State v. Tisdale

• Decision Date: 12 February 1962
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 48696,48696,1
• Citation: 353 S.W.2d 719
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Marjorie TISDALE, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 719

353 S.W.2d 719

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Marjorie TISDALE, Appellant.

No. 48696.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

Feb. 12, 1962.

Philip Eveloff, St. Joseph, for appellant.

Thomas F. Eagleton, Atty. Gen., James J. Murphy, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

COIL, Commissioner.

A jury convicted Marjorie Tisdale of murder in the second degree and fixed her punishment at ten years in the Department of Corrections. She has appealed.

The state made a submissible case by adducing evidence which tended to show these facts. Marjorie, 37, and her mother, 74, occupied the same house in St. Joseph. There was a gangway about three feet wide separating the north wall of their house and the south wall of the next house to the north. Mrs. Tisdale, the mother, was paralyzed on her right side and during the days usually occupied a divan close to a north window.

During the afternoon of August 19, 1960, some of the neighbors in the house to the north were playing cards at a kitchen table located about 12 feet from the Tisdale's north window. They heard Marjorie call her mother vile names and tell her to get up and walk. They heard the mother answer that she could not walk and ask Marjorie to let her alone and heard her cry and moan. They heard sounds as of one person slapping another. Those events covered a period of about 15 or 20 minutes. Shortly thereafter, they, as well as another neighbor, saw Marjorie throwing automobile parts, fenders and radiators which were on the Tisdale front porch, out onto the street so that it was partially blocked for automobile traffic. At that time, the dress she was wearing was covered with blood.

Police officers who arrived about 5:15 found Mrs. Tisdale, the mother, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, with bruises and marks on her body and both of her eyes black. They found that a large vase or lamp had been broken and, as they began to move her, a piece of glass fell from her hair onto the floor. About three feet from her was a brick with human blood and hair on it.

A pathologist who examined the body at 6:30 testified that Mrs. Tisdale had sustained a small contused laceration of the scalp, many large bruises on her face involving both eyes and extending over the area of both cheeks, hemorrhages of the thin membrane over the eyes, many small lacerations of the chin, small cuts on the face, a small cut on the upper lip, a laceration of the right ear and one of the nose, small bruises and lacerations on the neck, bruises of various sizes over the surface of her chest, a bruise on each shoulder, a small bruise on the right mammary gland, large bruises on both forearms and hands, and a recent abrasion on each hand. There were extensive hemorrhages beneath the scalp. The second cervical vertebra had been...