United States v. Rees

• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland
• Writing for the Court: William J. O'Donnell and William J. Evans, Baltimore, Md., for defendant
• Citation: United States v. Rees, 193 F.Supp. 849 (D. Md. 1961)
• Decision Date: 22 March 1961
• Docket Number: Cr. No. 25300.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Melvin Davis REES, Jr.

193 F. Supp. 849

UNITED STATES of America v. Melvin Davis REES, Jr.

Cr. No. 25300.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

March 22, 1961.

Leon H. A. Pierson, U. S. Atty., Robert E. Cahill and H. Russell Smouse, Asst. U. S. Attys., Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff.

William J. O'Donnell and William J. Evans, Baltimore, Md., for defendant.

THOMSEN, Chief Judge.

The first count of the indictment in this case charges that on or about the 11th day of January, 1959, Melvin Davis Rees, Jr., knowingly transported from the vicinity of Bumpass, Louisa County, Virginia, to a farm lane off Mt. Tabor Road, near Gambrills, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Mildred Ann Jackson, whom defendant had unlawfully kidnapped and held for the purposes of having sexual gratification upon her body, of beating her, and of killing her and that the said Mildred Ann Jackson was not liberated unharmed but was in fact killed. 18 U.S.C.A. § 1201(a), (b). The second count is similar, except that it charges kidnapping and transporting Susan Ann Jackson for the purposes of beating and killing her and for the further purpose of avoiding detection, apprehension and arrest, and charges that she was not liberated unharmed but was in fact killed. A jury found him guilty on both counts, but did not recommend the death penalty. After making appropriate motions during the trial, defendant has now moved for a judgment of acquittal under Rule 29(b), F.R.Crim.P., 18 U.S. C.A., and, in the alternative, under Rule 33, for a new trial. He rests his motion for judgment of acquittal upon the claimed lack of sufficient evidence to prove that Mrs. Jackson and Susan were transported alive into Maryland. The motion for new trial questions the admissibility of various items of evidence and raises other points which will be discussed below.

There was direct or circumstantial evidence from which the jury might reasonably have found the following facts:

On Sunday, January 11, 1959, at about 6:00 p. m., defendant left the beach house near Norfolk, Virginia (where he was living with Pat Routt, a married woman, together with another unmarried couple) too late to keep a scheduled engagement at a restaurant in Washington, D. C., where he usually played a vibraphone in a trio on Sunday nights. Shortly after 9:00 p. m. that night, on an unlighted secondary road in Louisa County, Virginia, defendant drove his Ford automobile past another car in which Mr. and Mrs. Keith Waldrop were riding with two small children, forced them off the road, and while the cars were side by side started to get out of his car, presenting such a disheveled appearance that Waldrop drove his car over a ditch by the side of the road and escaped. Defendant proceeded up the road past the Waldrops' home and stopped another car on another dark road in Louisa County at about 10:00 p. m. This car was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Carroll Jackson, their five year old daughter Susan and their one year old daughter Janet. The Jacksons were transferred to defendant's car, and their car was left on the side of the road. Shortly thereafter, in a wooded area near Fredericksburg, Virginia, defendant shot Carroll Jackson through the head with defendant's .38 Colt Cobra revolver, after beating him on the head with the butt of the revolver so severely that the screw holding the plastic pistol grips in place broke, causing the grips to fall to the ground. Defendant covered with branches the body of Carroll Jackson and the body of the baby Janet, who died of suffocation and exposure after being injured by a blunt instrument. He then drove Mrs. Jackson and Susan to an old, abandoned house at the end of a private lane off Mt. Tabor Road, near Gambrills, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, an area with which defendant was familiar and only about 20 miles by road from his parents' home in Hyattsville, Prince George's County, Maryland. Defendant took Mrs. Jackson into the house, where a button off her coat was later found. There or nearby he beat her brutally about the right side of her face and head, probably with his left fist (he is left handed), and forced her to her knees so hard that her knees were bruised. His purpose was to perform an abnormal sexual act on her and to try to persuade or force her to perform an abnormal sexual act on him. The injuries about her head were so severe that she died of aspiration of blood into the lungs. A stocking had been tied around her neck so tight that it cut into her flesh, and it may also have been used to gag her. Most of the blood was aspirated while she was lying on her back either in or near the grave which defendant dug for her and Susan in the sandy soil. Susan had died from the effects of a very severe blow on the back of her head. Defendant went to his parents' home in Hyattsville that morning.

