State v. Spence
| Decision Date | 24 July 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 657,657 |
| Citation | 155 S.E.2d 802,271 N.C. 23 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Joseph Eugene SPENCE, and Glennwood O'Neil Williams. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Atty. Gen. T. W. Bruton and Deputy Atty. Gen. Harry W. McGalliard for the State.
Jack W. Floyd, Greensboro, for Glenn O'Neil Williams, defendant appellant.
George W. Gordon, Greensboro, for Joseph Eugene Spence, defendant appellant.
The State's evidence tends to show the following facts: On 4 January 1966 defendant Spence visited the office of Dr. Jerome Rex Eatman in the city of Raleigh. At that time he had in his possession a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol with a stag horn type handle. The pistol contained six bullets, two of which had been fired. Dr. Eatman unloaded it, and placed it and the empty shells in his desk. This pistol was in his possession on the morning of 26 February 1966. About 2:30 in the afternoon of that day defendants Spence and Williams came into the office, and took the pistol and left. He turned the bullets over to Detective Larry Smith of the Raleigh Police Department on 1 March 1966.
About 6 p.m. on 26 February 1966 defendants Spence and Williams entered the men's department in W. T. Grant Company, Lakewood Shopping Center in Durham, and purchased therein certain articles of clothing, including pants, sweaters, and shirts. Mrs. Shirley Lorene Blaylock was employed as a supervisor in the store. She watched the defendants while they were there, because they were drinking and acting 'funny.' She saw defendant Williams had a pint bottle of vodka, and saw it fall out from under his shirt. The bottle did not fall all the way to the floor because Spence caught it just as it fell out. After putting on the new clothes they bought in the Grant's store in a rest room there, they entered a Broadway Yellow taxi in the parking center, and departed; Spence carried their old clothing in a bag furnished by the store.
The taxi stopped at a grill located on Old Highway $70 on the outskirts of Durham, and then the taxi proceeded westwardly to Greensboro and stopped at McCuiston's Gulf Service Station at the intersection of Asheboro and Gorrell Streets in Greensboro, arriving there about quarter to eight in the evening. At the service station the taxi driver and both defendants got out of the taxi. Cordice Goins, who is the service station attendant at McCuiston's Gulf Service Station, noticed that there were some holes in the windshield in the taxi in which the taxi driver and Spence and Williams were. After they left, Goins called the police department in Greensboro and reported that there was a Yellow Cab and a cab driver from Durham and two men in the cab and one of them had a gun. He thought they were holding him as a hostage. Defendant Spence asked for the key to the men's rest room, and the taxi driver and defendant Williams went inside the service station with the attendant who was on duty when defendant Spence returned from the rest room. He gave the key to the attendant and as soon as he had done so he left the service station to walk down Gorrell Street, leaving behind him the taxi driver and defendant Williams. After Spence departed from the service station, the taxi driver and defendant Williams remained at the service station for awhile, and then the taxi driver and defendant Williams in the taxi proceeded down Gorrell Street in the same direction which Spence had walked.
On 26 February 1966 Homer Diggs was a taxi driver for United Taxi Company in the city of Greensboro. Between 8:10 and 8:20 p.m. on 26 February 1966 he was in the vicinity of Martin and Gorrell Streets. He kept straight across Gorrell Street on Martin Street and just as he was passing the office he detected an out-of-town taxi sitting beside their office, somewhat down from the office on the right-hand side of the street. The taxicab was parked. Just as he approached the taxi, he detected three white males sitting in the cab. One white male was sitting on the front seat beside the driver, and the other was sitting behind the driver, directly behind the driver. The meter seemed to be in an earning position. There was a light on the meter with an 'R' on it. The next time he saw this cab was on the same night in the 800 block of Bellevue Street. There were a lot of Homicide Squad policemen and a lot of spectators around it, and the area was roped off when he arrived. This was pretty close to 10 p.m. The taxicab was yellow in color.
About 8:50 p.m. on 26 February 1966 Lilly Ann Thompson and Earline Gainey went to 830 Bellevue to get a hot plate. About four houses from 830 Bellevue Street they saw a yellow cab with a person in the driver's seat with his head lying up against the window. The motor was running, and the taxicab was parked. The windshield had several holes in it. They went home and told Earline's sister, Ola Gainey, that they had seen the taxicab with holes in the windshield. About 15 minutes later the taxicab was still there, and she went up to it. She looked in it and all the windows were up, and the man did not look around. She saw blood running out of his mouth. She called the police.
About 8:50 p.m. on 26 February 1966 Dr. Allen B. Coggeshall, a practicing physician in Greensboro, was called by the Greensboro Police Department, and informed that there was a dead man in a taxicab in the 800 block of Bellevue Street. When he arrived there was quite a large crowd there and numerous police on the scene. The door on the driver's side was opened so that he could get a better view. He saw in it a small brunette man with blood on his face and clothes, lying with the left side of his head over towards the door. A cursory examination showed that he had been shot in the right side of the head and that he was dead. He suggested that the body be removed to the morgue at the Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro, where it could be examined more carefully, and that was done. An examination at the morgue showed that he had two bullet holes in his head approximately the size of a .38 caliber pistol bullet. One wound was in the right side of the head with a bullet going down through the ear lobe right directly into the bone there, and the other wound on the top of his head admitted a .38 caliber bullet from the officer's belt as they held one in the right side. The bullet from the side appeared to be going directly transverse from this side over towards the left ear. The body was identified as that of Alton Artamous Maynard. He drove a Yellow taxicab in Durham.
