State v. Stewart, 45605.

• Citation: 231 Iowa 585,1 N.W.2d 626
• Decision Date: 13 January 1942
• Docket Number: No. 45605.,45605.
• Parties: STATE v. STEWART.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

231 Iowa 585
1 N.W.2d 626

STATE
v.
STEWART.

No. 45605.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 13, 1942.

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; Frank S. Shankland, Judge.

From a conviction on indictment under section 12964, Code of 1939, for putting out high explosives with intent to destroy or injure a dwelling house, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Charles H. Lynch, of Des Moines, for appellant.

John M. Rankin, Atty. Gen., Jens Grothe, Asst. Atty. Gen., Francis J. Kuble, Co. Atty., of Des Moines, for appellee.

HALE, Justice.

The defendant in this case, Dale Stewart, is claimed by the State to have violated section 12964 of the 1939 Code, on June 16, 1940, by placing dynamite in the gas heater attached to the furnace in the home of Harvey Wolfkill and his wife Irene Wolfkill, with intent to injure or destroy such dwelling. Defendant entered plea of not guilty, and was convicted and sentenced, and he appeals.

Section 12964 of the Code of 1939, provides punishment for any person, who with intent to destroy or injure any inhabited dwelling house, deposits or throws

[1 N.W.2d 627]

therein or thereunder, or elsewhere about the same, where its explosion will or is likely to destroy or injure the same, any dynamite, nitroglycerin, or giant powder, or other explosive material.

The defendant, who was divorced, roomed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wolfkill, in Des Moines. He had known Mrs. Wolfkill five or six years and her husband about a year. On the evening of Sunday, June 16, 1940, Wolfkill went to the basement of his house, lighted the gas in the hot water heater, came upstairs, and, about five minutes after lighting the heater, was seated with his wife on the front porch, when the heater exploded, destroying the heater and doing considerable damage to windows, pipes, and the furnace, and some injury to the floor above. The defendant at this time had gone on an errand to a nearby store. The heater, about twenty inches high, is described as two enclosed sets of copper coils, one inside the other, with little space between the two sets, and with the burner lower than the coils. The whole heater is approximately seven or eight inches in diameter. The dynamite stick alleged to have been placed in the heater was about eight inches long, and was stated by one witness to be three-eighths of an inch in diameter, by another about one and one-quarter inches, with an explosive cap in the middle of the stick, and to be placed in the coils might have to be bent. There was evidence that the defendant procured from one Greenland three or four sticks of the explosive, but defendant, while admitting getting dynamite from him, denied getting more than two sticks. There is testimony of Lowe, who states that after defendant's arrest and at his request the witness cleaned out defendant's locker at the place he worked, the Fitch company factory, and found with the clothing therein a stick of dynamite and a cap and fuse. The defendant admitted in evidence that this was his dynamite in the locker. There is nothing in the record showing that he used explosives in his work or for any purpose. The...