State v. Inlow
| Decision Date | 24 April 1914 |
| Docket Number | 2556 |
| Citation | 44 Utah 485,141 P. 530 |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. INLOW |
On Application for Rehearing, June 8, 1914.
APPEAL from District Court, Third District; Hon. M. L. Ritchie Judge.
Caleb A. Inlow was convicted of murder in the second degree. He appeals.
AFFIRMED.
E. A Walton and Willard Hanson for appellant.
A. R Barnes, Attorney-General, E. V. Higgins and G. A. Iverson, Assistant Attorneys-General, and E. O. Leatherwood, District Attorney for the State.
OPINION
The defendant, appellant here, was charged with murder in the first degree, and upon a trial was convicted of murder in the second degree. While appellant was informed against alone, the state nevertheless tried the case upon the theory that his wife was a co-conspirator or accomplice of his, or acted in concert with him in the perpetration of the murder.
The salient facts relating to the homicide, briefly stated, are in substance as follows:
One Thomas E. White, called "Eddie White" in the evidence, a chauffeur by occupation and about twenty-three years of age, was found dead in his automobile, a taxicab, so called, at about six or six fifteen o'clock on the morning of October 5, 1912, on Third East Street and a little below Ninth South Street in Salt Lake City. Death was apparently caused by bullet wounds. One bullet entered the back of the head or neck, passing through the spinal column, severing the spinal cord, and ranging upward somewhat it passed through the brain and out at about the center of the forehead. The other bullet entered the head just back of and a little below the left ear, passed through the brain, and passed out just back of and a little below the right ear. Either bullet inflicted a mortal wound. There were also other bruises on the head of the deceased made by what the doctors denominated a blunt instrument, but those were not fatal. There were powder burns showing that the shots were fired at close range. There was evidence that robbery was not the motive for the murder from the following facts and circumstances: The deceased, when found, had evidently been dead for some hours. He had on his person, when found, twenty-five dollars in cash, a diamond ring, a signet ring, a gold watch, and other trinkets of less value, all of which, the testimony showed, belonged to him. The taxicab in which he was found was lighted on the night of the murder by electricity, but the wires connecting the lamps had been severed from them, and thus the front or headlights were extinguished. The rear or "tail" light was an oil lamp, which, according to the evidence, was still burning when the taxicab was discovered on the morning of October 5th, as aforesaid.
The appellant was a resident of Bingham Canyon, a mining town about twenty miles distant from Salt Lake City. He and his wife came to Salt Lake City on the 4th day of October, the day preceding the death of White, to make preparation for the preliminary hearing of appellant upon a charge of burglary in the second degree which had been preferred against him. Just what time the appellant, his wife, and a little girl related to them or one of them arrived at Salt Lake City on the 4th is not made to appear. Appellant, at about eight thirty on that evening, engaged a room for himself and wife in a rooming house located at No. 78 East Second South Street, nearly a block distant from where the deceased usually kept his taxicab on the public street in front of what is known as the Kenyon Hotel. When appellant engaged the room, he registered as "Henry Stone and wife." Some time after engaging the room, he went away, and some time thereafter he, his wife, and the little girl referred to came back, bringing with them a suit case. They left the suit case in the room, and appellant's wife and the little girl went to the home of friends, a Mr. and Mrs. Schneider, in the city, about a half mile or so distant from the rooming house, where they arrived a little after nine o'clock. Where appellant went after leaving the rooming house is not shown. A little before ten o'clock, as testified to by Mrs. Schneider on cross-examination by appellant's counsel, appellant's wife left the Schneider home, saying she was going up town to meet the appellant, leaving the little girl in bed at the Schneiders. Before leaving the Schneiders, she borrowed a long, dark coat and a veil or scarf from Mrs. Schneider. She left her hat at Schneider's, and tied the veil or scarf over her head, and also put on the coat. She was next seen at about eleven-thirty p. m. standing in front of the National Bank of the Republic, which is immediately opposite the Kenyon Hotel in front of which the taxicab of the deceased was usually standing when not in actual service. Just before twelve o'clock midnight, a woman wearing a long dark coat and a veil or scarf tied over her