Silgar v. People of State

• Decision Date: 16 November 1883
• Citation: 1883 WL 10335,107 Ill. 563
• Parties: FREDERICK SILGARv.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

107 Ill. 563

1883 WL 10335 (Ill.)

FREDERICK SILGAR

v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Filed at Mt. Vernon Nov. 16, 1883.

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Jackson county; the Hon. O. A. HARKER, Judge, presiding.

Mr. GREEN P. HARBEN, and Mr. H. H. HOWE, for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. JAMES MCCARTNEY, Attorney General, for the People.

Mr. BENJ. W. MOORE, and Mr. WM. A. SCHWARTZ, also for the People.

Mr. JUSTICE MULKEY delivered the opinion of the Court:

At the August term, 1882, of the Jackson county circuit court, Frederick ( alias Fritz) Silgar was tried and convicted for the murder of John Eararth, the jury fixing his punishment at death. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment having been severally overruled, he was duly sentenced by the court to be hung, in pursuance of the verdict. The accused brings the record here for review, and has assigned thereon various reasons why the judgment and sentence should be reversed, and the cause submitted to another jury. The homicide occurred on the premises of the accused, near the hour of five o'clock of the afternoon on the 7th of May, 1882, in an altercation between the deceased and the prisoner, which was witnessed by but two persons outside of the parties engaged in it, namely, Charles Woolsey and Joseph W. Blaylock,--the former a lad not quite fourteen years of age, being, as he claims, most of the time within a few yards of the parties, and the latter a man of mature age, though of defective hearing, and some two hundred and twenty-five yards distant at the time of the occurrence. The parties were evidently under a high state of excitement, for other witnesses, at a distance of from four to six hundred yards off, swear that their attention was attracted by the quarrel, and that they could distinctly recognize the voices of two persons engaged in it. The accused and deceased were both Germans, and much of the conversation between them during the altercation was in the German language, and was not understood by either of the two witnesses who claim to have heard and seen the difficulty.

The parties were near neighbors, and we infer had been for several years past, and the evidence clearly shows that their relations were not at all of a friendly character. Catherine Cutrell, a witness for the People, testifies that some three or four years ago the accused told her that if Eararth did not let him alone he would kill him; that he had repeated this threat several times since, the last time being about six months ago. Mathew Murray, another witness for the People, says: “I had a conversation with the defendant last spring, shortly after I returned from the penitentiary. He (referring to the accused) said, if John Eararth ever bothered him he was going to kill him.” To the same effect is the testimony of Madison Peppers. He says: “About three or four years ago I heard the prisoner say he would kill Eararth some time. They had been quarreling. Eararth had accused the prisoner of stealing his garden vegetables.” On the other hand, Charles Woolsey, the same witness heretofore mentioned, swears that some time in the fall before the killing Eararth exhibited to witness and Charles Cutrell, at the house of Eararth, a pole about six feet long, split at one end, with the blade of a butcher knife about seven inches long inserted and fastened in the split, with which he said he was going “to cut Fritz Silgar's heart out if he fooled with him any more.” Martin White testifies that Eararth, about six months before the killing, showed him the same instrument described by Woolsey, and said “that he intended to cut Fritz Silgar's head off with it.”

Such were the relations of the parties when the deceased and Charles Woolsey, the main prosecuting witness, entered the field of the prisoner, where he was plowing, as heretofore stated. The circumstances which led them to go there, and the purpose or object with which they went, so far as the evidence discloses, are in substance as follows: Some time in the day of the homicide, the wife of Silgar informed Margaret Watkins, and her son, Charles Woolsey, that her husband had driven Eararth's horses out of his field and over the river, and requested them to inform him of that fact. Accordingly, in the evening of that day, they started to the house of Eararth, as the mother says, for the sole purpose of delivering this message, but as the son swears, for the purpose, chiefly, of borrowing some single-trees. They found Eararth some two hundred yards from his house, engaged in splitting rails. Young Woolsey, in giving an account of their interview, says: “I told him that Fritz's wife had told me to tell him that Fritz had driven his horses out of the field and across the river. John said that he would go down and see about it, and if he did not find his horses he would sue Fritz the next day. He wanted me to go with him and show him where the horses had crossed the river, and I went with him. When we found John he was barefooted, and before starting to Fritz's field we went to John's house, and John got his shoes and put them on, and picked up a hickory stick about two and a half or three feet long, which was lying beside the fire-place, and then we started down to Fritz Silgar's field, where he was plowing. We crossed the fence and went up to where Fritz was laying off corn rows.” The mother, in her account of the interview, says: “I told him (referring to Eararth) what Mrs. Silgar had said, and he said he would go right down and see what made Fritz do so. He wanted my boy, Charley, to go along to show him where the horses had crossed, but I objected to Charley going, as I was afraid he would do something to Fritz or Fritz to him, and that my boy might get hurt, and I would not let Charley go until John had promised he would not raise any quarrel with Fritz. They then started to John's house, and I started home.”

