Sanders v. State, 47531

• Decision Date: 10 December 1973
• Docket Number: No. 47531,47531
• Citation: 286 So.2d 825
• Parties: Sylvester SANDERS, Jr. v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 825

286 So.2d 825

Sylvester SANDERS, Jr. v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 47531.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Dec. 10, 1973.

Ellis J. Farris, John B. Gee, Vicksburg, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Ben H. Walley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

BROOM, Justice:

The appellant, Sylvester Sanders, J., was indicted by the Grand Jury of Warren County, Mississippi, for the crime of the murdrer of Tarelene Stevenson. Guilty of manslaughter was the verdict of the trial jury. Then the appellant was sentenced to serve a term of twelve (12) years in the state penitentiary. His motion for a new trial was overruled, and he has appealed to this Court. He contends that the trial court should have directed a verdict in his favor because the testimony is not sufficient to warrant a conviction and because the state did not prove venue.

Unveiled in this case is a mysterious and gruesome account of a most unusual and horrible death. The scene was within a rental apartment constructed for meaningful life which pathetically became a chamber of horrors. Tarelene, a little girl baby of the age of less than two years, was locked in a room until she starved to death in the presence of the cold corpse of her mother. As the stages of starvation successively took their destructive toll, irony would have it that there was accessible to Tarelene a refrigerator stocked with food. Because of her infancy, she was incapable of obtaining the food. Inevitably, she perished.

On January 23, 1972, police officers in the City of Vicksburg, Mississippi, were called to an Urban Renewal Apartment Complex at 1522 Ethel Street to investigate a situation where two dead bodies were found in Apartment A. The officers found a much decomposed corpse of a young nude woman on a bed in the apartment. They also found the nude corpse of an infant girl. It developed that the woman was Dorothy Ann Stevenson, age sixteen years. The little girl was her daughter, Tarelene Stevenson, age sixteen months. It was indicated by the foul odor in the room, emanating from the dead bodies, that the persons had been head for several days. The corpse of Tarelene was not nearly so decomposed as was the corpse of her mother. Obvious evidence caused the investigators to conclude that the little child had starved to death. The sugar container had been turned over on a table, and a little child's finger marks could be seen in the spilled suger. Teeth marks were on bars of soap. A skillet was found on the floor with little finger marks in the dried grease. Candy wrappers were scattered over the apartment. It was determined that Tarelene had been dead only four or five days, since she was been alive and looking out a window prior to that time. An unsuspecting person who happened to pass by and see her verified this fact.

The coroner determined that the mother had been dead for ten to twelve days, but because of the putrefaction of her corpse, the cause of her death was not determined. However, there was evidence that indicated that blood was on certain pieces of cloth situated near the corpse.

The evidence shows that the apartment door was locked and that the defendant had the only key which had been issued to the apartment. However, Gladys Lane, who occupied Apartment B adjacent to Apartment A where the corpses were found, testified she let the policemen use her key to Apartment B which opened Apartment A when the officers came to investigate. No one knows how many other keys would open the lock.

I

Questions related to venue are first presented by the appellant. He urges in this regard that no one testified that the crime was committed in Warren County, Mississippi. Therefore, it is said that the defendant's motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained. Section 26, Mississippi Constitution 1890 does require that a defendant be given 'a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the county where the offense was committed' and that venue must be alleged and proven. Thompson v. State, 51 Miss. 353 (1875).

We have said, however, that venue of the crime could be proved by circumstantial evidence as well as direct evidence. In State v. Fabian, 263 So.2d 773 (Miss.1972) at 779 we pointed out that it is presumed that a person did in the county where his dead body was found. In our opinion venue was sufficiently established in this case.

II

This case turns on the next question argued which relates to the sufficiency of evidence. In this connection it is to be noted that: (1) No one saw the appellant take Tarelene to his apartment; (2) no one saw the appellant at any time in or near the apartment when the child was there; (3) no one testified that the appellant closed the door of the apartment with knowledge that Tarelene was in the apartment; (4) no one testified that the appellant had nay knowledge that Tarelene was in the partment at any time; and (5) the appellant made no statement or confession of any kind to the effect that he took part in or had any connection whatsoever with any activity even remotely related to Tarelene's starvation or isolation during starvation. During the trial, the coroner testified that...