State v. Kuhn

• Decision Date: 28 May 1902
• Citation: 90 N.W. 733,117 Iowa 216
• Parties: STATE OF IOWA v. SARAH KUHN, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

90 N.W. 733

117 Iowa 216

STATE OF IOWA v. SARAH KUHN, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

May 28, 1902

Appeal from Keokuk District Court.--HON. W. G. CLEMENTS, Judge.

DEFENDANT was accused and convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree. In substance, the indictment charges that she willfully administered strychnine poison to her husband Charles Kuhn, from the effects of which he died on the 4th day of September of the year 1900. From a judgment of life imprisonment in the penitentiary, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

C. H Mackey, D. W. Hamilton, and C. W. Brown for appellant.

Chas W. Mullan, Attorney General, Chas. A. Van Vleck, Assistant Attorney General and B. W. Preston for the State.

WATERMAN J. WEAVER, J. (dissenting).

OPINION

WATERMAN, J.

One contention of appellant, and perhaps the principal one, is that the evidence does not justify the verdict. As a knowledge of the facts is necessary to an understanding of the other matters presented, we shall in the outset give the case as we find it in the record.

Defendant and Charles Kuhn were married on the 30th day of May of the year of his death. She was 19 years of age; he was 24 years her senior, and permanently crippled in one arm and hand and in both legs. He was a shoemaker, living and pursuing his avocation in the town of Delta. They had been acquainted for about a year previous to their marriage, but the testimony of defendant does not disclose that this acquaintanceship was at all intimate, for, though pressed upon the point by counsel for the state, she tells of but few, if any, acts of courtship on his part. However, they were married. That it was a loveless union, the bonds of which rested heavily upon her, is sufficiently shown by defendant's own testimony. After marriage they took up their residence in Delta. The evidence discloses no event of their married life of any significance until about the 1st of August, when husband and wife appeared in an attorney's office in Sigourney, where he procured to be drawn, and there executed, a will giving to her all of his property. This will was read aloud in defendant's presence. In order that what follows shall be fully understood, it may be here said, that Charles Kuln, in addition to his other physical disabilities, was impotent, but from what cause is not disclosed. On the 6th day of August defendant had, as testified to by a neighbor, an interview of much meaning with a young man named Andrew Smith. That its full import may appear, and the veracity of this witness be supported,--for she is contradicted by defendant as to some parts of the conversation,--it is necessary to digress, and gather from the record what we can as to defendant's relations with Smith prior to her marriage. That these were somewhat intimate is shown by Smith's father, who testifies that his son "kept company" with her. They were employed together in a railway camp at one time for some three months. The precise location of this camp defendant does not give, but it seems from what she says to have been somewhere in the vicinity of Ames, in this state. When defendant left her home at or near What Cheer to go there, it was in a buggy alone with Smith, and to get a train, which she well might have taken on a direct line to Ames at What Cheer. They made a long and mysterious drive. We say "mysterious" because defendant is loath, when questioned, as she was, to tell anything of it. She was apparently unwilling to say where they went, or how far, but it appears they drove at least to the Iowa Central Railway, which is some 20 miles from What Cheer. That this was not to obtain free transportation on that line is clear, for defendant says she purchased a ticket. These facts, with those we are now to relate, evidence quite a close intimacy between these parties before her marriage. Returning now to the interview: Defendant and Smith were in the barn of the latter's father. She was crying, and said, "Oh Andy, I can't live with him any longer. There had [has] to be something done." He said: "You mustn't talk that way. You are worrying about me, but I will take care of myself." She then said she had tried to get him to divide his property, but he would not do it. The fact of this meeting, and that defendant was crying, is testified to also by another witness. That her husband was the third person referred to is practically admitted by defendant in her statement of what took place on this occasion. Defendant admits this interview, but denies the statements attributed to her, and says: "I complained of a pain in my stomach, and said I couldn't stand it any longer. I wished him to talk to Charley [her husband], and get him to get me some medicine. That was the only time Charley Kuhn ever refused to get me anything. " There are three defects in defendant's version of this conversation: First. It does not appear the pain she suffered was a sudden paroxysm. It had been of some duration, for she had spoken to her husband about it; yet she admits it had not interfered with her ordinary duties, for she says she had been making a dress for a neighbor, and was on her way home from delivering it, when she met Smith, and, as she stated, broke down in his presence under her physical ailment, and gave utterance to the despairing exclamation we have mentioned. Second. She gives no reason why she sought this young man out to act as intercessor with her husband, and to be the confidant of her marital woes; and there is no reason, unless it be there was that feeling in her heart for him, which, if she were an honest woman, would have been forever obliterated when she spoke her marriage vows. Third. What she says of her husband's conduct illy accords with her testimony at the inquest held upon his body, when she said there was no trouble between them. "We were happy and contented," was her statement. Defendant, near this time, was seen to have other meetings with Smith, but their conversation is not disclosed. Kuhn's death occurred on a Tuesday. On the Saturday next preceding there was trouble between defendant and her husband, which she tells of in this way: "On that night I wanted him to answer me one question. * * * I asked him this: 'What made you marry any woman when you knew you could not do family duties? And he would not answer me. I sat there and waited, and then I said: 'Charley, are you going to answer me? Will you please answer me? Will you please give me some reason why you cannot answer?' He got up, and went to the door, and said, 'This will never do.' He started out of the door, and went toward the barn, and fetched Hiram Smith over. I called three times when he would not answer me; and again I said, 'I feel like going right away, and going and staying with my sister, if you cannot answer me.' * * * He did not answer me, and then fetched Hiram Smith over, and told him to talk to me. He talked to me. He wanted to know what the fuss was over. He was told what the trouble was." We have no means of knowing just the character of this difficulty except from the wife's statement; but, taking that we must conclude it was graver in its nature, though identical in language with what she admits. She was complaining of a great wrong he had done her, but, according to her story, wanted no reparation, no satisfaction, but only his reason for doing it. What reason could this man give for marrying her when he was unable to make her really his wife, that would have been any solace to her wounded feelings, or any gratification of the passion so admittedly felt? There was some cause, which she does not give, that induced the husband to call in the aid of a neighbor.

