State v. Gragg
| Decision Date | 26 May 1898 |
| Citation | 30 S.E. 306,122 N.C. 1082 |
| Parties | STATE v. GRAGG. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from superior court, Caldwell county; Hoke, Judge.
Simon A. Gragg was convicted of murder in the first degree, and from an order denying a motion for a new trial he appeals. Reversed.
On the trial for homicide, caused by exploding dynamite under a house, and causing the death of two persons, it appeared that defendant was overseer of a public road, and was in possession of dynamite, which he used in making the road. Dynamite was also had and used by other persons in the community. Defendant had been employed by the deceased, who had dismissed him, and they had quarreled about it. He had been unfriendly with one of the deceased, having courted a widow, who had discarded him because, as defendant thought she preferred deceased as a suitor, and defendant had said if she and deceased did marry they should never live together in this country; that he and deceased had made friends, but he had said it was only "from the teeth out"; that there were some tracks made by an 8 or 9 shoe on the hillside a few hundred yards from the place of the homicide, which was the size of shoe defendant wore. The day after the homicide the defendant looked pale and nervous. Held, that the evidence was insufficient to justify a verdict of guilty.
The prisoner was indicated for killing Walter Moore and Dallas Bowman. There was evidence for the state tending to show that on Thursday, June 4, 1896, the deceased were killed by an explosion of dynamite which had been placed under the house in which they slept, situated on Anthony's creek, in Caldwell county, in a somewhat retired placed in the mountains, about a mile from the public road, and near a portable sawmill, which the owners contemplated moving to another neighborhood on the following day. The deceased Walter Moore was a partner in the mill, and Dallas Bowman an employé. The mill and the house in which the deceased were sleeping were wrecked by the explosion. One room in the house, about 10 by 14 feet, was constructed, of poplar lumber. It rested on a large poplar log on the lower side about 2 1/2 feet in diameter and 6 feet long, which was imbedded securely in the earth; and there was a chestnut log of smaller diameter lying parallel to the poplar under the house. The bed in which deceased were sleeping was roughly constructed, being made of plank nailed to the corner of the house which rested on the poplar log, and the evidence tended to show that the dynamite was placed on the chestnut log near the poplar, and immediately under the bed. A splinter was found the next morning, charred, which the state claimed had been used to fire the fuse. No one remained in the millyard at night as a rule, except the two persons who were killed, and who usually slept in this house. There was evidence that no dynamite was in the shack, or about it, on the day of the explosion, and none in the possession or control of deceased; that before that time the deceased had two or three joints of dynamite for blasting in the road or creek. Prisoner lived in the neighborhood of the mill, on a public road, in a house with his mother and his brother and nephew. The house had two rooms opening on a porch which ran the entire length of the house, and the family retired on the night of the explosion; the mother in one room, and the prisoner and his brother and nephew in the other. It is about a mile and a half from the house of the prisoner, around the public road and up the new road, to the mill, and on this route were the houses of Samuel Pendley and Mat Hayes. The distance between the two points in a direct line was about three quarters of a mile. This route was over a mountain covered with the usual mountain growth, and in places very rough. Witnesses were of opinion that one on horse-back could not pass that way after dark, but one on foot could do so. There were points along the way which would be dangerous to persons not familiar with it. Prisoner's family were persons in good standing, himself an overseer of the public road, and had quite an amount of dynamite in his control, and had admitted having 32 or 33 joints just prior to the explosion; that he frequently used it in working the public road, and understood its use. The sheriff, on searching prisoner's house after the explosion, found only 25 joints of the dynamite. Baxter McLean testified he was at prisoner's house on the night after the explosion, and heard the brother of prisoner say to prisoner. "Who have you been letting have dynamite?" Prisoner said, "No one." His brother replied that the day of the explosion he had been five or six joints out of the box, with a fuse and cap on one of the joints. The evidence was that this dynamite was under prisoner's bed, and the joints referred to were said by his brother to have been lying out of the box, and near it. There was also evidence that dynamite was had by other persons in the community, and used by them for blasting. There was evidence that the prisoner and Walter Moore, the deceased, had quarreled a few months before the explosion, and were heard to curse each other two or three weeks before. Moore had discharged the prisoner from his employment, and the deceased Bowman had come into the neighborhood more than a year before, with one Benefield, and his wife, Alice Benfield, and her sister, Bettie Baird; and that he lived with Benfield and his wife until the death of Benfield, which took place in 1895, and then the wife moved to her brother-in-law's, Pendley, and Bowman resided elsewhere in the neighborhood; and Mrs. Benfield continued to do his washing and mending, and kept his box of things, until this was stopped by the prisoner some time afterwards. During the life of Benefield, more than a year before the killing there had been a quarrel at his house between him and the prisoner, and Bowman had taken part with Benfield, and made the prisoner leave the house. Prisoner was heard to claim also that Benfield and his wife had stopped his letters from Bettie Baird, and this was done at Bowman's instance that prisoner at that time conceived a deep-seated enmity towards Bowman, and when the mill was moved on the prisoner's land, a little more than a year before the explosion, he made it a part of the contract that Bowman was not to be permitted on the place; that he was also heard, about that time and afterwards, to make threats of a serious nature towards Bowman on various occasions, and to different persons. After Benfield's death, the prisoner commenced courting his widow, and they were engaged to be married. Prisoner showed his enmity towards Bowman, and seemed to be very jealous of him during his engagement, and at his instance she stopped doing Bowman's washing and mending, and made him move his box from her care. Bowman went to Tennesse in the summer of 1895, and remained three or four months, and returned to this neighbordhood in the autumn, taking employment at the mill, when the prisoner again became aroused with jealously, and made himself unbearable to Alice Benfield to such an extent that she felt forced to break the engagement, and tell him she would not marry him. They had several quarrels before the engagement was broken off. His final dismissal was on Saturday before the killing. She told him he need not come back any more. Prisoner then again made threats against Bowman, saying she had put him off on account of Bowman, and she should never live with him in this country. Bettie Baird testified that about 10 days before the killing the prisoner came to her house, and asked her if there was anything between Alice and Bowman except friendship, and said, if there was, he would find it out, and that if Alice quit him for Bowman there would be the demandest time the country ever knew. On Monday before the killing he had made inquiry of one Miss Hayes if Bowman boarded there, and that he had made the same inquiry of her three weeks before. In March before the killing, on a road above the mill, he had waited for Bowman, and made inquiry for him several different times during the day. There was evidence tending to show that Bowman and the prisoner were reconciled before the explosion, and on several different occasions were seen together, apparently friendly; that prisoner had said to Mrs. Benfield some time before that he had Bowman had made up, but it was only from the teeth out, and it would take very little to bring it all back again: that on the mountain between the prisonner's and the mill a track had been discovered leading from the direction of prisoner's house towards the mill. Only a few impressions of the track could be found, and they were at or near a log about 100 feet long lying up and down the mountain towards the mill. The track was that of an 8 or 9 shoe, and prisoner wore that number. That one impression was just before reaching the log; two or three were on the side of the log, as if the party had slipped off; and one as he left the log, going down the mountain. A short distance below the log the workmen had been getting out logs, and no further tracks could be traced. The conduct of prisoner on the ground the day after the killing was said by some of the witnesses to be peculiar, so much so as to arouse suspicion towards him. He was pale and pre-occupied, and stood apart from the others. When the sheriff and the witness Edmisten were starting up the mountain to look for tracks, the prisoner said to one of them, "You need not go up the mountain looking for tracks; the man who did this is smart enough to cover his tracks." and to the other, at a different place, he said, "You needn't look for tracks on that mountain; the man who did this came around the...
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