State v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 20 May 1913
• Citation: 157 S.W. 313
• Parties: STATE v. WILSON.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

157 S.W. 313

STATE v. WILSON.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 20, 1913.

1. HOMICIDE (§ 308)—SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE—MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE.

On a trial for homicide, evidence as to whether accused laid in wait and shot deceased while he was unaware of her presence held to justify the submission of murder in the first degree.

2. HOMICIDE (§ 340)—APPEAL—HARMLESS ERROR.

The submission of murder in the first degree, if erroneous, was harmless where accused was convicted of murder in the second degree.

3. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 415)—EVIDENCE—DECLARATIONS OF DECEASED.

On the trial of a wife for murdering her husband, who had previously secured a divorce from her on the ground of her criminal intimacy with another man, the husband's declarations that he compelled her at the point of a pistol to sign a statement acknowledging such intimacy was incompetent; there being no such relation between the state and a murdered party as renders admissible his declarations when they are neither dying declarations nor a part of the res gestæ.

4. HOMICIDE (§§ 190, 191)—EVIDENCE—SELFDEFENSE —PREVIOUS THREATS OR VIOLENCE.

On a trial for homicide, involving the question of self-defense, the remoteness of threats or violence by deceased towards accused do not affect their competency as evidence, if in the exercise of a sound discretion the court can see that they would legitimately affect accused's apprehensions.

5. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 1170)—APPEAL—HARMLESS ERROR.

On the trial of a wife for murdering her husband, claimed by her to have been done in self-defense, where abundant evidence of violence by him towards her was admitted, including her statement that "he had always done that way," but the jury evidently believed that she armed herself and laid in wait for him and shot him when he was unaware of her presence, the exclusion of cumulative evidence as to such violence was harmless.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Butler County; J. C. Sheppard, Judge.

Mary E. Wilson was convicted of murder in the second degree, and she appeals. Affirmed.

Defendant was charged with murder in the first degree. The jury convicted her of murder in the second degree, but failed to agree on the punishment. The court sentenced her to ten years in the penitentiary, and she has appealed. She shot and killed her husband, Martin Wilson, in Poplar Bluff, on November 5, 1911. They were married in 1897 in Memphis, Tenn., and lived most of the time after that at Poplar Bluff. He had been for about ten years prior to his death a railway mail clerk, running out of Poplar Bluff a part of the time to Memphis, Tenn., and at other times to Helena, Ark. Defendant taught in the colored school at Poplar Bluff for three years, ending in May, 1910. On the trial numerous witnesses testified as to the good reputation of both of them for peace and quiet prior to their estrangement in the fall of 1910. There was only one child, a son, whose age is not given. In September, 1910, she and the son entered Lincoln Institute. While there, about November 23, 1910, she made a trip to Washington and New Haven, Mo. Following that trip, the husband accused her of infidelity and quit paying her bills. In January, 1911, she went from St. Louis to Poplar Bluff and there sued him for divorce and immediately returned to St. Louis. Later on she brought another divorce suit in St. Louis and dismissed the one in Butler county. On September 26, 1911, while visiting her mother in Arkansas, she was riding in a buggy with a "gentleman friend," and by some accident her leg was injured. She testified it was broken, but said the doctor did not say it was broken and did not set it. About a week after she went on crutches to St. Louis. The husband sued her in the Butler circuit court for divorce, charging infidelity, indignities, cruelty, and extravagance. That suit came on for trial October 19, 1911, and she made default, and a decree of divorce was rendered in his favor. About the last of October, 1911, defendant purchased a 38-caliber revolver in St. Louis, and on the night of November 4th she went on the train to Poplar Bluff, arriving there about 2 a. m. of Sunday, November 5th. She had the pistol with her in a handbag. She did not go to any house, but remained on the street until about 4:50 a. m. At that time she was in front of the residence of Grant Gleason on Oak street. She had the pistol in her hand. Her husband came in from his regular run on a train which arrived at 4:25 that morning, and he registered, according to custom, at the post office at 4:40 a. m. He was passing at 4:50 a. m. on the north side of Oak street, going west in front of the Gleason residence. There was a large tree about 18 inches in diameter standing near the Gleason house, just at the edge of the sidewalk, where there was no fence.

Grant Gleason and his wife testified that they were awake and that without any previous noises of any kind a shot was heard. Immediately some one on the outside seemed to be saying, "Oh, Mamma!" They went out and found Wilson lying on the sidewalk with his head to the west and his feet about three feet from the tree. He was saying, "Oh, Mary! Oh, Mary!" Defendant was apparently working over or about him. She backed some distance to the west. He jumped up and ran east. She fired again and ran after him, and later on fired the third shot. He fell a block or two away. She returned to the place of the shooting. The three witnesses of the Gleason household testified that about that time a woman's voice outside of the house said, "There is one more I want to get; they swore lies on me."

Wilson received only one wound, which passed through his right arm about four inches below the shoulder and directly through the lung, neither turning up nor down, nor to the right nor left. He died the following night.

Defendant testified that in May, June, and August, 1910, he choked and beat her. Being asked whether at any time prior to 1911 he had ever struck, beat, or choked her, she answered, "He has always done that." She testified: That she was selling hair oil and face lotions while at Lincoln Institute, and went to Washington and New Haven, Mo., for that purpose. That he ordered her to leave Lincoln Institute, and that in January, 1911, he compelled her at the point of a revolver to write a letter inculpating herself in connection with another man. The defendant then made the following offer of evidence: "By Mr. Lentz: We make the offer now to prove by this witness a continual line of abuse, mistreatment, and assaults, going back and covering a period; assaults by the deceased upon this witness, going back and covering a period of about 14 years before their final separation; and we propose further to show that during this—during this whole time of 14 years, that there was scarcely a month and sometimes several times a month in which the deceased cruelly beat, choked, and otherwise mistreated this defendant. We offer to prove that by this witness." To which the court sustained an objection, and the defendant excepted.

Several witnesses testified to brutal treatment of defendant by deceased. One witness stated that he twice found him beating her with a stick of stove wood, and on another occasion found him choking her. Without setting out that witness' testimony, we will say that there is much about it calculated to render it doubtful. There is evidence tending to show that his treatment of her at times was cruel and abusive. There was also evidence tending to show several threats made by him against her. The court records...