State v. Frye
| Citation | 50 S.E.2d 895,229 N.C. 581 |
| Decision Date | 15 December 1948 |
| Docket Number | 579 |
| Parties | STATE v. FRYE. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Criminal prosecution upon bill of indictment containing three counts charging in summary that defendant (1) unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously did break and enter building occupied by Pinehurst Greenhouses with intent to steal, take and carry away its property; (2) feloniously did steal, take and carry away one large metal safe, $100 in money, government bonds and other securities of value more than $50, property of Pinehurst Greenhouses; and (3) feloniously did receive and have said safe, money, bonds and other property of Pinehurst Greenhouses knowing that same had been feloniously stolen, taken and carried away, all contrary to the form of the statute, etc.
Upon the trial in Superior Court the State offered evidence in chief tending to show these facts and circumstances: On 16 November, 1947, at 5:30 o'clock P.M., the doors to the office building of the Pinehurst Greenhouse were locked. The window, and 'up and down window', which had just been put in the end of an addition to the building, was closed but not locked. On that date there was in this building a steel safe, about three feet high by two and a half feet wide. It would take two men to roll it. Two men could pick it up. The safe contained at the time the Greenhouse money taken in the day before, approximately $170 in change and bills and a few checks, in addition to bonds of the manager of the Greenhouse and other articles of personalty belonging to others. The next morning, when the manager and others arrived at the building, the safe was gone, the window at the back was closed just as it was the evening before and the door was locked from the outside. The sheriff was called. The safe was found about a mile and a quarter away in the woods. The door of it was bursted and off; parts of it laying around on the ground; and it was face down. None of the property was found. The sheriff and police officers found that there were tracks of a man and of a woman at the window of the Greenhouse; and they also found where the safe had been rolled out of the office to the front door and apparently loaded onto a car or truck backed up to the front, and hauled away.
The tracks of the vehicle indicated that the treads of three of the tires, one rear and two front, were of same make and alike, and that of the right rear tire was different. The left front tire was slick,--practically worn down to the fiber in a couple of places. The right front and left rear tires were good.
The officers picked up the tracks in front of the building and followed them along a circuitous route down a kind of sandy road, through a field, out an old road, and into the woods. There in the woods and rough, it appeared that the vehicle 'got stuck up', but the tracks went on 75 or 100 yards further down in the wood to the point where the safe was found. The officers observed and followed tracks of the vehicle leading from the place where the safe was found along a specific route through woods, grass, fire lane and mud into the hard surface and on into the yard of the Fuller Currie home.
Along the route the vehicle apparently 'got stuck up' three times. First, in a clay pit; second, where a woman's track and a man's track,-- apparently made in trying to push the car out,--were seen; and third, where there was a man's track, also apparently made in trying to push the car out. At this last place there was very deep sand that had been plowed up recently, and the man's tracks, several of them were very plain. Also at this point the sheriff saw and picked up a paper sales slip, lying on the ground. (See more about this slip later.) After entering the yard of the Fuller Currie home, the tracks were around the house and out and to the gun club and back into the yard again.
The officers then went to A. J. Frye's (defendant's father's home), where they saw the same tracks, and after talking with Mrs. Currie over there, they followed these tracks back to Hickory Inn, to Herbert Worthy's, and from there back on the hard surface street. They hit the same track again below the race track, which leads from the Southern Pines road back to Fred Arnett's.
The officers then went to Hamlet, arriving there about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and found defendant at his father-in-law's house. Defendant's car, a Plymouth coupe, was in the back yard. The officers testified that the tires on that car at the time made a track like the track described leading from the Greenhouse to where the safe was found, and that the opening in the back part of the coupe was large enough for the safe to be put in it. The officers thereupon arrested defendant. And the chief of police testified that defendant said that on Sunday night he had been to his father's and Hickory Inn and Fred Arnett's and Jackson Hamlet's,--and that he spent the night at Fuller Currie's home,--where he went in and to bed around 1 o'clock; that he did not leave there at any time during the night; that he had been to all the places the officer mentioned in following the tracks--driving his car, a Plymouth coupe, but did not state that he went to the place where the safe was; that he was at his father's and left there around 10 o'clock, and went to Hickory Inn, and to Jackson Hamlet's, hunting in vain for whiskey; and that he left the Currie home next morning about 7 o'clock in his car, driving back to Hamlet.
The chief of police testified that the right-foot shoe of defendant fitted perfectly the man's tracks, several of them, where the car was last struck; that the heel of the shoe had two rings around it; and this track in the sand had two rings around the heel of it.
The sheriff testified as to the sales slip found at the third place where the tracks of the vehicle indicated it had been stalled, and where a man's tracks were seen, and without objection by defendant, that he went to this store in Hamlet and asked the saleslady, whose name is on the slip, if she sold these particular articles and that she said she sold them to Hobart Frye; that he later showed the slip to Hobart Frye and he said he bought those articles; and that later he talked to Hobart Frye's wife and she said Hobart Frye gave her that merchandise.
And the chief of police also testified that Polly Currie was at the Fuller Currie home the next morning; 'that a bunch is in and out of there all the time'; and that 'that is the house of the late Fuller Currie and members of the family include Floyd, Dave and Peggie'.
The State also offered evidence tending to show (1) that clay was on the car in front, and that it looked like the clay at the clay hole where the vehicle apparently stalled; that bushes leaves, pine straw or needles and a piece of a stump were 'up under the car',--pine needles in the car--some on the floor boards; (2) that there were in the back of the car 'a number' of particles of black paint that looked like the paint on the safe; (3) that an axe was found on the wood-pile at the Fuller Currie home, and on it were two substances, one of which looked to be paint, and the other to be brass or copper,--similar in color with the dial or portion of safe broken; (4) that the particles of paint found in the back of the car, together with paint taken from the safe, as well as the axe and the dial of the safe, were submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for comparison.
In this connection, a special agent of the FBI, testifying as an expert, stated (1) that he made a spectographic comparison of the material taken from the compartment and trailer hitch and of the black material taken from the axe, and the known paint from the safe, and in each instance the paint was 'identical in comparison and could have come from the same source'; and (2) that he made a like comparison of the dial and handle from the safe, and the other material found on the axe, and found this material of which the knob is composed to be similar to the composition of the substance on the head of the axe and 'they could have come from the same source',--that so far as he could tell they were identical in color and substance; and that the safe paint was identical in composition; but the safe paint is different from the car paint.
And the State's evidence in chief also tended to show that defendant denied continuously all the way through that he had anything to do with the alleged robbery.
The State, having first rested its case, and the court having overruled defendant's motion then made for judgment as of nonsuit, to which defendant excepted defendant offered evidence.
Defendant as witness for himself, testified on direct examination: That he was born and raised in Moore...
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