A carolina Trailways bus left Greensboro about 9:35 p.m., and defendants Spence and Williams purchased tickets to Raleigh, and boarded the bus. They got off the bus in Burlington and the bus left without them.
Thomas Franklin on the night of 26 February 1966 had an old model Chevrolet, License No. B--5780, parked on Maple Avenue in Burlington. It was parked about 50 yards from the bus station. That night the car was stolen. About 3 a.m. on the same night the police department in Raleigh called his house. The next day he went to Raleigh and saw his automobile.
Defendants Spence and Williams were arrested at the Chic Chic Grill about 1 a.m. on 27 February 1966 by the Raleigh Police Department for the larceny of an automobile. Williams had in his possession about $156. in money and some change. The defendants were later turned over to Guilford County upon a capias for their arrest upon a charge of murdering Alton Artamous Maynard, the taxicab driver.
Elbert Spencer Smith, a man with a long criminal record, on 2 March 1966 was in the jail of Guilford County. On that day defendants Spence and Williams were put in the cell he was occupying. Only three of them were in the cell. Williams and Spence engaged in many conversations on the first night and every night afterwards. Williams talked freely the first night. Spence talked very little. On the night of 2 March 1966 Williams said in substance: They left the hospital about noon on 26 February 1966, went to a doctor's office, and stole a pistol that Spence had previously left with the doctor; that they left the doctor's office and stole a Comet automobile; they proceeded to a place north of Raleigh, and drove into a filling station. Williams got out of the automobile and went into the service station and robbed a man there of about $300. He held the pistol on this man and forced him to get in the car with Spence driving. A short distance up the road they pulled the car to the side of the road, and put the man out and told him to run, and as he ran, they fired two shots at him. They then decided to go to Durham. On the way to Durham they picked up a hitchhiker and rode into a small town. They let the hitchhiker out, and went into a store and bought cartridges for the pistol. Leaving there, they decided they had better get rid of the Comet, because the station attendant would possible by turning them in to the law, and the law would be looking for that automobile. Then he and Spence went to a shopping center in Durham, purchased clothes, and then they got into a taxicab at the shopping center and hired the driver to bring them to Greensboro. Shortly after he left Durham, Williams threw out a bag of clothing. Then during the ride he shot through the windshield several times. They proceeded on to Greensboro and stopped at a filling station. Something was said about going to a rest room at the service station, and someone appeared, and they got a little nervous about the situation because the attendant asked them something about the windshield being shot out, and then they left the station. From there they pulled onto a street and decided to kill the driver. As he was getting out of the left rear door in the taxi, he fired a shot into the head of the driver, and the driver fell against the left door into the door glass. He asked Williams if the man knew he was going to shoot him. Williams said he must have known it...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Sanders
...death penalty' in a case where such penalty might be inflicted pursuant to a verdict of guilty. State v. Atkinson, supra; State v. Spence, 271 N.C. 23, 155 S.E.2d 802, vacated 392 U.S. 649, 88 S.Ct. 2290, 20 L.Ed.2d 1350 (1968); State v. Bumpers (first hearing), 270 N.C. 521, 155 S.E.2d 173......
-
State v. Silhan
...vacated, 428 U.S. 903, 96 S.Ct. 3206, 49 L.Ed.2d 1208 (1976); State v. Cameron, 283 N.C. 191, 195 S.E.2d 481 (1973); State v. Spence, 271 N.C. 23, 155 S.E.2d 802 (1967), death sentence vacated, 392 U.S. 649, 88 S.Ct. 2290, 20 L.Ed.2d 1350, on remand, 274 N.C. 536, 164 S.E.2d 593 (1968). In ......
-
State v. Cooper, 89
......Benton, 276 N.C. 641, 174 S.E.2d 793; State v. Rogers, 275 N.C. 411, 168 S.E.2d 345, cert. den., 396 U.S. 1024, 90 S.Ct. 599, 24 L.Ed.2d 518; State v. Atkinson, 275 N.C. 288, 167 S.E.2d 241, reversed on death penalty only, 403 U.S. 948, 91 S.Ct. 2283, 29 L.Ed.2d 859; State v. Spence, 271 N.C. 23, 155 S.E.2d 802, reversed on another point, 392 U.S. 649, 88 S.Ct. 2290, 20 L.Ed.2d 1350; State v. Creech, 229 N.C. 662, 51 S.E.2d 348; State v. Swink, 229 N.C. 123, 47 S.E.2d 852. As Justice Branch, speaking for the Court, said in State v. Humphrey, supra, 'North Carolina, as well as ......
-
State v. Atkinson, 22
...... State v. Spence (first hearing), 271 N.C. 23, 155 S.E.2d 802; State v. Bumpers (first hearing), 270 N.C. 521, 155 S.E.2d 173; State v. Childs, 269 N.C. 307, 152 S.E.2d 453. See also State v. Peele, 274 N.C. 106, 161 S.E.2d 568. In State v. Vick, 132 N.C. 995, 43 S.E. 626, the Court quoted with approval the ......