State v. Crone

Decision Date18 February 1908
Citation209 Mo. 316,108 S.W. 555
PartiesSTATE v. CRONE.
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; B. J. Casteel, Special Judge.

Albert M. Crone was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Harlan, Jeffries & Corum, for appellant. The Attorney General and John Kennish, for the State.

BURGESS, J.

At the September term, 1906, of the criminal court of Jackson county, the prosecuting attorney of said county filed an information charging the defendant with having killed and murdered one Bertha Bowlin, at said county, on the 19th day of July, 1906. For want of time to try the cause, the court ordered it continued, and set the same for trial on the 4th day of February, 1907. On the 10th day of January, 1907, at the January term of said court, the defendant filed a demurrer to the information, also a motion to quash, which demurrer and motion to quash were overruled by the court, exceptions to such rulings being saved by the defendant. At the same term the defendant filed an application for a change of venue from the judge of said court, which was granted, and the court ordered that the Honorable B. J. Casteel, judge of the criminal court of Buchanan county, be requested to sit as special judge in the trial of the cause, before which said special judge, at said January term of said court, the defendant was put upon his trial, convicted of murder in the second degree, and his punishment assessed at 18 years in the penitentiary. The defendant filed motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, which were overruled, whereupon he appealed to this court.

The deceased, Bertha Bowlin, was an unmarried woman, about 21 years of age, and resided at No. 1014 Jefferson street, Kansas City, Mo., with her mother, a widow, who sewed for a livelihood, and lived with her family in a few rooms of the house which she had rented, the remainder of the house being subrented by her to other families who occupied the same. The house was near the summit of a bluff or bluffs which front west, toward the Kaw river, a short distance from the boundary line between this state and the state of Kansas. Near the home of the deceased was a driveway called the "Kersey Coates Driveway," built by the city, beginning near the intersection of Twelfth and Jefferson streets, and extending in a southerly direction along the side of the bluffs to Seventeenth street, a distance of about half a mile. On the east side of the driveway, which was about 50 feet wide, there was a gutter and curb, and between the curb and an acclivity on that side there was a strip of grass from 15 to 20 feet in width. On the same side of the driveway, near where the extension of Fourteenth street would have intersected it there was a catch-basin, and about 150 yards east was an electric light which shed some light on the west side of the driveway, leaving the east side, near the catch-basin, in the shadow. West of the driveway, and between it and a precipitous bluff, was a narrow strip of ground used as a sidewalk.

The defendant lived with his parents at No. 1407 Madison street, in said city, a few blocks distant from the home of the deceased, and was about 20 years of age at the time of the homicide. He had known the deceased for a number of years, was much in her company, had become jealous of her affections, and intolerant of rivalry. He became dissipated and dissolute in his habits, a frequenter of saloons and bawdy houses, and, according to his own statement, the first time he met the deceased was in a house of ill fame. The year before the homicide, Mrs. Bowlin, mother of the deceased, refused to permit the defendant to enter her house to see her daughter. At this he became very angry, and threw bricks at the door and through a window of the house, one of the bricks striking Miss Bowlin, the deceased, on the arm. He threatened to kill her many times if he saw her with another, and told her if she could not go with him she could not go with any one else. He violently assaulted her upon two occasions. Once, in the presence of witnesses, he knocked her down with a brick, and while she was prostrate on the ground he bent over her and beat her with his fists, at the same time calling her vile names and threatening to kill her. In October and November, 1905, while in the state of California, the defendant wrote deceased letters which were read in evidence, and in which he made threats as to what he would do if he found her in another's company. In one of these letters he upbraided her for going with another, and said: "I am only 1,750 miles from home, but can make it in a short time. You know I am not coming 1,750 miles for nothing, and you will find it out;" and again, "as sure as I come back to Kansas City and I ever see you I would have to talk to you, and there would be some trouble in sight, and that would be just what I would want; just for a minute or two, and then it would be all over." He came back to Kansas City, and, as he had threatened, made an assault upon the deceased, after which assault he wrote her a letter, dated December 14, 1905, in which he said: "I leave to-night for Las Vegas, New Mexico. Now I think we are about even. I think you done me durty, and I was only getting even."

Frank Kern, who was with the deceased at the time of the homicide and who was also violently assaulted, lived with his parents in apartments rented from Mrs. Bowlin, in the same house in which the latter resided. In the summer of 1906, Kern commenced paying attention to Miss Bowlin, and walked out with her occasionally. He had seen the defendant a number of times, and knew him by sight, and had seen him in a drunken condition in front of Mrs. Bowlin's house shortly before the homicide. About 8 o'clock on the evening of the 19th of July, 1906, Kern and his two brothers were out walking when he saw Miss Bowlin at Twelfth and Summit streets, near their home. As he started across the street to join Miss Bowlin, he saw the defendant standing on the street corner, recognized him plainly, and the defendant said, "Hello." Kern and the girl walked south on the driveway, and sat down on the catch-basin heretofore mentioned. It was not yet quite dark. They sat there talking for about half an hour, during which time several persons passed and saw them. When it was getting dark, two men, one of whom was the defendant, were seen walking in the direction of, and near to the place where Kern and Miss Bowlin were sitting. Two witnesses who saw the defendant at the time and place stated, and who did not know him by name at the time, afterwards identified him, and picked him out of a number of prisoners at the county jail without hesitancy. One of the two men seen going in the direction of the catch-basin was carrying what appeared to be a cane, but which resembled a piece of gas pipe found near the scene of the homicide, and which was offered in evidence as the weapon with which the homicide was committed. The night before the homicide, one of the defendant's associates saw him standing by the curbstone, not far from Miss Bowlin's home, and when he asked the defendant to go and take a drink, the latter said: "No, Mack, I have a gas pipe here, and I am going to get a guy with it." One of the state's witnesses, however, a street car conductor, testified that on the evening of the homicide he saw two men at Twelfth and Washington streets, not far from the driveway, one of whom was carrying a piece of gas pipe and using it as a cane. The witness got into conversation with the man, and the latter said: "If you had a sweetheart, and was gone away a long time and had come back, and there was another man going with her and lying on you, wouldn't you beat him and beat him until you beat him to death?" He also heard the man say to the other man, who was standing on the opposite corner of the street, "Come on, Henry; let us go." Henry replied: "Go back to the Tralle," and witness further heard Henry say, "We will get them on the drive." The conductor, however, testified that he knew the defendant, he having seen him on his car, and that he was not the man with whom he had the said conversation. It developed during the trial that one Charles Henry was an associate of the...

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