his neighbors that he was going to Beardstown, which is forty miles down the river, and that he would be gone for a month. Immediately after telling this story he went up the river in a gasoline launch to Peoria and after further consultation with his attorney he surrendered to the sheriff of Peoria county. July 10 some farmers hunting in the woods came upon a human skeleton partly buried in a shallow grave, which was partly concealed with the top of a fallen tree. This grave was about three-fourths of a mile from the cottage in which plaintiff in error had lived and about 300 yards from the Strawn cottage. The body had been buried in lime and most of the flesh was gone. There was a bullet hole through the front of the skull and the back of the skull was shattered. The measurements of the body and skull corresponded with the Bertillon measurements taken of Schorr by the Peoria police. Schorr's mother examined the body, the skull and its teeth, and positively identified the remains as those of her son. He had left her home the morning of June 30 and she had not heard from him since.

Plaintiff in error was indicted by the Peoria county grand jury for the murder of Smith. On his motion the venue was changed to Stark county. He was tried and convicted and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for his natural life. He prosecutes this writ of error to reverse the judgment of conviction.

From reading this record we gather that the theory of the state is that Spaulding, Schorr, and two other men stole the Buick car and took it to a point beyond Bradley Park for the purpose of stripping it of its accessories; that Spaulding shot Smith to prevent arrest and then fled from the scene in the Ford car, which had been planted for just such an emergency as occurred; that Schorr failed to get in the car and stayed in hiding all night; that Spaulding and his companions drove south from Peoria over the hard road to a point east of Spaulding's cottage and thence to the cottage; that through the Strawns Spaulding enticed Schorr to his cottage June 30; that Spaulding killed Schorr, stripped him of his...