Tilley v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 06 July 1893
• Citation: 17 S.E. 895,90 Va. 99
• Parties: TILLEY. v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

17 S.E. 895

90 Va. 99

TILLEY.

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

July 6, 1893.

Murder—Sufficiency of Evidence.

Defendant and deceased, a young man and woman, on very intimate terms, left their friends in the public road about 4 P. M., and entered some adjacent woods. Deceased had about $30, part in silver, in a purse fastened to her arm by a steel chain. Her body was found the same evening in the woods, a mile and a half from the place they had left their friends, partly burned, and with a bullet hole through the head, which might have been made by a pistol defendant had on him. The coin and chain were not found. Three persons heard a report in the woods, which they thought was that of a gun, or possibly a pistol, and one took it for a rifle. Defendant was seen soon after the supposed time of the killing on a road near the place. At the inquest next day lynching was threatened, and, on advice of his family and a friend, defendant fled to Kentucky, where he lived for several years under an assumed name. After his arrest he behaved quietly, and once, being provided with tools to escape, he handed them over to his attorney. He snowed that he was in no need of money at the time of the murder, having $300, and that the shoes he then wore could not have made any of the tracks found on the road leading to the place. Held, that his guilt was not made out beyond a reasonable doubt. 15 S. E. Rep. 526, reversed.

On rehearing. Reversed.

HINTON, J. The prisoner, Robert L. Tilley, was tried in the circuit court of Carroll county for the murder of one Louisa Haynes. He was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to be hanged. His case was then brought by writ of error to this court, where the judgment of the circuit court was confirmed on the 30th June, 1892. See 15 S. E. Rep. 526. That decision having been rendered by a court of three judges, it was deemed best, in view of the gravity of the crime and peculiar circumstances of the case, to order a rehearing, and it has accordingly been heard before a full bench.

The material facts are these: In the month of November, 1887, the prisoner, accompanied by a brother, Joe Tilley, came from Kentucky to Bristol, Tenn., on his way to visit his mother, who lived in North Carolina, near the Virginia line. When they reached Bristol they heard that Littell Haynes and his family, including a single daughter, Lou, were living there. The Tilleys were old acquaintances of the Hayneses, having lived in the same neighborhood in Carroll county, Va., and they visited the family in Bristol. They reached Bristol on Wednesday or Thursday, and on Saturday the prisoner and his brother, with Lou Haynes and a girl named Sue Dean, started together to visit their friends in Virginia and North Carolina. The prisoner paid Lon Haynes' railroad fare to Wytheville, and his brotherpaid Sue Dean's. They remained in Wythe-ville during the day of Saturday, and in the afternoon Joe Tilley left the party, and reached his mother's home on Sunday evening. The others stayed in Wytheville all night and left on Sunday morning. The prisoner bought a new pair of gaiter shoes in Bristol, of fine quality, with very narrow toes and very small heels, and "had no other shoes, " and it is proved 'wore those gaiters" on the day Lou Haynes was killed. The prisoner and two girls camped out Sunday night near Carroll courthouse, and on Monday got breakfast at the hotel at the courthouse, the deceased paying the bill. From the courthouse the three went on foot to the residence of James Dean, an uncle to both girls, who resided on the Fancy Gap road about two miles from the state line. At that point the prisoner left them. The two girls stayed at James Dean's until the next morning, when they went into North Carolina, about a mile or two over the line, and the deceased went to the house of one McMillan, and the other girl to the house of one Phillips. The prisoner reached his mother's house on Monday evening. On the next morning he had $300 in money. The deceased remained at McMillan's until Wednesday night after dark, when she left, and about 8 or 9 o'clock in the night came to the house of Phillips, after the family had retired. Although the family had retired, when she knocked some one got up and let her in. A few minutes after, the prisoner and his brother came to the house, and remained until 10 or 11 o'clock, and then left, while the deceased remained all night. The next morning—that is, Thursday—a man named John Day came to Phillips' house, and, after deceased started to go back to McMillan's house, and had gone 15 steps, he (Day) called to her. They had a short conversation, and went a very short distance together, and then parted, going in different directions. When the deceased left Phillips' house on that fatal Thursday morning she said she was going to Jeff. McMillan's and Margaret Myrick's. It does not appear whether Day heard her say or knew in what direction she was going, but it is proved that the old wood road, to be hereafter spoken of, was the nearest way from the Green Hill road (154 yards from which the deceased was found dead) to Margaret Myrick's. On that Thursday morning, after the deceased had left Phillips' house, and about 9 o'clock A. M., the prisoner came there, and stayed a short while and left. About the middle of the forenoon the prisoner was on the Fancy Gap road, in North Carolina, talking to Sue Dean and Mary Phillips, when two men were seen coming up the road. Some one said that one of them was Fulton, a person with whom the prisoner had had a serious difficulty several years before, whereupon the prisoner pulled out a large pistol from his hip pocket and put it in his breast pocket, remarking, "If Fulton raises a fuss with me, I will make d—d short work of him." The deceased remained at McMillan's house on Thursday until after dinner, and, soon after, she, accompanied by Elvira McMillan, walked up the Fancy Gap road towards the Virginia line. That between McMillan's and the line they were joined by the prisoner and his two brothers, James and Joseph Tilley, and that all went as far as the state line, laughing and talking. They all remained seated on a chestnut log for some time. While they were seated there a man named Smith sold one of the parts' some chestnuts, and then drove on along the Fancy Gap road into Virginia, and when he had gotten within 200 yards of where the Green Hill road leaves the Fancy Gap road, — that is, when he had gone about three-fourths of a mile north from the chestnut log, —"he heard the loud report of a rifle or large pistol in the direction of where the body was found, which he took to be the report of a rifle fired by some hunter." Between 3 and 4 o'clock P. M. the deceased and the prisoner started up the Fancy Gap road into Virginia, and the other three went back into North Carolina. It was in proof that on Wednesday the deceased had $30 in paper money and some silver coin in a velvet purse which she carried on her arm by a steel chain, but there is no proof whatever that she had the purse or any money whatever on her person at any time on Thursday. The last that was ever seen of the deceased alive was when she left the chestnut log in company with the prisoner, who was next seen about sundown, or a little...