Slyter v. State, 42575
| Decision Date | 11 February 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 42575,42575 |
| Citation | 149 So.2d 489,246 Miss. 402 |
| Parties | Kenneth M. SLYTER v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Goza & Case, Canton, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Appellant was indicted in the Circuit Court of Madison County for the murder of Sandra Holderfield, and was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, from which judgment he prosecutes this appeal.
The record discloses that the appellant, on Saturday afternoon, April 21, 1962, made arrangements by telephone to pick up Sandra Holderfield to baby-sit that night. He gave a description of his car as a 1959 white Chevrolet, and at approximately seven o'clock P.M. he drove to a point on North Jefferson Street in the City of Jackson, across the street from the Holderfield home, and by pre-arrangement with Sandra, she came out and got in the car with him. The appellant and Sandra did not know each other. Sandra's younger sister saw her enter the 1959 white Chevrolet automobile and drive away, heading north. This was the last time Sandra was seen or heard of until her body was found the next afternoon at approximately five o'clock P.M. on a rural road in the southern part of Madison County, described as the 'old Johnson Ferry Road.'
Officers were notified and immediately went to the scene and investigated. There was evidence of a scuffle; blood was in many places in close proximity to the body. Deceased's clothes were scattered around the area where the body was found, and she had on a blouse over her shoulders and one shoe. The body was removed to a funeral home where Dr. Featherston, a pathologist, examined it and took various specimens of the blood and hair of deceased. These were later sent to the FBI Laboratory in Washington, D. C. for examination. The doctor testified that the body had been injured in several different fashions; that the injuries to her head, face and the fractured skull were produced by a blunt instrument; and in addition, she had a crush type of injury involving fractures and crushing of the ribs and chest cage, fractures of the pelvis and of the left bone in the thigh. She had many other injuries which will not be enumerated. The cause of death was due to loss of blood and shock from the multiple injuries she had received.
On the following morning, Monday, April 23, 1962, officers found a car of the same description in the street in the City of Jackson. They observed streaks of blood on the driver's side and saw other blood and hair on it. The car was taken to a filling station and examined by Sam Ivy, Chief Identification Officer for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. He took many samples of blood and hair found underneath the automobile, and these were also sent to the FBI Laboratory in Washington for analysis.
The appellant saw the officers at the car and telephoned and went to see Father Edward Balser, a Catholic Priest at St. Peter's Rectory in Jackson, and while there he drank a cup of poison. The Priest took him to the Baptist Hospital. Chief of Detectives M. B. Pierce and other officers arrived at the hospital soon thereafter. In the presence of Father Balser and the officers, the appellant confessed that he killed Sandra Holderfield with a tire tool and told the officers that the tire tool was in the trunk of the car; that the car was a stolen car, and gave Chief Pierce the keys to it; that he drove the car over the body of Sandra twice, then backed the car up and took the tire tool and put it in the trunk and then dragged her body off into some weeds near a pine tree. The next day a written confession, in question and answer form, was obtained by the officers, although it was not signed by appellant. In this confession, appellant again admitted he killed the deceased and gave all the details.
Two FBI men from the Laboratory in Washington testified in the case. One testified that the blood found on the tire tool and underneath the automobile was human blood, that it was type A, and was the same type as that taken by the pathologist from the body of deceased. The other witness testified that the hair on the tire tool and that taken from underneath the car matched the hair of deceased.
Appellant assigns as error that the court erred in (1) overruling his motion for a change of venue; (2) the alleged erroneous admission of certain evidence over objection; and (3) in granting the State's instruction No. 1. After a careful examination of this voluminous record, the guilt of the appellant is established by his own confessions, and the confessions, both oral and written, are consistent with every material fact and circumstance in the case. In other words, the facts and circumstances in this case corroborate fully the confessions of the appellant.
The appellant filed an application for a change of venue, setting out that he could not obtain a fair and impartial trial in Madison County by reason of the prejudgment of the case and ill will. Fourteen witnesses from various parts of Madison County testified for the State that the appellant could obtain a fair trial in Madison County and there was no prejudgment of the case. We have held in numerous cases that a granting of a change of venue is largely in the discretion of the trial court, and a judgment of conviction will not be reversed on the ground that a change of venue was refused unless it clearly appears there was an abuse of this discretion. We do not think there was an abuse of discretion in this case. Shimniok v. State, 197 Miss. 179, 19 So.2d 760; Wheeler v. State, 219 Miss. 129, 63 So.2d 517; 68 So.2d 868; Gallego v. State, 222 Miss. 719, 77 So.2d 321.
The appellant argues that the court erred in admitting in evidence certain photographs depicting the scene of the crime and the body of the deceased. Although these photographs might be gruesome, we have held that this does not render the photographs incompetent if they are pertinent, material and relevant, and that appellant is in no position to complain of the portrayal of a condition which he himself created. Stokes v. State, 240...
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