The bodies of Carroll Jackson and the baby Janet were found on March 4, 1959. During a search of the wooded area around the bodies immediately thereafter, the pistol grips and Carroll Jackson's spectacles were discovered. An F.B.I. expert testified positively that one of the pistol grips had at some time been on a .38 Colt Cobra revolver, which was found in defendant's father's home, was admitted by defendant to be his, and was received in evidence, and that the grip had been on the revolver when it struck something hard. The bodies of Mrs. Jackson and Susan were discovered on March 21, 1959.

Defendant was arrested by the F.B.I. in Memphis, Tennessee, on June 24, 1960.¹ On the same day, the .38 Colt Cobra revolver was discovered by the F.B.I. hidden in his parents' home. On June 28, 1960, defendant was indicted by the Grand Jury for the District of Maryland for the kidnapping and transportation of Mrs. Jackson and Susan.

To represent defendant, Judge Watkins appointed William J. O'Donnell, Esq., a leader of the Bar experienced in criminal cases, and William J. Evans, Esq., an able, young trial lawyer who had been an Assistant United States Attorney.²

1. Motion for Return of Property and to Suppress Evidence.

Defendant filed no motion for the return of any property or to suppress any evidence before the trial. However, after the trial had been in progress for more than a week and after there was positive testimony that Carroll Jackson had been shot with a .38 caliber bullet, counsel for defendant filed a motion under Rule 41 (e), F.R.Crim.P., to suppress and for the return of certain property which defendant then for the first time said belonged to him and which had been seized on June 24, 1960, at his parents' home in Hyattsville, Maryland. Information with respect to these items had been furnished to defendant and his counsel and the important items had been shown to his counsel long before the trial. A hearing was held on the motion out of the presence of the jury and with only such persons present as defendant wished to be present.

The evidence taken at that hearing showed that on the afternoon of June 24, 1960, the day defendant was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, a number of agents of the F.B.I. visited the home of defendant's parents in Hyattsville, told them of their son's arrest and said that the agents would like to search the house. Appropriate written authority was given by defendant's father, with the oral approval of defendant's mother. It was a two story house, with an attic reached by a pull-down ladder. There were one or two spare rooms on the second floor, which were occupied from time to time by the children and grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Rees, Sr., on visits, and some of defendant's clothes may have been in one of the second floor rooms.

The search included the third floor attic room, in which various household goods belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Rees were stored along with old school books, etc., belonging to defendant and the other children. An open closet in the attic contained similar material. In the lower rear wall of the closet one of the agents noticed that the wall had been cut permitting entry into a dark crawl space over the rafters. A flashlight showed a number of items at the far end of this crawl space. One of the items was an old case, which later proved to be an accordion case but looked like a suitcase, padlocked and bearing a tag on which was written "Dennis J. Werber, 811 Delafield Place, N. W., Wash. 11, RA 6-0532". When the case was discovered, the agents asked Mr. Rees if he knew anything about it. He said that he didn't know whose it was, that he had never seen it in the possession of his son, that he did not know Dennis J. Werber, and could not account for its presence "back in this uninhabited portion" of his house. Mr. Rees agreed that it should be opened. It was opened by the agents and was immediately seen to contain a .38 Colt Cobra revolver and a mass of obscene material, including pictures of scantily clad women with penciled drawings added showing their arms tied, etc. Mr. Rees looked over some of the material, said that he had never seen the gun before, and, when asked if it belonged to his boy, answered, not to his knowledge. He said nothing at all about the other material. Mr. Rees consented that the material be taken away by the F.B.I. for further examination and was given a proper receipt. When examined by the F.B.I., the material was found to include an account of the Jackson kidnapping and murder written by defendant in his own handwriting, illustrated with pictures of Mrs. Jackson and Susan taken from a newspaper, with a gag drawn in pencil over Mrs. Jackson's mouth. The account was partly in the first person, extremely brutal and obscene, and contained some details which had never been published in any newspaper.

Soon after opening the case the F.B.I. called the telephone number shown on the tag, which proved to be the home of Werber's parents. Werber was no longer living there, but his address was obtained and he denied ownership of anything contained in the case, saying that he had agreed to sell the accordion and...