People v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 26 January 1904 |
| Citation | 69 N.E. 534,177 N.Y. 237 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. TAYLOR. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court, Trial Term, Sullivan County.
Kate Taylor was convicted of murder, and appeals. Reversed.Henry Willis Smith and William W. Smith, for appellant.
Frank S. Anderson, for the People.
The defendant was charged with the crime of murder in the first degree, committed upon her husband by shooting him with a revolver and by cutting off his head with an ax. She was tried upon the indictment, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty, as charged therein.
The defendant and her husband were in humble circumstances, and, with a daughter by her former marriage, at the time of the homicide, occupied a small house, composed of two rooms and a pantry, and of an attic overhead, in an isolated part of Sullivan county. The occurrences attending the killing of the deceased were narrated by Ida De Kay, the daughter, who was about 14 years of age, for the people, and by the accused, testifying in her own behalf. The daughter's testimony is to the effect that on Monday evening, January 26, 1903, the deceased returned, intoxicated and in a quarrelsome mood. Her mother had to take from him a stove hook, with which he was breaking or injuring the household articles, and, when an occasion was given by his going out of the house, she tried to put them out of his way. All three slept in a bedroom containing two beds; one being used by the mother and daughter, and the other by the deceased. His bed was about opposite to a door of the bedroom opening outward into the adjoining room, which was called the ‘kitchen.’ After Ida had gone to bed, she was awakened from her sleep by hearing the sound of a shot. By the light upon the table, she saw the deceased standing by the door leading into the kitchen. She says that she heard him exclaim that he was shot, and that ‘if she would let him be until morning, and not shoot him any more, he would get out, and not bother her any more.’ Ida arose and went out of the bedroom, passing by her father, who was holding a strap, by which the door was fastened, and with his other hand was putting on his boots. He allowed her to pass out, and then she saw her mother standing in the kitchen, by the bedroom door. At first she went out upon the stoop, but in a minute or two returned into the kitchen, and, while crossing it towards the pantry, at the further end, she heard another shot, which she says was in the kitchen. She looked around, and saw her mother trying to get the bedroom door open by putting her hand through the crevice between the door casing and the door to reach the strap; the construction being of single planks, flimsily put together. Succeeding in opening the door, she went into the room. Ida followed her, and saw the deceased lying upon the floor, and her mother snapping a revolver at him. She tried to reload the pistol with some cartridges; but, upon Ida's telling her not to do so, she desisted and put the weapon away. Her father and mother were both dressed at the time. Her mother then took an ax, which was standing at the foot of their bed, and cut off the head and right arm of the deceased. She put them into a stove which stood in the bedroom, and burned them; using kerosene oil. She cut off the other arm and the legs, put them and the trunk of the corpse away, and on the next day endeavored to consume the remains of the body by fire. She pounded up the skull and the bones, and dispersed them, concealed the effects of the deceased, burned clothing and the ax handle, and, as far as she could, endeavored to remove all traces of the occurrence. She told the witness to say, if inquired of, that her father had gone to Orange county to look for a house. On the Sunday following, Ida says, she and her mother went to the residence of a relative named Yerkins, and in the course of a conversation she heard her mother relate to him that she had killed her husband and burned him up, and that now he could come over and get the furniture. Yerkins laughed; said he would do so; inquired if everything had been cleaned up; and, upon her mother's request, furnished her with some paint for use in the house. It was also then arranged that after a while the furniture was to be taken to a house known as the ‘Benson House,’ in which she and her mother were to take up their residence. It further appeared by Ida's testimony that in the previous month of September she overheard a conversation between her mother and Yerkins, in which, the quarrelsomeness of the deceased having been spoken of, Yerkins said that, if he was in her place, he would kill the deceased and get rid of him, and that he would give her the Benson place. He suggested that she should kill him some night, when he was drunk.
This was, in substance, the material portion of the narrative of the witness Ida, and, except as to what occurred on the night of the homicide between her mother and her father, and as to what was said in the interviews between her mother and Yerkins before and after that night, it is not contradicted. It received corroboration in the evidence of some facts, as well as in the testimony of witnesses to whom the defendant subsequently made statements relating to the affair. The effects of the deceased and the ax were found in their places of concealment. Some burned flesh and bones found in the manure heap were pronounced by medical experts to have been portions of a human body. Two bullets were found in the wall, over the bed of the deceased, in a line with the door leading into the kitchen. There was a bullet hole through the casing of the door, and upon the building paper covering the casing were marks of powder smoke. Measurements showed these to be about three feet and seven inches from the floor, and that one bullet hole over the side of the bed was about three feet and eight inches from the floor.
According to the testimony of two deputy sheriffs, the defendant, in conversation with one of them, upon being asked what she ‘did with the body after killing him,’ told how she had disposed of it, substantially in the manner in which Ida had narrated it. This statement was after her arrest, but appears to have been made quite freely and notwithstanding that she had been cautioned not to speak.
The defendant testified in her own behalf: That she was 40 years of age. That she had married the deceased in 1891, and how they had lived up to the time of the homicide. At one time they had resided in Yerkins' house, and her husband had worked for him. Yerkins was her half-uncle, and an unmarried man, of about 45 years of age. Near to Yerkins' residence was the Benson place, in which they also had resided for some time. According to her account of the night of the homicide, her husband was killed during a scuffle between them over the possession of a pistol. She testified that, when he returned home that evening in his wagon, she went, as it had been her custom, to the stable to care for the horse; that he was intoxicated and disorderly, and swore at her; and that after they entered the house he was violent, knocking the furniture about and jerking the house door off its hinges. She moved some furniture and crockery aside, and, after her daughter had retired, she lay down upon the bed, but without taking off her clothes. She did not go to sleep, and lay there in fear, watching him. She heard him go out of the house, and, when he re-entered the bedroom, he took her revolver, which was in a box at the foot of her bed, and shot at her. She jumped up, took the revolver from his hands, ran out into the kitchen, and held the bedroom door closed. She opened it to let her daughter, Ida, pass out; and afterwards, upon her husband's saying to her that he would not bother her any more, she stepped back into the bedroom. He then seized the revolver, which she was holding in her hands, by the muzzle, and, in the struggle for its possession, it was discharged, and he was shot. She retreated to the kitchen, holding the door closed until she heard the body drop, and, going in with her daughter, found the dead body upon the floor. She says that there was a bullet wound in the side of the head, substantiating Ida's statement that there was a wound in the temple. She denied having...
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