This was the situation on the eve of the tragedy, and it discloses beyond question a motive on the wife's part for the taking of her husband's life. There was the motive of gain through his will, and also of release from marriage ties, which, if ever sacred, had become burdensome to her. We now reach the events immediately surrounding Kuhn's death. On the evening of September 4th husband and wife started for the town of What Cheer, some seven miles distant from Delta. They went for a drive, and, as the wife knew, to get some beer. They were in a top buggy, drawn by a single horse. When they reached a certain street in What Cheer defendant alighted, and remained upon the walk while her husband went something more than a block distant to a saloon, and purchased a dozen bottles of beer. These bottles were securely corked and wired, and they were placed in the back of the buggy. The husband then returned, took his wife in, and they started for home. After getting well out of the town, Kuhn said he wanted some bologna sausage, turned his horse, and went back to get it. Before the coroner's jury defendant testified that they drove to a butcher's, and she sat in the buggy and held the horse, while her husband went in and made the purchase. On the trial she changed this, and said that her husband did not want her to stay in the buggy, as there were many strange men on the street, so he took her to the railway depot, which is on the same street, and but a short distance from the butcher's place. There she waited some 25 minutes, and when he came back with the bologna sausage she took her place beside him, and they again started to return home. This discrepancy in her evidence throws some incidental light upon the tragedy. Her present statement evinces a singular precaution on her husband's part, for he had left her wholly alone on the street a short time before when he went to get the beer; and then, to protect her from strange men, left her alone at the depot in the heart of the town, when, if she had remained in the buggy, she would have been within his sight and protection during the whole...