State v. Joy
| Decision Date | 28 May 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 26908.,26908. |
| Citation | 285 S.W. 489 |
| Parties | STATE v. JOY |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Boone County; David H. Harris, Judge.
Hillroy Joy was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Reversed, and defendant discharged.
Harris & Price, of Columbia, and Cave & Cuthbertson, of Fulton, for appellant. North T. Gentry, Atty Gen., and Claud Curtis, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendant was charged by information in the circuit court of Callaway county with murder in the first degree. He was tried in the circuit court of Boone county, convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. he appeals.
On March 6, 1924, Mrs. Susan Joy, wife of the defendant, was found at about 10:15 o'clock at night, sitting on the floor beside her bed in an upstairs room of the residence of herself and her husband, the defendant, bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose. She died almost immediately after being discovered, without having spoken.
The day following an inquest was held by the coroner, who, after hearing several witnesses, took the defendant into custody, brought him to Fulton, and delivered him to the prosecuting attorney. The latter filed a complaint before a justice of the peace, charging the defendant with having killed his wife. A preliminary hearing was had, and the defendant was bound over to answer in the circuit court. On March 21, 1924, the prosecuting attorney filed an information in the circuit court, charging the defendant with murder in the first degree. The cause was continued twice thereafter on the application of the state. On September 1, 1924, defendant applied for and was granted a change of venue to the circuit court of Boone county. In that court the case was continued from term to term until April, 1925, when it was tried, resulting in a verdict and sentence as stated,
The defendant and his wife were beyond middle age; he being 55 and his wife 54 years old. They had been married about twelve years, and no children had been born to them. At the time of the tragedy, they lived on a farm about three miles west of Auxvasse. Ben Joy, an uncle of the defendant, and a Mrs. Nagel, a sister of Mrs. Joy, lived with them. Ben Joy was an old bachelor, and had been living with them about five years. He is referred to in the record as "Uncle Ben." Mrs. Nagel, who was a widow, had been visiting them for about three months. These parties were all at the house the night of the tragedy. For some time prior thereto the defendant had suffered with neuritis in one of his feet. On the afternoon before the murder, the defendant, his wife, and Ben Joy went to Auxvasse. They returned about 4 o'clock, and an hour or more later the three and Mrs. Nagel ate their evening meal. While at the table, something was said in regard to the sale of a small interest in some land Mrs. Joy owned in Kansas, and the defendant declared that he would not join in the deed at the price she was offered: No controversy followed this declaration. When the meal was finished, the dishes washed, the cow milked by Mrs. Joy, and the chores necessary to be performed at a country home had been attended to by Ben Joy, these four persons sat around the stove in what was the living and dining room and engaged in general conversation until almost 9 o'clock, when Ben Joy went upstairs to bed, and later Mrs. Nagel also retired, 'leaving the defendant and his wife sitting by the stove. The house was a story and a half frame building, consisting of three rooms on the first floor and three en the second. To reach the latter, it was necessary to ascend seven steps to a platform about three feet wide and four feet long, across which, in front of the entrance to the platform, a curtain was suspended to serve the purpose of a door in obstructing the view from the space beyond. Two short flights of stairs of three or four steps each led from this platform to the rooms above; the flight on the right led to the room of Ben Joy and the one on the left to the room of the defendant and his wife and to the adjoining room occupied by Mrs. Nagel. The latter testified that when she went up to her room the defendant and his wife were sitting near each other by the stove, conversing and apparently in a good humor, which had characterized their conduct towards each other during the evening. When Mrs. Nagel went to her room she placed a lighted lamp on a stand in such a position that it would shine through an open doorway between her room and that of her sister and the defendant, and left it burning to light them to bed. After retiring, she heard no sound of any kind until a short time after 10 o'clock when she heard her sister call her name. She arose, went into her sister's room, and found the latter sitting on the floor beside her bed with her head and shoulders resting on the bed and blood gushing from her mouth and nose. Mrs. Nagel hysterically began to call for Ben Joy and the defendant. The former being nearest, came first, followed by the defendant, who almost immediately came from the dining room downstairs, carrying the lighted lamp which had been sitting on the dining room table where his wife had left him when she started upstairs. When defendant saw his wife's condition he fell on his knees, took her in his arms and begged her to tell him what was the matter. She was then in her death throes, and died while they were gathered around her, without being able to make a response.
