State v. Bridgers

• Decision Date: 13 September 1916
• Docket Number: 49.
• Parties: STATE v. BRIDGERS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

89 S.E. 804

172 N.C. 879

STATE v. BRIDGERS.

No. 49.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 13, 1916

Appeal from Superior Court, Edgecombe County; Lyon, Judge.

Doc Bridgers was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. No error.

In a prosecution for murder held on the evidence that there was no error in denying nonsuit and submitting the case to the jury.

The prisoner was charged with having murdered Easter Grimes on January 2, 1916. There was a verdict of murder in the second degree, and a sentence of 20 years in the state prison, from which judgment the prisoner appealed. There was a motion for judgment of nonsuit when the state rested and again at the close of all the testimony, and the only question presented for review is raised by the exceptions to the denial of those motions.

The deceased disappeared on the first Sunday or Monday in January, 1916, and her dead body was found February, 1916 about one mile from the courthouse in Tarboro, near the road leading to Rocky Mount. It was in the woods about 300 yards from the road, and had been dragged part of the way and was much decomposed; there was a hole in her head. The prisoner was arrested same evening, and placed in jail, where he remained until trial. Easter Grimes lived with Della Killebrew, and had been there since September 1, 1915. Della Killebrew testified that the prisoner came to see Easter twice during that time. There was evidence by Walter White that the defendant had been seen with her several times around Tarboro, and Eliza Powell, a state's witness testified that she saw him with her the first Sunday in January, about dusk, two blocks south of courthouse. This was the last time she was seen by any state's witness. The prisoner introduced several witnesses who saw her Monday morning coming towards Tarboro by the place where she was found dead.

Fannie Killebrew, daughter of Della Killebrew, testified as to what defendant said to her on January 7th:

"Doc said, 'Where is Easter?' I said, 'I don't know, Doc; do you know?' He said, 'No'; then said, 'I am just joking. I would tell you, but you would tell.' I said, 'Where is she?' He said 'No; I ain't going to tell.' 'Did you see the shoes I bought her?' I said, 'Yes; they certainly is pretty. How much did you pay for them?' He said, 'Four dollars.' I said, 'You didn't pay four dollars; you paid three and a half, because I got mine for three and a half; they were on sale.' 'Don't you know I almost forsaken my wife for that woman,' he said; 'I'd suffer in hell before I let her go back to her husband. When you hear she is dead you'll know d___n well who did it.' "

She further testified:

"After she disappeared he came twice calling for her; about two or three weeks after she disappeared; told him I did not know where she was."

Eliza Powell testified that the prisoner and the deceased were at his sister's two blocks south of courthouse, on Albemarle avenue, talking, and left her house on Sunday about dusk, going toward Main street, and she said that she was going home. She further said that the prisoner had told her that Easter Grimes had gone to Rocky Mount on the first Sunday in January.

Carrie Killebrew testified:

"Walter White came to our house."

Rosa Hart testified that she had a conversation with the defendant, after the deceased disappeared, as follows:

"He asked if I had seen Easter; I told him no, and asked if he had seen her. He said no. I said, 'I thought she was in Rocky Mount with her husband.' He said, 'She is.' I said, 'How do you know?' He said, 'No; she's not there, but I know where she is.' 'If you know, would you go to her?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'If you promise I will carry you to see her. You be ready and I'll carry you there to see Easter.' "

Walter White testified that he had seen the defendant and deceased together several times and heard the defendant tell her that "he had bought her the shoes, and whenever she wore them to Rocky Mount to see George he was going to kill her and pull them off." He further testified that at the preliminary hearing, he only said:

"On Saturday after Christmas I saw them in E. Saide's store; she had shoes in her hand, and they were side by side; I was outside as she came out; she had a shoe box under her arm"

--and said nothing about any threat.

J. W. Thomas, deputy sheriff, described the body and the place where it was found, and stated that:

"The body was found at half past 4, and defendant was arrested right after supper; that defendant held his nerve well when arrested; always said he was not guilty; that he had taken him out of the cell and talked with him."

