State v. Bryant

• Decision Date: 15 October 1919
• Docket Number: 274.
• Citation: 100 S.E. 430,178 N.C. 702
• Parties: STATE v. BRYANT.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

100 S.E. 430

178 N.C. 702

STATE v. BRYANT.

No. 274.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

October 15, 1919

Appeal from Superior Court, Brunswick County; Calvert, Judge.

Jake Bryant was convicted of murder in the second degree, and appeals. No error.

In a prosecution for murder of defendant's mistress, the question as to certain voices heard by a witness, and whether they were those of defendant and deceased, held for the jury to determine on all the evidence, which suggested they were the voices of defendant and deceased, and that defendant was threatening deceased and using angry and abusive language.

Indictment for murder.

The defendant was indicted for the murder of Susie Spicer, and was convicted at March term, 1919, or Brunswick superior court, Judge Calvert presiding, of murder in the second degree. From the judgment upon the verdict, he appealed to this court.

There is no doubt that there was evidence of the corpus delicti, so the principal question in the case is: Who killed Susie Spicer? The state's evidence is circumstantial, while the defendant set up an alibi. If the state's evidence was believed by the jury, and they made the proper deductions therefrom, then he was properly convicted; whereas, if they believed defendant's evidence, there was no time in which he could commit the murder, which was unaccounted for.

The principal circumstances upon which the state relied to justify the verdict of guilty were as follows:

There were intimate relations between the deceased and the defendant extending over a considerable period of time prior to the homicide. When the defendant went to Beaufort for work, the deceased accompanied him, and they lived together there. At this time, the defendant admitted, in his testimony, that he was married; but while he was in Beaufort his wife was at home with her folks, and died there. In March or April the defendant went to Beaufort and stayed there until July 6th. He also stated that on September 3d, of the same year (1918), he married Frances Livingstone in Wilmington. On the afternoon of Saturday September 21, 1918, he was at the house of Florence Hendricks, the mother of the deceased, where deceased also lived. There was an interview between them there, and the defendant told the deceased to meet him at Burton's crossroads. He went off in the direction of the crossroads and the deceased soon followed. She was seen no more alive and her body was found the following Monday morning in a thicket near the crossroads. The deceased was soon to leave for Philadelphia, and had made preparations for leaving on Monday, the 23d, which was probable known to defendant. She had money, which was usually carried in her stocking, and no money was found on her person or about the house after her death; and when found one stocking was pulled down, the other being in place. When defendant called at the house to see deceased he was in a bad humor, at least. He said to the deceased:

"Meet me at Ed. Burton's crossroads. We had just as well have a war here as to go to France and have it."

He then went out at the gate and up the road towards Burton's crossroads, and the deceased soon followed him, going in the same direction. The prisoner had given the deceased a ring which she wore with other rings, and when she was found all the rings were in place except the one ring that the prisoner had given her. The deceased's finger nails on the left hand were trimmed to the quick; those of the right hand were long.

The Hendricks house was about 250 yards from where the body was found, and it was about three-quarters of a mile from where the body was found to the defendant's house at the mill, near Lanvale. The prisoner was seen at home lacing his shoes late in the afternoon by George Morriss, and he wore different clothes from those he had on at the home of Susie Spicer, the deceased, a few hours before; and, on the search by the officer in his house, no clothing of defendant could be found. Defendant's conduct, when asked to assist in the search for Susie on Sunday afternoon, was thus described by the witness Ed. Burton:

"I told Jake, the defendant: 'Susie is missing. I feel uneasy about her. Won't you come and help me hunt her?' Jake said, 'Yes,' and they walked with me to Lanvale station. When we got about 200 yards from the fence where we started, Jake said, 'Now, Ed, if there is anything the matter, I am expecting the blame to be put on me.' I said: 'Well, I don't accuse you of anything. I don't know where the woman is.' He said, 'I have been around there so much, if there is anything the matter, the blame will be put on me."'

He was in a visibly unnerved condition when he talked with Florence Hendricks on the train Sunday afternoon, the day after the homicide, and also when examining the knife before Coroner Boyette.

There was some evidence of robbery. Susie Spicer was preparing to go to Philadelphia on Monday, the 23d. She had at least $40 to her mother's knowledge, and usually kept her money in her stocking. When her body was found that Monday morning, the witness Dr. Boyette testified:

"The right foot was pushed out and the knee kind of turned up, and her stocking was below the knee. The right stocking was down. The left stocking was intact. Her leg was perfectly straight."

The state contended that this evidence pointed to the defendant, a man who had been intimate with her and who must have known where she kept her money, as the murderer, particularly when taken in connection with the missing ring referred to above.

There was testimony of Dr. Boyette, and other witnesses, who viewed the body and its surroundings, before it was moved, which tended to refute any suggestion of suicide. This evidence also tended to show that there had been sexual intercourse by consent between the parties before the murder. The act of copulation had taken place about 50 yards from the place the body was found. After this, it appears that the parties had gone about 50 yards towards the road. One of them sat down at the root of a gum tree. The state contends that it is quite likely there was a quarrel here between the parties, there being evidence that Susie Spicer, the deceased, carried the knife with her from her home; that in the quarrel she may have attempted to use it upon the defendant, who, grasping her wrist and wringing it from her, threw her upon the ground and cut her throat. The jury seems to have taken this view of the case, convicting the prisoner of second degree murder.

The state further contends that the killing could have been done and the defendant have been at Evans' store in Lanvale at 3 o'clock the same afternoon, as the distance from the place where the body was found to this store, as estimated by the witnesses, was three-fourths of a mile; in other words, about ten minutes for a moderately rapid walker. George Morriss, who, the state contends, seems to have been perhaps the most intelligent of the negro witnesses, and not connected with any of the parties, says:

"On the Saturday she was missing, I went from my work (railroad section) between 1 and 2 o'clock. I passed by the home of Susie and saw Jake Bryant and her two little boys there. Jake was eating grapes under an arbor. I stopped and talked with him about 20 minutes. I did not see Susie at this time."

The state further contends that it is evident the time referred to by George, he being a railroad hand, was new time, so that, compared with the time used by all the other witnesses he was at Susie's house between 12 and 1 o'clock. It was after this that Jake went off and Susie followed him. But as the state insists, assuming that an hour intervened between the time that Morriss saw the defendant at the deceased's house and the time that Needham saw him at Evans' store at Lanvale, said by the witnesses to have been 3 or 3:10 p. m., there would have been ample time for the murder to have...