Ben Joy testified that he was awakened by the voices of the defendant and his wife conversing with each other; that the former, among, other things remarked that "Uncle Ben talked too much," whereupon he, the witness, in a loud tone, called his nephew a liar, and the latter applied a like epithet to him; that the defendant and his wife, when the witness heard them talking, were down in the dining room where he had left them when he retired; that soon thereafter he heard some one coming up the first flight of steps to the platform and when he asked who it was Mrs. Joy answered; "Oh! it's me, Uncle Ben," and that he heard her turn and go up the short flight of steps into her room; that quickly thereafter he heard Mrs. Nagel calling for him and the defendant to come, and he went; that he heard no one coming up the stairs before Mrs. Joy answered him.
The defendant testified that, after Ben Joy and Mrs. Nagel had gone to their rooms his wife dressed his afflicted foot and they sat and talked pleasantly for awhile about various matters, among other things he remarked that "Uncle Ben" talked too much to other people about their business affairs that should not be discussed outside of the family; that the latter, who had evidently heard their conversation, called out from upstairs, cursed the defendant, and called him a liar; that he (the defendant) replied in a like tone and to the same effect and that they bandied words in angry tones for a few minutes, Ben Joy being at the head of the stairs and the defendant in the dining room with his wife; that she placed her hand upon his shoulder and pleaded with him to desist from further words, and that she would go up and quiet Uncle Ben; that he said nothing more to his uncle, and that she started to go upstairs and he went into the kitchen, and as he passed the dining room door leading to the stairway he saw that she had just reached the top step of the first flight of stairs where the curtains were suspended, when he heard her exclaim: to which Ben Joy replied, "What in the name of God are you doing here?" that she then passed behind the curtain. He thought nothing of her exclamation, but just as he reached the kitchen he heard Mrs. Nagel call him, and he took the lamp from the dining room table and ran upstairs; that he realized when he saw his wife with blood streaming from her mouth and nostrils that something terrible had happened to her, and he knelt down by her side and begged her to tell him what was the matter; that she was unable to answer him and died in his arms. He notified the neighbors, and asked that a doctor be sent for to find out the cause of his wife's death and also an undertaker to prepare the body for burial. A doctor came, examined her, and decided that she had died from a hemorrhage as a result of arteriosclerosis or a hardening of the arteries. Before the doctor left an undertaker came, and, upon examining the body, found a narrow Wound as if from a cut or stab on the upper part of the right side of her chest, between the collar bone and the first rib. It had bled but little, and from a casual observation appeared to be only a superficial cut. The undertaker called the doctor, and the latter, upon examining the wound, found that it had been inflicted by a long sharp weapon; which had penetrated the pectoral cavity, passed through the lung, and thence inward and downward to the spinal column. The profuse hemorrhage was then found by the doctor not to be the result of the rupture of a hardened artery, but from the severing of an artery which filled the torn lung tissue with blood and sought egress, due to the pressure of the collapsing lung, through the mouth and nostrils.
The physical facts concerning the immediate scene of this murder show that a person ascending the steps from the first floor would reach the top step with their right side nearest to the short flight of steps leading to Ben Joy's room, and would be standing, when on the top step of the first flight, very near the right side of the curtains hanging across the entrance. Mrs. Joy was stabbed on the upper part of the right side of her chest, and the torn or pierced portion of the curtain, through which the defendant contended the weapon had passed, was on that side of the entrance. The difference in altitude between one standing on the platform behind the curtain and another on the top step would be...
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