State v. Reed

• Decision Date: 07 May 1901
• Citation: 62 S.W. 982,162 Mo. 312
• Parties: STATE v. REED.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

62 S.W. 982

162 Mo. 312

STATE v. REED.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 7, 1901.

MURDER—INSTRUCTIONS—GRAND JURY— CHALLENGE TO ARRAY.

1. Where accused, after making threats to kill his wife, with whom he was not living, induced her to meet him, by some deception, and shot her, and thereafter admitted the killing, a refusal to instruct on murder in the second degree was not error.

2. A challenge to the grand jury on the ground that it was not legally constituted is properly overruled; it not being one of the grounds mentioned for challenge to the array, under Rev. St. 1899, § 2487.

Appeal from circuit court, Jasper county; Joseph D. Perkins, Judge.

Ernest Reed was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

Harris & McCawley, for appellant. Edward C. Crow, Atty. Gen., and Sam B. Jeffries, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

SHERWOOD, P. J.

Ernest Reed, a negro, was convicted of murder in the first degree, by shooting his wife, Amanda, with a revolver, once through the thigh, and twice through the back, as she endeavored to escape from him, from which wounds she died the next day. The parties had not been living together for some time; the wife staying at Wyatt's, and working there, to which place defendant would occasionally resort, in order to get the woman's wages, as fast as they accrued each week. He did this in order to gamble on the money. For a while she gave him some money, but after that she ceased to do so, and he threatened to kill her unless she did. He also threatened to take her life if she did not live with him. He took dinner at Wyatt's on Sunday, when he repeated that threat, and on the Tuesday next following he carried that threat into execution. It is in evidence that, some time in the afternoon of the day of the shooting, defendant sent his brother to Wyatt's to get Amanda to meet him at the Frisco Depot. By some deception practiced upon her, Amanda was induced to comply with defendant's request, who, on his part, went to the rendezvous armed with a pistol which he obtained from French's, and used it in accordance with his previous threats. Amanda, fully conscious of impending death, and a little while before it occurred, made and signed this ante mortem statement: "My name is Amanda Gertrude Reed. I am the wife of Ernest Reed. I met Ernest at the depot, and he said, `Let's go to Mrs. Coker's and meet them.' When we got by the hide house on the railroad he began to accuse me of being thick with Mr. Sims, who works at the brickyard. He said I wouldn't go to church or go uptown with him, that I was ashamed to be seen with him, and that he had to tell a lie to get me away from the house where I am now. I began to cry, and he held firmer to me, and took out his revolver and shot me in the right leg, and I fell to my knees; and then I then got away and started to run, and he shot again and missed me, and he then shot me twice more in the back. His brother Ben Reed induced me to go to the depot before I was shot by telling me his brother Bud Reed and his cousin Annie Wharton were there, about to go away, and wanted to see me. I make this statement in the knowledge that my death is certain and near, and that I have but a short time to live. Mrs. Amanda Reed." Signed in pencil, and the following words in pencil: "This is my testimony. He shot me on purpose." Just after the shooting, defendant encountered Emerson, and, after some inquiries, said: "I have got one of them. I will get the other." Being pressed for his meaning, he said he had shot his wife down by the depot. Then he asked witness to loan him half a dollar to get out of town, and, failing to obtain the loan, said he would get out some way; that he had to get out of town. When, shortly after this, defendant was arrested by Hurst and Campbell, policemen, he said to the former, in reply to why he had done the act in question, "he had...