Thompson v. State
| Decision Date | 20 October 1915 |
| Docket Number | (No. 3718.) |
| Parties | THOMPSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Freestone County; A. M. Blackmon, Judge.
Floyd Thompson was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Homer L. Baughman, of Ft. Worth, for appellant. C. C. McDonald, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was convicted of murder, and the death penalty assessed. It is unnecessary to give but a brief statement of what the evidence, with certainty, establishes.
Appellant was a young negro man just about grown. He made his home with his father, who was a farmer and lived on a farm several miles in a southeastern direction from Fairfield, the county seat of Freestone county. Appellant seemed to have no special business, had no crop to work, or at least did not work any of his own. He seemed to have worked around in the neighborhood, hunted a good deal, and loitered around generally. Deceased, J. I. Casey, lived at Fairfield. Some time before the killing he and appellant swapped horses, whereby appellant became indebted to deceased for $55, and to secure it gave deceased a mortgage on the horse he at that time got from deceased and other property, including a crop which he claimed he was to raise during 1914. Just before the killing, which occurred on Sunday May 24, 1914, Casey ascertained appellant had no crop and was not working any that belonged to him. He thereupon on said date rode horseback down to see appellant, and did see him. He did not find him at his father's, but at another place a few miles from his father's. The evidence clearly justified the jury to believe that Casey, a few days before, had endeavored to get appellant to deliver said horse to him in satisfaction of the debt, which appellant refused outright to do. When Casey found him on that Sunday morning, he induced him to agree to surrender the horse to Casey in satisfaction of his debt and mortgage. The horse at the time was either at appellant's father's home in the pasture or in another pasture at or adjoining his father's. When appellant and Casey separated, Casey was horseback, and had to ride around circuitous roads several miles to reach appellant's father's, which he did, to get the horse. Appellant, however, being afoot, could cut across the fields and country, and did do so, and reach where the horse was, traveling not so far, which he did. At the house where he stayed the night before, where Casey found him, he had with him a big six-shooter. Between there and his father's he had left at a neighbor's a shotgun. In going to where the horse was he took this six-shooter along with him, and also went by and got his shotgun, and took that too. When Casey reached his father's to get the horse, he found his father and his father's wife at the house, told them his mission, and his father went with him in search of the horse wholly unarmed. The testimony clearly justified the jury to believe that appellant, knowing Casey would hunt for the horse in his father's premises, would not find him there, but would find him in a pasture of another near by, secreted himself in an old, abandoned, vacant house, and, when Casey got in shooting distance of him, fired upon and killed him without Casey knowing he was there or intended any such act. Casey was on his horse when he was shot. Appellant shot at him twice at the time in quick succession. Casey's horse ran some distance when Casey was shot before he fell from the horse. The testimony also clearly authorized the jury to believe and find that, when Casey fell off his horse dead, appellant in a few minutes went up to where his body was and fired two other shots with a shotgun in Casey's body, thereby shooting off practically the whole of his face and all of his teeth out, and, as some of the witnesses said, nearly shooting his head off. He then carried the body across a fence into a pasture where there was a considerable pool of water. He tied a rope around the neck of deceased and around the horn of the saddle on the horse of deceased, and dragged the body some distance to this pool of water, and then dumped the body into the pool, where the body sank out of sight. He then hid both his pistol and shotgun in the woods near where the killing occurred, where they were both found by the state's witnesses and officers, identified and introduced in evidence on the trial of the cause. Where all these things occurred was a somewhat secluded place and in the woods. In these woods at the time appellant tied and secreted deceased's horse, and kept him there until some time that night, when he got on him and rode him several miles in an attempt to escape, and then turned the horse loose, where he was found by a neighbor the next morning. Appellant fled and evaded arrest, although diligent search was made for him, until perhaps about the 1st of January following when he was found at Ft. Worth, going under an assumed name, arrested, identified, and taken back...
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