State v. Brewer

• Decision Date: 31 July 1937
• Citation: 193 A. 834
• Parties: STATE v. BREWER.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

193 A. 834

STATE

v. BREWER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 31, 1937.

Appeal from Superior Court, Lincoln County.

Reuben S. Brewer was convicted of murder, and he appeals.

Appeal denied.

Argued before DUNN, C. J., and STURGIS, BARNES, THAXTER, HUDSON, and MANSER, JJ.

Burleigh Martin, of Augusta, and Frank A. Tirrell, Jr., of Rockland, for appellant. Clyde R. Chapman, Atty. Gen., and Weston M. Hilton, Co. Atty., of Damariscotta, for the State.

BARNES, Justice.

At the May term, 1936, of Lincoln county, the respondent was indicted for murder, tried and convicted of that crime.

After verdict and before judgment he presented to the justice presiding a motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial.

On denial of the motion, he took an appeal to the Law Court, as provided by R.S. c. 146, § 27.

On such appeal the question is whether, in view of all the evidence in the case, the jury was warranted in believing beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore in finding, that the defendant was guilty of the crime charged against him. State v. Lambert, 97 Me. 51, 53 A. 879.

Reuben S. Brewer, forty-five years of age, by occupation a lobster fisherman, had lived with his wife, Dolda M. Brewer, on the shore, at Ocean Point, in Boothbay, except for some times in the winter, for six or eight years, until her death on April 18 or 19, 1936. They had no children.

Property, which he occupied at Ocean Point, consisted of a four-room house on one of the main roads leading to the shore, a garage nearby, and a wharf, upon which, at the shore end, stood a covered fish shed and a store. There were several cottages on the Point, two between the Brewer house and wharf, but none were occupied at the time of Mrs. Brewer's death, except two, and these were 600 and 1,000 feet distant respectively, and neither could be seen from house or wharf.

It appears that the last person who saw Mrs. Brewer alive, other than her husband, was Mr. Risser, a life insurance agent. He fixes the time as about half past 11 in the forenoon of Saturday, April 18, 1936, when he and Brewer were drinking, at the Brewer home. He says further that he stayed there not over five minutes. Thus it appears that Mrs. Brewer was alive, with "nothing unusual" in her appearance, twenty-four hours before Dr. George A. Gregory, the medical examiner, took charge of her dead body.

Sheriff Greenleaf testified that next morning, at about 8 o'clock, at his home in Boothbay Harbor, four and one-half to five miles distant, he was "called up" by Brewer and asked to "come over"; that after breakfast he drove to the Brewer place and found Brewer near his garage, at about a quarter past 9.

Up to this time the sheriff states that he did not know for what reason Brewer had called him.

He testified that Brewer told him his wife had disappeared again, and said, "come down here I want to show you something"; that he followed Brewer into the store, and there saw a woman's coat, which Brewer told him was his wife's coat, found by him on the rail of the fish shed and placed in the store, and that Brewer said he "thought it was funny"; that he (the sheriff) walked out toward the end of the wharf, searching sea and shore and seeing nothing of interest, and then followed Brewer, at his request, to his house.

In the front room, on the ground floor, there was a stairway leading to the upper floor, at the foot of the stairs a couch, on which Brewer told the sheriff that he slept.

The two men went up the stairs and into Mrs. Brewer's room in the rear end, where they found a bed, a "stand" next the bed, and a commode by the stand.

The sheriff continued: "He pointed to a night dress, brand new, I should say it never had been used, laying on the foot of the bed. He called my attention to that. I says, 'is there any note or anything around?' He says, 'I haven't seen any.' I had no more than got the words out of my mouth when I discovered the note under the alarm clock next to the head of the bed. I picked it up, and read some of it; and handed it to Reuben. He says, 'that answers the story.'"

They went down on the wharf again and looked around the shore, and the sheriff drove home to get grapples, but as he drove into his yard he learned that Brewer had called again, and he immediately returned to a point in the road near the store, from which he could see the body of Mrs. Brewer, some thirty feet or more northerly of the wharf or fish shed.

He took charge of the situation, calling the medical examiner, and an undertaker. The doctor arrived at about 11 o'clock, went directly to the body as it lay some thirty or more feet north of the wharf, perhaps ten feet from high-water mark. It lay, face down, with head toward the south and the shore, "as in a sort of cradle" between two rocks.

The shore at this point was a great ledge, almost smooth of surface, but sloping gently into the bay, and strewn with rocks and stones at the location of the body.

When first discovered, the body lay eight or nine feet above the reach of the tide, and in plain view from the road along shore continuously for several rods back toward the Brewer house, and directly opposite the end of a path leading thence through bushes and small trees to the rear end of the Brewer house.

The doctor testified: "Her hair was over the front of her head, it was bobbed, and it was hanging down over the front of her head. That hair was pretty wet, but apparently near the scalp it didn't seem to be as wet." She was fully clothed, with a dark coat, sweater and scarf, slacks, bloomers, overshoes, shoes, stockings, and gloves, the last not buttoned.

When the body was turned over, the doctor found "a very noticeable and marked discolored area around the eye on the left side * * * and an incised wound over the outer angle of the right eye (a cut in the tissue)." Rigor mortis was then breaking down.

It was the doctor's opinion that the woman had been dead from twelve to eighteen hours before he first saw her body.

He had the body taken to undertaking rooms and there performed an autopsy.

He found no marks of violence other than on the face. There were lacerations. "The lower lip on the right was cut on the inside of the mucous surface, swollen and discolored and also on the other side, but not cut. The upper lip was swollen, not cut, bruised and swollen. The nose was swollen, but not discolored. On the left upper eye-lid, extending from the nose out, it was very dark, ordinarily called a black eye. There was a cut on this left side, beginning at the brow, and going up over the forehead of about four and a half inches by probably I think three and a half inches * * * there was a swollen and a very contused wound."

The autopsy revealed no water in the lungs or bronchial tubes.

The doctor concluded that death was caused by blows on the head, and "very likely" the body was erect when the blow was received.

He found "very congested tissue" in the brain, evidence of concussion of the brain.

About a month later a second autopsy was performed by a pathologist, of this state, who was assisted by Dr. Gregory and by an eminent expert in criminal investigation, called as a witness by the defense.

These three agree that the blows that left the...