State v. Farrell

• Decision Date: 05 February 1951
• Docket Number: No. 21450,21450
• Citation: 237 S.W.2d 492,241 Mo.App. 234
• Parties: STATE v. FARRELL.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 492

237 S.W.2d 492

241 Mo.App. 234

STATE v. FARRELL.

No. 21450.

Kansas City Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Feb. 5, 1951.

Claude L. Schenck, Kansas City, for appellant.

Wilson D. Hill, Richmond, for respondent.

SPERRY, Commissioner.

This is an action instituted in the juvenile court, by the prosecuting attorney of Ray County, wherein it is sought to have Nancy Evelyn Farrell, a female child 7 years of age, declared to be a neglected child within the meaning of Section 9698, R.S.Mo.1939, R.S.1949, Sec. 211.310. After hearing much evidence the court found the child to be neglected and committed her to the custody of the probation officer of Ray County with instructions that he place her in a proper home pending the further orders of the court. From that judgment the child's mother, Mrs. Hildebrand, prosecutes this appeal.

The transcript of evidence is quite voluminous. We will attempt to set out, briefly, the gist of it.

The child's mother, Evelyn Hildebrand at the time this hearing was had, has been unfortunate in her marital affairs, and in life generally. She was married to Briley, when she was 19 years of age. They had four children, the oldest being Lucille, now about fifteen years of age, She was divorced and married Farrell. They had two children, Nancy being one of them. She was divorced from Farrell and obtained custody of these children. A year or so later she married Hardin and divorced him. In 1948 she married Westerdale and four months later divorced him. In 1949 she married Hildebrand and, at the time the trial was completed, was living with him in Oklahoma, together with five of her children. The evidence discloses that she had lived at various places in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma during the past year or two, never more than a few weeks at one place. Apparently she had moved from ten to fifteen times during the year preceding the trial of this case. It is admitted that she traveled from place to place, habitually if not always, hitch-hiking, and that, frequently, she took one or more of the children with her; that such of the children as did not accompany her on these trips would remain alone at the home they then occupied; that she became acquainted with and received favors from numerous strange men whom she met while hitch-hiking; that various of the children, if not all, had been left or placed in different homes, at different times, for varying periods of time, for many years prior to the trial; that, about a year before the trial, she had received state aid for the support of the children and, for several months prior to the trial, four had been wards of the State, in various homes supervised by the State, at Rolla, Missouri. However, their custody seems to have been given to her during the extended recess of the trial, and before its completion.

Mr. and Mrs. Pointer, respectable citizens of Ray County, testified to the effect that, in November, 1948, they were driving from Springfield to Sedalia, where they then lived, and passed appellant walking along the highway; that it was cold and wet and they offered her a ride; that she stated that she was going to St. Louis to arrange with a children's institution to take her children; that she wanted to marry, had several proposals, but none of the prospects would take her children; that she had a stack of letters, which she read, from various men in different parts of the country, some of them proposing marriage; that she spent the night at the Pointer home, and went on to St. Louis the next morning; that she returned a day or two later and said that she was anxious to get home to her children because they would be out of coal and groceries; that Mr. Pointer bought coal and groceries and took her to her home, an abandoned farm house a mile or two from Louisburg, Missouri; that the house was filthy, the children dirty, poorly clothed, noses running, hair matted, and ravenously hungry; that they snatched a loaf of bread, which fell to the floor, and devoured it; that there was one bed with a mattress on the floor under it; that Mrs. Hildebrand had thirty or forty letters when she arrived home, from various men over the country, some of them containing money; that she opened, read and commented on them in their presence and in the presence of the children; that they told appellant that they would like to adopt one of the children if she was going to place them in homes; that she told them that she would have to place the oldest child somewhere other than in the St. Louis institution, that it would not accept her because of her age, and urged them to take Lucille; that they offered to take Nancy but did not want Lucille, but eventually did take her, temporarily; that several of the children begged to be taken; that the Pointers bought clothing and books for Lucille, entered her in school, and tried to improve her as they would their own child; that she was indolent, slatternly, disobedient, incorrigible; that they took her home after about a month; that appellant told them to take Nancy, which they did on the day appellant married Westerdale, who had answered one of her advertisements in the Kansas City Star, and sent her $10; that...