State v. Creech

• Decision Date: 07 January 1949
• Docket Number: 218
• Citation: 51 S.E.2d 348,229 N.C. 662
• Parties: STATE v. CREECH.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

51 S.E.2d 348

229 N.C. 662

STATE v. CREECH.

No. 218

Supreme Court of North Carolina

January 7, 1949

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Criminal prosecution on indictment charging the defendant with the murder of his wife, Mattie Creech.

The record discloses that on 28 July, 1948, around the hour of midnight, the defendant shot and killed his wife with a double-barrel shotgun in the home of a neighbor, where she had gone and was staying temporarily as a result of a quarrel with the defendant on the 16th of the same month. The scene of the homicide was in the Brogden section of Johnston County about a quarter of a mile from the defendant's home.

The August Term of Johnston Superior Court convened on 16 August 1948, and the grand jury returned a true bill against the defendant on the first day of the term. Arraignment was had and plea entered on the same day, and the defendant moved for a continuance on the ground that he had not had sufficient time to prepare his defense. Affidavits and exhibits were submitted, and the solicitor agreed, upon request, to aid in the production of the witnesses for the defendant, or to admit the exhibits as their sworn testimony and the truth of the statements contained therein. The motion was thereupon overruled, a special venire was ordered, and the case was set for hearing on the following morning. Exception.

The State's Evidence.

In assuming the burden of establishing the crime as charged, the prosecution offered evidence tending to show that Mrs. Elsie Mae Creech (with whom the defendant's wife was then staying temporarily) took the defendant's wife to Durham on Tuesday night, July 27, so that she might enter Duke Hospital for an examination on the following morning. This was done and they returned home late that evening. At about 11:00 P. M., the defendant appeared at the home of Elsie Mae Creech, and after being invited in with a cordial salutation he stepped into the hall and said: 'Elsie Mae, what did they find wrong with Mattie today? ' He was informed that X-rays were taken and she would get the reports later. About that time the defendant's wife came up and he asked her the same question. Elsie Mae Creech then asked the defendant and his wife to go into the living room, which they did. She followed in a few minutes and the defendant remarked, 'I have some whiskey out there in the car if you girls would like to have a drink. ' They both declined. He then said: 'Well, I have got some peaches out there, would you like to have some of them? ' Up to this point the defendant appeared to be normal and in possession of his normal faculties. After some conversation about the peaches, he stood up and said, 'There is no use beating around the bush any longer,' and looking at his wife he inquired, 'Are you planning to go back home or not? ' She replied that 'she was not planning to'; whereupon he became angry, used some profanity, and said a lawyer would see her in the morning. He then left, got in his car, and drove off.

In about ten minutes the defendant returned with a shotgun, threatening to kill everybody in the house. Johnnie Grimes, who, with his family, lived in a part of the house, grappled with the defendant in the hall and tried to take the gun away from him, but was unable to do so. While this was taking place, the other occupants of the house went into an adjoining bedroom. All the lights in the house were on, except in this bedroom. Johnnie Grimes then jumped back through the door into the bedroom, and he, Elsie Mae and Mattie pushed against the door to keep the defendant from entering. After pushing the door four or five times, the defendant fired through the panel of the door and struck his wife, who slumped down to the floor. The defendant then began to push the door anew, and Johnnie Grimes advised the others to flee for safety. This they did, hiding in the weeds outside and under the house. The defendant soon came out and Elsie Mae Creech heard him say, 'I especially wanted to kill Mattie and Elsie Mae. ' Pretty soon the defendant returned to the house, entered the room where his wife lay, took aim and shot the top of her head off. He then went out on the back porch, set the gun down in the corner, and called Johnnie Grimes to come and take him to the sheriff. In a few minutes the defendant's car was heard to start up, and go off in the direction of Smithfield.

Mary Edna Grimes, age 13, who had sought safety by hiding in the edge of the adjacent woods, saw the defendant get in his car. She says, 'He reached towards the glove compartment, took out a bottle and turned it up to his head. * * * He must have taken more than one drink as he kept it up there and took it down and then got another. He drove off towards Smithfield.'