head, and without a hat, appeared where the taxicab of the deceased usually stood and inquired from another chauffeur, who was in attendance at his automobile, about Mr. White's car, and asked the chauffeur in question about Mr. White, the deceased. The chauffeur offered her the use of his automobile, but she said she wanted a taxicab. The deceased was away from his car at the time, and the chauffeur so informed Mrs. Inlow, and she waited, apparently for the deceased to return, which he did in a few minutes, and when he did so he was pointed out to her by the chauffeur. She then spoke to the deceased, but what was said between her and the deceased was not heard by the other chauffeur. The deceased immediately opened the side door of his taxicab, and she entered the car. After she had entered the car, the deceased again opened the side door and apparently received an order or direction from her, after which he got on the driver's seat and drove south on Main Street. He drove away either a minute or two before or the same length of time after twelve o'clock midnight. That was the last time deceased was seen alive. He was found the next morning about a mile and three-quarters from where he started, and in a southeasterly direction from the hotel he started from with Mrs. Inlow. Mrs. Inlow was next seen at about twelve twenty-seven or twelve twenty-eight a. m. in company with a man, who was not recognized by any one, to enter a street car at the intersection of State and Ninth South Streets, a little over two blocks distant from where the deceased was found dead in the taxicab on the morning of October 5th, as aforesaid. She rode in the car north on State Street, and was next seen at the rooming house with her husband, the accused, a little after twelve thirty; that is, between twelve thirty and twelve forty-five a. m. Where she alighted from the car, and who the man was that was with her when she entered the car, no one seemed to know. She and her husband, the appellant, immediately left the rooming house, taking the suit case they had left there earlier in the evening with them. Before going the appellant attempted to erase the name of Henry Stone and wife from the register. They were next seen at the Schneider home, where they arrived about one o'clock, and they slept there in a room together that night. The next day they were both arrested, and the long dark coat worn by Mrs. Inlow and the suit case and another long coat which it was claimed belonged to the appellant, and which he was seen wearing the night of the murder, were all found in the room in which the Inlows slept after one o'clock on the night aforesaid. There were some blood stains found on the coat which was alleged to have been worn by appellant, and the coat also contained indications of having been sponged or washed along the upper front part.
On the night of the murder appellant appeared at the place where the deceased usually kept his taxicab for hire and inquired from the chauffeur there in attendance where the deceased lived whether he was married or unmarried, where his telephone was, etc. Upon receiving the information and being told where the telephone was which was used by the deceased, and which was immediately across the street from where the taxicab was kept, the appellant went across the street to the telephone and was there seen and spoken to by the proprietor of the saloon where he went in search of the telephone. This was about ten thirty p. m., or a little thereafter. The appellant was not seen by any one so as to identify him thereafter until he and Mrs. Inlow arrived at the rooming house, as stated above. About twelve fifteen or twelve twenty a. m. on the morning of October 5th, two shots were heard in the vicinity of where the taxicab with the dead body of the deceased were found by at least two persons. A witness also testified that at about that time of night he was walking near where the deceased was killed, and he saw the lights of an automobile approaching towards him from the south; that he saw the automobile stop, and soon thereafter heard two shots, and saw the lights go out, or that they went out, and then saw two persons, one tall and one shorter, apparently dressed in long coats, leave the automobile, and he immediately afterwards passed to the west of the automobile and saw a person in it on the driver's seat, but the witness supposed that the person he saw there was intoxicated and paid no further attention to the automobile. The taxicab was found in a somewhat lonely and unfrequented part of the city. The night of October 4th was dark, and the sky was overcast with clouds, but, according to the witness just referred to, there were occasional intervals of starlight. Considerable rain fell between the hours of one and three thirty o'clock on the morning of the 5th of October. The chauffeur to...
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