Resuming the narrative of young Woolsey, which closed with the statement that he and Eararth crossed the fence and went into the field where Silgar was laying off corn rows, he proceeds to say: “I heard the conversation they had, but did not understand it all, as most of the time they spoke German. John said, ‘Fritz, what made you drive my horses over the river?’ Fritz said, ‘They were in my timothy.’ Then they talked excitedly in German, and I could not understand what they said. I walked on towards the fence, past a walnut tree, then down the bluff a little, and then came back to the fence and waited, while they talked, and watched them. John started off, and then said, ‘I shall look for my horses this evening, and if I don't find them I shall sue you to-morrow.’ John was then walking away from Fritz towards me, and was about forty-five yards from Fritz. Fritz said, ‘I'll kill you so dead you can't find your horses, damn you,’ and leaving his plow he picked up a piece of fence rail, and he run up towards the walnut tree, where John was. I stood with one foot over the fence. I saw Fritz strike John three times with the stick. The first lick John dropped to his knees, and seemed to throw up his hands to ward off the blow, and said ‘enough.’ The next lick John fell down flat. I got scared, and then started across the river.” On cross-examination the witness is shown a stick, described in the record as “a heavy hickory club, about two and a half or three feet long, burned at one end,” which he identifies as the stick which Eararth took from his house with him, and he further states that Eararth was not in the habit of using a walking stick,--that he had never seen him use one, and that he was not a cripple. He also states, that when Fritz and John commenced talking, he was afraid, and that he walked on by the walnut tree towards the high bank; that he left them behind him, and that they were talking just tolerably loud; that Eararth threw down his stick before he was struck.

Blaylock, in giving an account of the affair, says: “I was standing near a large tree across the field, and east from the little walnut tree in Fritz Silgar's field, and about one hundred yards away, I guess. I saw John Eararth and a little boy come into the field where Fritz was. Eararth had in his hand a stick or walking cane. He came up to where Fritz was, and commenced a conversation with him about his horses. They talked plenty loud enough for me to hear what was said. John said, ‘What did you drive my horses over the creek for?’ I heard Fritz tell John that he would kill him so dead he would never find his horses. John walked on past the walnut tree, and Fritz followed up to the tree. When he said he would kill him so dead that he never would find his horses, John turned around and started back, and Fritz jumped to one side, and grabbed up a club and struck him. John threw up his hands, and said he had enough. Fritz struck one or two more licks, and John fell to the ground. John threw down the stick before he was struck. When John fell, Fritz said something in German I did not understand, and then he took some water out of a bucket and gave him. When I saw this I hurried away to get some other persons.” This witness admits, on cross-examination, that he is not on good terms with the accused, and also that he supposed, at the time, the deceased was Mart White.

Mrs. Watkins further states in her testimony, that after parting with her son, Charley, and Eararth, as they started for Silgor's, she had just got home when she heard “a loud noise, as of two persons, in the direction of Fritz's,” and upon calling Elias Cutrell's attention to it they both started there on a run; that on getting within about thirty steps of the walnut tree in the field, Fritz ran to it and picked up the club which Eararth had brought with him, and turned to her and Cutrell, “twirling it in his hand,” and speaking excitedly in German; that she became alarmed, and ran away; that on her return she found the body of...