E. B. Hyatt testified that one shoe was found near the body, 30 or 35 feet away, after body was buried.

The above is the evidence which the state relied on to connect the defendant with the murder, and at the conclusion of the same the prisoner moved for judgment of nonsuit, which was refused.

The defendant testified that he went with the deceased on that Sunday evening to Dora Jackson's (about two miles from Tarboro), and left her there; this was one mile beyond where the body was found; that the deceased was a woman of bad character; he offered the testimony of Dora Jackson, who testified that the deceased spent the night with her, and that she left for home the next morning; and the testimony of John Leggett, Arthur Lawrence, and Alex Parker that they saw her coming from Dora Jackson's towards Tarboro next morning; and of Wiley Andrews that she saw her at Dora Jackson's house on Monday morning; of B. S. Price and Dossey Pittman and Joe Dickens that the defendant worked on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after the first Sunday in January on the Knightland farm. B. S. Price also testified that the demeanor of prisoner was the same before and after January 1st, and that he made no effort to escape.

Dr. W. W. Green, coroner, testified (page 18):

"Saw body; had been dead for about a month or longer; couldn't say what killed her, nor how long she had been dead."

The defendant again moved for judgment of nonsuit, which was refused.

The jury convicted the prisoner of murder in the second degree, and he appealed from the judgment upon the verdict.

W. O. Howard, of Tarboro, for appellant.

T. W. Bickett, Atty. Gen., and T. H. Calvert, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

WALKER, J. (after stating the facts as above).

There is but a single point for us to decide in this case, and that is whether there is any evidence, even a scintilla, of the prisoner's guilt. This is sometimes, and we may say quite often, a difficult question to answer, the difference between some evidence, though slight, and no evidence, requiring in many instances very fine discrimination. We may say with certainty that evidence which merely shows it possible for the fact in issue to be as alleged, or which raises a mere conjecture that it is so, is an insufficient foundation for a verdict, and should not be left to the jury. State v. Vinson, 63 N.C. 335; Brown v. Kinsey, 81 N.C. 245; State v. Christmas, 101 N.C. 749, 8 S.E. 361; State v. Costner, 127 N.C. 566, 37 S.E. 326, 80 Am. St. Rep. 809; State v. Lytle, 117 N.C. 799, 23 S.E. 476; State v. Carmon, 145 N.C. 481, 59 S.E. 657; State v. Walker, 149 N.C. 527, 63 S.E. 76. We said in Byrd v. Express Co., 139 N.C. 276, 51 S.E. 851:

" 'Judges are no longer required to submit a case to the jury merely because some evidence has been introduced by the party having the burden of proof, unless the evidence be of such a character as that it would warrant the jury to proceed in finding a verdict in favor of the party introducing such evidence.' Cobb v. Fogalman, 23 N.C. 440; Wittkowsky v. Wasson, 71 N.C. 451; Sutton v. Madre, 47 N.C. 320; Pettiford v. Mayo, 117 N.C. 27 ; Lewis v. Steamship Co., 132 N.C. 904 . In the last-cited case, the subject is fully discussed by Connor, J., and the cases collected. It all comes to this: That there must be legal evidence of the fact in issue, and not merely such as raises a suspicion or conjecture in regard to it. The plaintiff must do more than show the possible liability of the defendant for the injury. He must go further, and offer at least some evidence which reasonably tends to prove every fact essential to his success."

So it was held in Campbell v. Everhart, 139 N.C. 503, 516, 52 S.E. 201:

"The sufficiency of evidence in law to go to the jury does not depend upon the doctrine of chances. However confidently one in his own affairs, may base his judgment on mere probability as to a past event, when he assumes the burden of establishing such event as a proposition of fact and as a basis for the judgment of a court, he must adduce evidence other than a majority of chances that the fact to be...