Sometime between 12 and 1:00 A. M. the defendant appeared at the sheriff's office and gave himself up to Deputy Sheriff Lester Hales. After inquiring for the sheriff, the defendant said: 'Well I just as well tell you: I blowed her damn brains out. * * * I killed Mattie. This damn Duke Hospital, I have stood it as long as I can and I blowed her damn brains out. ' The defendant turned over to the officer his pocket knife and $427 in money which he had on his person. He counted the money in the presence of the officer. His count was accurate. The jailor said the defendant 'looked like a crazy man; drunk and crazy too. ' Cross-examination: 'I did not hear him speak but once. He said, ' I am as crazy as hell.' ' The officers then went to make an investigation. They located the gun at the house; and on the front seat of the defendant's car they found a bottle with some whiskey in it. These were offered in evidence.

The prosecution offered Jack Gardner as a witness, who testified that the defendant came to his filling station between 9 and 10 o'clock on the evening of the homicide. He was there an hour or more, during which time he took two or three drinks. He said he had been to Pinehurst and had called his wife from there at Duke Hospital but the nurse would not let him speak to her. He remarked that 'he wished she was dead; wished he could wake up in the morning and hear that she was dead, that would be the sweetest music he had ever heard. ' When he left the filling station, 'he could walk all right; perfectly all right; and talked all right. He drove his car away. ' There was a basket of peaches and a double-barrel shotgun in the back of the defendant's car.

The Defendant's Evidence.

The defendant refrained from going on the witness stand, but offered evidence intended to satisfy the jury of his mental debility or insanity at the time of the homicide.

On Wednesday, July 21, the defendant took a motor trip to Valdosta, Ga. He picked up a young man in Lumberton, a hitch-hiker, and took him along for company and to help with the driving. The defendant got very drunk on this trip. On his way back he spent two days and two nights in a hospital at Savannah, Ga. Dr. John G. Sharpley, of the Hospital, certified that when the defendant came there on the 22nd, he showed symptoms of 'chronic alcoholism * * * and some mental confusion. * * * He was discharged on July 24th, his nervousness had ceased and he seemed to be in very excellent spirits. He showed no signs of mental aberration.'

The defendant offered a number of witnesses who testified that he was 'heavily under the influence' on the night preceding and during the day of the homicide. And further that the defendant and his wife got along all right, except when he was drinking; that drink was the cause of their several separations.

Millard Parrish and Mrs. Cassie Lee testified that they drove past the home of Elsie Mae Creech on the night of July 28, between 11:30 and 12 o'clock, and within a short distance their car flashed against an automobile which had 'slid off the road and into the edge of the woods on the left side. ' They ran by, but stopped at the first side road to go back and render assistance. Before they could turn round and while looking for a flash light, the defendant appeared on the right-hand side of their car and got in the front seat. He was wet and looked like he was drunk. He said he wanted to go to the sheriff's office; that he had killed his wife. Later he said he wanted to stop and tell his father and mother what had happened. Pretty soon, he slumped over as if he were dozing. When they reached the father's house, the defendant got out of the car and went up the steps and had a conversation with his father and mother. They then took the defendant to the sheriff's office.

On the next day, Dr. Watson Wharton saw the defendant, said he appeared to be having a 'hang-over' from being drunk. He took a specimen of his blood at about 12:20 P. M. and sent it to Dr. Haywood Taylor at Duke University for examination and laboratory analysis. Dr. Wharton gave it as his opinion that '12 hours prior to my examination he was not in condition, by reason of drunkenness, to understand and weigh the nature and consequences of his acts.'

Dr. Taylor testified that the specimen of blood 'contained alcohol to the extent of .14 per cent.' He gave it as his opinion that if the specimen had been taken 12 or 13 hours earlier, it would have shown an alcoholic content of from .25 to .3 per cent; and that a person with that percentage of alcoholic concentration 'would not be capable of forming a deliberate and premeditated intent to kill and know the consequences of it.'

Dr. J F. Owen, a psychiatrist of Raleigh, testified that in consequence of a telephone call from one of defendant's counsel around 10 o'clock on the morning of July 29th, he went to Smithfield at about 3:00 P.M. that day and saw the defendant for a couple of hours. He returned later on August 2nd and spent a half-hour...