People v. Van Aken

• Decision Date: 11 April 1916
• Citation: 217 N.Y. 532,112 N.E. 380
• Parties: PEOPLE v. VAN AKEN.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

217 N.Y. 532

112 N.E. 380

PEOPLE

v.VAN AKEN.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 11, 1916.

Appeal from Ulster County Court.

Edwin Van Aken was convicted of murder, and appeals. Reversed, and new trial ordered.

Palmer Canfield, Jr., of Kingston, for appellant.

Frederick G. Traver, Dist. Atty., of Kingston, for the People.

CARDOZO, J.

The defendant has been convicted of the murder of his wife. It is charged that after a married life of 25 years he killed her in their home at Port Ewen in Ulster county. The evidence is circumstantial. The people say that the circumstances point unerringly to the defendant as the criminal. The defendant says that the crime remains an unsolved mystery.

About noon on October 22, 1914, and probably at the hour of 12:13, the defendant took his horse and wagon from the barn and drove to Rondout, a mile away. He could have gone by the main street of the village. He went by a less frequented back road. At Rondout he made some purchases, paid a bill, had some drinks, and then returned to Port Ewen. It was a little after 2 o'clock when he reached his home. He put the horse and wagon in the stable, and entered the house. There was silence when he entered. He says that he laid his packages on the table and called his wife. There was no answer. In the living room, or parlor, he had a desk. It was a combination of a desk and a bookcase. A leaf or lid, when opened, spread out and made a writing table. He tells us that he noticed some envelopes protruding, and thought that some one must have been at the desk while he had been away. His wife had access to it, but seldom used it. He says he called her again, but there was still no answer. He went upstairs, and on the floor of the bedroom he found his wife dead. There was a pool of blood at her head and another at her feet. There were wounds on the head made with a blunt instrument and the face was purple, with finger marks at the throat. Death had come through strangulation. The knees were drawn up, the skirt had been raised, and the stockings, where it was her habit to keep her money, were unclasped; the arms were lifted toward the head, and the fists clenched. Towels covered with blood were at the head and feet. Some one, it seems, had tried to wipe the blood away. But, except for the dead body and the bloody stains, there were no signs of a stranger's presence in the room. The furniture was in its usual place. Towels neatly folded were on a rack on the washstand. One of them, unfolded the next day, revealed a stain of blood. All else was in order. The defendant felt his wife's hands and face, and found the body cold. He ran downstairs and telephoned for help. He called Dr. Ross, who lived opposite, then a neighbor, Mr. Vanderveer, and then his brother George. He did not tell them what had happened. He merely asked them to come. Dr. Ross was the first to arrive, then the others came, and later the sheriff and representatives of the district attorney.

The people charge that the defendant strangled his wife before he drove to Rondout, out, that he went there to establish an alibi, and that on his return he spread the alarm. The defendant answers that he left his wife alive, that she was murdered in his absence, and that $220 in the desk and a watch and jewelry in the bedroom were stolen by the murderer. Both the people and the defendant concede that the hour of the murder has a controlling significance. It was 2:10 o'clock when Dr. Ross examined the body. At that hour the jaws and neck were rigid, the mouth could not be opened, the first were clenched, the ankles and knees were rigid, but not the hips; the face and neck were cold; at the hips only was there a sign of warmth. Dr. Schultze, the coroner's physician in New York City, and Dr. Chandler, an experienced physician of Kingston, testified in answer to hypothetical questions, that the woman must have died before 11 o'clock. They based their opinion on the extent to which the rigor mortis had set in. Their testimony was not met by the defendant with any counter testimony. It is assailed, however, as an unstable foundation for a judgment of conviction. That the progress of rigor mortis is subject to some variation is not denied by the people. They say that allowance for variation was made by their witnesses, and that, even if death did not occur before the hour of 11, it may safely be found to have occurred before the hour of 12 or 12:13, when the defendant left for Rondout. They say that the opinion of the experts, if inadequate when considered by itself, becomes adequate when confirmed by other circumstances indicative of guilt. They insist that the defendant's tale of the theft of money and jewelry is fabricated. On the witness stand he said that he did not discover the theft until after Dr. Ross and Mr. Vanderveer arrived. Until then there had been no opportunity to search the desk, where the money is said to have been kept, or to observe the disappearance of the jewel box. Yet Dr. Ross and Mr. Vanderveer say that he greeted them with the statement that a tramp had murdered his wife and stolen his money and her jewelry. If he could not know of the theft, or did not know of it, until after they came, the greeting becomes a token that the tale of theft was prearranged. The defendant's answer to this is that the memory of the people's witnesses is at fault, that he did not greet them with an announcement of the theft, and that after they arrived he made the search and reported the loss.

The people find corroboration of their own witnesses in the condition of the rooms. The defendant says that a thief opened the desk and stole $220. The desk, however, was not broken. It must have been opened with a key. The key was kept on the top of the bookcase behind some scroll work. It was there when the defendant returned from Rondout. Either the thief had a duplicate key, or else he had found the key behind the scroll work, and then, after rifling the desk, had closed the lid, and put the key back in its hiding place. The people also say that papers in front of the money drawer were piled up neatly and in order when their witnesses examined the desk. The defendant's answer is that they were disarranged when he opened the desk, and that he put the papers in order before he showed the desk to others. The people also say that the outer door of the dwelling was fitted with a lock, that it could not be opened without a key, and that neither there nor at any other place in the house were marks of violence visible. They insist that the defendant had a motive for the crime, that his habits were intemperate, that he was wasting his money, that his wife was checking his extravagance, that she had taken possession of his bank books, and the theory is put forward that either in some quarrel about money, or in an effort to take her own little savings away from her, the defendant was led to violence, and from violence to murder. The defendant answers that there was no motive. He admits that his habits were intemperate, but denies that he was in need of money. He shows that on the day of the murder he had $900 in the savings bank in his own name. He says that he had stock worth over $2,400 and mortgages worth over $11,000. He proves by neighbors, who were his companions upon trips, that his relations with his wife were to outward seeming affectionate. Against this must be set some evidence, offered by the people, of recent quarrels. He also proves by the testimony of his townsmen that, though he was known to drink to excess, he was in other things of good repute. No signs of blood were ever found, either on his body or on his clothes. There were blood stains, however, on the pump handle in the kitchen and on top of the sink. These stains may have been made by the murderer. They may have been made by Dr. Ross, who used the sink after his examination of the body.

We have not attempted in this summary of the case to take note of all the circumstances that make for the defendant's guilt or innocence. We have been satisfied to mark the general lines of the prosecution and the defense. We shall assume, though our disposition of the appeal makes it unnecessary to decide, that the evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict. It is not so plainly conclusive that error in the court's rulings may be disregarded as unsubstantial. We are satisfied that error was committed on this trial to the prejudice of the defendant, and that another jury should be permitted to pass upon his guilt.

[1] The theory of the people was that the defendant was wasting his money, and that his wife was trying to restrain him. There is evidence that he was borrowing money from one Formansky, a money lender. Two transactions with Formansky figure in the testimony. One was a loan of $250 on the security of a promissory note; the other...