State v. St.On
| Decision Date | 14 December 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. 654.,654. |
| Citation | 56 S.E.2d 649,231 N.C. 301 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE. v. STREETON. |
Charles Gonzaga Streeton was convicted in the Superior Court of Guilford County, George B. Patton, Special Judge, of murder in the first degree and he appealed.
The Supreme Court, Ervin, J, held that instruction correctly stated the law that homicide committed while undertaking by force or violence to kidnap another or hold him for ransom constitutes murder in the first degree and, finding no error, the Supreme Court upheld the trial and judgment.
The prisoner was indicted for the murder of Carl Davis. The testimony for the State disclosed the matters set forth below.
The deceased, Carl Davis, was the crippled son of McKinley Davis, a coal and ice dealer in High Point. He and the prisoner, Charles Gonzaga Streeton, had married sisters. In March, 1949, however, Carl Davis and his wife were separated. He was then residing in the household of his parents in High Point.
At 7 o'clock P.M. on Monday, March 14, 1949, Streeton borrowed a 38 caliber pistol and five cartridges of like diameter from the State's witness, Lloyd Portee, for the avowed purpose of protecting himself during a proposed trip to the Virginia mountains. On the following day, i. e, at 5:00 o'clock P.M. on Tuesday, March 15, 1949, Streeton returned the pistol and four 38-caliber cartridges to Portee. The evidence does not reveal whether the pistol had been freshly fired or cleaned when Streeton delivered it to Portee.
Meanwhile, the events depicted in the next four paragraphs transpired.
Witnesses for the State saw a gray Mercury Sedan owned by Carl Davis and a green Studebaker car belonging to Streeton standing beside the College Grill, a cafe near the eastern edge of High Point, from 8:00 P.M. until 9:30 P.M. on Monday, March 14, 1949. Carl Davis and Streeton spent this time in the Mercury automobile, talking, eating and drinking beer together. This was the last time that Carl Davis was seen alive by any of the witnesses. The evidence does not indicate directly how or when the prisoner, or the deceased, or the motor cars left this spot.
At 10:30 P.M. on the same night, a taxi driver named Roy Hunt picked up a fare in the neighborhood in which the Mercury car was afterwards found, and transported him to a place near the College Grill, where he alighted and proceeded on foot towards the College Grill. Hunt did not identify his passenger as the prisoner, but he described his size and clothing. The description tallied with that of Streeton as given by other witnesses who saw him earlier in the evening.
Shortly after midnight, John H. McAdoo, Jr., a policeman of Greensboro, saw Streeton near the telephone booths in the Union Bus Terminal at Greensboro, and noted that Streeton was observing him "very carefully." About this time, to-wit, at 12:20 A.M. on Tuesday, March 15, 1949, Mrs. Rosa Tillman, a telephone operator on duty in Greensboro, took a long distance call, which originated in a booth at the Union Bus Station in Greensboro, for the phone in the residence of the parents of the deceased in High Point. According to McKinley Davis, his telephone rang "around 12:30 or 12:35" A.M. on Tuesday, March 15, 1949, and it was answered by his wife, who had an undisclosed conversation with some person not identified.
In consequence of this conversation, Mr. and Mrs. McKinley Davis went forthwith to the police station in High Point, where they reported the disappearance of Carl Davis and the phone conversation to the police, who cautioned them to keep these matters secret until the mystery surrounding the vanishing of their son should be solved. Pursuant to this admonition, Mr. and Mrs. McKinley Davis withheld these matters from the press and public. Immediately after their visit to the police station, the empty Mercury Sedan of the deceased was discovered by policemen in a vacant lot "in the 1500 block of North Main Street" in High Point.
At 8:45 P.M. on Tuesday, March 16, 1949, the telephone in the Davis home rang again. It was answered by McKinley Davis, who had an undisclosed colloquy with some man whose voice he could not identify. He had "never talked to Charles Streeton on the phone." McKinley Davis immediately reported the phone conversation to his son-in-law, Wilber J. Alexander, who was present and who forthwith dashed onto the front lawn, where he found a handkerchief "with a rock and a note tied up in it." The note was as follows: The note was pencilled in printed capitals.
Assisted by police officers, McKinley Davis proceeded without delay to a point on the High Point-Jamestown Highway near the Maryfield Convalescent Home, where he put a paper-filled money bag in a mail box lettered "Highway Cafe." This box was shadowed by heavy shrubbery, stood in front of what was then a vacant house, and was located "about five or six city blocks" from the place where the prisoner resided.
At 11:15 P.M. on the same night, Streeton drove to the "Highway Cafe" mail box in his Studebaker car, alighted, and opened the mail box with his right hand, which was infolded in a white cloth. He was thereupon arrested by police officers, who had been hiding nearby and who conveyed him to the police station in High Point.
According to W. T. Highfill, a policeman, this colloquy took place between him and Streeton as soon as they reached the police station:
At 8:00 P.M. on Wednesday, March 16, 1949, Streeton made a statement "with reference to the location of the body of the deceased, Carl Davis". In consequence thereof, the corpse of Carl Davis was found under a bridge which spanned a small watercourse in an isolated spot on the campus of High Point College. An autopsy revealed that death had resulted from a 38-caliber bullet, which entered the back of the deceased and left powder burns on both the clothing and the flesh at the point of entrance. The physicians, who performed the autopsy, expressed no opinions as to the time of occurrence of death, and no effort was made to show that the bullet, which was recovered, had been fired from the pistol which Portee had loaned Streeton.
On Friday, March 18,. 1949, Streeton's wife visited the jail and asked him this question in the presence of certain of the State's witnesses: "Why did you kill Carl?" He replied: "You know how bad we needed money." Sometime later on the same occasion Streeton told his wife in the presence of the same witnesses that "he killed Carl because Carl had made a slighting remark" about her.
The only evidence offered in behalf of the prisoner was medical testimony indicating that he had been afflicted by mental instability for some years.
The trial judge instructed the jury that it could return any one of five different verdicts, to-wit: (1) Guilty of murder in the first degree; (2) guilty of murder in the first degree with recommendation that the punishment be imprisonment for life in the State's prison; (3) guilty of murder in the second degree; (4) guilty of manslaughter; and (5) not guilty.
The jury found the prisoner guilty of murder in the first degree and recommended that his punishment be imprisonment for life in the State's prison in conformity to G.S. § 14-17 as rewritten by chapter 299 of the 1949 Session Laws, and the court entered judgment accordingly. The prisoner excepted and appealed, assigning as error the receipt of certain testimony and specified excerpts from the charge.
Harry McMullan,. Atty. Gen., and T. W. Bruton, Asst. Atty. Gen, for the State.
C. A. York, Sr., and C. A. York, Jr., High Point, for the prisoner, appellant.
The prisoner reserved exceptions to various parts of the charge in which the trial judge instructed the petit jury in specific detail that it would return a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree in the event it found beyond a reasonable doubt from the testimony that the prisoner undertook by force or violence to kidnap the deceased or to hold him for ransom and thereby unintentionally caused his death. It is manifest that the facts and circumstances adduced by the State at the trial were sufficient to warrant a finding that the deceased met death in the manner indicated in these instructions. Hence, the exceptions now under a review raise the question as to...
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