People v. Wormer

• Decision Date: 22 May 1903
• Citation: 175 N.Y. 188,67 N.E. 299
• Parties: PEOPLE v. VAN WORMER et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

175 N.Y. 188

67 N.E. 299

PEOPLE

v.VAN WORMER et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 22, 1903.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Trial Term, Columbia County.

Wills Van Wormer and others were convicted of murder in the first degree, and appeal. Affirmed.J. Rider Cady, Alonzo H. Farrar, and Ezra D. De Lamater, for appellants.

Alfred B. Chace, Dist. Atty. (A. Frank B. Chace, of counsel), for respondent.

CULLEN, J.

The three appellants, with one Harvey Bruce, were indicted for murder in the first degree, in having feloniously, willfully, and with malice aforethought, and with a deliberate and premeditated design to effect his death, killed Peter A. Hallenbeck on the 24th of December, 1901. The case seems to have been tried with that degree of care which should mark every capital prosecution, not less in justice to a defendant whose life is at stake than to the people, who are interested that in case of the guilt of the accused there shall be no miscarriage of justice on account of failure to comply with the rules of law. The result is that the record before us is quite free from even controvertible questions, the rulings of the trial court which have been challenged on this appeal being well sustained both by principle and by authority. As the learned counsel for the appellants contends that the evidence was insufficient to warrant a verdict of murder in the first degree, it is necessary to narrate the occurrence; but that narration need be but of the briefest character, since one or two pivotal facts conclusively prove the crime and its degree.

The deceased was a farmer, aged 55 years, who resided on his farm, some 3 miles southeast of the city of Hudson. The appellants were the nephews of his wife, and aged, respectively, 20, 22, and 26 years. Their father was dead, and at the time of the commission of the crime they resided with their stepmother at Kinderhook, about 12 miles northeasterly from Hudson. They had formerly lived on a farm in the vicinity of that of the deceased. On this farm the deceased held a mortgage, which he foreclosed; and after the sale, and in the September before the murder, the appellants, with their stepmother, had moved to Kinderhook. One of the appellants expressed hostility to the deceased on account of this foreclosure, and threatened ‘to get even with him,’ and to one witness stated he would kill him. The codefendant Harvey Bruce was their cousin, who had been spending some time in the home of the appellants at Kinderhook. The family of the deceased consisted of himself, his wife, his mother, a brother, Charles Hallenbeck, and his wife and a hired man. These persons resided at the farmhouse. On Christmas Eve, 1901, the brother, with his wife and the hired man, attended some festivities in the church, about a mile distant, leaving the deceased, with his wife and mother, in the house. About half-past 7 o'clock the deceased and his wife were in the sitting room, the former reading. His mother, a woman of 80, had just gone upstairs to her room. A knock was heard at the kitchen door, and the deceased arose, went into the kitchen, and opened the door. According to the testimony of the wife, four men, with masks on, and with revolvers in their hands, entered, and commenced to shoot at her husband. She went into the kitchen, and, being frightened, rushed away through her bedroom, and upstairs to the attic, where she and the mother of the deceased barricaded the doors. She testified that the men shot at her as she ran away. Mr. Elting, a farmer residing about 300 yards away, heard the noise of the firing, and saw a wagon driven rapidly down the road. At once he went over to the Hallenbeck house, and found the kitchen door open, and a light burning brightly. He called for the deceased, but got no reply. He then went to another neighbor-Mr. Betts-and both entered the Hallenbeck house. They found Peter A. Hallenbeck lying dead on the kitchen floor, the clothing on his arm burning. They put out this fire, and called to the mother and wife of the deceased, who, recognizing their voices, came downstairs. Then word of the tragedy was sent to the people at the church, who, in some numbers, shortly appeared upon the scene. Word was also sent to the sheriff and coroner of the county, and the chief of police at Hudson. What directed suspicion to the defendants, and what circumstances tended to identify them as the persons who had shot the deceased, it is unnecessary to narrate, for, though all at first denied any complicity in the transaction, Bruce-one of the party, turned informer-and upon the trial was a witness for the prosecution. Each of the appellants went on the stand in his own behalf, and admitted that he was one of the persons who shot the deceased. Their statements are substantially the same. It is that they drove from Kinderhook to the Hallenbeck house, a distance of some 15 miles, ‘to have some fun with him [the deceased]; to scare him’; that solely with this intent, and without any design to injure the deceased, when they arrived at the barn they put on the masks, they turned their coats inside out, and each with a revolver in his hand went to the kitchen door; that when the deceased opened the door he seized the appellant Burton Van Wormer by the throat, and struck him in the face; that in the scuffle Burton's revolver was discharged, and then a general fusillade ensued; that deceased went for a gun which lay on a rack in the kitchen, and thereupon they ran away. Bruce, the informer, testified that, as they drove home, two of them boasted of how they had shot the deceased. But it is not necessary to rely on Bruce's statements. It is sufficient to say that there were 8, if not 9, bullet wounds on the body of the deceased; that 6 bullets were taken from the body, and 2 left in it-not being removed because they were seated deep in the tissues. Bulets or bullet marks were found in every room on the first floor, the kitchen, the sitting room, and the bedroom of the deceased and his wife....