State v. Eddings
| Decision Date | 30 April 1880 |
| Citation | 71 Mo. 545 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. EDDINGS, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Randolph Circuit Court.--HON. G. H. BURCKHARTT, Judge.
AFFIRMED.
Winslow and Reed & Hall for appellant.
J. L. Smith, Attorney-General, for the State.
The defendant was indicted at the October term of the Randolph circuit court, 1879, charged in the first count with having burglariously broken into the dwelling-house of one M. C. McMillan, with intent to commit a rape upon the person of Ida McMillan, then in said dwelling-house. The second count was the same, except in charging the intent to have been to commit a rape upon Mary McMillan. The defendant was tried and convicted, and from the judgment he has prosecuted his appeal.
The evidence established the following facts: That Mr. McMillan slept in one room, and his little boy and two little daughters in an adjoining room on the first floor. From this room there was a door opening into a front yard. There was a lock, but no key, to the door, and it was fastened on the inside with a bolt on top of the lock, and the door, when bolted, could not be opened from the outside by turning the knob. By the side of this door was a window, about a foot from it, and when up, one on the outside could put his arm through the window and reach the lock and unbolt the door. A stairway runs up from the room in which the boy and little girls slept into an upper room. The stairway is on the opposite side of the room from the door. There is a door to the stairway, which latches, and is opened with some difficulty.
On the night in question, July 21st, 1879, before retiring, Mr. McMillan fastened the gate in front of the house with a rope. It being a warm night, the little boy asked his father to pull his bed, which was an ordinary lounge, out from the wall, and his father moved it out, so that the head of the lounge was near the window, which was raised as high as it could be, about six or eight inches. The lounge then stood in front of the door, and so near that the door would not swing clear open, and one entering would have to go around the lounge or move it to get into the room. On the night in question, this door was bolted and the door of the stairway was latched. Misses Ida and Mary McMillan were sleeping in the upper room, and early the next morning the defendant was found lying on the floor at the head of the stairs in the girls' room. His head was toward the girls' bed, and by the side of it, and his body lay in front of the landing of the stairs, so that no one could get into or out of the room without passing over him. He had on no clotning, except his pants and shirt. There were but two small windows to the upper room, of about four panes of glass each, and eleven feet from the ground. In the morning, the yard gate and the door leading into the front yard above mentioned were both open, and the door of the stairway was closed. There was no access to the upper room but through the stair door or the windows.
Miss Mary McMillan testified that she was aroused from sleep that night by something touching her side; thought it felt like a hand on her side; brushed it away; was frightened; spoke to her sister, Ida, in an ordinary tone of voice, and asked her if she was too warm; she muttered an answer. Witness didn't think Ida was awake; thought then it was her sister's hand, or a cat that staid in the room; laid awake awhile, and heard a breathing: thought it was the cat; after a while fell asleep again; heard the clock strike one; was disturbed no more that night, nor was her sister; did not wake until morning light, and then saw defendant on the floor, and called her mother Windows in the upper room had but one sash each, and were open that night.
The evidence for defendant tended to prove, that on the afternoon and evening of the 21st day of July he was drunk. He also proved a good moral character, except occasional intemperance. The counsel for defendant contend that the evidence did not warrant the verdict of the jury, and their theory is that the defendant, in a state of intoxication, not knowing where he was going, went into this house with no evil intent, and especially with no purpose to commit the rape charged.
It would have required a reasonably sober man to open the door by thrusting his arm through the raised window, and removing the bolt, and get around the lounge in front of it, and then open the stairway door and close it after him, without arousing the sleepers in the house. If unacquainted with the manner in which the door was fastened, and ignorant that the lounge was standing across it, and the location of the stairway, and the difficulty or opening the door which led to the upper room, the feat performed by the defendant would have been difficult to a duly sober man in the possession of all his faculties. He had, according to the testimony, wandered about the town of Huntsville that afternoon and night, and drunk or sober, he used the precaution to go to his own house and take off all of his clothes except his shirt and pants, before he went to McMillan's house. He was incumbered as little as possible with apparel, and there was method in this for it facilitated his escape if retreat...
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