State v. McQuinn, 41984

• Decision Date: 08 January 1951
• Docket Number: No. 41984,No. 2,41984,2
• Citation: 361 Mo. 631,235 S.W.2d 396
• Parties: STATE v. McQUINN
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 396

235 S.W.2d 396

361 Mo. 631

STATE v. McQUINN.

No. 41984.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

Jan. 8, 1951.

Ellis Beavers, Joe Beavers, Grant City, for appellant.

J. E. Taylor, Atty. Gen., E. L. Redman, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

LEEDY, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction of murder in the second degree; punishment, a term of 15 years in the penitentiary. The appeal presents the single question of whether the court erred in admitting the written confessions of defendant.

Mary Hammer, the deceased, a spinster, was 82 years of age at the time of her death. She was a recluse, living alone in her dilapidated farm home in an isolated neighborhood of Gentry County, amid surroundings amounting to squalor. She was crippled, being unable to walk without the aid of a crutch and cane. Her dead body, stiffly frozen, was discovered Saturday afternoon, January 22, 1949, in the barn located about a hundred yards north of her home.

In substance, the state's theory of the homicide was that appellant (sometimes hereinafter referred to as defendant) and Harold (Hoover) Emrich, both of whom lived at Stanberry, some 7 miles north of Mary's farm, pursuant to an understanding between themselves to rob Mary, proceeded to her home, and there, sometime between the late afternoon of January 18 and the afternoon of January 22, struck her over the head and upon the body with her own crutch, rendering her unconscious, and while she was in such state they carried her from the house and placed her in the barn and left her there in frigid, subzero weather, without a crutch, cane 'or other means of motivation,' and thereby caused and permitted her to freeze to death.

Defendant's complaint is that there was no proof of the corpus delicti independent of the confessions, and that 'before these confessions were admissible other evidence in the case must reveal circumstances which not only correspond with the circumstances related in the confessions, but also such circumstances as tended to prove that someone murdered Mary Hammer.' In murder, the corpus delicti consists of two elements: (1) The death of the person alleged to have been murdered, and (2) the criminal agency of someone other than deceased causing the death. State v. Lyle, 353 Mo. 386, 390, 182 S.W.2d 530, 532; State v. Payne, 331 Mo. 996, 1003, 56 S.W.2d 116, 118; State v. Meidle, Mo.Sup., 202 S.W.2d 79, 80. It is undoubtely the rule that confessions of a crime not made in open court or before a committing magistrate and without proof aliunde that a crime has been committed will not sustain a conviction. However, it is equally well established that full proof of the corpus delicti independent of the defendant's extrajudicial confessions is not required. State v. Kauffman, 329 Mo. 813, 46 S.W.2d 843; State v. Skibiski, 245 Mo. 459, 150 S.W. 1038; State v. McGuire, 327 Mo. 1176, 39 S.W.2d 523. As said in State v. Thompson, 333 Mo. 1069, 1080, 64 S.W.2d 277, 282, 'On the contrary, what seemed to be only slight corroborating facts have been held sufficient. State v. McGuire, 327 Mo. 1176, 39 S.W.2d 523.'

The Skibiski case, supra (which is a leading case), after declaring that full proof of the corpus delicti independent of the confession is not required, continues thus, 150 S.W. loc cit 1039: 'If there is evidence of corroborating circumstances which tend to prove the corpus delicti and correspond with circumstances related in the confession, both the circumstances stances and the confession may be considered in determining whether the corpus delicti is sufficiently proved in a given case. (Citing cases.)' And in State v. Morro, 313 Mo. 98, 108, 281 S.W. 720, 722, the rule was put this way: 'If there is evidence of corroborating circumstances which tends to prove the crime and corresponds with circumstances related in his confession, both the circumstances and the confession may be considered in determining whether the corpus delicti is sufficiently proved. If a confession is made which enables the state to discover corroborating evidence of the particular crime confessed, the corroborating evidence need not be sufficient, independent of the confession, to establish complete proof that the crime is committed. (Citing cases.)'

Here the fact of Mary's death and the finding of her body are undisputed, so no question arises as to proof of that element of the corpus delicti. We pass then to a consideration of the showing as to the second element, that of the criminal agency of someone in causing such death. This involves an examination of the substance of the confessions and the proof of the circumstances independent of the confessions, which the state insists correspond with the circumstances related in the confessions. The confessions are fairly summarized in the state's brief, as follows:

Appellant was 34 years of age and lived with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence McQuinn at Stanberry, Missouri. He had been keeping company with Elsie Emrich for the past four years and had told Elsie Emrich and had discussed with Hoover Emrich (Elsie's son) the fact that there was quite a lot of money at the Mary Hammer home; he and Hoover had talked about it. They usually did their planning at the B & C Cafe at Stanberry. On the Thursday before January 22nd, appellant and Hoover Emrich walked to Mary Hammer's place to try to get some money; they walked down the Island City Road to the Willie Russel place, sometimes called the Clem O'Neal place, and turned and walked east on the dirt road. They followed the dirt road and then turned south on the dirt road that runs north and south at the Mary Hammer farm. They planned on the way down that Hoover would go to the door first and knock on the door, then when the old lady came to the door they would both force their way in; they knocked on her door; when the old lady came to the door...