State v. Parker

• Decision Date: 30 April 1930
• Docket Number: 427.
• Citation: 152 S.E. 890,198 N.C. 629
• Parties: STATE v. PARKER.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

152 S.E. 890

198 N.C. 629

STATE v. PARKER.

No. 427.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

April 30, 1930

Appeal from Superior Court, Anson County; Walter E. Moore, Judge.

Lonnie Parker was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.

No error.

Where evidence showed that defendant was aggressor and killed wife with razor, offense was at least manslaughter, and instruction so stating was not prejudicial.

The prisoner was indicted for the murder of his wife, Laura Parker, and was convicted of murder in the first degree. From the sentence of death he appealed, assigning error.

Testifying in his own behalf, he gave the following account of the homicide: ""I am 20 years old, was born in Union County, and have been living in Anson County 12 years. Have been married about four years. Have no children. Lived on place called Coit Jarman place. Mr. Paul Teal employed me. Tom Tink Leak had charge of the farm. My wife, Laura Parker and myself lived in a house to ourselves, about 200 yards from where Tom Tink Leak lived. We moved there about a month before crop time. Did not have any trouble when we first moved out there, but about two weeks before her death she had a warrant sworn out for me for hitting her. I was tried before Mr. Gray, and Mr. Waddell paid my fine and costs. I did not go back to live with my wife after the trial, but went to work for Mr. Waddell to work out my fine and costs. Saw Laura in town on Saturday after the trial. We were on friendly terms. Did not see her any more until day she died. I was staying with my mother at night. After seeing Laura in town on Saturday night after the trial I went out in the neighborhood where she was staying, but did not see her. I went to Frank Lomax house and asked him if he had seen my wife, and if she was at his house. Did not say anything else to him about my wife. On Friday, October 18th, I was at church and saw Laura's brother there. He told me that Tom Tink Leak wanted to see me. On Thursday night I stayed at Ed Horne's house, getting there about ten o'clock. I slept with one of his boys. I had stayed there on Monday night before. Ed lives a little over a mile from where I had lived. On Friday morning Ed told me he would get my wife to pick cotton and I could talk to her. I told him I did not want to see her. We went to pick cotton, then came back to Ed's and then went to Monroe Leak's to pick cotton. I left Monroe's about 11 o'clock and went over to big road and on down road to my house. I was going to see Tom Tink Leak and find out what he wanted. I went to my house and nobody was there. I had promised my sister who had been washing for me a dress, and I got one of my wife's old dresses out of the house and was going to take it to my sister. Cliff Sullivan lives about two hundred yards from my house. I went on down the road carrying the dress, and went into Cliff's house and got his razor. There was nobody there when I got the razor. I knew where he kept it. I got the razor so if Tom Tink run on me I would have something. I then went on down the big road, and started to Mr. George Little's quarters, but I turned back and cut through and come back to the road which leads by Tom Tink Leak's house and by my house. After I turned back I tied the dress in front of me like a apron, and as I passed along the road I saw my wife, Laura and some children in front of the Pearson house. This house sets back from the road. I waved my hand to them and Laura come across the field and got close to me and stopped and said: 'I didn't know who it was.' We walked on down the road toward the clay hole and talked a good while. I was not mad at her. We was talking about her taking out the warrant for me. After awhile she said she would go back, and she told me she didn't want me any more; that she had another man who would take care of her-- she was talking about Tink. She started to leave and as she did I started to slap her, and we got to scuffling. She had a knife in her hand. In the scuffle we both fell down in the road near the clay hole. In the scuffle my razor fell out of my pocket. She was trying to cut me all the time with her knife. We were both lying on the ground and I reached around and picked up the razor, and cut her. She was cutting at me and I cut her before I knowed what I was doing. I did not mean to kill her. After I cut her I took the knife from her and threw it over in the field on the side of the road. I left her lying on the ground and started off down the road and I looked back and she was getting up. I saw her fall again and I went back to where she was and she was dead. I was so scared I hardly knew what I done. I took her and carried her down the road and turned off the road into the field. I don't remember dragging her. I don't remember putting her in a branch nor taking off her clothes nor putting any poles on her. I then went to my mother's house, about five or six miles away. I went past Ed Horne's house, but did not talk to Ed's wife or any other person. Did not tell Mary Fanny Horne that I had on my wife's shoes and that blood hounds couldn't track me. When I cut her she was still trying to cut me. My thumb was cut while we were in the tussle. Never had talk with Willie McCuller he told about on stand; he was wanting to go with my wife and wanting me to go with his sister. Ed Horne's wife did not go with me, and I did not tell Mr. Tice that I had taken Ed Horne's wife, and I don't remember telling Mr. Tice about cutting my thumb on mowing blade. My wife's hand was cut in the tussle with the razor."

There was evidence tending to show that the deceased had indicted the prisoner for an assault; that for ten days prior to the homicide they had not lived together; together; that her death occurred on Friday, October 18, 1929; that on the preceding Monday he had requested one of the witnesses to take her "in the dark somewhere and that would be the end of her"; that he had said on another occasion that "she didn't treat him right and he was going to fix her"; that he told the wife of one of the witnesses "that he had killed Laura and put her away, and they would never find her," and asked that she would not tell any one she had seen him, because no one had seen him that day except her and Laura; that, after arresting the prisoner a deputy sheriff and others examined the premises near the place where the prisoner and his wife had formerly lived that they found blood in the road near a clay hole a short distance from the home in which the prisoner had lived; that about fifty yards from the clay hole the officer found blood stains on rocks and bushes; that seventy-five yards away were indications that something had been dragged down the hill from the direction of the clay hole to the woods; that the next morning the naked body of the deceased was found in a pool of water, face down, with logs holding it down so that it was entirely submerged; that her throat was cut and her head almost severed from...